The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright.

Thomas Wright

Date:: 1852

Credit: The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$the neighbourhood of Neath, in Glamorganshire, (the Roman Nidum)have severally the inscriptions imp. c. fl.^. val. m.vximino TNVICTO AUGUS [to], and IMP. M. C. PIAVONIO VICTORINO AUGUSTO, and were perhaps boundaiy-stones or mile-stones. There is a rough uninscribed stone of this description, perhaps a boundary-stone, standing on the common at Harrowgate, in Yorkshire, concerning which the inhabitants can only tell you, that “ the oldest man that ever lived there knows nothing about it.” A single stone, or peulvan, in the department of the Haute-Marne in France, is said to bear a Latin inscription, stating that it marked the ancient limits of the Leuci. That such stones marked tlie sites of battles, or were memorials of celebrated events, is a mere assumption. Although the stones of the so-called druidic monuments are in general rough and untouched with a tool, some instances are known, as in the extraordinary sepulture of Gavr’inis in the Morbihan, (Britany), and at New Grange, in Ireland, where they have been sculptured with rude ornaments. In some instances in England, one of the stones of a cromlech is pierced with a round hole, perhaps accidental, or tlie result of caprice. Long after the people who raised them had passed away, and when their meaning, or the object for which they were erected, were alike forgotten, these monuments of stone continued to be regarded by the peasantry with reverence, which, combined with a certain degree of mysterious fear, degenerated into a sort of superstitious worship. In this feeling originated legends connected with them, and the popular names which are often found attached to them. Stonehenge was called tlie Giant’s Dance {chorea glgantum), a name no doubt once connected with a legend which has been superseded by the story attached to it by Geoffrey of Monmouth. A circle in Cornwall, of which we have given a sketch on a former page, is called Dance !Maine, or the dance of stones, and is said to be the representation of a party of young damsels who were turned into stones because they danced on the sabbath day. According to a somewhat similar legend, a party of soldiers, who came to destroy Long Compton, were changed into the Rollrich stones in Oxfordshire. The people of Britaii}'^ declare that the extraordinary multitude of stones arranged upright in lines at Carnac, was an army of pagans changed into stones by St. Coruilly. As we have seen, the Sa.xons believed that a cromlech in Berkshire was a woi-kshop of their mythic$