File:Cleer St. Other Half Stone.jpg

English: Blight's illustration of King Doniert's Stone and the Other Half Stone, reducing the latter's latticework to a diagonal grid.

Caption: Near Redgate, St. Cleer.

Text: These stones stand side by side in a pathway-field, between Redgate and St. Cleer Church. The tallest is rather more than 7 feet high, and has one side sculptured. The other, 4 feet 7 inches high, bears an inscription, and three of its sides are ornamented with Saxon tracery, as shewn in the above engraving. Polwhele says,—"They have no such relation to each other as to warrant the conclusion that they ever contributed to one monument. One is inscribed; the other, without an inscription, called 'the other half stone,' seems to have been the shaft of a cross; on one of its sides are some ornamental asterisks, but no letters of any kind; it seems to have been once much larger, as the upper part is broken, and displays part of a mortice. The inscribed stone, nearly square, appears to have been a plinth of a monumental cross, having the words Doniert rogavit pro anima inscribed upon it, in similar characters to those used about the ninth century."

Shortly after Hals went to see this monument, some miners, imagining that treasure might be concealed beneath, dug to the depth of about 6 feet;^* when they discovered a vault walled around, and arched over with stones, having on the sides two stone seats, not unlike those in churches for auricular confession. The sight of all this filled them with such consternation, that they hastily filled in the pit they had made, and departed, none having the courage to inspect it further.^† Doniert is supposed to mean Dungerth, King of Cornwall, who was accidentally drowned in the year 872 or 873. Some translate the inscription, "Pray for the soul of Dungerth;" others, "Doniert asked for his soul." Dr. Borlase says,—"I rather think that Doniert desired in his life time, that a cross might be erected in the place where he should be interr'd, in order to put people in mind to pray for his soul."

^* The Men Scryfa, in Madron, still lies in a pit, which was dug around it for a similar purpose.
^† Davies Gilbert's Hist. of Cornwall.