WHAT WAS STONEHENGE?
The Megalithic Stone structures, which exist not only in this country but also throughout the Continent of Europe, are a special feature of that period known as the Neolithic Age. As has already been shown, Stonehenge represents a very late type, erected at a time when the bronze culture had begun to overlap that of polished stone (Neolithic). These stone structures can be roughly divided into three classes. 1. Single upright stones, or menhirs (Celtic = “high stone”), which may be commemorative of some great event or personage. 2. Dolmens (Celtic = “table stone”), in which a stone slab is set table-wise on three or four uprights. 3. Cromlechs (Celtic = “stone circle”). Circles enclosing barrows or dolmens. Stonehenge is a highly specialised example of this last class. Round these cromlechs popular myth and superstition have crystallised themselves into tales of the devil and his works (as in the case of Stonehenge), ogres, giants, dwarfs, Sabbath [58]breakers, and infidels, turned to
