It is not necessary for me to deal at length with the great Aryan controversy in this book, even if the subject were within my competence, which it is not; but now that we have a large number of monuments dated, say, within twenty years of their use, it is important to bring forward some dates arrived at by archæologists and philologists to compare with those which the astronomical method of inquiry has revealed. Hall[90] gives evidence to show that the Aryans did not reach Greece till after the earlier period of the Mycenæan age, which he dates at about 1700 B.C. With regard to the date of the Aryan invasion of Britain, Mr. Read, of the Department of Ethnography, British Museum, informs me that it may be taken as about 1000 B.C.; it was associated with cremation. It is highly probable that these Aryans were the Goidels or the Gael. These were followed some 700 years later by another Aryan sept--the Brythons. Mr. Read is also of opinion that the Goidels reached Britain from the country round the South Baltic, and the Brythons from or through north-east France. Archæologists, however, recognise a pre-Aryan invasion, about 1800 B.C. (a date determined by the introduction of bronze), of a brachycephalic folk who built covered barrows, different in these respects from the neolithic folk, who were long-skulled and built long barrows. Now, in relation to the stone structures to which this book especially refers, the question arises, are we then dealing with this swarm or the people whom they found on the soil? There are some indications in the traditions which imply that we are really dealing with an early stone age, when flints were the only weapons, and there were no clothes to speak of. I will give one or two examples of these traditions. Gomme (p. 53) refers to a singular fact preserved among the ceremonies of witchcraft in Scotland: “In order to injure the waxen image of the intended victim, the implements used in some cases by the witches were stone arrowheads, or elf-shots, as they were called, and their use was accompanied by an incantation. Here we have, in the undoubted form of a prehistoric implement, the oldest untouched detail of early life which has been preserved by witchcraft.” Gomme (p. 39) also tells us that one of the May practices at Stirling is for boys of ten and twelve years old to divest themselves of their clothing, and in a state of nudity to run round certain natural or artificial circles. “Formerly the rounded summit of Demyat, an eminence in the Ochil range, was a favourite scene of this strange pastime, but for many years it has been performed at the King’s Knot, in Stirling, an octagonal mound in the Royal Gardens. The performances are not infrequently repeated at Midsummer and Lammas.” He adds, “The fact that in this instance the practice is continued only by ‘boys of ten and twelve years old,’ shows that we have here one of the last stages of an old rite before its final abolition.”