Excerpts from 'The Antiquities of Cornwall'

William Borlase

'Antiquities of Cornwall' was first published in 1754, fourteen years after Stukeley's seminal work on Stonehenge. Borlase considered certain Cornish rock-formations and neolithic earthworks to have been built by druids. His account, which incorporated multiple references to the Old Testament and a basic Cornish-English dictionary, remained influential for several generations.

It is the usual observation of Foreigners that the English Travellers are too little acquainted with their own Country...Gentlemen return captivated with the Medals, Statues, Pictures and Architecture of Greece and Italy, they have seldom any relish for the ruder products of Ancient Britain...

I must not forget to acknowledge that this branch of Antiquity is great obliged to the labours of the learned and ingenious Dr Stukely...

It is in vain to enquire at what time this island of Britain first receiv’d it’s inhabitants....this cannot be suppos’d to be very long after the dispersion of mankind at Babel

Thus much then most agreeable to truth, that our first inhabitants came from Gaul....

As we came from Gaul so we had the same language which he ancient Gauls us’d...

Like the people of Canaan and Moab (the Druids) dyed their altars with human gore. Groves they chose to worship in, as the Canaanites did...performing their sacred rites only under the consecrated oak.

In order to make a proper estimate and form a right judgment of this Idolatry of Britain, it will be necessary to give a short survey of the rise of Idolatry in general; the false Deities that were at different times substituted in the room of the true one.

The sacrifices of the heathens were ordain’d to consist not of sheep, or oxen as at first but of those things which were most precious to the heart of man, as human victims and even their own children...afterwards their drink-offerings were the blood of their victims.

Pliny says that the Britans were so excessively devoted to all the mysteries of magic that they might seem to have taught even the Persians themselves that art.

It was general custom to chuse for their places of worship Woods which stood on the tops of hills...The trees of this grove were all consecrated by sprinkling them with the blood of human victims.

That Altar which was for offering human victims must have been very different from what they used on less solemn occasions: there are many flat large rocks on Karnbre-hill which probably might have been appropriated to this horrid rite...of such holocaust Altars we have some I think remaining still in the higher parts of the parish of Gullval...

One Druid sacrifice was still more monstrous. They made a huge image of straw the limbs of it were joined together and shaped by wickerwork: this sheath or case they filled with human victims...

It looks as if the Druids turned the body Sunways in their Worship, and not from right to left as Pliny intimates.

In Cornwall we have Karn-Gollewag, that is Karn of Lights and Larn Leskyz, Karn of Burnings both called so probably from the Druid Fires kindled on those Karns.

Their (the woman-Druid) most solemn Rite of Divining was, by examining accurately the entrails of their victims; an universal practice among the Gentiles...

Another Relick of such Druid fancies and incantations is doubtless the custom of sleeping on stones on a particular night in order to be cured of lameness...

We have in Cornwall Rocks of that grandeur, remarkable shape and surprising position, as can leave us in no doubt but that they must have been the Deities of people addicted so much to the superstition of worshiping Rocks. Rocks were first chose as it seems to me to represent the Gods from the firmness of the substance...

on stone circles The Druids were extreamly addicted to Magick in which Art the Circle was esteemed essentially necessary to carry on all the nefarious Rites of Witchcraft, and Necromancy;

It is very unlikely if not impossible, that ever the Cromleh (Quoit) should have been an Altar for Sacrifice, for the top of it is not easily to be got upon, much less a fire to be kindled on it, sufficient to consume the Victim...

I shall here describe the large flat Stone on Karn-bre with the Basons wrought into its surface...they (the druids) made these Basons for the purpose of collecting Rain and Snow-Water....the Druids used Water-Purifications because these Basons could service no other use.