ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



in pre-Christian times. But that druids ever 

 existed in England or in a tithe of the places in 

 which megalithic circles and other monuments 

 occur is unlikely. At the same time, it is not 

 impossible that some of the circles of Ireland, 

 Wales, and France were afterwards used by the 

 druids as suitable places for meeting and preaching. 



Fergusson in his great work Rude Stone Monu- 

 ments held a remarkable view as to the purpose 

 of the British stone circles. He believed that they 

 were partly Roman in date, and that some of 

 them at least marked the scene of battles fought 

 by King Arthur against the Saxons. Thus, for 

 example, he says with regard to Avebury, " I 

 feel it will come eventually to be acknowledged 

 that those who fell in Arthur's twelfth and greatest 

 battle were buried in the ring at Avebury, and that 

 those who survived raised these stones and the 

 mound of Silbury in the vain hope that they 

 would convey to their latest posterity the memory 

 of their prowess." It is hardly necessary to take 

 this view seriously nowadays. Stonehenge, which 

 Fergusson attributes to the same late era, has 

 been proved by excavation to be prehistoric in 

 origin, and with it naturally go the rest of the 

 megalithic circles of England, except where there 

 is any certain proof to the contrary. 



The most probable theory is that the circles 

 are religious monuments of some kind. What the 

 nature of the worship carried on in them was it is 



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