If the ancient Welsh story could be believed, the blue stones
were brought over in ships from Ireland after an invasion of that
country under the direction of Merlin the Wizard, and were supposed to
be mystical stones with a medicinal value. As to the time of the
erection of these stones, we both agreed to relegate the matter to the
mists of antiquity. Some thought that because Vespasian's Camp was on
Amesbury Hill, Stonehenge might have been built by the Romans in the
time of Agricola, but others, judging perhaps from the ancient tombs in
the neighbourhood, thought it might date backwards as far as 2,000 years
B.C. Nearly all agreed that it was a temple of the worshippers of the
sun and might even have been erected by the Phoenicians, who must have
known how the Egyptians raised much heavier stones than these. By some
Stonehenge was regarded as the Round Temple to Apollo in the land of the
Hyperboreans, mentioned by Hecatoens in the sixth century B.C., and
after the Phoenicians it was supposed to have been used by the Greeks,
who followed them as traders with the British tin mines. According to
this theory, the Inner Ellipse or Horseshoe of Blue Stone was made by
them, the Druids adopting it as their temple at a much later date.
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