for our purpose to mention a few distinct types. Menhirs or standing stones are not uncommon. "At Padron," says Borlase,[1] "is a monument consisting of a rude flight of steps leading up to a pillar-stone on the top of great rocks dedicated to the saint (St. James)." We shall have to refer again to this particular pillar-stone or menhir. Dolmens, too, are common, and are also looked upon as sacred; Fergusson states that at Cangas de Onis, in the Asturias, a dolmen forms the crypt of a small church, while at a place called Arrichinaga, about twenty-five miles from Bilbao, there is a large dolmen inside the Church of St. Michael.[2] An interesting detail from our point of view is a name frequently given to this type of monument, for Borlase tells us "in Galicia, and the north-eastern provinces bordering on the Pyrenees, the word arca is applied to dolmens, and to tumuli containing the cist exposed."[3]
Other monuments of the same series are, to quote the same writer, "those known by the name of 'Petrae Nofae,' used to denote graves hewn out of a single solid-stone. Such sepulchres were in use amongst the ancient inhabitants of the Serra da Estrella in Portugal. Signer Sarmento gives two examples from that country, and one from Galicia is figured by Signor José Villa-Amil, who calls it a Piedra Noffa. Naffus or Naufus, according to Ducange, was a term usually applied to a wooden sarcophagus. In any case it took its name from its resemblance to a ship."[4] A still further type, perhaps natural rather than artificial, was the rocking-stone, which here as elsewhere became an object of worship. Of this type Borlase says, "He (Signor Costa) cites also the Rocking-stone in Galicia called La Barca de Nuestra Señora, 'The ship of Our Lady,' to which a Christian legend is attached." "There
- ↑ Borlase (W. C. ), The Dolmens of Ireland, 652.
- ↑ Fergusson (J.), op. cit. 387.
- ↑ Borlase (W. C), op. cit. 636.
- ↑ Ibid. 657.
