168 APPENDIX. 



Saul was inaugurated as king on a subsequent occasion. And after Saul's victory 

 over the Ammonites, " Samuel said to the people, Let us go down to Gilgal, and 

 renew the kingdom there. And all the people went to Gilgal, and there they 

 made Saul king before Jehovah in Gilgal; and they sacrificed peace-offerings 

 before Jehovah, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly." — (1 Sam. 

 xi. 14, 15.) Here Saul afterwards gathered the people to war against the Philis- 

 tines, and, after waiting for Samuel, himself offered sacrifices. — (1 Sam. xiii. 4, 7, 

 12, 15.) It was under pretence of sacrificing them to Jehovah in Gilgal, that Saul 

 spared the choice cattle of the Amalekites. And it was " before Jehovah in Gil- 

 o-al," that Samuel hewed Agag in pieces. This place also seems to have been the 

 customary residence of the prophet Elijah, which confirms the suggestion that 

 there was some establishment of the prophets here. — (2 Kings ii. 1.) In the later 

 prophets there are many denunciations of the corruptions of which Gilgal ulti- 

 mately became the seat. — {A7nos iv. 4; v. 5 ; Hosea iv. 15; ix. 12; xii. 11.) It is 

 sometimes coupled in condemnation with Bethel, another place of sacred stones, 

 which shows that these places had become devoted to idolatrous purposes. 



Another instance of the erection of stones is afforded in the account of the 

 great solemnity at Ebal and Gerizim. In this case, " great stones " were set up, 

 covered with inscriptions from the word of the Law ; and with them was raised 

 the primitive altar of unhewn stones. 



The resort to their places of unhewn stones, amongst the Hebrews, indicates 

 the ideas which seem universally to have been connected with such monuments. 

 It is probable that their religious use formed the primary idea in their construc- 

 tion, and that their civil use was secondary, or rather, involved in the other ; and 

 it also seems hkely that after the religious notions connected with structures 

 passed away, they long continued to be appropriated to civil purposes. 



Homer more than once alludes to councils as being held within or near circles 

 of stones. The remarkable passage in the Iliad (xviii., 1. 585), may be mentioned. 

 It is thus translated by Mr. King : " The herald at length appeased the tumult ; 

 and the elders sat at rough hewn stones, within a sacred circle." So, too, the 

 council, summoned by Alcinous to confer upon the affair of Ulysses, sat at rough 

 hewn stones — {Odyss. viii. 5.) 



Abundant facts may be produced showing the use of stone circles at various 

 occasions, as of inaugurations and councils, as late as the fourteenth century, in 

 the north of Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the Western Islands. And Pink- 

 erton [Des. of Empire, 1802) says, " the Icelandic writers tell us that such circles 

 were called domh-ringr, that is literally, doom-rings, or circles of judgment, being 

 the solemn places where courts were held for various purposes." And Olaus 

 Magnus (1550) mentions that the practice of crowning kings at such places was con- 

 tinued in his day. A circle of stones called Moraslen, near Upsal, Sweden, was the 

 spot appropriated, from immemorial time, for that purpose. — (Hist, of the Goths, 

 pp. 12, 13.) Sir R. C. Hoare observes of the stone circles and similar monuments 

 of the British islands, that there is abundant evidence that " the circle, the enclo- 

 sure, and the mound, such as we see at A bury, Marden, and Stonehenge, were 

 connected first with the Druidical and afterwards with the Bardic systems, and 



