were the Druidical peoples who built Stonehenge
and the great stone circles of Dartmoor and Cumberland, or whether with
them the mode of worship was already traditional, preserved by a
priestly oligarchy from a yet remoter age, and connected by I know not
what strange links with the fierce Eastern worship of Baal or Melkarth,
it is impossible to say with certainty at present, though the names by
which the Cumberland men still call the peaks and valleys round the
small Druid circle near Keswick contain the elements of those foreign
Phoenician words.

But at least we may assume that the accurate astronomical arrangements
of these Druid stones connected human sacrifice with the movements of
the sun, and the tradition which sends the young men of the countryside
up Dunkery Beacon on Easter morn is certainly older than the first
Roman galley that beached in our bays.

Dunkery Beacon is the highest peak in the West of England; it rises
above Exmoor black and bold above bog and heather, commanding a view
from the Malvern Hills of Worcestershire on the north to the high lands
of Plymouth on the south-west, two hundred miles distant the one from
the other. The great sweep of the Bristol Channel shines below it on
the west, and beyond that lie the blue hills of Monmouthshire and
Pembrokeshire; eastward the counties of Somerset, Devon, and Dorset lie
under the eyes, and on a clear day it has been computed that no fewer
than fifteen counties can be seen from this one eminence.

[Illustration: Dunkery Beacon, from Horner Woods]

So notable a height might well have been chosen by those Druid peoples
as a fitting stage for the celebration of their worship, and the
tradition which holds it "lucky" to climb the Beacon on a spring
morning is just such a memory and faint superstition as lingers from an
old and forgotten faith. The country-folk round Keswick used to drive
their cattle up to the Druid circle on the hill-top near on the first
of May, light a fire within the circle, and drive their cattle through
the smoke "for luck," unconscious that they were remembering the
worship of the god Moloch, to whom beasts and human beings were
sacrificed at his Asiatic shrines by passing them through the fire.

On Dunkery Beacon, so far as I can ascertain, there are no remains of a
Druid circle, but only two stone platforms arranged for beacon fires.
As a beacon it has been used for many hundred years. In the time of
Alfred the Great it f