By Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.8., F.G.S., Sfc. 129 



being " outlandish." My notion, however, is that the word 

 " Saracen " has been applied since Saxon times by those who, 

 not knowing Saxon words, applied something, having a near sound, 

 that they did know ; and this word " Saracen " was foreign and 

 opprobrious enough for these awkward mysterious stones. Indeed, 

 as Mr. Swayne intimates, they were in a peculiar sense "outlandish"''' 

 to the peasants, for they believed (and some still believe) that both 

 the blocks and the field-flints grow out of the land. 



In Palsgrave's Dictionary " Sarsin " is a Saracen. In HalliwelPs 

 "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words/'' 1850, we find: — 

 "Sarsens. Round bolder stones. Wilts." (They are not round, 

 nor are they true boulders.) Omitted in the new edition, 1859, by 

 Halliwell & Wright. In dictionaries Saraseyn or Saresyn comes 

 close to " Sai*sen," and suggests itself as a verbal ally ; and, in the 

 sense of heathen or pagan, it has had warm supporters as the root 

 of Sarsen. As the " heathen " are the Heath-men (out of the reach 

 of civilization, &c), and as Sarsens are Heath-stones, there is a 

 roundabout association, but not intended. 



In Richard Symonds' " Diary of the Marches kept by the Royal 

 Army/'' &c., edited by C. E. Long for the Camden Society, 1859, 

 the term " Saracens'' Stones " is applied to Sarsens thus : — " Tuesday 

 [12th Nov., 1644] .... to Marlingsborough, where the 

 King lay .... the troopes to Fyfield, two myles distant, a 

 place so full of a grey pibble stone of great bignes as is not usually 

 seene ; they breake them, and build their houses of them and walls, 

 laying mosse betweene, the inhabitants calling them Saracens' 

 Stones, and in this parish, a myle and halfe in length, they lye so 

 thick as you may goe upon them all the way. They call that place 

 the Grey-weathers, because a far off they looke like a flock of 

 sheepe" (p. 151). Quoted by Mr. Long, Wilts Mag., vol. xvi., 

 1876, in his remarks on the " Geological character of the Stonehenge 

 Stones/'' pp. 68 — 74. Possibly the gallant soldier, not under- 

 standing the local word " Sarsens," confounded it with the somewhat 

 similar word " Saracens," with which he was acquainted. So also 

 he mixes the place and the stones under the name Greywethers. 



In the Notes and Queries, vol. xi., 1855, pp. 369 and 494, 



VOL. XXIII. — NO. LXVIII. K 



