gether or with an equal space dividing boulder
from boulder; some of the giant circles are grouped together in twos and
threes, others are isolated; one has its centre marked by a single
enormous block, while another like block stands farther off in lonely
vastness. Here also stands a chambered cromlech of four huge flat blocks
roofed over like the cromlech under Slieve Callan across the
Shannon mouth.

The southern horizon from Lough Gur is broken by the hills of red
sandstone rising around Glanworth. Beside the stream, a tributary of the
Blackwater, a huge red cromlech rises over the greenness of the meadows
like a belated mammoth in its uncouth might. To the southwest, under the
red hills that guard Killarney on the south, the Sullane River flows
towards the Lee. On its bank is another cromlech of red sandstone
blocks, twin-brother to the Glanworth pile. Beyond it the road passes
towards the sunset through mountain-shadowed glens, coming out at last
where Kenmare River opens into a splendid fiord towards the Atlantic
Ocean. At Kenmare, in a vale of perfect beauty green with groves of
arbutus and fringed with thickets of fuchsia, stands a great stone
circle, the last we shall record to the south. Like all the rest, it
speaks of tremendous power, of unworldly and mysterious ends.

The very antiquity of these huge stone circles suggests an affinity with
the revolving years. And here, perhaps, we may find a clue to their
building. They may have been destined to record great Time itself, great
Time that circles forever through the circling years. There is first the
year to be recorded, with its revolving days; white winter gleaming into
spring; summer reddening and fading to autumn. Returning winter tells
that the year has gone full circle; the sun among the stars gives the
definite measure of the days. A ring of thirty-six great boulders, set
ten paces apart, would give the measure of the year in days; and of
circles like this there are more than one.

In this endless ring of days the moon is the measurer, marking the hours
and weeks upon the blue belt of night studded with golden stars. Moving
stealthily among the stars, the moon presently changes her place by a
distance equal to her own breadth; we call the time this takes an hour.
From her rising to her setting, she gains her own breadth twelve times;
therefore, the night and the day are divided each into twelve hours.
Meanwhile she grows from crescent to full disk,