Another noteworthy object, on this site of ancient enclosures, is the
remarkable group of three stones called by antiquaries the men-an-tol,
and by country folk the crick-stone, from the old custom (not yet
extinct) of “craming” (crawling on all fours) round the centre stone,
and of creeping through the hole in the same (when the person was thin
enough) for the cure of lumbago, sciatic, and other “cricks” and pains
in the back.
This mysterious monument is situated in a croft to the right of the
Morvah road, about half-a-mile in a northerly direction from Lenine
town-place. Our antiquaries are as much at variance with respect to the
purpose for which this remarkable group was erected as they are about
the real purpose of the cromlech. Some hold that it is a sepulchral
monument, as well as the Men Scryfa (written stone) farther on, because
there is a tradition that in Gendhal, or Gednhal moor, a little below,
there was once a battle so great that the moor “ran with blood.” Others
suppose it to have been used for some druidical ceremonies similar to
those not long since practised there; and by a great number it is
conjectured that this mysterious monument served for the computation of
time. Among those who think that the object of its erection was
probably astronomical is Professor Max Müller. This gentleman, in the
Quarterly Review for August, 1867, after stating that the three stones
are in a line bearing nearly east and west, says:—
“This men-an-tol may be an old dial, erected originally to fix the
proper time for the celebration of the autumnal equinox, and, though it
may have been applied to other purposes likewise, such as the curing of
children by dragging them several times through the hole, still its
original intention may have been astronomical.”
In another place, after speaking of the Mên-heers, or long stones
(which, being mostly found in pairs bearing nearly east and west, he
thinks served the same purpose), he continues:—
“If their astronomical character could once be firmly established, it
might even be possible, at least approximately, to fix the time of
their erection. If we suppose that the shadow of the stones on each
side of the men-an-tol was intended to fall through the hole on the day
of the autumnal equinox, then, if there is any slight deviation at
present, and that deviation in the direction demanded by the precession
of the equinoctial, points of difference might be calculated, and
translated into years, and we should thus be enabled to fix, at least
with a margin of a century or two, the time when that time piece was
first set up on the high plains of Cornwall.”