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Previous 25 | Showing 26-50 of 3,316 folklore posts. Most recent first | Next 25 
Maeshowe (Chambered Tomb) |
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Maes Howe or Maeshowe is among the finest chambered tombs in Europe, dating from around 2700 BCE. It was said to be inhabited by a creature known as a Hogboy, but human beings too left their mark on the site. When it was excavated in 1861, the archaeologists found they were not the first on the scene: Vikings had broken, about 700 years earlier, and left graffiti on the walls. The presence of the twelfth-century vandals is recorded in twenty-four runic inscriptions, two of which refer to 'Jorsalafara' - literally, 'Jerusalem-farers', or crusaders. The sort of things prople write on walls hasn't changed all that much over the centuries. Thorny bedded; Helgi writes it' -perhaps the tomb, macabre though it might seem, was where the locals did their courting, or perhaps the men were thinking of happier times: Ingigerd is the most beautiful of women', says one inscription. Also carved here is a picture of an animal usually interpreted as a dragon, and some of the writings relate to buried treasure.. the poem Beowulf tells of a hoard guarded by a dragon in a barrow containing a secret passage, and it has been suggested that on entering Maes Howe the Vikings drew the dragon and wrote the runes because they were vividly reminded of the episode. There may, however, have been some factual element: one of the inscriptions states that the treasure was concealed north-west of the barrow, and in 1858 a cache of Viking silver ornaments was found at Sandwick, some way north from Maes Howe. Particularly interesting is an inscription in large, even runes, informing us that these were cut, 'with the axe which belonged to Gaukr Trandilsson in the South of Iceland'. The carver does not add his name, but, Hermann Palsson of Edinburgh University has used centuries old Icelandic poetry to establish his identity: he was Thorhallr Asgrimsson, named in the Orkneyinga Saga as captain of the ship that brought Earl Rognvaldr Kali back from the crusade to Orkney late in 1153, and great-great-great-grandson of Asgrimr Ellitha-Grimsson, named in Njals Saga as the slayer of Gaukt Trandilsson. The axe of the victim was kept as an heirloom by the killer's family for six generations, around 200 years, and was brought to Orkney by a direct descendant of Asgrimr. The tracing of its history is an astounding example of archaeological and scholarly detective work. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy21st January 2024ce |
The Standing Stones of Stenness (Circle henge) |
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Several eighteenth- and nineteenth- century sources describe ceremonies performed at the Ring Of Brodgar and the Stones Of Stenness. On the first day of the New Year, young people of the neighbourhood used to meet at the Kirk of Stenness, taking enough food with them to last four or five days. Pairs of lovers would then leave the rest of the party and go to the Stones Of Stenness, known as the Temple Of The Moon, where women would pray to Odin that he would enable them to perform the promises they made to the men; after that the couples would go to the Temple Of the Sun (the Ring Of Brodgar) where the men made similar prayers. They would then go the Stone of Odin, a standing stone with a round hole in it through which the couples would clasp hands and plight their troth, 'a pledge of love which to them was as sacred as a marriage vow'. The Archaeologia Scotica (1792) records the case of a young man who had got a girl pregnant then deserted her: The young man was then called before the session; the elders were particularly severe. Being asked by the minister the cause of so much rigour, they answered, you do not know what a bad man this is; he has broke the promise of Odin, they put him in mind of the Stone at Stenhouse with the round hole in it; and added, that it was customary, when promises were made, for the contracting parties to join hands through this hole, and the promises made were called the promises of Odin. It was further said that a child passed through the hole when young would never shake with palsy in old age. When visiting the stone it was customary to leave an offering of bread, cheese, a piece of cloth, or a pebble. The Ring Of Brodgar and Stones Of Stenness can still be seen, although many of the stones have fallen and are embedded in the ground. The Stone Of Odin, however, was removed in around 1814 by a farmer, not a native of Orkney, who was annoyed by the number of visitors coming to see it. He is said to have used the stone to build a cow-house, and although no supernatural punishment is reported to have followed, two unsuccessful attempts were made by aggrieved neighbours to set fire to his property. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To The Legends Of Scotland Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 14th January 2024ce |
Lynchat (Souterrain) |
