Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/162

144 Although the regularity of the strata, as shewn in the foregoing tables, was subject to some variations, from accidental disturbances, yet the general arrangement of the materials was similar over an extensive district; and it may be further stated, that wherever the examinations were pursued, these indications were found to correspond.

The isolated situation commonly occupied by the Cromlech, the Stone Circle, and the Maen-hir, has associated these structures with those localities over which a halo of mystery and awe has ever been spread.

The grave, the church-yard, the dark cavern, and the lonely cairn, still in our day continue to fill the mind of the ignorant with timid fears or apprehensions of evil. The "heaped-up earth" and turf, which once lay over the covering stones of the cromlech, having been long ago removed or levelled by time, these ancient depositories of the dead have become exposed and left in detached portions, standing like giant spectres deprived of those accessories which completed their original form. Neglected throughout many generations, their once venerated site and hallowed use forgotten, their very name lost or doubtfully preserved amid the changes which the soil has undergone, they are left standing in solemn ruin, the gaze of ignorant wonder, the perplexity of the antiquary. Attracted by the magnitude of their dimensions and peculiar forms, our forefathers regarded them as the work of super-human agency. Their various names have thus become associated with fairies, hobgoblins, giants, and dwarfs, in all countries where they exist. The "Cromlech," or "inclined stone" of Britain, the "Grotte aux Fées," "La chambre du Diable" of the French, and the Celtic "Pouquelaye" of these islands, all designate certain localities under elfin influence, and from which the vulgar mind is yet apt to recoil with feelings of superstition and dread. These terms are however significant, for they testify to that ignorance of their original use which followed the extinction of the race which erected them. Those structures which have resisted the effects of time and remain entire, owe their preservation, in many instances, to their remote distance from the haunts of man, or to that superstition which has in after ages paralyzed the hand of wanton destruction.

The names "Druid's Altar," "Temple des Druides," convey a definite meaning when applied to the cromlech, properly so called, and probably owe their origin to the generally