THE RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF CORNWALL. 87 



one doubts, up to the limits where a leap is made to Stanton, 

 and Stonehenge, and Avebury, who will be bold enough to say- 

 where the sepulchral circles end, and the sacred begin ? Or, 

 to press the point still closer, — who will supply reasons for the 

 differentiation ; where is the line to be drawn ? 



It is perfectly true, as we have seen, that we find circles 

 without rows, and rows without circles — such variations as are 

 common in modern graveyards — and we cannot be always sure 

 that one or the other has disappeared. But it is plain that the 

 presence of the row is distinctive — that it indicates not merely 

 an interment but a special interment ; very possibly, as I have 

 suggested elsewhere, that of the head of a tribe or family, the 

 number or importance of which the length of the row might be 

 held to express — representing in Highland phrase, "the chieftain 

 and his tail." Adding a stone to a row is only another phase 

 of the idea involved in adding a stone to a cairn. And I have 

 also hinted that this peculiar class of memorial may have some 

 connection with the wide-spread cult of the powers of Nature, 

 which the association of menhir and circle indeed seems specially 

 to indicate. But of this there is no evidence. 



Of all the hypotheses touching the purposes for which the 

 larger circles were designed, that of their occupation for 

 assembled worship is, curiously enough, absolutely the one for 

 which there is the least evidence. It is indeed purely the product 

 of antiquarian imagination. As we have seen, it is impossible to 

 draw any line where the accepted sepulchral circle is to end and 

 the sacred circle to begin. Moreover, far too much stress has 

 been laid upon mere negation. It is probably quite safe to assert 

 that while there are many cases in which the larger circles have 

 been found to contain remains — at Crichie in Scotland burials 

 were noted at the foot of each stone, and occasionally there 

 have been groups of kistvaens, — no circle from which they are 

 presumed to be absent has been so absolutely explored as to 

 show, beyond doubt, that they did not exist. And, beyond this, a 

 feature absolutely fatal to the idea that a large circle must 

 necessarily be intended for worship, is their frequent contiguity — 

 as at the Hurlers and Grey Wethers. Mr. Lukis was not a whit 

 too severe on this inferential suggestion of rival congregations. 

 The grouping of graves and sepulchral memorials is a thing we 

 ftU understand. 



