1921.] 



LIST OF DOLMENS, MENHtRS, ETC. 39 



side of the road ajoining the Estate of Ste. Helene — which was once 

 a priory belonging to the Abbey of Cormery, near Tours — and the 

 other, " La Fontaine de Gonnebec," which is in the valley above Le 

 Moulin de Haut. 



ST. MARTIN'S. 



LeS Blanches Pierres-— Probably a group of menhirs; as the 

 name " La Blanche Pierre " was so frequently given to them both 

 in Jersey and in France. " Les Blanches Pierres " was the name of 

 a number of fields in the narrow lane at the back of Sausmarez 

 Manor situated on the Fiefs of Sausmarez, Le Roy, Beauvoir and 

 Hallia. (22.) 



La. Tombei — Probably a dolmen, which gave its name to a group of 

 fields on Fief Sausmarez near Le Coin Fallaize and La Verbeuse. 

 (See Livre de Perchages 1655, etc.). (23.) 



La Roque au Varclin (L. P. St. Martin's, 1603-22) now called 

 "La Roque s " a name given to some fields at Le Varclin on the 

 Fiefs Hallia (1917) and Bruniaulx. There is nothing to prove 

 whether this was a menhir or not, but as a field near by was called 

 " Le Courtil de la Croix," it is probable that it was " Une Pierre 

 Sainte" and required an antidote. In the same district near Calais 

 there was another "Courtil de la Roque" situated on Fief Saus- 

 marez (Livre de Perchage 1602-22), and adjoining it was another 

 field called " Le Vaurouf," a name so frequently associated with 

 megalithic monuments in Guernsey. (24.) 



La Roque Hamelin. — This in all probability was a menhir as 

 there is no natural outcrop of rock in the neighbourhood. It stood in 

 a field still called " Le Courtil de la Roque Hamelin" on the North 

 side of La Rue Cauches, and on the Fief Le Roy.d) A few hundred 

 yards to the West of it lies the district called Les Vaurioufs to this 

 day. (25.) 



La Ronde Roque. — Near Icart on the Fief Le Roy.' There is no 

 proof that it was a megalith, but as a field in its immediate neigh- 

 bourhood on the Fief of " Vielleresse du Cote de la Fallaize " was 

 called " Le Courtil Vauriouf "(2) there is the same inference that 

 it was also an object of cult. (26.) 



The Statue-Menhir. — This old statue, which now stands as a 

 gate-post between the two gates at the south of the church-yard of St. 

 Martin's, suggests the existence in former days of a dolmen on the 

 site where the church now stands, as these statue-menhirs are always 

 found near burial places in the South-Eastern Departments of 

 France. (3) The skill with which the hard granite rock has been 

 fashioned, however, shows that it is probably of much later date than 

 the Neolithic period. It originally stood in the church-yard to the 

 south of the porch, and facing East, and it had at its foot a flat 

 stone on which were two small cup-shaped depressions. A most in- 

 teresting survival from prehistoric times was the cult paid secretly, 

 as late as the early nineteenth century, to this old statue, when the 

 old folk of the parish still thought that to strew a few flowers, or, 

 to make a libation of a few drops of wine or spirit, at the foot of 

 the stone would bring them good luck. A very similar custom existed 

 until quite recently in the Western Highlands and Islands of Scot- 

 land, where, in remote places, daily libations of milk were poured 

 over the Gruagach Stones — the old representatives of Celtic Divinity 

 — by the farmers, who believed that if they omitted to do so some 

 misfortune would surely happen. (4) (27.) 



(1) TCxtcnte, 1882. 



\2) Livre de Perchage, 1906. 



(3) Dechelette. Manuel Prehistorique. T. i. pp. 583-603 ; T. ii, pp. 485492. 



<4) M. E. M. Donaldson, Western Highlands and Islands, pp. 136-32'. 



