I remember, when I was a child, between seventy and eighty years ago, being told that the stones could be successfully counted only by laying a loaf of bread beside each. To mark each stone by something to prevent one being missed or counted twice over seems natural ; but why a loaf of bread? [...] I think it probable that I had this from a nursery-maid who came from Mere in Wiltshire, and who had a taste for the marvellous.

O. Fisher.
Harlton, Cambridge, October 19.

After Emrys (ie Ambrosius) had tranquillized every place, he made a journey to Salisbury (ie Sarum) to behold the graves of those whom Hengistyr had caused to be slain of the British. At that time three hundred monks formed a community in the monastery of Ambri Mount; for so it was called, because it was founded by a person named Ambri. And Emrys was grieved to see that spot devoid of every mark of honour; so he summoned to him all the stone-masons and carpenters in Britain, to erect a trophy which whould be an eternal memorial around that sepulture. But after they had assembled together their ingenuity failed them;

thereupon Tramor, Archbishop of Caer-Llion, drew near, and thus spoke to Emrys: 'My Lord cause thou to come before thee Merdin (Merlin) the bard of Gortheyrn, for he is able to invent a wonderful structure, through his skill, to be of eternal duration.'

So Merdin was brought to Emrys; and the king was joyful to see him; and Emrys desired him to foretel the events that were to happen in this island. But Merdin replied: "It is not right to declare those things except when there is a necessity; and were I, on the contrary, to speak of them, the spirit that instructs me would depart, when I should stand in need of it." Upon that the king would not press him further, but enquired of him how he could invent a fair and lasting work over that spot.

Thereupon Merdin advised a journey to Ireland to the place where stood the Cor-y-Cawri, or the circle of the giants on the mountain of Cilara. For thereon he said, are stones of an extraordinary quality, of which nobody has any knowledge; for they are not to be obtained by might nor by strength, but by art, and were they at this place in the state they are there, they would stand to all eternity.

So Emrys said, laughingly, by what means can they be brought from thence? Merdin replied, laugh not, because I speak only seriousness and truth; those stones are mystical, and capable of producing a variety of cures; they were originally brought thither by giants from the extremities of Spain; and they placed them in their present position. The reason of their bringing them was, that when any of them was attacked by disease, they used to make a fomentation in the midst of the stones, first laving them with water, which they poured into the fomentation; and through that they obtained health from the disease that might affect them, for they put herbs in the fomentation; and those healed their wounds.

When the Britons heard of the virtues of those stones, immediately they set off to bring them. Uthyr Pendragon being commissioned to be their leader, taking 15,000 armed men with him; Merdin also was sent as being the most scientific of his contemporaries. At that time Gillamori reigned in Ireland, who, on hearing of their approach, marched against them with a great army, and demanded the object of their errand. Having learned their business, he laughed, saying, 'It is no wonder to me that a feeble race of men have been able to ravage the isles of Britain, when its natives are so silly as to provoke the people of Ireland to fight with them about stones.' Then they fought fiercely, and numbers were slain on both sides, until at length Gillamori gave way, and his men fled.

Then Merdin said, "Exert your utmost skill to carry the stones," but it availed them not. Merdin then laughed, and without any labour but by the effect of science, he readily brought the stones to the ships. So they then brought them to Mount Ambri.

Then Emrys summoned to him all the chiefs and graduated scholars of the kingdom, in order, through their advice, to adorn that place with a magnificent ornament. Thereupon they put the crown of the kingdom upon his head, celebrated the festival of Whitsuntide for three days successively; rendered to all in the island their respective rights; and supplied his men in a becoming manner with gold, silver, horses and arms.

So when every thing was prepared Emrys desired Merdin to elevate the stones as they were in Cilara; and this he accomplished. Then every body confessed that ingenuity surpassed strength.

So sacred are these stones that, "it is generally averred hereabouts," writes Aubrey, "that pieces of them putt into their Wells, doe drive away the Toades, with which their wells are much infested, and this course they use still. It is also averred that no Magpye, Toade, or Snake was ever seen here."