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The Cave Of Raitts, a little way off the main road near Lynchat, is a horseshoe-shaped and roofed with large slabs of stone, and is sometimes claimed to be an Old Pechts (Picts) House. The semi-subterranean low-roofed souterrains or earth-houses, probably once used for storage, are often popularly identified as having belonged to the Pechts or Picts, sometimes equated with fairies. The structure may look low from the outside, but as its other name An Uaimh Mhor (The Great Cave) implies, it is actually quite ample, and another tradition more suitable to its size is that it was built by giants. According to Alexander MacBain, writing in 1922: The women carried the excavated stuff in their aprons and threw it in the Spey, while the men brought the stones, large and small, on their shoulders from neighbouring hills. All was finished by morning, and the inhabitants knew not what had taken place. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 13th January 2024ce Edited 14th January 2024ce |
Clava Cairns |
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A little way east of Inverness are three circular chambered cairns of an unusual type, each surrounded by a stone kerb and a ring of standing stones. While the passages of most chambered tombs in Scotland face approximately east or south-east, those at Clava face south-west towards the mid-winter sunset, an alignment which may have had symbolic significance. Although archaeological evidence dates them back to the third millennium BCE, tradition connects the tombs with a later period. They have been said to mark the burial place of the family of the sixth-century Pictish king Brude, and Otta Swire suggests in The Highlands And Their Legends (1963) that this theory may have been inspired by the digging up of a gold rod during drainage operations near the site. She does not mention when this discovery was made, but in any case the area had pre-existing associations with King Brude, whose castle is said to have been at nearby Craig Phadrig. Brude himself was one of St. Columbas' most important converts to Christianity, and was reburied on Iona, sacred to the saint. The Lore Of Scotland - a Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 12th January 2024ce |
Dalchreichart (Cairn(s)) |
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A short way south-west of Dundreggan, before the A997 bends and crosses the River Moriston, there is a cairn said to have been built by visiting pilgrims who added to it stone by stone. They came to honour the memory of the itinerant Presbyterian preacher Findlay Munro, who was preaching here in 1827. His text was Amos 4:12, which catalogues the punishments visited on Israel for oppression and idolatry and threatens worse to come: 'Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this prepare to meet they God, O Israel.' In Munro's sermon, 'Israel' could easily be understood to stand for the Episcopalians in Scotland, and behind them the English government. Some local boys, possibly Catholics, challenged his words and called him a liar, to which he answered, 'As proof that I am telling the truth, my footprints will forever bear witness on this very ground on which I stand on.' Just as he said, on the spot where he had stood his footprints were left indelibly in the ground. It became custom for visitors to stand in the marks, and people claimed that the hair stood up on the back of your neck when you did so. Janet Ford, in Footprints in Stone (2004), reports that the prints were vandalised in the 1990s, but her latest information was that they were becoming visible again. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 11th January 2024ce |
Tomnahurich (Sacred Hill) |
Below Craid Phadrie is the detached hill called Tomnahurich, or the Watchman's Hill, some of the fields adjoining being called Balliefearie, or the Watchman's Town, and which, besides being thus a "ward hill," was also celebrated in the olden time, according to local belief, as the favourite and chief resort in the north of the tiny race of fairies, and was further used by grosser mortals as a great moat, or gathering hill, on various occasions of public importance. The magistrates of Inverness used also in ancient times to patronise horse-races run round its base.Page 13 in volume 14 of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland (1845). |
Posted by Rhiannon11th January 2024ce |
Castell Dinas Bran (Hillfort) |
With Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, the period of abstinence and self-denial is brought to an end. The interrupted pleasures of life are taken up once more, this time in the pleasant setting of spring. On Easter Day itself, the celebrations of the ordinary people began at (or before) sunrise, when in many districts crowds climbed to the summit of a nearby mountain to see the sun 'dancing' in honour of the Resurrection of Christ.p84 in 'Welsh Folk Customs' by T.M. Owen (1959). |
Posted by Rhiannon 9th January 2024ce |
Vatten (Cairn(s)) |
