St. Lucia, June, 1851.
22. _Unde derivatur Stonehenge._--Antiquaries and topographers
generally (Stukeley and Sir R.C. Hoare included) have been
hitherto content to consider this word as a compound of _stan_ and
_henge_, Anglo-Saxon;--that is, "hanging stone." Now this
etymology of the word has always appeared to me very
unsatisfactory. The cross stones do not hang; they lie on the
uprights, and are kept in their places by mortice holes. An
ingenious friend of mine has, by what I consider a happy train of
reasoning, arrived at another and a better conclusion. Every one
knows that our German ancestors used the word _horse_ adjectively.
And we still have it so in use to designate many things as the
largest of their kind; as _horse-chestnut_, _horse-daisey_,
_horse-mushroom_, _horse-emmet_, &c. &c. _Horsa_ and _hengst_ or
_hengist_, are convertible terms or if any difference, the latter
word is used for _stallion_. If so, then, is it not reasonable to
suppose that the stones of this Druid temple would provoke the
largest idea of magnitude, and thence be called Stone-Hengst, or
more euphoniously, Stone-henge,--stallion stones?