for sacred fires and judicial proceedings. There is an old 
saying in Gaelic, " Cuiri mi clach ad charn," " I will put a 
stone on your heap." This is used as a compliment — allu- 
ding to the custom of making great heaps as a memorial. 
Of this description was the tumulus raised over Patroclus, and 
also the "mountain" that was raised over Andromache's 
father. These often became places of worship, or the seat of 
some temple. Thus the temple of Pallas in Larissa was the 
sepulchre of Acrisius ; and Lycophron, when speaking of the 
temple of Juno, calls it Tvufa. So Virgil uses the expression, 
" Tumulum antique Cereris." There was, however, another 
proverb or saying, just the reverse of the last, and used both 
in Gaelic and Welsh as a curse, viz., " To wish one under a 
cairn," i.e., not merely to wish their enemy dead, but buried 
in dishonour. It is to this that Sir Walter Scott alludes in 
his tale, The Heart of Midlothian. 
The Gaelic term for " outlaw " is still " Fear air charn," 
the man in the cairn. Compare this with Josh. vii. 25, 20', 
"All Israel stoned him with stones, and they raised over 
him a great heap of stones to this day;" and 2 Sam. xviii. 
17, " They cast Absalom into a great pit in a wood, and laid 
a very great heap of stones upon him." 
It is important to keep this in mind, as the two monu- 
ments are so repeatedly connected, that each affords to the 
other a strong confirmation of similarity of customs and 
religious belief. 
From the statements in Scripture and other sources, there 
can be no doubt, I think, but that these menhirs, in their 
original intention, were representatives of Deity; not idols, 
in the usual acceptation of this term, as they were designedly 
without form or figure, but embodiments or symbols of 
Deity. Potter, in his Antiquities of Greece, states that the 
first idol was a rude stock, and says that Pausanias tells us 
" that in Achaia there were kept 30 square stones, on which 
