ENGLAND AND WALES 



theories. James I was once taken to see Stone- 

 henge when on a visit to the Earl of Pembroke 

 at Wilton. He was so interested that he ordered 

 his architect Inigo Jones to enquire into its date 

 and purpose. The architect's conclusion was that 

 it was a Roman temple " dedicated to the god 

 Caelus and built after the Tuscan order." 



Many years later Dr. Stukeley started a theory 

 which has not entirely been abandoned at the 

 present day. For him Stonehenge and other stone 

 circles were temples of the druids. This was in 

 itself by no means a ridiculous theory, but Stukeley 

 went further than this. Relying on a quaint story 

 in Pliny wherein the druids of Gaul are said to 

 use as a charm a certain magic egg manufactured 

 by snakes, he imagined that the druids were 

 serpent-worshippers, and essayed to see serpents 

 even in the forms of their temples. Thus in the 

 Avebury group the circle on Hakpen Hill was 

 for him the head of a snake and its avenue part 

 of the body. The Avebury circles were coils in 

 the body, which was completed by the addition 

 of imaginary stones and avenues. He also at- 

 tempted with even less success to see the form of 

 a serpent in other British circle groups. 



The druids, as we gather from the rather scanty 

 references in Gesar and other Roman authors, 

 were priests of the Celts in Gaul. Suetonius 

 further speaks of druids in Anglesey, and tradition 

 has it that in Wales and Ireland there were druids 



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