200 RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF CORNWALL. 



its original position, and the only record that attaches to it is 

 that it has within living memory been employed like Men-an-Tol 

 to pass children through to cure them of rickets. 



The Men-an-Tol, however, does not stand alone, but is so 

 related to other stones as to form part of a monumental group, 

 being placed exactly midway between two small menhirs — 9-ft. 

 9^-ins. apart, next to one of which there is a fallen stone 

 while another standing stone is 32-feet from the western stone 

 of the Men-an-Tol set, and a fallen stone 26-ft. These outliers 

 being just 10 feet apart. 



The hole of the Men-an-Tol is ovoid rather than circular — 

 21 -ins. in one diameter and 18 in another. It has been formed 

 by countersinking as in the case of the Tolven, the working 

 being unequal, and, as Mr. Lukis suggests, purposely so. And 

 as the deeper of the two sinkings is on the eastern face of the 

 slab, he also suggests that its use was from this side, and that 

 sun worship can have had nothing to do with the ceremony, for 

 the actor would have had to turn his back upon the luminary. 



The presence of holes in dolmens and cromlechs is of 

 frequent occurrence. They are found in the end stones of both 

 modern and ancient cromlechs in India ; they are also found in 

 Circassia and in France and other countries. There is a hole in 

 the capstone of the Trevethy cromlech, but this is rectangular, 

 and no doubt of later date. Now I cannot myself see how we 

 can dissociate holed stones of this class from such holed stones 

 as the Men-an-Tol, especially as a holed stone precisely of the 

 same character as the latter has been found dividing two 

 compartments in a long chambered barrow. If the superin- 

 cumbent earth of that barrow were removed and the side stones 

 displaced, the remnant would be indistinguishable in plan and 

 character from the M^n-an-Tol itself. There are indeed 

 numerous instances of perforated stone entrances to chambered 

 tumuli — some apparently natural and others formed for the 

 purpose. At Rodmarton, in Gloucester, the hole is wrought 

 out of two stones set side by side. And it has been suggested 

 that the idea sought to be symbolised is that of re-birth already 

 noted. Some think that robbers made the holes. 