The common people about Stone-henge entertain a notion, that no one could ever count the number of the stones, as they now stand; and that, should any one succeed in this attempt, instant death would be the consequence of his temerity.

..a literary reference occurs in William Rowley's The Birth of Merlin, a play published in 1662, but believed.. to have been staged forty or fifty years previously.

..and when you die,
I will erect a monument upon the verdant plains of Salisbury:
no king shall have so high a sepulchre,
with pendulous stones that I will hang by art,
Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used,
a dark enigma to thy memory,
for none shall have the power to number them.

That the tradition was well known is indicated by the fact that King Charles II spent October 7, 1651, 'reckoning and rereckoning its stones in order to beguile the time'. Colonel Robert Phelips, who accompanied his sovereign, added, 'the King's Arithmetike gave the lye to that fabulous tale.

That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, "I dare!" would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following...

On Midsummer morning a party of Americans, who had left London for the purpose, visited Stonehenge for the purpose of witnessing the effects of the sunrise on this particular morning. They were not a little surprised to find that, instead of having the field all to themselves as they had expected, a number of people from all parts of the country side, principally belonging to the poorer classes, were already assembled on the spot. Inquiries failed to elicit any intelligible reason for this extraordinary early turn out of the population except this, that a tradition, which had trickled down through any number of generations, told them that at Stonehenge something unusual was to be seen at sunrise on the morning of the summer solstice.

Stonehenge may roughly be described as composing seven-eighths of a circle, from the open ends of which there runs eastward an avenue having upright stones on either side. At some distance beyond this avenue, but in a direct line with its centre, stands one solitary stone in a sloping position, in front of which, but at a considerable distance, is an eminence or hill. The point of observation chosen by the excursion party was the stone table or altar, near the head of and within the circle, directly looking down the avenue. The morning was unfavourable, but fortunately, just as the sun was beginning to appear over the top of the hill, the mist disappeared, and then for a few moments the on-lookers stood amazed at the phenomenon presented to their view. While it lasted, the sun, like an immense ball, appeared actually to rest on the isolated stone of which mention has been made, or, to quote the quaint though prosaic description of one present, ' it was like a huge pudding placed on a stone.'

[..] Unless it is conceivable that this nice orientation is the result of chance,—which would be hard to believe,—the inference is justifiable that the builders of Stonehenge and other rude monuments of a like description had a special design or object in view in erecting these cromlechs or circles, or whatever the name antiquarians may give them, and that they are really the manifestations of the Baalistic or sun worship professed by the early inhabitants of Great Britain [..]

JAY AITCH.

On the last day of the 19th century, two of the uprights of the outer Circle fell. There is an old saying that the fall of one of these stones foretells the death of a Sovereign. In January 1901, however, just before the seeming fulfilment of the omen in the death of Queen Victoria, the two newly fallen stones were raised and set up again. At the same time a worse thing was done amid the protests of all the old lovers of Stonehenge. The great Leaning Stone which for nearly three centuries had reclined on the top of a short bluestone in front of it, and in this posture was the central figure, so to speak, of the Stonehenge known to all who had ever visited Salisbury Plain and to the whole world beside through the drawings of Turner and Constable - this hoary monster, bowed under the weight of innumerable years, was dragged up from its recumbency, bolted, concreted, and stiffened into an unnatural uprightness and now stands rigid and awkward as an aged man stayed up into an affectation of youth.

A vicar he knew accompanied a small party there for a couple of days. The first day they wandered round the stones till they came upon the so-called Slaughter Stone. Here they paused, until a small dog in the party sat down and howled dismally. The next day they returned to the same spot and the dog repeated its performance. Everyone was most impressed and told Mr Lethbridge about it later. 'The dog knew,' they said.

Lethbridge had been very amused by this tale, because the stone's name is simply a piece of romantic supposition, and there is no evidence that the stone has ever had any sacrificial function. His interpretation of the event was that the dog had sensed the mood of the people as they looked at this 'site of slaughter' and had howled in response to their unease.