It is unclear why the two cairns were built together, but local folklore provides its own interpretations. One tale is that one of the mounds is the burial place of a great chief who owned the surrounding land. Each summer he went on a raiding mission with his men, bringing back gold, cattle and slaves. One summer he did not return when expected, but in the autumn the ships sailed slowly into the bay. The body of the chief was carried ashore on his men's shields to be buried in a huge grave, while in the bay below, his galley was ritually set alight.In 'Prehistoric Scotland' by Ann MacSween and Mick Sharp (1989). |
Posted by Rhiannon 9th January 2024ce |
Craig Phadrig (Hillfort) |
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Some ancient forts, mostly from the Iron Age, had ramparts constructed from a double wall of stone with layers of wood and rubble sandwiched between. If the timber were set on fire as it might during an enemy attack, certain types of stone melted and fused other stones together. The great lumps of of heated, cooled, and solidified rock have patches that glitter like glass, giving rise to the term 'vitrified' forts. Folklorists used to speculate that these were the origin of the glass castles of tradition. David MacRitchie, in 1891, wrote: when one hears some wild story of a dreaded giant or ogre living in a castle surrounded with glass', one knows, that such a castle could not have existed, but that the real glass castles may have been vitrified forts. He cites the example of a famous glass castle said to stand on Tor Inis or Tory Island off the north coast of Ireland, but as castles of glass often appear in fairy tales in places where no vitrified forts exist, this seems no longer a workable proposition, however tempting such a rationalisation may appear. Craig Phadrig, a wooded hill west of Inverness, is crowned by a vitrified fort. Radio-carbon dating suggests that its ramparts were originally built in the fifth or fourth century BCE, although they may have been strengthened around 500-600CE. It has been proposed that Bridei or Brude, King Of Picts (c.555-84), lived here, as it is recorded that he had a royal palace near the River Ness. There is a King Brude Road on the way here from Inverness. Brude was visited by St. Columba, who wanted permission to continue his work of Christian conversion, but the saint and his companions were refused entry. Then says Columba's biographer Adomnan (627-704), Columba made the sign of the cross on the great doors, knocked and laid his hands on them and immediately the bolts shot back of their own accord. Brude is supposed to have been converted by this miracle, and he and his retinue in the fort were all baptised. A local tradition said that this baptism took place at the foot of a fir tree growing at the centre of the fort. In 1963, Otta Swire noted: This tree was still growing, one of the finest and largest Scotch firs that I ever saw, when Craig Phadrig was sold to the Forestry Commission in the 1920's and much strong feeling was aroused by their decision to fell it as part of a clearance scheme. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood and Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 9th January 2024ce |
Cradle Stone (Rocking Stone) |
The Cradle Stone.From 'The Knock of Crieff and its Environs' by J.B. Paterson, in the Strathearn Herald, 7th August 1965. |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th January 2024ce |
The Tibblestone (Standing Stone / Menhir) |
Local gardener finds ancient landmark.From the Cheltenham Chronicle, 17th April 1948. Why does this look much bigger than the existing stone (if it does?)? |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th January 2024ce |
Duncarnock (Hillfort) |
About one mile south of the town of Barrhead is Duncarnock Hill which was once the site of an Iron Age fort. The hill, which is nearly 700 feet high and precipitous on three sides, is shrouded in legend. According to local folk-lore, it and the nearby Neilston Pad were formed when two prehistoric giants scooped up huge handfuls of earth and threw them at each other. The Craigie, as the mighty mound is sometimes known, is also reputed to have been the site of human sacrifices offered by the Druid priests of the Iron Age Celts to their nature gods.In an article about the Glanderston Dam disaster in 1842 in the Paisley Daily Express, 11th December 1989. |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th January 2024ce |
Thetford Castle (Hillfort) |
How Thetford Got Its Hill.In the Bury Free Press, 11th June 1932. |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th January 2024ce |
Wick Barrow (Round Barrow(s)) |
A comeback to ward off the gremlins.From the Western Daily Press, 6th January 1982. |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th January 2024ce |
Wimble Toot (Round Barrow(s)) |
Babcary Tout or Wimble Toot.In the Taunton Courier, 30th October 1937. |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th January 2024ce |
Dun Troddan (Broch) |
