(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)
There is an inconsistency in the account of Abury in No. 341, perhaps
overlooked by yourself.
I would ask, how could that arrangement of the fabric, so fancifully
and ingeniously described by Stukely, be intended to represent the
Trinity, when the place was confessedly in existence long anterior to
Christianity? nor is there any thing in the old Druidical or Bardic
tenets that can be twisted to any such idea.
This _Abury_, with _Silbury_, is supposed to be the _Cludair Cyfrangon_,
or _Heaped Mound of Congregations_, mentioned in the _Triads_, the
building of which is recorded as "one of the three mighty achievements of
the Isle of Britain;" and here were held the general assemblies of the
Britons on religious occasions, and not at Stonehenge, as is generally
supposed. This last place is decidedly more modern than the pile at
_Abury_; the Welsh call it _Gwaith Emrys, (the work of Emrys_,) and it
ranks as another of the mighty achievements of the Isle of Britain, the
third being "the raising of the Stone of Keti," supposed to be the "_Maen
Ceti_" at Gwyr, in Glamorganshire.
The presumption that _Stonehenge_ is more modern than _Abury_ is founded
upon the fact that Stonehenge exhibits marks of the chisel in different
parts, while the former does not. The ancient British documents give us
the founder of the latter, namely, _Emrys_, or _Ambrosius_, while we are
left in ignorance as to who raised the pile of _Cyfrangon_.
Nor was Stonehenge ever of such magnitude as _Abury_, the diameter of the
former being 99 feet, whilst the latter was 1,400; the largest stones of
the former weigh 30 tons, but the latter weigh 100 tons!
_Gwaith Emrys_ was possibly more for political than religious assemblies.
Here was held the meeting of the Britons and Saxons, when the _Plot of
the Long Knives_ (_Twyll y Cyllyll Hirion_) was consummated, and the
flower of the British chiefs treacherously destroyed by their pretended
friends.
Different authors have strenuously contended for giving the honour of
supremacy to either of these places over both Britain and Gaul, in the
days of Druidism; but Rowlands has industriously placed its chief seat in
Anglesey.