to wane again to a
sickle of light, and presently to lose herself in darkness at new moon.
From full moon to full moon, or from one new moon to another, the
nearest even measure is thirty days; a circle of thirty stones would
record this, as the larger circle of thirty-six recorded the solar year.
In three years there are thrice twelve full moons, with one added; a
ring of thirty-seven stones representing this would show the simplest
relation between sun and moon.

The moon, as we saw, stealthily glides among the fixed stars, gaining
her own width every hour. Passing thus along the mid belt of the sphere,
she makes the complete circuit in twenty-seven days, returning to the
same point among the stars, or, if it should so happen, to the same
star, within that time. Because the earth has meanwhile moved forward,
the moon needs three days more to overtake it and gain the same relative
position towards earth and sun, thus growing full again, not after
twenty-seven, but after thirty days. Circles of twenty-seven and thirty
days would stand for these lunar epochs, and would, for those who
understood them, further bear testimony to the earth's movement in its
own great path around the sun. Thus would rings of varying numbers mark
the measures of time; and not these only, but the great sweep of orbs
engendering them, the triumphal march of the spheres through pathless
ether. The life of our own world would thus be shown bound up with the
lives of others in ceaseless, ever-widening circles, that lead us to the
Infinite, the Eternal.

All the cromlechs and circles we have thus far recorded are in the
western half of our land; there are as many, as worthy of note, in the
eastern half. But as before we can only pick out a few. One of these
crowns the volcanic peak of Brandon Hill, in Kilkenny, dividing the
valleys of the Barrow and Nore. From the mountain-top you can trace the
silver lines of the rivers coming together to the south, and flowing
onward to the widening inlet of Wexford harbor, where they mingle with
the waters of the River Suir. On the summit of Brandon Hill stands a
great stone circle, a ring of huge basalt blocks dominating the rich
valleys and the surrounding plain.

In Glen Druid of the Dublin hills is a cromlech whose granite crown
weighs seventy tons. Not far off is the Mount Venus cromlech, the
covering block of which is even more titanic; it is a single stone
eighty tons in weight. Near Killternan village