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T.M. Murchison was minister of Glenelg in the 1930s, and his mother's people had been shepherds in the area for many generations. His parish history was compiled partly from oral tradition gleaned from older relatives and older parishioners. 'The most famous antiquities in Glenelg' he records, 'are the two brochs or "Pictish towers" in Glenbeg.' At one time apparently there at least two more, but of these only 'a heap of jumbled boulders and stones' remained by this time. Dun Telve and Dun Troddan, however, still stand. It is said when the brochs were being built, stones were handed from the quarry along a chain of men. A broch or 'brugh' is an archaeological term for the late prehistoric round towers found chiefly in the Orkney and Shetland islands and the Western Isles and on the adjacent Scottish mainland. They are round stone-built towers, and are often popularly supposed to have been built by the Picts or Pechts. Here, however, the brochs are associated with Fionn mac Cumhaill or Fingal and his followers the Fianna, said to have lived in these brochs and resorted to Skye for their hunting. The women of the band, says Murchison, never took food in the presence of their menfolk, but nevertheless remained healthy and beautiful, and the men wondered how the women managed to live on so little nourishment. One day, therefore, while the other men went to Skye, a warrior named Gairidh (pronounced Gary) pretended to be ill and was left lying on his bed, intending to watch the women. He fell asleep, however, and the women promptly took strong wooden pegs and fastened Gairidh's seven locks to the bottom of the bed, to keep him out of the way, and they proceed to feast on the finest food that glen or river could produce. Gairidh suddenly awoke, was irritated to find he was fastened to the bed, leapt to his feet with a mighty effort, and in doing so left every lock of his hair and the skin of his skull on the bed. mad with pain, Gairidh rushed out, gathered brushwood which he placed around the locked door, and set fire to the dwelling with the women inside, so that none escaped. Over in Skye, Fionn and the hunters saw the smoke rising and knew that some terrible disaster taken place. They hurried back, vaulting on their spears over the narrow channel to the mainland. One of them named Reithe did not leap far enough and was drowned, and the name of the place from which he jumped, Kylerhea, is said to be derived from Caol Reithe, 'the Narrows of Reithe'. Fionn and his men found their women dead and Gairidh missing, but at last he was discovered skulking in a cave and was punished. An almost identical tradition was reported of Knockfarrel by Hugh Miller in 1835, and used by him to account for the name of Glen Garry, said to be where the murderer was torn to pieces. The tale is a better fir for Glenelg, much nearer to Glen Garry, and Murchison adds further local details: at Kylerhea, he says, you can see the marks made by the warriors' feet as they jumped the water, and at Bernera nearby is a site called Iomair nam Fear More ('the Ridge of the Big Men'), pointed out as the burial place of the 'Fingalians' (the Fianna or Fenians). It is said that once upon a time a bold man began ploughing up the place, in defiance of local warnings. He turned up a human skull, which was so big that it easily fitted over the biggest man present(alleged to be the Rev. Colin MacIver, minister of Glenelg from 1782 to 1829). Just at that point, however, a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, and the ploughing speedily ceased and the skull of 'Gairidh' or some other Fingalian was promptly buried again. The Fianna were commonly said to be of giant size, so the finding of an unusually large skull may have helped to associate them with the site. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood and Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 5th January 2024ce |
Granish (Clava Cairn) |
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It is not surprising that the Grenish Stone Circle should be supernaturally protected, if it was truly the crowning place of the Pictish kings. This tradition was reported by Otta Swire in 1963: 'The last king to be crowned there was King Brude, so the old gardener we had at Kingussie told me.' He had been told this as a boy by his grannie who came from Aviemore, and she had heard it from her grannie, a noted wise woman or witch. Acording to the gardener's grannie, when a Pictish king died, all who hoped to succeed him gathered at the circle, where the Druids invoked the spirits who told them which claimant to crown and other things besides. When the spirit was summoned at the death of the forty-eighth king, he told them to cron King Brude but he would be the last they crowned. Thinking this meant the downfall of the Pictish kingdom, they asked more questions but only got an enigmatic answer: Living die, Dying live When the king was crowned it was customary to raise three spirits, and for the King to ask each a question, the first of which must be: What of my reign? When Brude asked this question, he couldn't understand the reply: the spirit was that of an Irish champion who spoke only Gaelic, while Brude only spoke the Pictish language. Fortunately a bilingual Druid was on hand to translate, telling Brude that one greater than he would come out of the sea, rule in his kingdom above him, and make him great. The prophecy referred to the coming of St Columba and his conversion of King Brude to Christianity. As with a number of Otta Swire's stories, it is uncertain if this is a popular tradition or a romantic fiction. In some respects it sounds suspiciously like the revelation in Macbeth of Banquo's royal descendants, although it is of course entirely possible that Shakespeare based his scene on a report of ancient Scottish custom. |
