STONE CIRCLES 



found nothing at the feet of the 'Pipers' and only a beach pebble, 'flattened 

 on one side by being used as a rubber,' near the Gun Rith menhir. 

 The presumption, as far as it is safe to presume at all on such negative 

 evidence, is that they were ceremonial rather than sepulchral. Associated 

 with this circle also were three holed stones, two in a lane and one in 

 the road. 1 That in the road remains, doing duty as a gate-post, but the 

 other two are no longer to be seen. What the object of these holed 

 stones may have been is an unsolved problem, though Dr. Borlase thought 

 they were used to tie the victim of human sacrifice to, and the late 

 R. N. Worth explained the holes as intended to hold a fence rail. 8 There 

 are several barrows near, more or less ruined, and barrows were, in days 

 gone by, a decided feature of the vicinity. 



The name, spelt variously as Dawns Men, Dans Maen, Dawns 

 Maen, Dance Meyns, Dance Maine, and Dawns Myin, means 'stone 

 dance,' and though specially appropriated to this circle has been applied 



S w 



ft 



to several others. The local legend is that nineteen maidens, dancing on 

 the Sunday to the music of two pipers, were turned into stones as a 

 judgment for desecration of the day, while the gigantic pipers succeeded 

 in escaping to a distance before the same fate overtook them. This story 

 is told of many other circles, and it is an interesting instance of the wide 

 diffusion of the same idea that at Wulfsbriichen, in the Neumark, 

 Germany, is, or was, a circle called ' Adam's Dance,' or the ' Stone 

 Dance,' which has two somewhat taller stones outside the ring, said to 

 have been the musicians, and to which a very similar legend is attached. 8 

 Near Boitin, in Mecklenburg, is a group of three circles known as the 

 SteintanZ) attributed to certain peasants, who, making merry at a wedding, 

 danced upon cheeses and were turned to stone. 4 



Tradition says that Athelstan fought a battle with the native 

 Cornish at Boleit, in the year 936, and it may be that the name Gun 



1 J. T. Blight, 'Holed Stones,' 4rch. Camb. (1864), x. 292-9. 



* Journ.Roy.Inst. of Cornwall (1894), xii. pt. 2, 199. 



* W. C. Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland (1897), ii. 533. 4 Ibid. p. 502. 



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