3-034-650 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Druidic remains of Brittany: Stones of St. Barbe, 1871. Ancient site in northern France. 'Some Illustrations were given last week of the supposed remains of the Serpent Temple, formed of huge blocks of granite ranged in parallel waved lines, which visit in the neighbourhood of Carnac, in Brittany. It was mentioned that beyond the lines of Carnac, which extend over a space of three miles, there are stones of a similar character at St. Barbe, a little way to the west;...although we may think it doubtful...that [the stones] were ranged in this close order by the hand of man, there is some plausibility in the tradition that their collective resemblance to the form of a huge serpent, the object of superstitious worship, led the heathen of a remotes age to venerate the Carnac lines as an emblem of the deity, and to resort thither as to a divinely-constructed temple'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.