Pennant's Tour 1773 |
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Page 165:- |
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| [ex]cept near the entrance, where there are two stones placed without, opposite to the two which form the entrance and part of the circle. Long Meg, as the tallest stone is called, stands sixty-one feet west from the portal, and just opposite to it: it is eighteen feet high, and fourteen in its greatest girth; is composed of red grit stone, as the others are of granite, lime, and free-stone. The area of the circle was covered with corn, so I must borrow its diameter from Mr. Hutchinson, who informs us it is of three hundred feet*. |
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| I refer the curious reader to the learned Borlase† for an account of the uses of these circles. Whether this was designed for religious purposes, for national assemblies, for election of Princes, or for the celebration of games, as certain circles in Caernarvonshire are reasonable supposed to be, I cannot possibly determine. Nothing is left on which to found a conjecture. It might have stood in a scared grove of oaks, the shade of which added solemnity to the rites, were they religious: were they political, the people might have stood without the circle of stones, prohibiting a nearer approach to the vulgar; if the former, the Arch-Druid might have stood near the lofty stone of distinction, his entrance through the portal might be preceded by an |
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| * Excursion to the Lakes, 108. |
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| † Antiquities of Cornwal, 183 Tour in Wales, 11, 309. |
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