After getting through such passages it
happens that, in several instances, the roof is higher than is required
for the tallest living man. An admirable example of such a place is the
underground "Picts' House" at Pitcur, in Forfarshire, which would be
quite a palace to people of a small race, and very likely figures as
such in some popular tale; its dimensions and appearance considerably
magnified with every century.[95] But even this "fairy palace" was
entered by narrow, downward-sloping passages, similar to that seen in
the Frontispiece, down and up which the dwellers had to crawl. An
underground gallery such as that of Ardtole (near Ardglass, County
Down), is somewhat puzzling, because, while one chamber off it rises to
a height of 5 feet 3 inches, another is only 3-1/2 feet high; and the
main gallery, for 70 feet of its length, is 4-1/2 feet high, with a
width of 3 feet 4 inches. The inference from this seems to be that the
occupants were under 4-1/2 feet in height. If they had intended to crawl
along the 70 feet, they did not require so high a roof; whereas, if they
walked, and if they were more than 4-1/2 feet in height, they would need
to walk the 70 feet in a stooping posture, a constraint which they could
easily have avoided by raising the roof a foot or two.
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