Stone

1. Stone Circle

   If Stonehenge could be called a pre-Christian cathedral, this small antiquity near Land's End might be called a pre-Christian chapel, and is included as an example of such.

   If you drew a line from Newlyn or Mousehole to Saint Just, westernmost Cornwall, the Stone Circle would be in just the middle of the land thus marked off. Phyllis Ann Karr visited this one several years ago:

   I had a devil of a time finding it - had to go through a cow field or two - and have had a devil of a time relocating what I think to be the same one on my Ordnance Survey map of Land's End.

   The antiquity had been cleared out during the early part of our century, and apparently not since. The stones were each one about as tall as a person, and the circle perhaps as large in area as a good-sized living room; it was a very regular circle, in a good state of preservation, much overgrown with weeds and nettles.

   
   

2. Stone Cross, Chapel of the

   After leaving the hermitage of the Queen of the Waste Lands, Lancelot rode at random (Malory does not specify for how long) into a wild forest, where

   at the last he came to a stony cross which departed two ways in waste land; and by the cross was a stone that was of marble, but it was so dark that Sir Launcelot might not wit what it was.

   Looking around, he saw an old chapel. The door was "waste and broken", but within the chapel was a fair altar, richly arrayed with cloth of silk and a silver candlestick holding six candles. Lancelot found no way, however, to get inside, so he returned and slept by the cross. In the night, when he was between sleep and waking, he saw a knight borne to the chapel on a litter. The Grail arrived on a silver table and healed the sick knight. Afterward, including that Lancelot must be in some deadly sin because he had slept through the miracle, the newly healed knight took Lancelot's helm, sword, and horse. Lancelot then heard a voice speaking to him in symbols. Waking, he found a hermitage on a high hill, where the hermit (Nascien?) expounded the vision.

   The chapel might have been either in or near Listeneise. Cross Fell, near the joining of Durham, Cumberland, and Northumberland counties, might be a good place to put it.

   
   

3. Stone of Honor

   An enchanted site in Britain, perhaps in Wales. It was big enough for several people to sit on, but "would not endure a man in whom was falseness or malice".

   Ginover (Guinevere), Gawain, and Lancelot all managed to pass the test of the stone.

   
   

4. Stone of the Giant
   Perron de la Jaiande

   With this boulder, Meliadus, Tristan’s father, compared his strength with that of a giant. When Meliadus was able to lift the stone, he crushed the giant with it. Tristan was the only other knight able to heft the Stone of the Giant. When Lancelot tried, he failed.

   
   

5. Stone of the Stag
   Perron du Cerf

   A block of marble in the Plessis Wood.

   An inscription on the Stone of the Stag stated that marvels of the Holy Grail could be seen on the site, but that any knight - save Galahad - who stayed to see them would regret it. Yvain decided to brave the adventure anyway, and awoke the next morning to find himself wounded and his two companions slain.