button to main menu  Gents Mag 1843 part 2 p.363
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Gentleman's Magazine 1843 part 2 p.363
[dru]idical times, was literally no more than a circle of stones. These stones, circularly placed, had always an high stone for the presiding priest or judge. This stone usually stood single, therby serving occasionally for the altar or high stone of sacrifice. Though in most instances, as Christianity flourished, other more eligible sites for Christian churches were afterwards found, yet the ancient kirk or temple stones were visited for ages, though no worship was performed there. Where no regular church was built in the district, as was too much the case for many ages, these ancient stone circles were probably resorted to, and a congregation formed for the celebration of Christian worship. If such was the case, it affords a sufficient reason why the term kirk-stones should still be attached to these venerable relics; and, though few of them still exist, yet who can look with indifference on those once hallowed rocks, where the early Christains were accustomed to meet, and to celebrate the worship of the newly-preached Saviour, perhaps in those very temples which had in still earlier times been dedicated to the mysterious and bloody ceremonies of the Druidic religion; thus turning the altars of perished Paganism into the hallowed temples of the living God? There are many such stone altars of Druidism in this and the neighbouring counties; and I am much deceived if some of them were not subsequently used as places of worship for the primitive Christians of this district. There is a collection of rocks in Ogden, in the parish of Halifax, still known by the name of "Ogden Kirk," which surely indicates that something more than mere Druidism was the origin of its present name. There is a wood in the vicinity called Snake Hill, or Snag Hill.*
Not far from this place are still visible the remains of a camp, but it is not so evident by what people it was formed. It is of a circular shape, surrounded by a ditch or agger still to be traced, and a vallum of earth; the whole divided in two parts. It may have been Roman, for it was the policy of that people to extirpate all vestiges of Druidical sway; and there is abundance of evidence to show that this now dreary district was occupied by the aboriginal Britons, or their Druids. This part of the parish of Halifax, when it has undergone a more searching examination, will probably afford us further light on this subject. Celts and arrowheads, I believe, have been found formerly within a few miles of the place.
Nor can I omit to mention, as one more example of stone circles in the parish of Halifax, a ring of stones, which is not altogether destroyed, in the township of Bankisland. The stones of this circle are not now erect, but lie in a confused heap, like the ruins of a building, and it is probable that many of the largest may have been taken away. It gives the name of Ringstone Edge to the adjacent moor. No one can doubt, I apprehend, but that this stone circle was originally constructed by the aboriginal Britons, under the superintendence of the Druids, either a a temple or a court of justice or both, as Druidical circles were used for worship and for seats of judgment. We find the same thing said of Bethel and Gilgal† in the days of Samuel, who made them the annual seats of judgment. There is also a Roman camp in the neighbourhood of Ringstone; so apparently desirous were the Romans of extirpating the Druidical priesthood. There is also very near to this camp a place called The Crays, which, both by its British name and the remains dug up from time to time, seems to have been a retreat in
* A tradition is said to prevail in the neighbourhood to the following effect:
"In days of old, there lived in the valley of the Holy Brook a cottager, whose child, an exceedingly lovely one, had for its companion a snow-white serpent. One morning however the cottager saw the child sharing its pottage with the serpent, giving to it (as the tradition represents) each alternate spoonful; a movement of the latter however to come nearer the dish was mistaken by the father for a hostile attack, and he instantly struck it with a bill, severing the snake in two. From that time the "faerie child" pined away, and speedily died. The record of the event is still they say preserved in the name of an adjoining wood "Snakehill, or Snaghill."
† לב is a roundish heap of stones.
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