Note 9 — Chapter V · Megalithic Monuments.

The megalithic monuments of Ireland are not less important, and a recent survey has reported no less than 276 still standing.9 The cromlechs of Moytura10 are supposed to commemorate the fearful combats which took place between the Firbolgs, or Belgæ as they are called by Irish antiquaries, and the Tuatha de Dananns, when the plains of Sligo and Meath were dyed with blood, before the former were vanquished and retired to Arran. There are still no less than fourteen dolmens and thirty-nine cromlechs. The bones picked up beneath the stone circles, which keep alive the memory of these sanguinary conflicts, are those of the warriors who fell on the battlefield, but the story of how they met their fate belongs rather to history than to the subject we are considering. It is the same with the two huge monoliths of Cornwall. which commemorate a battle between the Welsh King Howel Dha and the Saxon Athelstane, as well as with the cromlechs of Ostrogothland, where, in 736, took place the battle in which the old King Harold Hildebrand was overcome and killed by his nephew, Sigurd-Ring. A group of forty-four circles also marks the site of the celebrated combat of 1030, in which Knut the Great defied Olaf the patron saint of Norway. We may also name in this connection the twenty circles of stone erected at Upland in memory of the massacre of the Danish prince, Magnus Henricksson, in 1161. Yet another group of circles marks the spot where, about 1150, the Swedish heroine, Blenda, overcame King Sweyne Grate. We might easily multiply instances of the erection in historic times of similar monuments, but we have said enough to show that the megalithic form was by no means confined to prehistoric days.