On Revisiting Stonehenge After An Interval Of Some Years I
Looked For My Sparrows And Failed To Find Them.
It was at the
breeding-season, when they would have been there had they
still existed.
No doubt the little colony had been extirpated
by a sparrow-hawk or by the human guardians of "The Stones,"
as the temple is called by the natives.
It remains to tell of my latest visit to "The Stones." I had
resolved to go once in my life with the current or crowd to
see the sun rise on the morning of the longest day at that
place. This custom or fashion is a declining one: ten or
twelve years ago, as many as one or two thousand persons would
assemble during the night to wait the great event, but the
watchers have now diminished to a few hundreds, and on some
years to a few scores. The fashion, no doubt, had its origin
when Sir Norman Lockyer's theories, about Stonehenge as a Sun
Temple placed so that the first rays of sun on the longest day
of the year should fall on the centre of the so-called altar
or sacrificial stone placed in the middle of the circle, began
to be noised about the country, and accepted by every one as
the true reading of an ancient riddle. But I gather from
natives in the district that it is an old custom for people to
go and watch for sunrise on the morning of June 21.
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