144 



was excavated in the rock ; in some of the circles the upright stones 

 were ten or twelve feet high, and upon each upright was balanced 

 horizontally a large stone, frequently twelve feet in diameter. The 

 greater number of these circles are situated on the banks of the river 

 Canvery.* It may be observed, that these pagan monuments are 

 usually in the vicinity of water, which was essential to the celebra- 

 tion of the mysteries. The sea, a lake, a river, a streamlet, or a 

 sacred spring ; of the latter many yet retain their ancient holiness, 

 and continue to be viewed with a superstitious veneration,-f- as the 

 well of some patron saint. 



It can scarcely be dovibted that these circles, which prevail over 

 so large portion of the globe, a portion including all those coun- 

 tries which were the first peopled, and the earliest in civilization, 

 must have originated in the most remote ti^es, and that they are, 

 in all reasonable probability, the remains of patriarchal customs, 

 which obtaining before the dispersion, were carried by the de- 

 scendants of the three sons of Noah to all parts of the world. 



The pillar-stone is so frequently joined with the circle, the cairn, 

 the crom-leac, and the sacred oak grove, which anciently flou- 

 rished around these monuments, that it caimot consistently be passed 

 over in silence. 



The history of this idol, for such it became, has been so 

 completely lost in the obscurity of past ages, that no writer 

 seems as yet to have thrown any certain light upon the origin of the 

 sanctity with which such stones have been invested, or to have 



* Fragments to Calmet's Dictionary, by C. Taylor, iv. p. 505. 



f See the curious detail in the Belfast Magazine, Nos. II. and IV. of the ceremonies still 

 practised at Struil in Downshire, and at Lough Derg in Donegal, which bear so striking a re- 

 semblance to the heathen purifications, as anciently performed in Greece, and still practised ia 

 Hindostan. Yet both the lake and the well are under the sanction of presiding saints ! 



