278 ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM ** SARSEN STONES." 



name of Sarsen or Sarcen stones has become applied to the huge 



ancient blocks of Stonehenge, Avebury and other primitive stone 



monuments because " Sarcen " is simply the old English name of 



Saracen, ''a name which had already taken this popular form, as 



we know from its appearance in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 



days before the Conquest." The name, as attached to 



megalithic piles, he continues, is not confined to England : — 



*' A Breton dolmen bears to this day the name of the Saracen's Oven [Four 

 du Sarrasin\ A smiilar application of the word Saracen to such monuments has 

 in fact a wide currency in France. At Forez there is a Roche des Sarrasins. 

 Near Aries the megalithic galleries or " allees couvertes " are known as prisons or 

 magasius des San-asins." 



Mr. Evans gives examples of the connection of Roland with 

 prehistoric monuments in France and elsewhere on the Mediter- 

 ranean coast. A dolmen in the eastern Pyrenees is known as the 

 palct de Roland and a menhir of Correze as the Grave de Roland. 

 And near Taranto, in southern Italy, is a dolmen locally known 

 as the '' Table of the Paladins " (Tavola dei Paladini). 



It can hardly be expected that the word sarsen should be 

 found in the folk-speech of Essex as it is in that of Wiltshire. 

 For the sarsen stones of Essex never form conspicuous and 

 mysteriop.s rude stone monuments as do those of Wiltshire, and 

 the destruction of individual specimens would consequently 

 excite little or no local interest. In Essex, also, there would 

 be much more temptation to break them up into building 

 material than in the very thinly pastoral district of Salisbury- 

 Plain and Marlborough Downs. The author of Murray s Hand- 

 book to the Eastern Counties (2nd ed., 1875) remarks that the 

 Eastern Counties are at present entirely without rude stone 

 monuments. It appears, however, that " a circle of stones, 

 loft. high was removed from a field at Gorleston, near Yarmouth, 

 in 1768." But as regards this circle the author of Murray's 

 Handbook thinks that it was not improbably of Scandinavian 

 origin, as stone circles were raised in Denmark and Sweden '' at 

 a comparatively late period." But apart from the not improbable 

 Scandinavian origin of this circle, we should naturally look for 

 vague traditions of the Saracens not in or towards the east but 

 the west of Britain, just as we should expect them in Brittany 

 and the Channel Islands rather than around Calais and 

 Boulogne. For we must remember that the Saracen corsairs were 

 little known or dreaded in the Eastern Counties, where the 



