ON THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM "SARSEN STONES." 277
their "Cromlech and Druid Stones."2 Also that while peculiar
markings on rocks are in western Cornwall referred either to the
giants or the devil, in the eastern part of the county they are
almost always attributed to King Arthur. With regard to
mining traditions, Mr. Hunt notes the way in which "the Jew
and the Saracen and the Phoenician are regarded as terms
applied to the same people." Waste heaps in ancient tin mines
are termed "atall Sarazin." And in a Cornish-English Vocabu-
lary given in Polwhele's History of Cornwall (1808) is Sarsyn, a
Saracen. Cornwall probably was largely protected from piratical
raids by the extremely rugged nature of its coast.
In the Journal of the Ethnological Society (N.S.), Vol. II., there
is a paper by Lieut. Oliver, read in 1869, on "The Prehistoric
Remains of the Channel Islands." The author laments their
wholesale destruction in the half-century ending with the date of
his paper. He notes the existence, however, at the northern end
of Guernsey, not far from Bourdeaux Harbour, of a magnificent
Cromlech, known by the name of "L'Autel du Dehus," or
"L'Autel du Grand Sarazin." In the same locality is "Le
Tombeau du Grand Sarazin," which was partly destroyed in
1810. And Lieut. Oliver remarks that of a stone circle, which
once surrounded the first-named monument, only four or five
stones remain.
A most important paper, of much later date, is that by Mr.
Arthur J. Evans on "The Rollright Stones and their Folk-lore,"
which appears in Folk-lore : The Journal of the Folk-lore Society,
Vol. VI., 1895, pp. 6-51. Mr. Evans remarks that the name
Rollright takes us back to the time when Roland the Brave
stood forth as the legendary champion of Christendom against
the Paynim. He notes the general tendency to apply the names
of the legendary heroes of the early struggle between Christen-
dom and Islam to ancient monuments at the cost of earlier
associations. Then the influence of locality is such that at
Stanton Harcourt "the Devil is given the Quoits that west of
Offa's Dyke are Arthur's. Considering that the name of Roland
could hardly have been attached to the Rowldrich stones before the
10th or nth century, there seems at least a possibility that he
may have here actually displaced the British hero."
Mr. Evans remarks that there can be little doubt that the
3 Popular Romances of the West of England, etc. 2nd Ed., 1871. Hotten.