190 RUDE STONE MONTTMENTS OF CORNWALL. 



Scryfa and its companions. These of course date from a time 

 subsequent to the advent of the Eomans, and in most cases 

 probably — not in all certainly — after the introduction of 

 Christianity. They are purely individual. They express man's 

 natural craving for a more distinct commemoration than the 

 mere unlettered pillars, the personal memories attached to which 

 most quickly pass away. But they cannot be regarded as having 

 any religious bearing, save in such instances as the Doniert stone 

 with its "Doniert rogavit pro anima," and the sybstel removed 

 from Castle GrofE to Lanteglos, erected, as the legend thereon 

 states, for the " good of souls." 



So many of these stones are so closely connected with 

 churches, that we may fairly assume them to date practically 

 from the early appropriation of special sites to Christian purposes 

 — as for example, those at Cubert, Lewannick, Phillack, St. 

 Hilary, and Tregoney. The Men Scryfa itself has a cross at 

 the beginning of the inscription, and there is no reason to 

 question that this cross is the Christian emblem. As we all 

 know, there are early cross-forms besides, which have no connec- 

 tion with the Christian faith. 



I am by no means clear that we should not regard many of 

 the earlier and ruder crosses, so common in the county, as due 

 to the desire of the early Christian inhabitants to attach a 

 Christian significance to a form of memorial which has, at the 

 very least, been regarded by them as secular ; but which I think 

 is far more likely to have retained a heathen atmosphere. 

 Indeed, as in the guise of superstitious customs the worship of 

 stones cannot be said to be quite dead in Cornwall, even now, it 

 seems highly probable that the famous letter of Pope Grregory, 

 calling for the consecration to Christianity of the temples and 

 sacred sites of the earlier faith, found plenty of scope for its 

 operation in this county. And hence it appears somewhat more 

 than probable that in certain of these rude crosses we have 

 simply prehistoric menhirs, roughly converted to Christian uses. 

 But frequently, especially in Britanny with its kindred race, 

 crosses have been planted on them. Mawgan cross for example 

 is in all likelihood a menhir adapted as a memorial, and furnished 

 with the cross-head which has now long disappeared. And the 



