Licurgus, that gaue first lawes to the Lacedemones (a
people in Grece), ordayned that the children there shulde be
taught as diligently to daunse in armure, as to fight. And
that in time of warres, they shulde meue them in bataile
againe their enemies in fourme and maner of daunsinge.>
Semblably the olde inhabitantes of Ethiopia, at the ioyn-
inge of their batailes, and whan the trumpettes and other in-
strumentes soune, they daunse ; and in stede of a quiuer, they
haue their dartes set about their heddes, like to rayes or bemes
of the sonne, wherwith they beleue that they put their ene-


@ The Rev. J. B. Deane, in his observations on Dracontia and the Druidical
remains at Carnac in Brittany, mentions the existence of a very curious custom
still observed at Erdeven. ‘At an annual festival held on the day of the Carnival,
the villagers unite in a general dance, which by its figure describes accurately the
Ophite hierogram of the Circle and Serpent. The dancers commence in a circle,
and, having performed a few revolutions, wheel off to the right and left in the
same manner as their temple recedes from Kerlescant. They call this dance far
excellence **Le Bal.” Now this word may mean nothing more than the common
French word ‘‘bal”—a public dancing. But it is fossid/e that it may be the
original sacred dance of Baal, from whom it may take its name, which, in process
of time, and through change of religions and manners, became used more gene-
rally to signify a Ball, in the present acceptation of the word. Dancing was one
of the most ordinary and most important of the idolatrous rites in all heathen
religions ; and the cércular dance was preferred to all others. Α tradition of this
circular dancing peeps through the fables which. we before noticed as common
respecting the Druidical temples in England, namely, that the stones were human
beings petrified in the midst of a dance. Now all the temples to which such
superstitions are attached are civcudar. May not then the circular dance, similar to
that practised at Erdeven, have been the ordinary accompaniment of an Ophite
festival ?’—Archeologia, vol. xxv. p. 217.
