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<< Many times he fell into those things [that] could not
escape laughter, as when he said in the person of *CAESAR*,
one speaking to him, "*CAESAR* thou dost me wrong".

He replied, "[CAESAR NEVER DID WR]ong, but with just cause",

and such like, which were ridiculous.>> -- Ben Jonson .........................................................
. . [CAESAR NEVER DID WR]ong
. . [EDWARD VERE'S CAIRN] ---------------------------------------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn

<<A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic: càrn (plural càirn). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes, from prehistoric times to the present. In modern times, cairns are
often erected as landmarks, a use they have had since ancient times. However, since prehistory, they have also been built and used as burial monuments; for defense and hunting; for ceremonial purposes, sometimes relating to astronomy; to locate buried
items, such as caches of food or objects; and to mark trails, among other purposes. Stonehenge Cairns are used as trail markers in many parts of the world, in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, as well as in barren
deserts and tundras. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose conical rock piles to delicately balanced sculptures and elaborate feats of megalithic engineering. Cairns may be painted or
otherwise decorated, whether for increased visibility or for religious reasons.

Different types of cairns exist from rough piles of stones to interlocking dry stone round cylinders. The most important cairns commonly used around the world are interlocking stone survey cairns constructed around a central survey mark about every 30 km
on the tallest peaks across a nation. These physical survey mark cairn systems are the basis for national survey grids to interconnect individual land survey measurements for entire nations. On occasion these permanent interlocking stone cairns are taken
down then reconstructed to re-mark measurements to increase the accuracy of the national survey grid. They can also be used in unpopulated countries as emergency location points. In North America and Northern Europe any type of cairn can be used to mark
mountain bike and hiking trails and other cross-country trail blazing, especially in mountain regions at or above the tree line. For example, the extensive trail network maintained by the DNT, the Norwegian Trekking Association, extensively uses cairns
in conjunction with T-painted rock faces to mark trails. Other examples of these can be seen in the lava fields of Volcanoes National Park to mark several hikes.[2] Placed at regular intervals, a series of cairns can be used to indicate a path across
stony or barren terrain, even across glaciers. Such cairns are often placed at junctions or in places where the trail direction is not obvious. They may also be used to indicate an obscured danger such as a sudden drop, or a noteworthy point such as the
summit of a mountain. Most trail cairns are small, usually being a foot or less in height. However, they may be built taller so as to protrude through a layer of snow. Hikers passing by often add a stone, as a small bit of maintenance to counteract the
erosive effects of severe weather. North American trail marks are sometimes called "ducks" or "duckies", because they sometimes have a "beak" pointing in the direction of the route. The expression "two rocks do not make a duck" reminds hikers that just
one rock resting upon another could be the result of accident or nature rather than intentional trail marking.

The building of cairns for recreational purposes along trails, to mark one's personal passage through the area, can result in an overabundance of rock piles. This distracts from cairns used as genuine navigational guides, and also conflicts with the
Leave No Trace ethic. This ethic of outdoor practice advocates for leaving the outdoors undisturbed and in its natural condition.
One of many cairns marking British mass graves at the site of the Battle of Isandlwana (1879), South Africa

Coastal cairns, or "sea marks", are also common in the northern latitudes, especially in the island-strewn waters of Scandinavia and eastern Canada. Often indicated on navigation charts, they may be painted white or lit as beacons for greater visibility
offshore.

Modern cairns may also be erected for historical or memorial commemoration or simply for decorative or artistic reasons. One example is a series of many cairns marking British soldiers' mass graves at the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, South Africa.
Another is the Matthew Flinders Cairn on the side of Arthur's Seat, a small mountain on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, Australia. A large cairn, commonly referred to as "the igloo" by the locals, was built atop a hill next to the I-476 highway in Radnor,
Pennsylvania and is a part of a series of large rock sculptures initiated in 1988 to symbolize the township's Welsh heritage and to beautify the visual imagery along the highway. Some are merely places where farmers have collected stones removed from a
field. These can be seen in the Catskill Mountains, North America where there is a strong Scottish heritage, and may also represent places where livestock were lost. In locales exhibiting fantastic rock formations, such as the Grand Canyon, tourists
often construct simple cairns in reverence of the larger counterparts. By contrast, cairns may have a strong aesthetic purpose, for example in the art of Andy Goldsworthy.

