stones, or four outlying stones at equal distances, for the four
seasons, the regents of the year. By counting the stones in each circle
we can tell to which division of the year they belonged, whether the
solar months or the lunar mansions.

But with all ancient nations the cycle of the year was only the symbol
of the spiritual cycle of the soul, the path of birth and death. We
must remember that even for ourselves the same symbolism holds: in the
winter we celebrate the Incarnation; in spring, the Crucifixion; in
summer, the birth of the beloved disciple; in autumn, the day of All
Souls, the feast of the dead. Thus for us, too, the succeeding seasons
only symbolize the stages of a spiritual life, the august procession
of the soul.

We cannot think it was otherwise with a people who lived and built so
majestically for the hidden world; these great stone circles symbolized
for them, we must believe, the circling life of the soul, the cycle of
necessity, with the door of liberation to the home of the blest, who
have reached perfect freedom and go no more out. We may picture in
imagination their solemn celebrations; priests robed, perhaps, in the
mingled green and purple of their hills, passing within the circle,
chanting some archaic hymn of the Divine.



IV.

THE DE DANAANS.

In the dim days of Fomorian and Firbolg, and for ages after, Erin was a