and were industrious and intelligent; and it is interesting to record,
from the relics which the earth has preserved of their civilisation, the
kind of life which they must have lived in the ages which existed before
the dawn of history.




CHAPTER V

CROMLECHS, CAMPS, AND EARTHWORKS

Stone monuments--Traditions relating to them--Menhirs or hoar-stones--
_Alignements_--Cromlechs--Stonehenge--Avebury--Rollright stones--Origin
of stone circles--Dolmens--Earthworks--Chun Castle--Whittenham clumps--
Uffington--Tribal boundaries--Roman rig--Grims-dike--Legends--Celtic
words.


Among the antiquities which some of our English villages possess, none
are more curious and remarkable than the grand megalithic monuments of
the ancient races which peopled our island. Marvellous memorials are
these of their skill and labour. How did they contrive to erect such
mighty monuments? How did they move such huge masses of stone? How did
they raise with the very slender appliances at their disposal such
gigantic stones? For what purpose did they erect them? The solution of
these and many such-like problems we can only guess, and no one has as
yet been bold enough to answer all the interesting questions which these
rude stone monuments raise.