After passing the very small, but neatly furnished church of Threlkeld,
the condition of which may be one testimony to the worthiness of the
neighbourhood, and rising beyond the vales before described, we came
to the brow of a hill, called Castle Rigg, on which, to the left of
the road, are the remains of one of those circular monuments, which,
by general consent, are called Druids' Temples. This is formed of
thirty-seven stones, placed in a circle of about twenty-eight yards
diameter, the largest being not less than seven feet and a half high,
which is double the height of the others. At the eastern part of this
circle, and within it, smaller stones are arranged in an oblong of
about seven yards long, and, at the greatest breadth, four yards wide.
Many of those round the circle appear to have fallen and now remain at
unequal distances, of which the greatest is towards the north.
Whether our judgment was influenced by the authority of a Druid's
choice, or that the place itself commanded the opinion, we thought
this situation the most severely grand of any hitherto passed. There
is, perhaps, not a single object in the scene, that interrupts the
solemn tone of feeling, impressed by its general characters of profound
solitude, greatness and awful wildness. Castle Rigg is the central
point of three vallies, that dart immediately under it from the eye,
and whose mountains form part of an amphitheatre, which is completed by
those of Derwentwater, in the west, and by the precipices of Skiddaw
and Saddleback, close on the north. The hue, which pervades all these
mountains, is that of dark heath, or rock; they are thrown into every
form and direction, that Fancy would suggest, and are at that distance,
which allows all their grandeur to prevail; nearer than the high lands,
that surround Hutton Moor, and further removed than the fells in the
scenery of Ullswater.
To the south open the rocks, that disclose the vale of St. John, whose
verdant beauty bears no proportion to its sublimity; to the west, are
piled the shattered and fantastic points of Derwentwater; to the north,
Skiddaw, with its double top, resembling a volcano, the cloudy vapours
ascending from its highest point, like smoke, and sometimes rolling
in wreaths down its sides; and to the east, the vale of Threlkeld,
spreading green round the base of Saddleback, its vast side-skreen,
opened to the moorlands, beyond which the ridge of Cross-fell
appeared; its dignity now diminished by distance. This point then is
surrounded by the three grand rivals of Cumberland; huge Helvellyn,
spreading Saddleback and spiry Skiddaw.
Such seclusion and sublimity were, indeed, well suited to the deep
and wild mysteries of the Druids. Here, at moon-light, every Druid,
summoned by that terrible horn, never awakened but upon high occasions,
and descending from his mountain, or secret cave, might assemble
without intrusion from one sacrilegious footstep, and celebrate a
midnight festival by a savage sacrifice--
----"rites of such strange potency
As, done in open day, would dim the sun,
Tho' thron'd in noontide brightness."