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The View over Atlantic – John Michell

Probably the Celtic Druids never fully understood the meaning of the system they inherited. Celtic  legends are full of references to the great men of the past whose works had been left to decay. According to the old story retold by Peacock in The Misfortunes of Elphin, Seitherin ap Seitherin, the keeper of the sea wall, despaired of emulating the work of former giants, even to the extent of repairing their embankments, and allowed the sea to make a breach and flood what are now the lost lands of Wales.

A wall such as this, of extreme antiquity, still lines the river coasts of Kent and Essex. King Arthur and his followers, haunted by the memory of vanished glory, set out along the old straight paths by adventurous mounds and castles in a last attempt to recapture the former enlightenment. Everywhere the later Druids must have seen ruins of a lost civilisation they could never regain.