The building of cairns for various purposes goes back into prehistory in Eurasia, ranging in size from small rock sculptures to substantial man-made hills of stone (some built on top of larger, natural hills). The latter are often relatively massive
Bronze Age or earlier structures which, like kistvaens and dolmens, frequently contain burials; they are comparable to tumuli (kurgans), but of stone construction instead of earthworks. Cairn originally could more broadly refer to various types of hills
and natural stone piles, but today is used exclusively of artificial ones. Cairn of the Neolithic-era passage grave on Gavrinis island, Brittany

The word cairn derives from Scots cairn (with the same meaning), in turn from Scottish Gaelic càrn, which is essentially the same as the corresponding words in other native Celtic languages of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, including Welsh carn (and
carnedd), Breton karn, Irish carn, and Cornish karn or carn. Cornwall (Kernow) itself may actually be named after the cairns that dot its landscape, such as Cornwall's highest point, Brown Willy Summit Cairn, a 5 m (16 ft) high and 24 m (79 ft) diameter
mound atop Brown Willy hill in Bodmin Moor, an area with many ancient cairns. Burial cairns and other megaliths are the subject of a variety of legends and folklore throughout Britain and Ireland. In Scotland, it is traditional to carry a stone up from
the bottom of a hill to place on a cairn at its top. In such a fashion, cairns would grow ever larger. An old Scottish Gaelic blessing is Cuiridh mi clach air do chàrn, "I'll put a stone on your stone". In Highland folklore it is recounted that before
Highland clans fought in a battle, each man would place a stone in a pile. Those who survived the battle returned and removed a stone from the pile. The stones that remained were built into a cairn to honour the dead. Cairns in the region were also put
to vital practical use. For example, Dún Aonghasa, an all-stone Iron Age Irish hill fort on Inishmore in the Aran Islands, is still surrounded by small cairns and strategically placed jutting rocks, used collectively as an alternative to defensive
earthworks because of the karst landscape's lack of soil.

In the mythology of ancient Greece, cairns were associated with Hermes, the god of overland travel. According to one legend, Hermes was put on trial by Hera for slaying her favorite servant, the monster Argus. All of the other gods acted as a jury, and
as a way of declaring their verdict they were given pebbles, and told to throw them at whichever person they deemed to be in the right, Hermes or Hera. Hermes argued so skillfully that he ended up buried under a heap of pebbles, and this was the first
cairn. In Croatia, in areas of ancient Dalmatia, such as Herzegovina and the Krajina, they are known as gromila.

The Biblical place name Gilead (Genesis 31 etc.) means literally "heap of testimony/evidence" as does its Aramaic translation (ibid.) Yegar Sahaduta. In modern Hebrew, gal-'ed (גל-עד) is the actual word for "cairn". In Genesis 31 the cairn of Gilead
was set up as a border demarcation between Jacob and his father-in-law Laban at their last meeting.

Genesis 31:25-28 ¶ Then Laban ouertooke Iacob. Now Iacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mount of Gilead. And Laban said to Iacob, What hast thou done, that thou hast stollen away vnawares to me, and caried
away my daughters, as captiues taken with the sword? Wherefore didst thou flie away secretly, and steale away from me, and didst not tell mee? that I might haue sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harpe, And hast not suffered
me to kisse my sonnes and my daughters? thou hast now done foolishly in so doing.

Although the practice is not common in English, cairns are sometimes referred to by their anthropomorphic qualities. In German and Dutch, a cairn is known as Steinmann and steenman respectively, meaning literally "stone man". A form of the Inuit inuksuk
is also meant to represent a human figure, and is called an inunguak ("imitation of a person"). In Italy, especially the Italian Alps, a cairn is an ometto, or a "small man".>>
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Art Neuendorffer

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