Chapter IV: Minor English Antiquities (3)

I by no means despair of being able eventually to construct such a scheme of classification, and, even before this Work is concluded, to make it tolerably clear that the thing is possible, and then it will only remain, if one or two fixed or probable dates can be ascertained, to bring the whole within the range of historical investigation.

[Footnote 134: 'Iter Curiosum,' pl. xxxiii.]

[Footnote 135: 'Iter Curiosum,' p. xxxii.]

[Footnote 136: When I was there four years ago I was fortunate
enough to find an old man, a stonemason, who had been employed in
his youth in utilizing these stones. He went over the ground with
me, and pointed out the position of those he remembered.]

[Footnote 137: It is extremely difficult to be precise about the
dimensions. One is almost wholly buried in the earth, and its
dimensions can only be obtained by probing; the other is half
buried.]

[Footnote 138: 'Archæologia,' ii. 1773, p. 107.]

[Footnote 139: 'Wanderings of an Antiquary;' London, 1854, p. 175
_et seq._]

[Footnote 140: _loc. cit._ 175.]

[Footnote 141: 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 299.]

[Footnote 142: 'Beowulf: an Anglo-Saxon Poem,' translated by J. W.
Kemble, 1835, preface, p. xix.]

[Footnote 143: 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 121.]

[Footnote 144: This woodcut is copied literally from one by Mr.
Lewis published in the 'Norwich Volume of the International
Prehistoric Congress,' and the figures and facts I am about to
quote are mostly taken from the paper that accompanied it. The
inferences, however, are widely different.]

[Footnote 145: 'Norwich Volume of the International Prehistoric
Congress,' p. 37.]

[Footnote 146: Asser, in 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 476.]

[Footnote 147: Stukeley, 'Avebury,' p. 12; Borlase, p. 210.]

[Footnote 148: Camden, 'Britannia,' i. p. 285. See also Charleton's
'Stonehenge restored to the Danes,' p. 36.]

[Footnote 149: On this stone Sir Gardiner Wilkinson traced one of
those circles of concentric rings which are so common on stones in
the north of England. I did not see it myself, but assuming it to
be true--which I have no doubt it is--it will not help us much till
we know when and by whom these circles were engraved.]

[Footnote 150: 'Brit.' p. 1021.]

[Footnote 151: Pennant in his text calls the diameter 88 yards, but
the scale attached to his plan makes it 110 yards nearly.]

[Footnote 152: 'Tour in Scotland, 1772,' pl. xxxvii. p. 276.]

[Footnote 153: Near Lochmaben, in Annandale, a circle exists, or
existed, called Wood Castle, which, in so far as the plan and
dimensions are concerned, is identical with this. It is figured in
General Roy's 'Military Antiquities of the Romans,' pl. viii. I
would not hesitate in quoting it as a monument of this class, but
for the view which I distrust excessively, but which makes it look
like a fortification. As I have no means of verifying the facts, I
can only draw attention to them.]

[Footnote 154: 'Iter Boreale,' p. 42.]

[Footnote 155: 'Brit.,' Gough edit. iii. p. 401.]

[Footnote 156: 'Archæological Journal,' xviii. p. 29.]

[Footnote 157: _Ibid._, xviii. p. 37.]

[Footnote 158: I am not aware that any account of these diggings
has been published. The facts I ascertained on the spot.]

[Footnote 159: Here, again, I quote from the copy in the 'Mon.
Hist. Brit.' p. 47 _et seq._, to which it will not be necessary to
refer every time the name is mentioned.]

[Footnote 160: Stuart Glennie, 'King Arthur.' 1867. L. W. Skene.
'Ancient Books of Wales,' i. 52 _et seq._]

[Footnote 161: 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 73.]

[Footnote 162: General Roy's 'Mil. Ant. of the Romans,' pl. viii.]

[Footnote 163: Bateman, 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 87.]

[Footnote 164: I have not seen this circle myself, though I made
a long journey on purpose. It is said to consist of eighty-eight
stones, and one larger than the rest, standing outside the circle,
at a distance of about five yards, or exactly as Long Meg stands
with reference to her daughters.]

[Footnote 165: First described in the 'Archæologia,' vol. viii. p.
131 _et seq._, by the Rev. S. Pegge, in 1783.]

[Footnote 166: These dimensions, as well as the plan, are taken
from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's paper in the 'Journal of the
Archæological Association,' xvi. p. 116, and may consequently be
thoroughly depended upon.]

[Footnote 167: Bateman, 'Vestiges,' p. 65.]

