Why did early English people worship at stonehenge?
545409
They were a people who practiced an earth-based religion.  Most earth-based religions, then as now according to historical documentation, revered the cycles of the earth.  The Winter and Summer solstices were particularly important to agricultural peoples, so they were a big focus religiously.  Stonehenge frames the sun during the solstice.
574364
Because a tribe called the Angles / Engles once inhabited it. "England" literally means "land of the Angles."
92258
*Pondering* Through out the ages many religions and cultures used stones for prayer. Basically from Tibet and Buddhists to Holistic Medicine to Druids and Native Americans. Even Islam and Christianity uses prayer beads...\n\nPrayer beads are used by: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics and Wiccans among others. The earliest use of prayer beads has been traced to the Hindu faith of India. The purpose of prayer beads in these faiths is basically the same; strung beads help the devotee to count repeated devotional prayers. This custom spread from the East to the Middle East and then Europe. The superstitions associated with source materials used, numbers of beads, and religious legend and lore is unique to each faith. This knowledge came due to traveling missionaries or devotees of the organized faiths. They wrote down what they learned after observing the varied superstitions and ancient traditions of the people groups they encountered.\nhttp://www.thegratefulliving.com/PrayerBeadHistoryTeaching.htm\n\nSo the answer is yes, prayer stones are used world wide in many rituals, including healing...
1170287
It's an Anglophile \nThe Angles were a tribe that lived in what is now England and later developed into the word england (angle-land[say it a couple times fast])\nAnd -phile means love of, fondness or obsession of\n\nYou put it all together and it means love of things English\n\nP.S Britian includes England Scotland Whales and N. Ireland so this would be just love of the English but not the Scots, Welsh, or Irish
268328
This is one of the more interesting, bizarre questions I have ever read here.\n\nFrankly, I don't know. Is there something in any scripture that mentions this?\n\nChances are that it's an abomination to Wiccans, but what about other faiths?\n\nWhat if the stone will be used to build a church?\n\nIt's probably lack of sleep, but I'm honestly intrigued.
518043
According to Rabbi Maurice Lamm (author of "The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning") the custom of placing stones on the monument "probably serves as a reminder of the family's presence. [The evidence that this grave is attended, visited and cared for, is respectful for the deceased - NS]. Also, it may hark back to biblical days when the monument was a heap of stones. Often the elements or roving vandals dispersed them, and so visitors placed other additional stones to assure that the grave was marked."\nAlso, by placing a stone we further participate in the "construction" of the tombstone -- which in itself constitutes a mitzvah.\nIncidentally, it is not a Chabad custom to place stones on tombstones.\nWhat the person above mean't I have no idea,as it is nonsense,\nhope this helps explain it. \n\n                                     ~A~
679876
I am an American...was born and raised in Michigan....I am currently living in England about 45 min from London.  Its alright...it rains alot....but there is alot of history here and its really cool to see some of the old castles.  The Tower Of London is great but Stonehenge really wasn't that impressive.
958252
It's when you burn something to offer it to a god or gods, usually on an altar made for this purpose - made of stone and outside.  Many ancient cultures practiced this; it was believed that the smoke rising to heaven and the transformation via fire sent the essence of the grain or lamb or whatever, to the god(s).
417742
NO, we're not doing Stonehenge!\nThese go to eleven!
433204
English is an Anglo-Frisian language brought to Britain in the 5th Century AD by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Norman (an oïl language closely related to French).\n\nAccording to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the Angles to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response came Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated.\n\nThese Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now north-west Germany and the Netherlands. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jórvík).\n\nFor the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only Anglo-Norman. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English. The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English.\n\nDuring the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare.
