Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/481

 io s. ii. NOV. 12, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

397

it with Stonehenge, is styled a " Druidical chapel."

Four miles to the west of Chipping Norton, in Oxfordshire, is the circle known as the Rollright or Rollrich Stones, after the manner of Stonehenge, but smaller.

At Aldington, in Kent, on an eminence a short distance from the church, is a supposed Druidical temple, resembling also, in some degree, Stonehenge, with a smaller circle situated on the north-west.

A stone circle at Stan ton Moor, Derby- shire, is known as the " Nine Ladies " (not "Maidens").

There are the "Merry Maidens" in Corn- wall, which are perhaps identical with the " Nine Maidens," the subject of W. G. D. F.'s inquiry.

Another "Nine Ladies "is on Hartlemoor, Durham, but of this only four stones are now remaining.

On Eyam Moor, Derbyshire, one of the circles enclosing sepulchral mounds is about ^, hundred feet in diameter, and is, like the "Nine Ladies" on Stan ton Moor, formed of a circular mound of earth on which the stones are placed. Only ten of the stones remain in situ.

On Brassington Moor, near a fine cham- bered tumulus, no\v unfortunately destroyed, existed two circles similar to that of Hartle- moor, the one 39ft. and the other 22ft. in diameter.

On Learn Moor, too, circles are known to have existed which surrounded interments.

Other circles occur in Derbyshire on Abney Moor ; in Froggal Edge ; on the East Moor ; on Hathersage Moor ; and in other localities.

Cf. also Stanton Drew, Somersetshire ; Arbor Lowe, Derbyshire ; the Three Hurlers, the Merry Maidens, and other circles in Corn- wall ; the Grey Wethers, in Devonshire ; Gidley Circle, Dartmoor ; also those near Merivale Bridge, and others on Dartmoor ; at Trewavas Head ; at Mule Hill, Isle of Man in the Channel Islands ; at Aber ana Penmaen Mawr in Carnarvonshire ; at Berriew in Montgomery ; at Leuchars, Aberdeenshire ; Aucorthie ; Burn Moor, Cumberland; Tarf; Burn Scaur, near Ravenglass, Cumberland ; Brogar, in the Orkneys ; a small and little-known example in the Isle of Mull ; Callernish, Isle of Lewis ; Midmar, Scotland ; Twizell Moor, North- umberland, &c. A list of Cornish stone circles, with name and parish, and the authorities describing them, will be found in 'Antiquities in the Hundreds of Kerrier and Pen with, West Cornwall,' by J. T. Blight, 1842. For the "Three Stone Bum"

' circle among the Cheviot Hills in North- umberland see 'The Antiquities of Vevering Bell,' by George Tate, F.G.S.

See also the Transactions generally of the archaeological societies ; the Ulster Archceo- logical Journal, 1855 ; the Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiquaries, 1855 ; the Journal of the Brit. Arch. Assoc., 1868 ; the Gent. Mag., 1868; and especially J. B. Waring's * Stone Monu- ments,' 1870, where the relative measures of the principal British stone circles will be found (plates xl. xli., &c.).

J. HOLDEN MAC'MlCHAEL. 161, Hammersmith Road.

W. G. D. F. will find an excellent engraving of the stones he inquires about facing p. 496 of the Cornwall volume of the * Beauties of England and Wales.'

In the parish of Burian, or St. Burien, Cornwall, is a small circle of nineteen up- right stones, called "Dance Maine," or the " Merry Maidens," from the whimsical tradi- tion that nineteen young women, or maidens, were thus transformed for dancing on the Sabbath.

Another of these Druidical circles is named " Boscawen Un." This also consists of nine- teen stones placed upright, and is about 25 ft. in diameter, having a single leaning stone in the centre ; it is quite near the former.

In the parish of Gulval is " Boskednan Circle," consisting also of nineteen stones, but of smaller diameter than either I have mentioned.

The most considerable of these structures is situated in the parish of St. Just, and is known as the " Botallack Circles." What the significance of the number nineteen is I cannot say.

Other stones of a similar character are to be found in the parish of St. Cleer. One set is known as the " Hurlers." Hurling was formerly one of the most favourite diversions of the Cornish, and the name " Hurlers " was given to these stones from the general belief in the neighbourhood that the stones were once men, who were thus transformed as a punishment for pursuing this diversion on the Sabbath. For further information I refer W. G. D. F. to Carew's, Norden's, and Dr. Borlase's works on Cornwall.

CIIAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Baltimore House, Bradford.

CAPE BAR MEN (10 th S. ii. 346). May not this refer to ex-privateersmen, of whom there must have been many at that period (1806) serving in the Koyal Navy ? " Cape," an obsolete word from the Dutch, means to