Obs. [Given by Borlase, 1754, as a common name in Cornwall, and explained by him as ‘hole of stone,’ f. tol hole + mên stone; but app. the same word as Breton taol mean or tôl mên ‘table-stone,’ adopted by French archæologists (from the mutated an dôl mên) as DOLMEN, q.v.
Borlase app. interpreted the first element as Cornish toll, toul, tewl, = Welsh twll, ‘hole,’ and was thus misled as to the meaning. (The three examples mentioned by him are app. all natural formations.) Some later writers have identified the second element as Eng. man, and made it sing. tolman, pl. tolmen. The word is now disused.)
See quots., and cf. DOLMEN, CROMLECH.
1754. Borlase, Observ. Antiq. Cornw., III. iii. 166. There is another kind of Stone-deity, which has never been taken notice of by any Author that I have heard of. It’s common name in Cornwall and Scilly, is Tolmên; that is, the Hole of Stone. It consists of a large Orbicular Stone, supported by two Stones, betwixt which, there is a passage. Ibid., 167. The two Tolmêns at Scilly are Monuments evidently of the same kind with this. Ibid. These Tolmens rest on supporters, and do not touch the Earth…. Underneath these vast stones, there is a hole, or passage, between the Rocks. [Note. From this Hole they have the Name of Tolmen.]
1827. G. Higgins, Celtic Druids, Pref. 45. In Westphalia and East Friesland are some very curious examples of Tolmen.
1845. Knight, Old Eng., I. i. 18/2. Such are the remains which have been called Tolmen; a Tolman being explained to be an immense mass of rock placed aloft on two subjacent rocks which admit of a free passage between them.
