512 Rude Stone Antiquities of Brittany. By Miss Russell. 



the marks in question are seldom, if ever intentionally, connected 

 with sepulchral monuments, and seem to be studiously irregular ; 

 so that with the analogy of the San-Eye and the horns of Aries 

 the Earn, I incline to think they were often mere charms. 



The lines of holes are sometimes so like strings of beads, I 

 have thought of their representing the electrical amber beads of 

 the tombs, which are found in Brittany as well as in Scotland. 

 The Amber-Gatherers were called a sacred nation ; they wore the 

 figure of a boar as their badge. The beads would be shaped 

 before being sent out commercially. As a matter of fact, the use 

 of amber in some ailments from cold is too much overlooked. 



The favourite symbol in Brittany is the axe, of different forms 

 and periods. It probably represents the thunderbolt, and may 

 do so without being derived either from Thor's hammer, or the 

 axe which is the Egyptian hieroglyph for " god ;" though the 

 latter is possible. 



The great cairn called the Mane H'rock, or Fairies' Mound, 

 near Locmariaker, covers a small chamber which I do not think 

 has been a house, though on the tomb theory, the bones are 

 wanting, as usual. It is not constructed with smooth upright 

 sides, of slabs about the height of a man, like the dolmens, 

 which really look rather comfortable; but is built of layers 

 of stones with rough projecting points, and is too low for any one 

 but a child to stand upright in. And the cairn would not keep 

 out rain, which an earthen mound does in some degree. The 

 stones are many of them angular, as if all the chips of the 

 dolmens had been used up here. 



The contents of the chamber were- 1 1 7 stone axe-heads, some 

 of great size, more than 18 inches long, and many of what are 

 said to be Asiatic stones ; they are now in the museum at Vannes, 

 where we saw them. 



As my companion remarked, they could hardly have been 

 hidden in the cairn for concealment, for it is visible from sea and 

 land all round ; but it was here, near the entrance, and I suppose 

 within the cairn, that the small slab like a milestone was found, 

 which is engraved, among other things, with handled axes like 

 tomahawks (it is now fixed upright in the chamber.) And as the 

 axe-head is engraved on most of the dolmens that have any 

 sculpture at all ; and as Mr Miln says that old stone axes are still 

 built into chimneys in the Carnac district to keep off lightning ; 

 it is not unlikely they may have been intended in some way to 



