ever existed in England or in a tithe of the places in which megalithic
circles and other monuments occur is unlikely. At the same time, it is
not impossible that some of the circles of Ireland, Wales, and France
were afterwards used by the druids as suitable places for meeting and
preaching.

Fergusson in his great work _Rude Stone Monuments_ held a remarkable
view as to the purpose of the British stone circles. He believed that
they were partly Roman in date, and that some of them at least marked
the scene of battles fought by King Arthur against the Saxons. Thus, for
example, he says with regard to Avebury, "I feel it will come eventually
to be acknowledged that those who fell in Arthur's twelfth and greatest
battle were buried in the ring at Avebury, and that those who survived
raised these stones and the mound of Silbury in the vain hope that they
would convey to their latest posterity the memory of their prowess." It
is hardly necessary to take this view seriously nowadays. Stonehenge,
which Fergusson attributes to the same late era, has been proved by
excavation to be prehistoric in origin, and with it naturally go the
rest of the megalithic circles of England, except where there is any
certain proof to the contrary.

The most probable theory is that the circles are religious monuments of
some kind. What the nature of the worship carried on in them was it is
quite impossible to determine. It may be that some at least were built
near the graves of deified heroes to whose worship they were
consecrated. On the other hand, it is possible that they were temples
dedicated to the sun or to others of the heavenly bodies. Whether they
served for the taking of astronomical observations or not is a question
which cannot be decided with certainty, though the frequency with which
menhirs occur in directions roughly north-east of the circles is