INSCRIBED STONES AND ANCIENT CROSSES IN DEVON. 395 
Ogham, because it is‘supposed to bear a resemblance to that of a 
tree; the fleasg answering to the trunk or stem, and the scores on 
either side, or passing through it horizontally or diagonally, corre- 
sponding to the branches. On the majority of the monuments on 
which it is found, the angle is used to form the fleasg (central stalk). 
There are, I believe, only two cases known—the famous Callan 
stone, and one other—in which the median line is cut in the face 
of the stone, and the digits formed on each side instead of at the 
angle of the stone. 
In Hall’s “Ireland,” to which work I am indebted for much 
descriptive information, an account of the Callan stone is given by 
Mr. Windele as it appeared in 1838, and as it appears to bear a 
close resemblance to some of the cromlechs on Dartmoor and in 
Cornwall, the following extract may prove acceptable: 
‘‘ We ascended the mountain on the south-east side, following the 
course of an old road, or rather bridle-path, until we came in view 
of a lonely cromlech, an old altar of the sun (Grian), to which the 
whole mountain in Paynim times was consecrated. It consists of 
three immense stones—two of them pitched on end, and the third 
laid incumbent on these, and forming the great sacrificial stone. 
The latter measures twelve feet in length by four in breadth ; the 
others are each ten feet in length, eight broad, and one foot thick. 
Two more lie extended on the ground, closing, when erect, the 
extremities of the crypt, which the whole structure formed when 
complete. The interior had been recklessly excavated in search of 
treasure. The peasantry call this cromlech Altoir na Greine, or 
‘altar of the sun,’ and also Leabba Diarmuid agus Graine; 7.e. 
Diarmed and Grany’s bed. Vallancey regards these as the names 
of the two Pagan deities of Ireland—one the god of arms, which 
Diarmit certainly signifies, and the other the sun itself; but the 
romancers have reduced these celestial beings to more mundane 
proportions. They form a portion of the wonder-working, all- 
enduring personages of the multitudinous Fenian legends of 
Treland, chanted in musical prose by the itinerant story-tellers of 
old, and in verse by a host of bards, who from the earliest times 
down to the sixteenth century gave forth such lays of marvels 
under the one well-known and attractive name of Ossian. Tales 
like these formed, and still form, the amusements of the long winter 
nights to the inhabitants of the wild mountain districts of Ireland, 
as well as of the Highlands of Scotland, and served as the grand staple 
