December 14, 1905] 



NATURE 



153 



NOTES ON STONEHENGES 

 IX. — Folklore and Traditions. 



SO far in these notes I have dealt chiefly with 

 stones, as I hold, associated with, or themselves 

 composing', sanctuaries. We have become acquainted 

 with circles, menhirs, dolmens, altars, vise sacrae, 

 various structures built up of stones. Barrows and 

 earthen banks generally came afterwards. 



The view which I have been led to bring forward 

 so far is that these structures had in one way or 

 another to do with the worship of the sun and stars; 

 that they had for the most part an astronomical use 

 in connection with religious ceremonials. 



The next question which concerns us in an attempt 

 to get at the bottom of the matter is to see whether 

 there are any concomitant phenomena, and, if there 

 be any, to classify them and study the combined 



results. 



Tradition and folklore, which give dim references 

 to the ancient uses of the stones, show in most un- 

 mistakable fashion that the stones were not alone; 

 associated with them almost universally were many 

 practices such as the lighting of single or double fires 

 in the neighbourhood of the stones, passing through 

 them and dancing round them ; there were also other 

 practices involving sacred trees and sacred wells or 

 streams. 



Folklore and tradition not only thus may help us, 

 but I think they will be helped by such a general 

 survey, brief though it must be. So far as my reading 

 has gone each special tradition has been considered 

 by itself; there has been no general inquiry having 

 for its object the study of the possible origin and 

 connection of many of the ancient practices and ideas 

 which have so dimly come down to us in many cases 

 and which we can only completely reconstruct by 

 piecing together the information from various sources. 



I now propose to refer to all these matters with the 

 view of seeing whether there be any relation between 

 practices apparently disconnected in so many cases 

 if we follow the literature in which they are 

 chronicled. We must not blame the literature since 

 the facts which remain to be recorded now here, now 

 there, are but a small fraction of those that have been 

 forgotten. Fortunately, the facts forgotten in one 

 locality have been remembered in another, so that 

 it is possible the picture can be restored more com- 

 pletely than one might have thought at first. 



It will be noted at once that from the point of view 

 with which we are at present concerned, one of the 

 chief relations we must look for is that of time, seeing 

 that my chief affirmation with regard to the stone 

 monuments is that they were used for ceremonial pur- 

 poses at certain seasons, those seasons being based 

 first upon the agricultural, and later upon the astro- 

 nomical divisions of the year. 



Butin a matter of this kind it will not do to depend 

 upon isolated cases ; the general trend of all the facts 

 availablealong several lines of inquiry must be found 

 and studied, first separately and then inter sc, if any 

 final conclusion is to be reached. 



This is what I now propose to do in a very sum- 

 mary manner. It is not my task to arrange the facts 

 of folklore and tradition, but simply to cull from the 

 available sources precise statements which bear upon 

 the questions before us. These statements, I think, 

 may be accepted as trustworthy, and all the more so as 

 many of the various recorders have had no idea either 

 of the existence of a May year at all or of the con- 

 nection between the different classes of the phenomena 

 which ought to exist if my theory of their common 



1 Continued from vol. lxxii. p. 272. 



NO. 1885, VOL. 73] 



origin in connection with ancient worship and the 

 monuments is anywhere near the truth. 



This question of time relations is surrounded by 

 difficulties. 



I give in Fig. 23 the Gregorian dates of the begin- 

 ning of the quarters of the May year, if nothing but 

 the sun's declination of 16 20' N. or S., four times 

 in its yearly path, be considered. These were : — 



In the table I also give, for comparison, the dates in 

 the Greek and Roman calendars (p. 20). 



There is no question that on or about the above 

 days festivals were anciently celebrated in these 

 islands, possibly not all at all holy places, but some at 

 one and some at another; this, perhaps, may help 

 to explain the variation in the local traditions and 

 even some of the groupings of orientations. 



The earliest information on this point comes from 

 Ireland. 



Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel in the tenth century, 

 states, according to Vallancey, that " in his time four 



Setting 

 August S, May 6 



Winter solstice. 

 FtG. 23. — The farmers' and astronomical years. 



great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals 

 of the Druids, viz., in February, May, August, and 

 November." ' 



I am not aware of any such general statement as 

 early as this in relation to the four festivals of the 

 May year in any part of Britain, but in spite of its 

 absence the fact is undoubted that festivals were held, 

 and many various forms of celebration used, during 

 those months. 



From the introduction of Christianity attempts of 

 different kinds were made to destroy this ancient time 

 system and to abolish the so-called "pagan "worships 

 and practices connected with it. Efforts were made 

 to change the date and so obliterate gradually the old 

 traditions; another way, and this turned out to be 

 the more efficacious, was to change the venue of the 

 festival, so to speak, in favour of some Christian 

 celebration or saint's day. The old festivals took no 



1 Hazlitt, " Dictionary of Faiths and Folklore," under Guh of August. 



