MIDSUMMER.

To sun worshippers no season would be better calculated to excite devotional feelings towards the great luminary than the period when he attained the zenith of his strength.  It is probable, therefore, that as his movements must have been closely observed, and his various phases regarded by the people, in the language of Scripture, “for signs and for seasons, for days and for years,” that the turning points in the sun’s yearly course, the solstices, would naturally become periods of worship.  That the Summer solstice was an important religious period is rendered probable from the following curious observation concerning Stonehenge, which appeared in the Notes and Queries portion of the Scotsman newspaper for July 31, 1875.  The Scotsman’s correspondent states that “a party of Americans went on midsummer morning this year to see the sun rise upon Stonehenge.  They found crowds of people assembled.  Stonehenge,” continues the writer, “may roughly be described as comprising seven-eighths of a circle, from the open ends of which there runs eastward an avenue having upright stones on either side.  At some distance beyond this avenue, but in a direct line with its centre, stands one solitary stone in a sloping position; in front of which, but at a considerable distance, is an eminence or hill.  The point of observation chosen by the excursion party was the stone table or altar near the head of, and within the circle, directly looking down.  The morning was unfavourable, but, fortunately, just as the sun was beginning to appear over the top of the hill, the mist disappeared, and then, for a few moments, the onlookers stood amazed at the spectacle presented to their view.  While it lasted, the sun, like an immense ball, appeared actually to rest on the isolated stone of which mention has been made.  Now, in this,” says a writer in the New Quarterly Magazine for January, 1876, commenting upon the statement of the Scotsman’s correspondent, “we find strong proof that Stonehenge was really a mighty almanack in stone; doubtless also a temple of the sun, erected by a race which has long perished without intelligible record.”

I think it is not a very fanciful supposition to suppose, from the still existing names of places in this country bearing reference to sun-worship, that there were other places than Stonehenge which were used as stone almanacks “for signs and for seasons,” and also for temples. Grenach in Perthshire, meaning Field of the Sun, where there is a large stone circle, may have been such a place; and Grian-chnox, now Greenock, meaning Knoll of the Sun, may have originally marked the place where the sun’s rising became visible at a certain period of the year, from a stone circle in the neighbourhood.  As far as I have been able to discover, there remains to us little trace of the manner in which the midsummer feast was kept in this country in prehistoric times,