135 



signification — the heap of witness, and the heap of testimony. 

 Jacob and Laban also eat bread together upon this high place, to 

 shew in the most solemn manner their return to friendship ; and 

 afterwards Jacob offered a sacrifice to God upon this mount, and 

 he and his men kept watch upon it all night. He also set up a 

 pillar stone, expressly calling it a witness between himself and 

 Laban. In the whole of this detail we see that the cairn and 

 pillar-stone was invested with a character of sanctity, and also 

 that it was an accustomed character, not a new one then bestowed, 

 but forming, as it were, a part of the patriarchal ritual. 



Tile Dorians are said to have given Apollo the epithet Karneios.* 

 The cairn may have derived its name from having been dedicated 

 as a place of sacrifice to Carneios Apollo, or possibly the Hebrew 

 name of Kerenedh being of so great antiquity, may in consequence 

 of the worship offered to him upon this coped heap, have conferred 

 the title upon the god. There were also feasts called Carneia held 

 in Sparta in honour of Apollo.-f- 



The cairn thus anciently venerated, we have seen continues to 

 be reverenced by the Irish even at the present day, nor are they sin- 

 gular in so doing, the same feeling exists throughout the east, 

 of which numberless instances may be given, but one or two will 



• Dr. Chns. O'Connor, Bib. Stowensis, I. p. 47. 



Divine Apollo joys in burning heaps, 



Silius, B. V. ver. 175. 



On the top of the mountains of Soracte were the grove and temple of Apollo, and also his 

 Cairn, to which Silius here alludes. — Wood on the religion of the Britons, p. 41. 



Virgil also declares that the Sabines worshipped Apollo, their chief god, on Soracte, by fires 

 burned on Stone heaps. 



t Ovid speaks of the Dea Carnea, in his Fasti, as a goddess, so ancient that her worship 

 was antiquated — he adds that she had been anciently called Crane. These names are still 

 familiar in Ireland — Bib. Stowensis, I. p. 46. The Camea, were held in May, and that month 

 was called Carnius, 



