The Mên-an-Tol ( Cornish: ''Men an Toll'') is a small formation of

standing stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be fou ...

s in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...

, UK (). It is about three miles northwest of

Madron Madron ( kw, Eglos Madern) is a civil parish and village in west Cornwall, Great Britain. Madron is named after Saint Madern's Church. Its annual Trafalgar Service commemorating the death of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson was started on 27 Oc ...

. It is also known locally as the "Crick Stone".

Location

The Mên-an-Tol stands near the Madron to

Morvah Morvah is a civil parish and village on the Penwith peninsula in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Geography The village is centred approximately eight miles (13 km) west-southwest of St Ives and north-west of Penzance.Ordnance Su ...

road in

. Other antiquities in the vicinity include the Mên Scryfa inscribed stone about 300 metres to the north and the Boskednan stone circle less than 1 kilometre to the northeast.

Etymology

The name ''Men an Toll'' in Cornish means "the stone of the hole".

Description

The Mên-an-Tol consists of three upright

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

stones: a round stone with its middle holed out with two standing stones to each side, in front of and behind the hole. When seen at an angle from one side, the stones form a three-dimensional "101". The two side stones are both about 1.2 metres high. The westernmost stone was moved and brought into a straight line with the other two stones sometime after 1815.MEN AN TOL
Pastscape, retrieved 9 November 2013 The holed stone is roughly octagonal in outline. It is 1.3 metres wide and 1.1 metres high; the circular hole is 0.5 m in diameter. The only other holed stone in Cornwall of this type is the

Tolvan holed stone The Tolvan holed stone is a triangular-shaped Neolithic standing stone. The monument is 2.3 m high and consists of a circular hole near its base measuring 43 cm in diameter. The megalithic stone is located in the garden of Tolvan Cr ...

which can be seen in a garden near

Helston Helston ( kw, Hellys) is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated at the northern end of the Lizard Peninsula approximately east of Penzance and south-west of Falmouth.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map ...

. There is one other standing stone nearby, and six recumbent stones, some of which are buried. A

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...

exists as a low stony mound just to the southeast. There are two other early Bronze Age barrows or cairns between 120 and 150 metres to the north.

Interpretation

The Mên-an-Tol is thought to date to either the late

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

or early

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

. The holed stone could originally have been a natural occurrence rather than deliberately sculpted. The distribution of the stones around the site has led to the suggestion that the monument is actually part of a

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The ...

. If so, then it is likely that the stones have been rearranged at some point, and the two standing stones either side of the holed stone may have been moved from their original positions. It has also been suggested that the holed stone could have been a capstone for the nearby cairn before being moved to its present position.

History

In 1749 the site was first archaeologically investigated by

William Borlase William Borlase (2 February 169631 August 1772), Cornish antiquary, geologist and naturalist. From 1722, he was Rector of Ludgvan, Cornwall, where he died. He is remembered for his works ''The Antiquities of Cornwall'' (1754; 2nd ed., 1769) ...

, who also drew a plan. This shows that the megaliths were not in a line like today, but formed an angle of about 135°. Borlase also reported that farmers had taken away some stones from the area. From him comes the first written record of the myths and rituals. In the 19th Century the local antiquary

John Thomas Blight : ''For the Australian poet, see John Blight.'' John Thomas Blight FSA (27 October 1835 – 23 January 1911) was a Cornish archaeological artist born near Redruth in Cornwall, England, UK. His father, Robert, a teacher, moved the family to P ...

published several drawings of the site, and made the first suggestion that the stones could be the remains of a stone circle. In 1872

William Copeland Borlase William Copeland Borlase (5 April 1848 – 31 March 1899) was a British antiquarian and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 until 1887 when he was ruined by bankruptcy and scandal. Early life Borlase was born at Cas ...

, a descendant of the earlier Borlase, gave a more detailed description of the area. In 1932

Hugh O'Neill Hencken Hugh O'Neill Hencken (January 8, 1902 – August 31, 1981) was an American archaeologist who specialized in Iron Age Europe. He was curator of European archaeology at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, from 1932 to 1972. Career O'Neill H ...

wrote the first modern archaeological report. He believed that the position of the stones was not the prehistoric arrangement, but had been significantly changed. He also thought that the holed stone might be part of a destroyed tomb. He was even told that local farmers with back or limb complaints would crawl through the hole to relieve their pain. In 1993, the Cornwall ''Historic Environment Service'' published a detailed report with the latest research results. They suggested that the standing stones originated from a stone circle which consisted of 18 to 20 stones. The holed stone, however, could be part of a nearby portal tomb. It also possible that the holed stone stood at the center of the stone circle and served to frame specific points on the horizon. Such a use of a holed stone is not known in other sites,Ann Preston-Jones, (1993), ''The Men-an-Tol. Management and Survey'', Historic Environment Service, Cornwall County Council although the nearby stone circle of Boscawen-Un does have a central standing stone.

In folklore

Mên-an-Tol is supposed to have a

fairy A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, ...

or piskie guardian who can make miraculous cures. In one story, a

changeling A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fairi ...

baby was put through the stone in order for the mother to get the real child back. Evil piskies had changed her child, and the ancient stones were able to reverse their evil spell.Evans-Wentz, W. Y. (1911) ''The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries''. London: H. Frowde (Reprinted 1981 by Colin Smythe. ) p. 179 Local legend claims that if at

full moon The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This mea ...

a woman passes through the holed stone seven times backwards, she will soon become pregnant. Another legend is that passage through the stone will cure a child of rickets (

osteomalacia Osteomalacia is a disease characterized by the softening of the bones caused by impaired bone metabolism primarily due to inadequate levels of available phosphate, calcium, and vitamin D, or because of resorption of calcium. The impairment of bon ...

). For centuries, children with rickets were passed naked through the hole in the middle stone nine times.

Popular culture

Many of the visitors to Mên-an-Tol have their photograph taken placing their heads through the central hole. The Cornish poet

D. M. Thomas Donald Michael Thomas (born 27 January 1935), is a British poet, translator, novelist, editor, biographer and playwright. His work has been translated into 30 languages. Working primarily as a poet throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Thomas's 1981 ...

referred to Mên-an-Tol as "the wind's vagina". The song "Men-An-Tol" appears on the ''

Zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. ...

'' album by the Levellers. The Men-An-Tol also features prominently in the novel '' The Little Country'' by Charles de Lint. "Mén-An-Tol" is the name of a level in the 2017 game ''

Monument Valley 2 ''Monument Valley 2'' (stylized as ''Monument Valley II'') is an indie puzzle game developed and published by Ustwo Games. It is the sequel to the 2014 game '' Monument Valley''. It was released for iOS in June 2017, and released for Android in ...

''. "Mén-An-Tol" is a song on the 2018 album '' The Four Worlds'' by Mark Pritchard. "Men an Toll" is a piece on the 2022 Cornish language album ''Tresor'' by

Gwenno Gwenno Mererid Saunders (born 23 May 1981) is a Welsh musician, known by the stage name Gwenno. She has released three critically-acclaimed albums as a solo artist: Welsh Music Prize winner''Y Dydd Olaf (album), Y Dydd Olaf'' (2014); ''Le Kov'' ...