r 



1921.] LIST OF DOLMENS, MENHIRS, ETC. 33 



imprints of human feet or even of the hooves of animals, 

 are found is of very great antiquity and may even have 

 preceded the worship of menhirs deliberately set up by man, 

 and the allied cults of pediform cavities, cupmarks, or 

 basins artificially sculptured upon rocks. The worship of 

 stones and fountains is one of the earliest and most wide- 

 spread known in Western Europe. It has lasted on from 

 the days of Neolithic man down to the present day, for it 

 is still practiced in many out of the way parts of France, 

 Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere. Even among ourselves in 

 Guernsey were not the waters of our Holy Wells, "La 

 Fontaine Fleury," "La Fontaine Notre Dame," "La 

 Fontaine du Vau Laurens," " St. George " and others used 

 within living memory as a cure for many ills to which the 

 flesh is heir? It is certain that the statue-menhir at St. 

 Martin's Church was still an object of secret cult early in 

 the nineteenth century, and offerings were made by our 

 fishermen to " Le Petit Boun Homme Andriou," the menhir 

 shaped rock at St. Martin's Point, only twenty years ago; 

 while the power of the weather stone at La Moye, to bring 

 rain if disturbed, was still feared up to a very few years 

 ago, and the grass around it was left uncut until all the hay 

 in the neighbourhood was carted. 



I also found that localities to which were attached the 

 old legends of "La Bete," — the Dog of Death — were in 

 .most instances situated in the neighbourhood of dolmens, 

 or groups of dolmens, showing that there must have been 

 originally some connection between the two. Also that fields 

 called " Le Courtil " or " Les Champs du Varou," 

 : ' Varouf " or, in modern times, " Variouf " — " Le Garou " 

 or Werewolf — were frequently to be found near, generally 

 in the West, of either dolmens or menhirs. But near them, 

 as well as near the " Holy " or Wishing Wells, we also find 

 records of old Crosses and of Ancient Chapels, showing 

 that our early missionaries found it advisable to guide their 

 converts to Christianity by erecting Christian shrines either 

 in the immediate neighbourhood, or, as in the case of the 

 churches on the very sites of pagan worship and prehistoric 

 sacrifices. 



ST. PETER-PORT. 



La. Roque de la. Varde. — A menhir which stood in a field on the 

 top of the hill of La Varde somewhere on the estate of Montville. It 

 is mentioned in Lettres sous Sceau of the 28th March 1478/9 and also 

 in the Fxtentes du fief le Roy en Ville of 1573 and 1595, and in the 

 " Rentales " of the Town Church. (See Map, 1.) 



Dolmen (?) of La Touzee Rozel. — The southern slopes of 

 what is now the estate of Rozel, and the adjoining alleys belonging 



C 



