188 E.I7DE STONE MONTTMENTS OF CORNWALL. 



B. Religious. Here also proof is clear that upright stones 

 have been employed as direct emblems of the deity, worshipped 

 as symbols of the energies of nature, treated with divine honours 

 — from the earliest records of the human race until now. Capt. 

 Conder remarks: "there is no doubt whatever that the menhir 

 is the emblem of the man who erects it, and that such stones 

 were, of old, considered to be themselves the habitations of 

 divinities."* And while the cult of the menhir yet abides in 

 the East where such stones are still set up (as by the dwellers on 

 the Khassia hills in fulfilment of pious vows), and they are still 

 the object and centre of acts of worship, — it is equally certain 

 that in Europe many menhirs were long regarded as something 

 sacred in themselves and worshipped in various ways. Christi- 

 anity has even yet failed quite to destroy superstitions connected 

 with such monuments, which unquestionably had their origins in 

 ancient and familiar rites. 



Thus, in Skye there were in every district what were called 

 Grugach stones, presumed to be dedicated to the sun, on which 

 were poured libations of milk. In the West Indies, standing, 

 stones had a double symbolism — being associated with phallic 

 worship and the cult of the sun. In the East Indies stones are 

 erected in fields, to represent the deities who are supposed to 

 safeguard them ; and a form of worship is the anointing, or in 

 less polished phrase "smearing" them, which continues to be 

 practised in parts of Europe — as in Sweden, for example, on 

 stones with small cupped holes sunk in them. It is a curious 

 coincidence, if nothing more, that in Cornwall we should have the 

 "Three brothers of Qrugith" as in Skye those Grugach 

 monoliths, and that these " Three Brothers " should bear those 

 mysterious cup markings, not certainly known to exist elsewhere 

 in the West. It may even be that there is a link between the 

 stones frequently seen in fields, set up in modern days as rubbing 

 posts, and the guardian pillar-deities of the East, and the form 

 of that suggestion seems to be heightened by the fact that such 

 rubbing posts are more common in districts where old customs 

 and superstitions have most sway. The connection can only be 

 a shadowy speculation at the best, yet, even so, it is well to put 



* Heth and Moab, 208. 



