Page 128 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

that strangers passing through care to know of the rites which
take place within the ring-mounds; the cautious traders give

them a wide berth, and even the boldest apprentices never step
over the shadow of the sunrise pillar.
On this occasion a new temple enclosure has been conse­
crated, the biggest that has ever been made. The tribes of the

valley folk have gathered in strength for the occasion, and
the Downland farmers, too, attend in great numbers. Where
many people gather there is always business for a smart trader,

and they also have gathered in force as midsummer day ap­
proaches. A vast concourse of people is come together in the
broad hollow below the high ground of Salisbury Plain, and their
skin tents and wattle shelters stand in scattered groups over more

than a square mile of heather. On the broad spur near the bot­
tom of the valley the chosen workers have already completed the
perfect circle of the ring-mound, over a hundred yards in diame­

ter, with its surrounding ditch. It stands out with the white of
virgin chalk against the green. Now they are engaged in erecting
the Hele stone, the immense monolith sited just outside the

only gap in the ring-mound, on the northeast side of the circle.
The young men from the north have watched, from the slopes
above, how the great stone is pushed up on rollers to the edge

of the reinforced hole prepared for it, and levered upright by
the united efforts of scores of men hauling on ropes and strain­
ing on poles. There is some very intricate final adjustment of the

bedding of the stone, with much sighting by the architect in
charge from the center of the circle. But this is only to be ex­
pected; everyone knows that it is necessary that the rays of the

Great Sun, rising on midsummer day, shall cast the shadow of the
stone exactly upon the center of the ring-mound. In the meantime
the architect’s assistants are measuring out the interior of the

ring, with ropes stretched from the midpoint, and placing pegs
at exact intervals in a circle within the mound. And workers are
following them, digging circular holes half a man deep and over

a yard across at each point marked by a peg. And the priests are
everywhere, surveying the work done, blessing the tools and the
workers at each day’s beginning, pouring libations, and reading

omens.