[439] A famous controversy exists as to whether the Coronation Stone now in Westminster Abbey is the Lia Fáil, or whether the pillar-stone still at Tara is the Lia Fáil. See article by E. S. Hartland in Folk-Lore, xiv. 28-60.
[440] These ‘idols’ probably were not true images, but simply unshaped stone pillars planted on end in the earth; and ought, therefore, more properly to be designated fetishes.
[441] Stokes, in Rev. Celt., i. 260; Rhŷs, Hib. Lect., pp. 200-1.
[442] Very much first-class evidence suggests that the menhir was regarded by the primitive Celts both as an abode of a god or as a seat of divine power, and as a phallic symbol (cf. Jubainville, Le culte des menhirs dans le monde celtique, in Rev. Celt., xxvii. 313). As a phallic symbol, the menhir must have been inseparably related to a Celtic sun-cult; because among all ancient peoples where phallic worship has prevailed, the sun has been venerated as the supreme masculine force in external nature from which all life proceeds, while the phallus has been venerated as the corresponding force in human nature.
[443] Silva Gadelica, ii. 137.
[444] Professor J. Loth says:—‘Étymologiquement, le mot est composé de CROM, courbe, arque, formant creux, convexe, et de LLECH, pierre plate’ (Rev. Celt., xv. 223, Dolmen, Leach-Derch, Peulvan, Menhir, Cromlech). In Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland, instead of the peculiarly Breton word dolmen (composed of dol [for tol == tavl], meaning table, and of men [Middle Breton maen], meaning stone) the word cromlech is used. Cromlech is the Welsh equivalent for the Breton dolmen, but Breton archaeologists use cromlech to describe a circle formed by menhirs.
[445] Rhŷs, Hib. Lect., pp. 193-4.
[446] Ib., p. 192; from Sans-Marte’s edition, pp. 108-9, 361.
[447] Ib., p. 193.
[448] Ib., pp. 194-5; cf. Bibliotheca of Diodorus Siculus, ii. c. 47.