. The most celebrated is
the Dance Maen Circle, which is 76 feet in diameter and has two
monoliths to the north-east, out of sight of the circle, but stated to
be in a straight line with its centre. Local tradition calls the circle
"The Merry Maidens," and has it that the stones are girls turned into
stones for dancing on Sunday: the two monoliths are called the Pipers.
The three circles known as the Hurlers lie close together with their
centres nearly in a straight line in the direction N.N.E. by S.S.W. At
Boscawen-un, near Penzance, is a circle called the Nine Maidens, and two
circles near Tregeseal have the same name. Another well-known circle in
Cornwall is called the Stripple Stones: the circle stands on a platform
of earth surrounded by a ditch, outside which is a rampart. In the
centre is a menhir 12 feet in height.

At Merivale, in Somersetshire, there are the remains of a small circle,
to the north of which lie two almost parallel double lines of menhirs,
running about E.N.E. by W.S.W., the more southerly of the two lines
overlapping the other at both extremities.

With what purpose were these great circles erected? We have already
mentioned the curious belief of Geoffrey of Monmouth with regard to
Stonehenge, and we may pass on to more modern theories. James I was
once taken to see Stonehenge when on a visit to the Earl of Pembroke at
Wilton. He was so interested that he ordered his architect Inigo Jones
to enquire into its date and purpose. The architect's conclusion was
that it was a Roman temple "dedicated to the god Caelus and built after
the Tuscan order."

Many years later Dr. Stukeley started a theory which has not entirely
been abandoned at the present day. For him Stonehenge and other stone
circles were temples of the druids. This was in itself by no means a
ridiculous theory, but Stukeley went further than this. Relying on a
quaint story in Pliny wherein the druids of Gaul are said to use as a
charm a certain magic egg manufactured by snakes, he imagined that the
druids were serpent-worshippers, and essayed to see serpents even in the
forms of their temples. Thus in the Avebury group the circle on Hakpen
Hill was for him the head of a snake and its avenue part of the body.
The Avebury circles were coils in the body, which was completed by the
addition of imaginary stones and avenues. He also attempted with even
less success to see the form of a serpent in other British circle
groups.

The drui