270 



Incised Marking on the Impost 



and Argyle. They are not confined to the surfaces of undisturbed 

 rocks near ancient British sites ; but in one instance at least they 

 have been found on a large menhir, or standing stone. This is the 

 celebrated ortholith, connected with the well-known sacred circle 

 near Penrith, called " Long Meg and her Daughters : 99 indeed it 

 seems that it was on this stone that these curious designs were first 

 observed in the year 1835, by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. 1 There can 

 be little doubt that " Long Meg and her Daughters " formed a 

 consecrated site or place of assembly for the northern tribe of 

 Brigantes, just as the circles of Avebury and Stonehenge did for 

 the southern tribes of Dobuni and Belgse. 2 It was therefore not 



iJourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. I860, vol. xii. p. 1 18, where a full account of 

 these curious incised markings will be found. They had been previously and ap- 

 parently for the first time publicly described by the Rev. W. Greenwell of Durham, 

 in 1852, at the meeting of the Archaeological Institute at Newcastle ; bnt it is only 

 during the last two or three years that they have attracted mnch notice. Now, 

 scarcely a month passes, without fresh discoveries of them. IntheCounty of North- 

 umberland alone, it is said that Mr.Tate ef Alnwick, has seen and counted about 

 three hundred and fifty of these lapidary concentric rock-cuttings. Among other 

 notices of them, see those in the Archaeological Journal, vol. xxi, 1863, p. 87, 103, 

 163, 267. — Since this was written, a separate monograph on the subject has been 

 published by Mr. Tate ; " The ancient Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and 

 the Eastern Borders. By George Tate, F.G.S., 1865. Fig. 1 in this paper, p. 268, 

 is a woodcut copied from one in Mr. Tate's book in the Archseological Review, 

 for October 1865, p. 294. In this cut, examples are given of as many as 

 thirteen varieties of these curious incised markings, each of which is described 

 and defined by Mr. Tate. 



3 This monument of the " unknown past," has been described by the poet 

 Wordsworth, in a foot note to the Sonnet, written in 1833, in which he tells us 

 the effect which the first view of it excited in his mind : — 

 " Speek Thou whose massy strength and stature scorn 



The power of years — pre-eminent and placed 



Apart, to overlook the circle vast — 



Speak, Giant-mother ? Tell it to the Morn 



While she dispels the cumbrous shades of Night ; 



Let the Moon hear, emerging from a cloud; 



At whose behest uprose on British ground 



That Sisterhood! " 



The grand old Laureate was pre-eminent as an observer, and his description of 

 this celebrated spot deserves to be transfered from the pages of his poems to 

 those of the antiquary. It is as follows : — " The daughters of Long Meg, placed 

 as a perfect circle eighty yards in diameter, are seventy-two in number above 

 ground ; a little way out of the circle stands Long Meg herself, a single stone, 

 eighteen feet high. "When I first saw this monument, as I came upon it by 

 surprise, I might over-rate its importance as an object ; but, though it will not 



