Chapter Stone of Loda to Strap of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Stone of Loda to Strap

Stone of Loda, a place of worship amongst the ancient Gaels. —Ossian: Temora, v.

Stonehenge. Aurelius Ambrosius asked Merlin what memento he could raise to commemorate his victory over Vortigern; and Merlin advised him to remove “The Giant’s Dance” from mount Killaraus, in Ireland, to Salisbury Plain. So Aurelius placed a fleet and 15,000 men under the charge of Uther the pendragon and Merlin for the purpose. Gilloman king of Ireland, who opposed the invaders, was routed, and then Merlin, “by his art,” shipped the stones, and set them up on the plain “in the same manner as they stood on Killaraus.”— Geoffrey: British History, viii. 10-12 (1142).

How Merlin, by his skill and magic’s wondrous might,
From Ireland hither brought the Sonendge in a night.

Drayton: Polyolbion. iv. (1612).

Stonehenge, once thought a temple, you have found
A throne, where kings, our earthly gods, were crowned.

Dryden: Epistles, ii.

Stonehenge a Trophy. It is said, in the Welsh triads, that this circle of stones was erected by the Britons to commemorate the “treachery of the Long-Knives,” i.e. a conference to which the chief of the British warriors were invited by Hengist at Ambresbury. Beside each chief a Saxon was seated, armed with a long knife, and at a given signal each Saxon slew his Briton. As many as 460 British nobles thus fell, but Eldol earl of Gloucester, after slaying seventy Saxons (some say 660), made his escape. — Welsh Triads. (See Geoffrey’s British History, bk. vi. 15.)

Geoffrey says the signal of the onset was the utterance of the words Nemet oure Saxas, and that the number of the slain was 460.—Bk. vi. 15.

Stonehenge was erected by Merlin, at the command of Ambrosius, in memory of the plot of the “Long- Knives,” when 300 British chiefs were treacherously massacred by Vortigern. He built it on the site of a former circle. It deviates from older bardic circles, as may be seen by comparing it with Avebury, Stanton- Drew, Keswick, etc. It is called “The Work of Ambrosius.”—Cambrian Biography, art. “Merddin.”

Mont Dieu, a solitary mound close to Dumfermline, owes its origin, according to story, to some unfortunate monks, who, by way of penance, carried the sand in baskets from the sea-shore at Inverness.

At Linton is a fine conical hill attributed to two sisters (nuns), who were compelled to pass the whole of the sand through a sieve, by way of penance, to obtain pardon for some crime committed by their brother.

The Gog Magog Hills, near Cambridge, are ascribed to his Satanic majesty.

Stonewall Jackson, Thomas Jefferson Jackson, general in the southern army in the great civil war of the North American States. General Bee suggested the name in the battle of Bull Run (1861). “There is Jackson,” said he to his men, “standing like a stone wall” (1826–1863).

Stork (King), a tyrant, who (according to Homer) is a “devourer of his people,” and makes them submissive through fear. The allusion, of course, is to the fable of the Frogs asking for a King. Jupiter first sent them a log of wood, which they despised, so he next sent them a stork, which devoured them. (Read 1 Sam. viii.)

Storm (The Great) occurred November 26-7, 1703. This storm supplied Addison with his celebrated simile of the angel—

So when an angel by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o’er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased th’ Almighty’s orders to