MONUMENTS OF THE STONE AND BRONZE AGES. 635 



employed to cut these characters into the faces of the hard rocks. Some 

 archeologists claim that the work could not possibly have been done 

 without the use of metal tools; others assert as positively, and appar- 

 ently prove their case, that the engraving could have been done by 

 means of stone engravers alone. A determination of this question 

 would shed a certain amount of light upon the age of these monuments, 

 especially as to the age of the particular ones bearing these characters, 

 but this question is unimportant, their antiquity as a whole or as to 

 type being determined in other ways. 



Of course, many interesting legends have grown up in regard to 

 these mysterious monuments of the past which are still believed in by 



Table des Marchands, Lockmariaquer, Brittany. 



the superstitious peasants. In regard to a group of menhirs in the 

 western part of Brittany near the coast, it is claimed that every one 

 hundred years on St. Sylvester's Eve, the great stones rush down to 

 the sea for a drink of the salt water, and while they are gone, one may 

 find untold treasures of gold and precious stones in the hollows over 

 which they stood. But woe to the over-covetous, who in greed for 

 more delays too long, and is crushed by the great stones on their 

 return. There is a legend also in regard to the origin of the marvelous 

 alignments of Carnac. It seems that a saint was being hunted down 

 by the pagans, and reaching the sea, could go no further. He turned 

 and invoking his miraculous powers stretched forth his hand and turned 

 them into stone.. Another version makes them Boman soldiers in line 



