1922.] K£po&*s. 89 



the old god of the woodlands and the forest, and of 

 the goddess of night and the underworld, has survived even 

 down to our own times as witchcraft among the uneducated, 

 as Satanism among the adepts. In spite of the facts that 

 Pan's horns and hoofs were transferred by the Christian 

 missionaries to Satan himself, and that Diana's symbol of 

 the crescent moon was removed by the self-same teachers 

 from the brow of the goddess to the foot of the Madonna, 

 yet, through centuries of excommunication by the Church and 

 of persecution by the Law, of primitive creeds it may be said 

 — as of the Irish Irregular Army — " though they surrender 

 they never die." Thus I think that the prevalence of our stone 

 monuments explains the great amount of witchcraft in our 

 Island in the 16th and 17th centuries, when, during the 76 

 years which elapsed between 1563 and 1639, our Greffe 

 Records show that, in our relatively small population, no 

 less than 21 men and 70 women were either banished or burnt 

 for sorcery and witchcraft. 



In connection with our menhirs, the Rev. J. A. F. 

 Ozanne reports to me that, up to the other day, when, as you 

 know, the ceremony was abolished, the parishioners of St. 

 Pierre-du-Bois and St. Saviour's burned their "Guy Fawkes" 

 at the foot of the menhir at Les Pay sans. There they danced 

 round the flames of the funeral pyre as their ancestors will 

 have done when that Egyptian King whose tomb has just 

 been discovered, was still on the throne. For the "Guy 

 Fawkes" festival over here was merely a survival of the old 

 Druid festival of burning the Yule Log, or "Bout de l'An" 

 — and this explains the local name "Boudloue" for our 

 guy, which has puzzled so many people. 



In Blackwood's Magazine for September, 1922, I found 

 the following, in an article by Edmund Vale, called "A 

 Welsh Ride." He is talking of certain stone circles he passed 

 on his route and says : "I remember a farmer in Guernsey, 

 on whose land stood a huge dolmen, telling me that one 

 morning early, when he went to the field, he saw a tall 

 stranger with a great beard sitting on one of the capstones 

 of the dolmen. He rose on seeing the farmer and beckoned 

 him, when the farmer came near he poured out a strange 

 liquid into a tiny vessel and set it on the capstone. Neither 

 spoke. Presently the stranger lifted the cup and drank of 

 it, offering the remainder to the farmer. The latter, fasci- 

 nated, if not awed, partook. The host then bowed to his 

 guest and to Another not visible, and departed, never again 

 to be seen. ' And that,' whispered the farmer into my ear 

 * was the sign.' And although he was not clear in any way 

 what the sign was, it seemed to him a grave occasion, a 



