The Giant's Ring 27 



not only not occupied, but was actually avoided. We are in the 

 presence of a religious taboo of some kind. 



It is not difficult to guess the reason of this taboo. The 

 ground surrounding the Dolmen is sacred to the spirit of the 

 dead person ; no unauthorized intruder dare tread upon it. At 

 the same time the fence protects the living, preventing the ghost 

 from breaking bounds and coming out to injure them in any way. 

 Modern savage life presents analogies with both these forms of 

 belief. 



The modern superstitions connecting fairies with ring-forts 

 of this kind are survivals of this dread. Some of the so-called 

 ring-forts are probably at least primarily, seimlchral ; and fear of 

 the ghost, degenerated in more modern times to fear of the 

 fairies, has prevented intruders from trespassing upon them even 

 to our day. These sepulchral ring-forts (if I may use this not 

 very scientific expression for convenience) are essentially of the 

 same type of monument as the Giant's Ring, differing only in 

 their inferior size. The unusual size of the Giant's Ring may be 

 confidently taken as an indication of the great and important 

 rank which the person commemorated by it held among his 

 contemporaries. He was most likely deified after his death ; and 

 the tradition of horse races and other games held in the Ring till 

 modern times may well go back to the games and processions 

 that we may pi-esume were held there periodically in his honour. 

 In this connection it is worth noticing that to the north of the 

 Ring is a ridge from the highest point of which (and from 

 nowhere else in the immediate neighbourhood) a view of the 

 interior of the Ring can be obtained. On this view point stands 

 a thorn tree, suggestively called the fairy thorn, though the ridge 

 in question, I am satisfied, is quite natural. That the exact 

 nature of the interment was not discovered in the recent excava- 

 tion can be sufficiently explained by previous lootnig. Such a 

 monument as this would be sure to attract the attention of 

 treasure seekers as soon as the dread of the Ghost had ceased to 

 influence the population. 