393953
According to Rabbi Maurice Lamm (author of "The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning") the custom of placing stones on the monument "probably serves as a reminder of the family's presence. [The evidence that this grave is attended, visited and cared for, is respectful for the deceased - NS]. Also, it may hark back to biblical days when the monument was a heap of stones. Often the elements or roving vandals dispersed them, and so visitors placed other additional stones to assure that the grave was marked."\n\n\n\nAlso, by placing a stone we further participate in the "construction" of the tombstone -- which in itself constitutes a mitzvah.\n\n\n\nIncidentally, it is not a Chabad custom to place stones on tombstones
610616
It was a pagan place of ritual and sacrifice. It represented the sun and moon and with the capstones was "closed" from outside.\n\nThe rocks were actually quarried in wales and dragged overland to the site and then erected.. A neat bit of engineering..\n\nLike the Pyramids, slave labour was used.... \n\nIt was the "centre" of a place of power, close to the heavens and many many burial BARROWS are located in the vicinity.\n\nFor me.. it was a great place to take girlfriends to and shag them..\n\nSadly today it's roped off and you can't get close.
1008834
i would go back to england and see what stonehedge was all about...
1089023
yes the tend to run where there are ancient monuments and sites like stonehenge
566142
Wow, I really wondered about it too, so a couple of years ago, I did some research on it, and I came up with three answers that were repeated over and over. I guess to know for sure which one is right, or if any of them are right, you would have to know the person who is placing the stone, and ask them. Below are the three things I found out:\n\n1. In Judaism, placing stones was traditionally a way to help keep the spirit of the dead in the grave. This appears to have been an Eastern European superstition that spread to the Jewish people who lived in that area of the world. It was thought that the spirits of even very good people stuck around to see their bodies buried, and might stay near the grave for a day or two. The stone was a symbolic lid, meant to keep the spirit in, and evil out, so that the spirit was not taken over by an evil force. The great majority of Jewish people in the US are of Eastern European origin, having emigrated here either before or after WWII,  so that tradition is very strong in American Jewish culture. \n\n2. The stone sometimes symbolizes a cairn. Cairns are little, man-made piles of rocks used to mark the site where someone is buried. Cairns were traditional in Scotland and parts of Northern England. Placing one rock represents a cairn, or someone might build a small cairn as a memorial to the dead, such as on the side of the road where a person had been killed in an accident. Cairns were also used to mark a place that had significance, such as a path or a historical site. If I remember correctly, some other cultures marked burial sites with piles of stones, but I am afraid I only remember the Scottish and English for sure, as that is where the word "cairn" comes from.\n\n3. In most cultures, it is considered respectful to bring something to the grave of a deceased person to bear witness to the fact that you were there and that you acknowledge their death and still remember them. For example, in the US, the most common thing that people bring to graves is flowers, even if the person buried there has been gone for a long time. However, any object will do. Sometimes, that object happens to be a stone. The object itself is not considered as important as the act of actually placing it.\n\nIt took me a long time to find out the little bit I told you about above. I see it all the time, but it was hard to find any concrete reasons why people carry on this tradition. I hope my information answers at least part of your question.
394602
it wasn't a voice, it was the sensations felt by millions of pilgrims to the site, drawing them to their God.  As they drew nearer, the sensations of peace deepened and the awe of the place grew tenfold.  Gazing up at the majestic ruins, they sensed the magnitude of the culture and peoples that built it.  As they wandered through the empty streets, they could hear the whispers of street vendors, of the carts being drawn and the animals bawling out their myriad of sounds.  They kept feeling the draw and the presence of something unseen, urging them deeper within the ruins.  \nAs they neared a building that was left virtually unscathed, they noticed the fine craftsmanship on the building and the magnitude of their emotions blossomed.  They approached it with baited breath and entered with reverence.  All around a central altar, benches circled the entire building.  Above the altar was a simple cross and a few words in the ancient tongue, etched in the stone below.  \nAfter struggling with the translations, they discovered the meaning.  It read simply, "All who seek peace, may find it here".  All of a sudden, they were filled with a glorious peace, that filled their entire being, and they knew that they had found the ancient God the natives had worshiped, and their own.
246664
It was the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribal belief. I've heard a little about groups who wish to revive the ancient practices of the Germanic tribes who settled in England- Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, as well as the later ones such as the Normans and Danes. \n\nI think from what I've heard, it's a social thing as well as a religious one. I'm not sure how true they are to the Old English tribal religions- after Christianity came to England- a lot of the Pagan rituals were surpressed although I'm sure many of them survived as folklore and what not.