are, at least, seven celebrated 'rocking-stones' in Galicia."[1]
Such is the evidence that we can gather from the megalithic monuments still existing in north-western Spain. Whether or no the early prospectors for tin set them up as objects for worship is uncertain, but that they were venerated by subsequent inhabitants is clear both from the prohibitions against their worship issued by the Councils of Toledo, and by the sanctity in which they are held at the present day.
Little if anything is known of the religion of the Iberians, or of the Celts who settled later in Galicia, before their land became part of the Roman Empire, and it seems unlikely that the beliefs of the conquerors were adopted to any great extent beyond the limits of the towns. We may assume too, I think, that the same was equally true of Christianity, which must have reached the peninsula before the close of the first century, though we have little evidence of its spread here during these early days. Doubtless after the time of Constantine the country became nominally Christian, but the new religion, as elsewhere in the Roman Empire, was largely confined to the inhabitants of the civitates or cities, while the pagani or heath-men, the dwellers in the villages, adhered to their old beliefs.
The coming of the Vandals in 410 could have made little difference to the religion of the country, as they soon passed on to North Africa, though the Suevi, who had accompanied them, remained in Galicia. Later in the same century arrived the Visigoths, who established their rule throughout the peninsula, but permitted the Suevi to hold Galicia as a feudal kingdom. Whatever may have been the religious views of their conquerors, it is probable that it made little impression on the peasants; the Suevi and Visigoths became a noble caste, mixing little with their subject people, who, if they were nominally con-
- ↑ Borlase (W. C.), op. cit. 651, 653.
