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OF THE DRUIDS. 143
needs infer, that they were burying places; forget
what Cesar, Pliny, Tacitus, and other authors,
write of the human sacrifices offer'd by the Druids
and, in mistaking the ashes found in the earns,
they show themselves ignorant of those several anniversary
fires and sacrifices, for which they were
rear'd, as we have shown above. The huge coping
stones of these earns were in the nature of altars,
and altars of the lesser form are frequently
found near them; as now in the great Latin and
Greec churches, there are, besides the high altar,
several smaller ones.
XIV. There's another kind of altar much bigger
than either of these, consisting of a greater
number of stones ; some of 'em serving to support
the others, by reason of their enormous bulk.,
These the Britons term Cromlech in the singular,
Cromlechu in the plural number; and the Iri&h
Cr&mleach or Cromleac, in the plural Cromleacha
or Cromleacca. By these altars, as in the center
of the circular temples, there commonly stainds
(or by accident lyes) a prodigious stone, which
was to serve as a pedestal to some deity: for all
these Cromleachs were places of worship, and so
call'd from bowing, the word signifying the bowing-stone*.
The original designation of the idol
Crui^-cruach (whereof in the next section) may
syell be from Cruim, an equivalent word to Tair-
* From crom or crum, which, in Armoric, Irish, and Welsh,
«ignifies.Jc«?/ aod Lech or Leac, a broad s(one.