Note 184 — Chapter XIII

One is apt to talk of this introductory passage as though it had actually penetrated a previously existing mound. But the construction of all those chambered mounds shows plainly that the original stone structure, not only the central building but the long passage of approach, was originally reared upon the surface of the level ground, in the open air. And that the "fairy hillock" had no existence at all until the builders of the stone structure had heaped above it all—chamber and gallery—the mass of earth and stones that afterwards transformed the whole exterior into a "green hillock," and thus completely disguised its real nature from all but the initiated.