Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/163

Rh opinion, and the incorrect translation of the word cromlech, or "inclined stone" affirmed by certain writers as disposed to permit the blood of the victims to flow from west to east! all which is mere conjecture and equally untenable. The more approximate derivation of the word, if ever it was originally applied to these structures, would be from the "croum" (Breton), or "cromen" (Welch), signifying a dome or vault,—and "lech," a stone, or " lie," a place or room, (lieu, Fr., locus, Lat.,) or, as in these islands, "pouque," and "laye" or "lee," (from whence puck, an elf, or dwarf,) meaning the place of the fairy.

The "inclined stone" again, on the contrary, is frequently horizontal, exhibiting a position at once bold and hazarded almost beyond the laws of stability; thus it stands a monument invested with wonder, inducing the illiterate to ascribe to it extraordinary uses, and its erection to some invisible power. Names, however common, have some meaning, therefore they should be well considered, and the antiquary knows the value of examining further when these occur. The writer has had on many occasions within the range of his researches nothing but the name to stimulate or encourage him, and seldom has he been disappointed.

It is scarcely necessary to state, that ancient remains which have outlived their generation, and have lost their original purpose, are like the dead over which they preside, the subjects of much speculation and hypothesis. From the want of favourable opportunities to investigate these structures, conjecture has been excited and coupled with traditionary fables so predominant in the country: these opinions are maintained with great obstinacy, and it is still difficult to raise a doubt contrary to the received creed.

These monuments have been subjected to the rapacity of plunderers from the period they fell into other hands, who did not fail to destroy or annihilate every vestige of their contents; and it is to the ponderous masses with which they were formed that so many of them are yet left, after having lost the precious materials they once enclosed.

The primeval antiquities, to use a term which distinguishes the earliest period from that which is more recent, have essential characters assigned to them, and include all those massive structures of whose origin no authentic record has been obtained or discovered. The early antiquarian remains in these