Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/461

 STONE CIRCLES The very first reference to this circle that we find is in a Welsh triad, quoted by the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel. It runs as follows : The three principal Gorsedds of the Isle of Britain : the Gorsedd of Meriw hill ; the Gorsedd of Beiscawen ; and the Gorsedd of Bryn Gwyddon. or another version : the hill of Evwr ; Beiscawen ; and Bryn Gwyddon. 1 This the author quotes as among the ' Triads of the Bards the Triads of Privilege and Usage,' from the book of Llywelyn Sion. Sion was born about 1516 and died about one hundred years later ; he had access to the Welsh MSS. of the earl of Pembroke, stored in Raglan Castle, which were destroyed during the wars of the Commonwealth, and he is supposed to have compiled his book from these. There is no certainty that he did not compose the triad himself, but its topo- graphical character makes this unlikely, and without doubt this reference to Boscawen-un is not later than the sixteenth century, probably much earlier. Gorsedd means ' a great seat,' or ' a session,' such as is held by the bards before an eisteddfod to declare it open, and the use of the word here implies that Boscawen-un was a traditional meeting place for secular or religious ceremonies, perhaps both. We find ourselves on firmer ground when we read what William Camden had to say about it in 1 586*: ' In the neighbourhood of this [Buryan], in a place which they call Biscawe Woune, are to be seen nineteen stones arranged in a circle, every one about twelve feet distant from another, and in the centre rises one much larger than all the rest.' It is evident that there can have been little change in the circle for 300 years at least. Dr. Borlase's drawing (i754) 8 shows eighteen stones standing in the ring, and one fallen. Britton and Brayley (1801) notice it, but inaccurately : ' Another of these Druidical circles is named Boscanven- Un. This also consists of nineteen upright stones, and is about twenty- five feet [? yards] in diameter, having a single leaning stone in the centre.' 4 William Cotton 6 gives an excellent plan of the circle, but curiously enough substitutes north for east ; he shows a hedge crossing it, occupying the present gap between Nos. 1 5 and 1 6 and enclosing 1 Tair Priforsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain, Gorsedd Moel Meriw, "j ( Moel Efwr Gorsedd Beisgawen, j- or Beisgawen a Gorsedd Bryn Gwyddon. J (a Bryn Gwyddon. Barddas (1862), ii. 76-7. ' ' In huius vicinia in loco, quern Biscawe Woune dicunt, vndeuiginti lapides In orbem dijpojiti cm- fpiduntur, singuli xii quafi pidibus inuictm dtftantes, y In centn Ctfteris omnibus multo maior exfurgit' (Britannia, p. 72). 3 Antiquities of Cornwall, pi. xiii. 4 Beauties of England and Wales, ii. 496. 4 Illustrations of Stone Circles, etc. in the West of Cornwall (1826), pi. ii. 38l