We return to the highway, and continuing on the Morvah road, pass a
broken cross, which once served to direct the pilgrim to the Holy Well
and shrine, or to the Templar’s roof. A little farther on, a church-way
path through fields makes a short cut across the hill; from the road at
the foot of this hill, on the Lanyon side, one gets the most striking,
though not the first view of the Quoit. From this low ground, the mass
of rock (more than eighteen feet long and nine abroad) is seen looming
against the sky like a gigantic tripod. When near it, we find that its
height from the ground is only from five to six feet; yet Dr. Borlase
says, that in his time it was high enough for a man to sit under it on
horseback.
In 1816, the cap-stone of the cromlech was thrown down by a violent
storm, and a large piece of one supporting stone broken off. In 1824,
after the Logan Rock was replaced, the powerful machinery brought into
the country for that purpose, was used for raising the Quoit; and,
preparatory to replacing it, the other two uprights were sunk several
feet. One may speculate on the means first employed to raise the
ponderous mass, which has been beaten by the storms of more than twice
ten hundred years. Few can view “this lonely monument of times that
were” without joining in the prayer of the following beautiful lines:—
* * * “Let no rude hand remove,
Or spoil thee; for the spot is consecrate
To thee, and thou to it; and as the heart
Aching with thoughts of human littleness
Asks, without hope of knowing, whose the strength
That poised thee here.”
It does not seem likely to be soon decided whether these weird-looking
monuments on our silent hills were giants’ altars, kist veans, or the
tombs of giants who have left the marks of their footsteps on all our
granite cairns and hills. Our mythic giants may not be altogether
fabulous, and it seems beyond dispute that gigantic remains have been
found under cromlechs when first denuded of the barrows with which
many, perhaps all, were formerly covered.
Another idea, in connection with them, may be suggested by what we have
farther to state. A Cornish gentleman, [18] who resided many years in
various parts of India, and to whom we are grateful for much exact and
curious information on various antiquarian subjects, informs us that he
has, in many remote parts of India (where the most ancient and simple
forms of Hindooism prevail), seen huge monuments of unhewn stone so
like some of our cromlechs in their construction, that they always
reminded him of our giants’ quoits, and his distant home on the Cornish
hills. He says that in the granite districts, they were precisely
similar in plan to our cromlechs; and in the slate districts the slabs
were thinner and the construction more regular.
In all, an opening was left on one side. Between the supporting stones
and within the recesses of these rude structures sacred lamps were
always kept burning. The priesthood, who attended these sacred fires,
were so much opposed to Christians coming near their sacred places,
that the gentleman referred to had no means of ascertaining whether
these Hindoo cromlechs were regarded as altars, tombs, or shrines. They
might have been all three combined, as it has been usual, in all times,
for the sacredotal hierarchy of all gloomy creeds to make the most of
the bones of the dead to impress the minds of the living with awe for
the unearthly mystery with which they ever aim to invest priestly
functions. At last, by the gloomy creeds and rites of these mysterious
religions, they make a personification of death their deity.
We must leave it for our learned antiquaries to decide whether this
huge Quoit was a giant’s tomb, or anything else which was ever applied
to any mortal use, except to make us feel that the ancient Cornish who
could raise such ponderous masses, high enough for a man to sit under
on horseback, were no despicable race.