152 
VI.—On the Original Use of the Mén-an-tol, or Holed-Stone, in the 
Parish of Madron, Cornwall. By E. H. WisE DUNKIN. 
Read at the Spring Meeting, May 18, 1872. 
ee curious perforated stone, called the Mén-an-tol, which lies 
on the moors about a mile north of the Lanyon Cromlech, has 
been frequently described ;* but no one appears to have ever 
satisfactorily explained the use to which it was originally applied. 
It will be admitted, I presume, nemine dissentiente, that the 
superstitious practice of crawling through the orifice to ensure the 
removal of rheumatic pains and spinal diseases, though commonly 
believed to be an effectual remedy in Borlase’s days, and even in 
the present century by some of the more credulous, has no con- 
nection whatever with the primary object for which this stone was 
erected. Various theories have, therefore, been started from time 
to time, in endeavouring to explain the real use of the Mén-an-tol. 
Some have conceived it to be a kind of dial for determining the 
times of recurrence of certain festive seasons ; others that it was 
a place where victims intended for Druidic sacrifices were bound, 
before they were led to the holocaust; and others again, that it 
was used in the performance of public games. 
It seems, however, far more reasonable to suppose that the 
Mén-an-tol is nothing more than a remnant of some ancient 
sepulchral monument. This was evidently the opinion of Mr. J. 
Y. Akerman, who, in his Archeological Index, says it, may possibly 
be the remains of a very large cromlech; and more recently Mr. 
J. O. Halliwell has expressed his belief in the sepulchral character 
of this and similar stones.| Of the correctness of this supposition 
I think there can be little or no doubt, but it yet remains to be 
shown to what part of the sepulchral monument this perforated 
stone belonged, and for what purpose it was there placed. These 
* The following references may prove useful—Borlase’s Antiquities, p. 
177; Gentleman’s. Magazine, April, 1864, p. 444; HEdmonds’s Land’s End 
District, p. 19; Haliiwell’s Rambles in Western Cornwall, p.92; Archeologia 
Cambrensis, 3rd Series, vol. x, p. 292. 
+ Rambles in Western Cornwall, p. 93. 
