“The place is distinguished by a parcel of stones set on edge, and enclosing a piece of ground raised a few feet above the common level, which every one knows was the custom of the Danes, as well as of some other northern nations. And Wormius observes, that if any Danish chief was slain in a foreign country, they took care to bury him as pompously as if he had died in his own. Mr. Aubrey’s account of it is this: ‘About a mile [or less] from the Hill [White Horse Hill] there are a great many large stones, which, though very confused, must yet be laid there on purpose. Some of them are placed edgewise, but the rest are so disorderly that one would imagine they were tumbled out of a cart.’ The disorder which Mr. Aubrey speaks of is occasioned by the people having thrown down some of the stones (for they all seem originally to have been set on edge), and broken them to pieces to mend their highways. Those that are left enclose a piece of ground of an irregular figure at present, but which formerly might have been an oblong square, extending only north and south. “On the east side of the southern extremity stand three squarish flat stones of about four or five feet over each way, set on edge, and supporting a fourth of much larger dimensions, lying flat upon them. These altogether form a cavern or sheltering-place, resembling pretty exactly those described by Wormius, Bartholine, and others, except in the dimensions of the stones; for whereas this may shelter only ten or a dozen sheep from a storm, Wormius mentions one in Denmark that would shelter a hundred. “I know of no other monument of this sort in England; but in Wales and the Isle of Anglesey there are several not unlike it, called by the natives _Cromlechs_. The Isle of Anglesey having been the chief seat of the Druids, induced its learned antiquary to ascribe them to the ancient Britons; an assertion that I will not take upon me to contradict, but shall only at this time observe, that I find sufficient authorities to convince me that ours must be Danish. “Whether this remarkable piece of antiquity ever bore the name of the person here buried is not now to be learned, the true meaning of it being long since lost in ignorance and fable. All the account which the country people are able to give of it is, ‘At this place lived formerly an invisible smith; and if a traveller’s horse had lost a shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the horse to this place, with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and find the money gone, but the horse new shod.’ The stones standing upon the _Rudgeway_, as it is called (which was the situation that they chose for burial monuments), I suppose gave occasion to the whole being called Wayland Smith, which is the name it was always known by to the country people.