prove to the people that it was not divine. It is not improbable that many of the stone circles one meets with in this country were similarly sacred, and used at times for some such a purpose as that specified in the case of the alleged prototype of Stonehenge.
We cannot leave this point without alluding to the question, whose temple Stonehenge was, or whose it chiefly was. After giving it all the attention I can, I have come to the conclusion that we cannot do better than follow the story of Geoffrey, which makes Stonehenge the work of Merlin Emrys, commanded by another Emrys, which I interpret to mean that the temple belonged to the Celtic Zeus, whose later legendary self we have in Merlin. It would be in vain to look for any direct argument for or against such an hypothesis: one can only say that it suits the facts of the case, and helps to understand others of a somewhat similar nature. What sort of a temple could have been more appropriate for the primary god of light and of the luminous heavens than a spacious, open-air enclosure of a circular form like Stonehenge? Nor do I see any objection to the old idea that Stonehenge was the original of the famous temple of Apollo in the island of the Hyperboreans, the stories about which were based in the first instance most likely on the journal of Pytheas' travels.[1] In spite of the fabulous element introduced, one cannot help seeing that the northern island, which was as large as Sicily and situated opposite the mouth of a mighty river, must have
- ↑ The version here chiefly referred to is that to he found in the Bibliotheca of Diodorus Siculus, ij. cap. 47, where Hecatæus of Abdera is quoted as one of the writer's authorities. See also Elton's Origins of English History, pp. 88-9, 426.
