In addition to the several kinds of crosses above enumerated, some writers name "weeping crosses." What is meant by a weeping cross is not clear, nor has anyone pretended to assign to such edifices, if indeed they ever existed except in popular fallacy, any characteristic features by which they may be recognised as distinct from other crosses. For all practical purposes, then, the weeping cross is not. Or again, it might well have been in any given case that a cross was provided in order that a preacher might deliver his sermon from its steps. But unless such a cross was constructed with the architectural features of a pulpit cross (like those, for instance, at Iron Acton (Fig. 144) or the Blackfriars' Cross at Hereford (Fig. 143)) then surely it must only be reckoned with the normal type of churchyard or village cross, from which it differs in no particular whatever. In a word, the one standard by which the various crosses in the following pages are grouped and classified is not their respective use and purpose, real or imaginary, but their structural shape. II. MONOLITH CROSSES The peculiar form of many crosses of Cornish type, among others, viz., a thick, rude monolith, with rounded head, is accounted for by some authorities, who pronounce such crosses to be nothing else than primeval menhirs. These venerated stones, then, it is stated, instead of being demolished on the conversion of the populace from paganism, were retained, and, after having the crucifixion or some other Christian device incised, or sculptured in bas-relief, upon the upper portion of the shaft, pressed into the service of the newly adopted faith. Such, at any rate, was the practice of St Patrick, in the fifth century. It is true that if in any place he found the old superstitious worship too deep-rooted and perverse to admit of transformation, as it befell at Magh Sleacht, in County Cavan, where he encountered a group of thirteen pagan menhirs, he could not do but overthrow them without ruth; but whenever, on the other hand, as beside Lough Hacket, in County Galway, he found other menhirs, the popular regard for which was capable of being diverted into Christian channels, he spared the pillar-stones, sanctifying them with holy names and emblems.