5

114 THE HISTORY
neafih Taran or Tarman, all signifying thunder;
whence the Romans call'd the Gallic Jupiter Taramis
or Taranis, the thunderer: and from these
Cromleachs it is, that in the oldest Irish a priest
is call'd Cruimthear, and priesthood Cruimtheacd,
Avhich are so many evident vestiges of the Druidical
religion*.
There's a Cromlech in Nevern-parish
in Pembrokeshire, where the middle stone is
still
18 foot high, and 9 broad towards the base,
growing narrower upwards. There lyes by it a
piece broken of 10 foot long, which seems more
than 20 oxen can draw: and therefore they were
not void of all skill in the mechanics, who could
set up the whole. But one remaining at Poitiers
in France, supported by five lesser stones, excedes
all in the British ilands, as being sixty foot in circumferencef
.
roching-stone :
Bod-ouyr in Anglesey.
1 fancy, however, that this was a
There's also a noble Cromleach at
Many of them, by a modest
computation, are 30 tun weight: but they
differ in bigness, as all pillars do, and their altai'S
are ever bigger than the ordinary Kistiew-vaen.
In some places of Wales these stones are call'd
* Of the same nature is Caimeach, of which before : for Sogttrt,
the ordinary word for a priest, is manifestly formed from
Sacerdos,
f La pierre levee de Poitiers a soisante pieds de tour, & elle
rst
posee sur cinq autres pierres, sans qu'on sache non plus nl
pourquoi, ni comment. Chevrcau, Memoires d'Atighteire,
page 380.