[Footnote 168: These dimensions are taken from Sir Gardner
Wilkinson's plan. The Batemans, with all their merits, are
singularly careless in quoting dimensions.]

[Footnote 169: _Ante_, p. 11.]

[Footnote 170: Douglas, 'Nenia Brittanica,' p. 168, pl. xxxv.]

[Footnote 171: If we knew its height we might guess its age. If
it was 65 feet high, its angle must be 30 degrees, and its age
probably the same as that of Silbury Hill. If 100 feet, and its
angle above 40 degrees, it must have been older.]

[Footnote 172: 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 82.]

[Footnote 173: 'Petrie's Life,' by Stokes, p. 234.]

[Footnote 174: The complete disappearance of the body of this
undoubted Saxon chief ought to make us cautious in ascribing remote
antiquity to many comparatively fresh bodies we find elsewhere.]

[Footnote 175: Bateman, 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 21.]

[Footnote 176: "In 1723 the workmen dug up the body of a great
king buried there in the centre, a very little below the surface.
The bones were extremely rotten, and, six weeks after, I came
luckily to rescue a great curiosity which they took out there--an
iron chain, as they called it. It was the bridle buried along
with the monarch. There were deer horns and an iron knife, with
a bone handle, too, all excessively rotten, taken up along with
it."--Stukeley's 'Stonehenge and Avebury,' pp. 41-12. The bridle is
figured, pl. xxxvi.]

[Footnote 177: Douglas, 'Nenia Brit.' p. 168.]

[Footnote 178: Nothing can exceed the effrontery with which
Stukeley inserted curved avenues between these circles, so as to
make the whole into a serpent form. Nothing of the kind exists,
nor existed in 1826, when Mr. Croker made, for Sir R. C. Hoare,
the survey from which the woodcut is copied, with Sir Gardner
Wilkinson's corrections.]

[Footnote 179: 'Archæologia,' xxv. p. 189.]

[Footnote 180: What is the meaning of the word "Maes"? It is
singular that the Maes How, in Orkney, should bear the same
relative position to the Standing Stones of Stennis, in Orkney,
that Maes Knoll does to the group of circles. I do not know of the
name occurring anywhere else. According to the dictionaries, it
merely means "plain" or "field." In Irish "Magh" pronounced "Moy;"
but that can hardly be the meaning here.]

[Footnote 181: 'Archæologia,' x. pl. xi. p. 106.]

[Footnote 182: It probably may have been a piece of iron pyrites,
and may have been used for striking a light.]

[Footnote 183: 'Archæologia Cambriensis,' third series, vol. xii.
p. 54. A fancy plan of the same circle appears in the same volume,
but is utterly untrustworthy. It is reproduced by Waring, 'Mon.'
&c. pl. xli.]

[Footnote 184: 'Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries,' iii. p.
225.]

[Footnote 185: The Hon. W. C. Stanley enumerates by name
twenty-four in Anglesea.--'Archæologia Cambrensis,' fourth series,
vol. i. p. 58.]

[Footnote 186: Tacitus, 'Vita Agricolæ,' chap. v.]

[Footnote 187: 'Somerset Archæo. Soc. Proceedings,' viii. p. 51.]

[Footnote 188: 'Archæologia,' xix. p. 43 _et seq._]

[Footnote 189: 'Journal of the Ethnological Society,' January,
1871, p. 416.]

[Footnote 190: Vol. xi. p. 315 _et seq._]

[Footnote 191: 'Pro. Soc. Ant.,' second series, ii. 275. Thurnam,
'Archæologia,' xlii. 217.]

[Footnote 192: 'Archæologia,' xix. p. 43.]

[Footnote 193: 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' fourth series vol. i. p.
51 _et seq._]

[Footnote 194: For Rodmarton, see 'Proceedings Soc. Ant.' _l. s.
c._; for Cornish, see paper by M. Brash, 'Gent. Mag.,' 1864.]

[Footnote 195: 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' third series, xi. p. 284.]

[Footnote 196: The following particulars are taken from a paper by
Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in the first volume, fourth series, of
the 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' 1870. It is not only the last, but
the best description which I know, and, being from the pen of so
accurate an observer, I have relied on it exclusively.]

[Footnote 197: 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 87.]

[Footnote 198: Dare one suggest Gower?]

[Footnote 199: Is this the same word as "Cotty," as applied to
Kit's Cotty-house, in Kent? It looks very like it.--Coity?]

[Footnote 200: Herbert, 'Cyclops Christianus,' p. 35.]