Posted by drewbhoy 4th January 2024ce |
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Stones from religious sites whether ancient or modern should not be removed. Such is the prevalent , recorded at Fyvie Castle (near Turriff) and the Hill O' many Stanes (Northern Highlands) among other places. C. G. Nash, in 1906, recorded that a stone taken from the circle at Grenish was once taken to be used as a lintel over the doorway of a byre, but when it was in place the cattle were afraid of entering. Consequently it was taken back to the circle and an ordinary slab used, which the cattle were happy to pass. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 4th January 2024ce |
Traprain Law (Hillfort) |
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The Iron Age hill-fort at the summit of this prominent dome-shaped hill is said to have been the ancient capital of Lothian. From it in 1919 was unearthed the Traprain Treasure, about 160 pieces of mainly of mainly fifth-century Roman silver, probably the buried loot of a robber, now in the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Sottish Legend Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 4th January 2024ce |
Dun Bhuirg (Broch) |
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By the shore of Loch Scridain in Ardmeanach is Dun Bhuirg (the name combines the Gaelic and Norse words for fort). Like other prehistoric forts, it was thought to be inhabited by fairies. One day a woman living nearby was at her weaving and exclaimed, 'it is about time the people of the hill were coming along to give me a hand.' Suddenly she was overrun with fairies from the dun who swiftly turned all the wool into cloth. When they asked for payment for their work, she shouted, 'Dun Bhuirg is on fire!' The fairies rushed off and were not seen again, but surprisingly did not punish her for the mean trick she had played on them. This story from P.A. McNab's Isle of Mull (1970) is a variant on an earlier tale repeated all over the Highlands, set in similar places with similar names. In around 1860, John MacLean of Tarbert in Argyllshire supplied John Francis Campbell with a version very like the one above, although the Argyllshire woman is not trying to avoid paying but is overwhelmed by the fairies' eagerness for work, like wizard at Creag Mhor and Creag Bheag (Northern Highlands). macLean adds a verse spoken by the fairies while at their work and another when they depart in haste, mourning their possessions lost in the supposed fire, the latter translated by Campbell as: My mould of cheese, my hammer, and anvil, My wife and my child, and my butter crock; My cow and my goat, and my little meal kist; Och, och ochone, how wretched am I! A slightly different tale was told of the hill of Dunvuilg in Craignish, Argyllshire, where the call of fire is given by an envious neighbour of the woman whom the fairies are helping, and Campbell heard yet another version in Lewis 'from a medical gentleman, who got it from an old woman, who told it as a fact, with some curious variations unfit for printing'. these unprintable details may possibly have concerned throwing urine at the fairies, a technique adopted, for instance, at Dunvegan Castle. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 2nd January 2024ce |
Dun Buidhe (Broch) |
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The Bean-nigh or Nigheag ('washer-woman or 'little washer') is a spirit who presides over those about to die, and washes their shrouds in lakes or rivers while singing a dirge. She may be so absorbed in her task that she can be taken unawares, and will then grant her captor three wishes: it used to be said of anyone particularly successful that he had got the better of the washerwoman. A follower of Clanranald of the Isles was going home alone one night to Dun Bhuidhe when he saw the washerwoman by a ford, 'washing and rinsing, moaning and lamenting'. Creeping up unseen and unheard, he seized her: 'Let me go,' said 'nigheag,' 'and give me the freedom of my feet, and that the breeze of reek coming from thy grizzled tawny beard is anear putting a stop to the breath of my throat'. Much more would my nose prefer, and much rather my heart desire, the air of fragrant incense of the mist of the mountains.' He said he would let her go in return for his three wishes: for the creek of his home town to have plenty of seaweed (used as fertiliser), for himself to get his chosen wife, and to know who the washerwoman's shroud was for. For Clanranald was the answer. The man took the shroud on the point of his spear and threw into the loch, then ran to his chief. Hearing the news, Clanranald ordered a cow to be killed and a coracle made from its hide, and when the boat was prepared he embarked on the waves, and never returned to Benbecula. The man who brought the news was named Lad Of The Wet Foot, because, explains Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, retelling the story in 1937 from an earlier version, his duty was to walk in front of his chief and take the dew or rain off the grass. In this tale the Lad 'walked in front' in a more symbolic sense: his warning gave Clanranald the chance to prepare for his end with dignity, although death, once foretold, could not be escaped. The Lore Of Scotland - A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 2nd January 2024ce |
