English: Identifier: annalsantiquitie01nich

Title: Annals and antiquities of the counties and county families of Wales; containing a record of all ranks of the gentry ... with many ancient pedigrees and memorials of old and extinct families Year: 1872 (1870s) Authors: Nicholas, Thomas, 1820-1879 Subjects: Publisher: London, Longmans, Green, Reader Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center Digitizing Sponsor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center

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Text Appearing Before Image: ionis not seen, the impressive gloom of the silent forest is not felt, the deep tones of thevenerable Druid priest are not heard ; but the same sea moans in the distance, and thesame heavens look down overhead, and the very stones of the same cromlech are stillthere, the one upon the other. Gone is everything human,—bard, Druid, and prince, withthe song, the sacrifice, and the sword; the dance, the war-shout, and tlie clash of battle ;and there remain alone a riddle which we cannot solve, and a lesson of wisdom as to c ig AXCI.ESKV. t:ic passing nature of human things and the littleness of our own brief day, we cannot refuseto learn. Macn/iirs, or Enrt Sfoiia.—Anglesey contains a good number of these stones, called inBrittany menhirs, and in that country greatly exceeding in size those of Wales—some ofthem measuring as much as forty or fifty feet in height, as those at Ilouarzel near Brest-while those at Lokmiriaker, now i)roUrate, measure above sixty feet long, with breadth and

Text Appearing After Image: Meniiii;s in UkiriANv. thickness |)roportionate. The mcnliirs of Anglesey seldom exceed twelve or fourteen feetin height, and possibly, therefore, correspond to the stones in IJrittany called penlvcu, pillarstone, which number many hundreds in the great field of Carnac alone. In Anglesey thereis apparent no plan or method in the distribution of the menhirs, nor is there visible, exceptdoubtfully in two or three instances, any relation between them and the cromlechs; whereasin Brittany they often stand in rows parallel to, and equidistant from each other, like thepillars of an Oriental temple, with wider distances, and are so often in close jiroximity tothe cromlechs as to argue some purposed and systematic correlation. The arrangement inrows is shown in the accompan\ing illustration from a photograph by Reeve, and it is seen thatthe farmer has utilized the menhirs to form fences between his narrow fields. Two colossalfallen menhirs at Lokmariaker, Brittany, measuring respectively 27 f

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