" You
must still learn what a _pierre fichade_, a _pierre fiche_, a _pierre
fixee_ are, and what is meant by a _haute borne_, a _pierre latte_ and a
_pierre lait_; in what a _pierre fonte_ differs from a _pierre fiette_,
and what connection there is between a _chaire a diable_ and a _pierre
droite_; then you will be as wise as ever were Pelloutier, Deric, Latour
d'Auvergne, Penhoet and others, not forgetting Mahe and Freminville.
Now, all this means a _pulvan_, also called a _men-hir_, and designates
nothing more than a stone of greater or lesser size, placed by itself in
an open field.
I was about to forget the tumuli! Those that are composed of silica and
soil are called "barrows" in high-flown language, while the simple heaps
of stones are "gals-gals."
People have pretended that when they were not tombs the "dolmens" and
"trilithes" were altars, that the "fairy rocks" were assembling places
or sepultures, and that the business meetings at the time of the Druids
were held in the "cromlechs." M. de Cambry saw in the "swaying rocks"
the emblems of the suspended world. The "barrows" and "gals-gals" have
undoubtedly been tombs; and as for the "men-hirs," people went so far as
to pretend that they had a form which led to the deduction that a
certain cult reigned throughout lower Brittany.
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