88 THE RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF CORNWALL. 



But this, of course, does not exclude tlie presence or the 

 indication of religious sentiment. The less complete orientation 

 of the circles, the more complete of the kistvaens and rows, do 

 show some traces of a solar cult, though variously expressed, but 

 these traces in my view are purely incidental to and dependent 

 upon the rites of sepulture, and the current belief in the 

 hereafter of the dead. That they led in certain cases to offerings 

 to the manes of the deceased, and to various forms of ancestor 

 worship in connection with circles and cromlechs and menhirs, was 

 not merely natural but inevitable. We have no absolute proof 

 of the existence of such practices in this county, though it seems 

 to be hinted. 



The position of the circles and such traces of orientation as 

 they may be held to exhibit, is then easily explained. In being 

 found on the southern slopes of hills, rather than on the northern, 

 they simply follow the local rule for habitations. The hut circles 

 so numerous yet on Dartmoor, always, so far as may be, have 

 a southern exposLire ; and the same is the case jrf Cornwall. 

 And the position of interments is always fixed by rule, although 

 the rule varies. Aspects referring to the rising or the setting sun 

 are the most numerous ; but northerly and southerly directions 

 are equally significant in their intention. The practice in either 

 was in some sort, at first, the expression of a creed. But no doubt 

 in time it hardened into unmeaning custom — just such a custom 

 as makes us dig our graves east and west, in deference to the 

 sun-worshipping instincts of our far-back ancestors. 



And we may apply precisely the same analogy to the 

 suggestion that Stonehenge, at any rate, was a temple of sun 

 worship. In the course of ages our churches and our graveyards 

 have become intimately connected, which from the beginning 

 were not so ; and the orientation of our churches is as clear a 

 survival of the solar cult as the orientation of our graves. But 

 the fact is not usually recognised ; and if any attempt is made 

 to account for the practice, it is generally upon the lines indicated 

 in the tradition that the " Hurlers " were men transformed into 

 stone for hurling on Sunday ; the " Merry Maidens," in turn, 

 petrified dancers ; or Stonehenge itself the dance of giants ; or 

 Stanton Drew a wedding party. Or again, as the story in the 

 "V^elsh triads, that the Boscawen-un circle was one of the Gorsedds 



