THE 



WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 



"mpltoeum manibus geandb letathb 0HU8." — Ovid. 



By Wm. Long, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. 



5P0N the mind of the thoughtful visitor of Stonehenge,^ two 

 considerations can hardly fail to press, and with considerable 

 force, as he recovers from his first astonishment ; the one being the 

 very sacred character of the place to those who had selected this spot, 



' Spelt " Stanenges," " Stanhenges," by Henry of Huntingdon ; •' Senhange," 

 *' Stahengues," "Estanges," " Estanhangues," by Wace; " Stanhenge," by 

 Layamon ; "Stanhenges," by Higden ; " Stonhenge," in the *' Eulogium 

 Historiarum ; " " Stonege," by Borde; "Stone Hengles," by Hardyng; 

 "Stonage," by Bolton; the author of the *' Fool's Bolt;" " Stoneheng," by 

 Webb ; Charlton ; and Aubrey ; " Stonendge," by Drayton. 



The Rev. Prebendary Earle, the well-known Saxon scholar, to whom the 

 writer submitted the foregoing list of spellings, writes of them as follows : •' In 

 all these forms I only seem to see two states of mind, and these the two I 

 have indicated. I. ' Stanenges,' ' Estanges,' * Stonege,' ' Stonage,' ' Stonendge,' 

 all seem to me essentially adjectival, epithetical, only in a large and collective 

 way, as if one were to imagine a Greek Xidtu/xa, a mass of stones, after the pat- 

 tern of irTe(]>dvaifia nvpyav, a diadem of towers. II. All the others seem to mo 

 breathe the idea of ' hanging,' and the structure of the word is that of two 

 substantives in compound state, whereof the former plays the adjective to the 

 latter, as in Stonewall. So this seems to be Stonehanging, and then the only 

 question is how is the ' hanging ' to be understood ? The more archi- 

 tectural and elegant view will readily occur to you, and I suppose I touched on 

 it before ; but there is one idea, not graceful certainly, which might have been 

 present to the crude mind of our rough ancestors, and that is this, ' Stone- 

 Oallows ; ' for, I say it with reluctance, the Saxon word for Gallows was ' hen- 

 gen.' But then on the other hand they used the word gracefully in * henge- 

 clif,' rupe* dependent, or hanging cliff." Most Saxon scholars, as far as the 

 writer is aware, look with disfavour upon the popular rendering of " Stonehenge " 

 into "hanging stones," like Wace'a " pierres pendues," and consider that the 

 VOL. XVI. NO. XLVI. B 



