STONEHENGE AND THE STARS 243 



And, truly, it may be said that whilst England 

 possesses such relics of early races as the great 

 circles of Stonehenge and Avebury, not to speak 

 of many other smaller but still deeply interesting 

 examples of the same kind of edifice, there is no 

 lack of material for the study of home-keeping 

 antiquarians. Not that " these admired stones " 

 have lacked attention in the past, for Mr. Harrison's 

 most carefully compiled Bibliography runs to no 

 less than 158 pages, an index of the amount of ink 

 which has been spilt in expounding various theories 

 as to the history and origin of these two great 

 early monuments. 



There is some possibility that Stonehenge was 

 the temple alluded to by Hecataeus of Abdera, a 

 writer who flourished about 330 B.C., when he 

 spoke of the 



" Hyperboreans [who] inhabit an island in the 

 ocean, under the Bear, situated opposite Celtica 

 [Gaul] and as large as Sicily. They have [he con- 

 tinues] a stately grove and a renowned temple of 

 a round form, dedicated to Apollo, and adorned 

 with many rich gifts." 



Whether this " temple of a round form " was really 

 Stonehenge is a moot point, and we have to come 

 down to a date some thirteen hundred years later 

 before we meet with any mention of these stones 

 by name or any description of them. This first 

 account is given by Henry of Huntingdon (1084- 

 1155) in his description of the four "wonders" 

 of England, two of which are natural curiosities 



