[72] _Folklore_, 1892, p. 89. [73] _Pagan Ireland_, p. 145. [74] _Celtic Folklore, Manx and Welsh._ [75] _Pagan Ireland_, p. 160. [76] Hope, p. 14. [77] _The Land’s End District_, p. 72. [78] Edmunds, p. 72. [79] Hope, p. 40. [80] St. Cleer = St. Cledod, A.D. 482. The arms of St. Cleer are the Sun in its glory. [81] Description of Westmeath, 1682, quoted by Vallencey, i., 121. [82] Hazlitt, ii., 616. CHAPTER XXII WHERE DID THE BRITISH WORSHIP ORIGINATE? The recent chapters have, I think, established, by the evidence derived from folklore and tradition, that there was in the long past a combined worship of trees, wells and streams in the neighbourhood of sacred places, the sacred place being a stone circle or some other monument built up of stones. We have gathered also that the chief times of worship were on or near the most important dates defined for us by the May year, the original year marked out by the various agricultural and other operations proper to the various seasons. It is again imperative that I should point out that if the basis of this worship was not utility it must have been started by men sufficiently skilled to indicate by their astronomical knowledge the proper times for the various operations to which I have referred. In this we see the reason for the local combination of the worship in the neighbourhood of the stones, for the stones were really the instruments which enabled the astronomer-priest to be useful to the community; that he in process of time became powerful and sacred because he was wise, and added medicine and magic to his other qualifications, was only what was to be expected. I am not the first to have been driven by the facts to note the close association to which I have referred, that the cults were not separate but were parts of one whole. Wood-Martin speaks with the most certain sound on this point. “It will be seen that, from a review of the whole subject, stone, water, tree, and animal-worship are intimately connected.”[83] What the analysis in the recent chapters, taken in connection with the astronomical results previously stated, has done is perhaps to give a clear reason for the connection. Not only were the cults started together, but they remained together for a long time; it is only in quite late years that the traditions have become so dim that practices once closely connected are now dealt with apart from the rest. Hope points out (p. xxii) that the 16th of the canons of the reign of Edgar, A.D. 963, which enjoins the clergy to be diligent, advance Christianity, and extinguish heathenism, mentions especially the worship of stones, trees, and fountains. The laws of Knut (A.D. 1018) specify the worship “of heathen gods, the sun, moon, fire, rivers, fountains, rocks, or trees.” Now, although the folklore evidence I have brought together has been gathered for the most part from the British Isles, my inquiries have not been limited to that area.