107 



'pouque,' and 'large' or 'le' (from whence puck, an elf, or 

 dwarf), meaning- the place of the fairy." * 



In considering the Hellstone, these notes become highly 

 important, and more especially when compared with the reniarka 

 made at our meeting : — 



"Mr. Edwin Lees, president of the "Worcester Naturalists Field 

 Club, being seated on the top of the restored pile, was asked to say a 

 few words about it. Mr. Lees said he had seen a great many of 

 these Cromlechs, which, no doubt, go back to pre-historic times. 

 Various opinions had been given by Archseologists as to their 

 original intention, but it is generally considered they were the 

 burial places of some great chieftain or man of eminence. But 

 besides that, he thought they were also places of divination — 

 that some Druid, or person of divination, actually lived in this 

 Cromlech, and that persons came to him and he offered them 

 certain prophecies. But they were also consecrated to the worship of 

 the goddess Hel, a female deity, to whom sanguinary sacrifices were 

 made, and here, he had no doubt, on this altar such sacrifices had 

 been offered. He believed these Cromlechs derived their names 

 from the goddess, and these places got to be called Hail or Hel- 

 stones. He found that in almost every county in England there 

 were Helstones. There is a town in Cornwall called Helstone, 

 and in Staffordshire there is a mound which bears the same 

 name, and there is on it a monstrous impression which looks 

 like the print of a man's fist, and it is said that the Devil struck 

 the place with his fist, and the mark remains to this day. In 

 Saxon times they became places where ciu'ses were disseminated. 

 Some holy man lived under these stones, and if you wanted to 

 pay an adversary out, instead of giving him a knock-down blow 

 with your fist, you got the holy man to curse him ' in bed and in 

 board, in living, in dying.' There were jplaces in "Wales were 

 some old fellows will still go to their Cromlechs, and will under- 

 take to curse for a man who has given them a fee for so doing, 

 and it is believed that these curses take effect on goods, property, 

 * Archaeological Journal, Vol. 1, p. 144. 



