Superstition has attempted to account for their existence. Just as the
flint arrow-heads are supposed by the vulgar to be darts shot by fairies
or witches which cause sickness and death in cattle and men, and are
worn as amulets to ward off disease; just as the stone axes of early
man are regarded as thunder bolts, and when boiled are esteemed as a
sure cure for rheumatism, or a useful cattle medicine--so these stones
are said to be the work of the devil. A friend tells me that in his
childhood his nurse used to frighten him by saying that the devil lurked
in a dolmen which stands near his father's house in Oxfordshire; and
many weird traditions cluster round these old monuments.

[Illustration: MENHIR]

In addition to the subterranean sepulchral chambers and cairns which we
have already examined, there are four classes of megalithic structures.
The first consists of single stones, called in Wales, Cornwall, and
Brittany, _menhirs_, a name derived from the Celtic word _maen_ or
_men_ signifying a stone, and _hir_ meaning tall. In England they are
known as "hoar-stones," _hoar_ meaning a boundary, inasmuch as they
are frequently used in later times to mark the boundary of an estate,
parish, or manor. There is one at Enstone, Oxfordshire, and at
Wardington, Warwickshire. Possibly they were intended to mark the graves
of deceased chieftains.

The second class consists of lines of stones, which the French call
_alignements_. Frequently they occur in groups of lines from two to
fourteen in number, Carnac, in Brittany, possesses the best specimen
in Europe of this curious arrangement of giant stones.

The third class of megalithic monuments is the circular arrangement,