Kelpie's Stane (Natural Rock Feature) |
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Once when the River Don was in flood, a man needed to cross it to attend a relative's deathbed. The river had a resident Kelpie, a dangerous water-spirit which could, however, appear helpless or even helpful. This creature appeared and offered to carry the traveller across the swollen stream; the man agreed, but when they got to the middle of the river the Kelpie tried to drown him. Luckily he managed to escape and scrambled up onto the riverbank. Baulked of his prey, the angry Kelpie threw a large boulder after him, which still rests on the bank and is still known as the Kelpie's Stane. The Lore of Scotland : A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 2nd January 2024ce |
Callanish (Standing Stones) |
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West of Stornoway an avenue of stones leads across the moors to a circle of thirteen pillars around a chambered cairn about 4,000 years old. Fir Bhreig, 'The False Men, is the gaelic name for the group. In Ireland, many standing stones are known as far-bhreaga or 'false man', these are usually being solitary menhirs which from a distance look like people, their 'falseness' lies in their not being human as they appear. the Lewis pillars are said to be giants who refused to build a church for St Keiran and were therefore turned into stone. Such retributory legends are common in folk tradition, and the meta-morphosed beings may be believed to recover their power of motion at certain times, becoming able to walk or even to dance. The sin which they were petrified is often that of having danced on the Sabbath. A second account of Callanish is that the stones were brought to Lewis in ships by a priest-king and set up there by black men under the guidance of priests in feathered robes, and another belief was that 'The Shining One' appeared there on mid-summer morning to walk the length of the avenue, heralded by the cry of the cuckoo, the bird of the Celtic land of youth Tir-nan-Og. It used to be the custom for local families to visit the stones on that day and on May Day at first openly and then in secret when such practices were condemned by the Kirk. It is said that once during famine on the island a woman was so desperate that she went to sea intending to drown herself, but saw a white cow which appeared from the waves and told her that she and all her neighbours should bring their milk pails to the stones of Callanish that night. When they did so, the cow provided them with a pailful of milk, and this bounty continued until a witch brought a sieve instead of a pail. as the cow could not fill it however hard she tried, she was milked dry, and was never seen again on the island. The power of witches to get abnormal supplies of milk from cows, whether ordinary animals or magical ones, was well know. The Lore Of Scotland : A Guide To Scottish Legends Westwood & Kingshill |
Posted by drewbhoy 2nd January 2024ce |
Hoe Hill Long Barrow |
| The barrow gets it's alternative name of Cromwell's Grave from the local tradition that one of Cromwell's Roundheads was captured, killed and buried there. (Source: Internet) |
Posted by Blind Davey 19th September 2023ce |
Rubh an Dunain (Chambered Cairn) |
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Imagine an ancient time at Rubh' an Dùnain around 3000 years ago. A small procession winds its way towards a stone cairn overlooking Loch Brittle to the north, and behind them to the south, their own little settlement of stone and turf. They circle the lochan and make their way up a sacred path, leaving the shelter of the natural dip in the terrain to face the chilling wind that blows across the ridge and the entrance to the House of the Dead. The bier that carries the dead body is lowered at the doorway of the burial chamber and bowls of offerings are placed on the ground. Then the ritual begins, ending with shifting the body and bowls inside the chambered cairn to lie beside the human bones of those who have gone before. Such an event is part of the story of Rubh' an Dùnain. The House of the Dead - a chambered cairn known as a Barpa in Gaelic - remains in ruins to bear testimony to such ancient rituals. Archaeologists say the chamber is one of many on the Atlantic coastline from Spain to the Shetlands with some evidence that those who lived in this hidden headland were not only fishermen, but farmers too. Skye's Hidden Heritage |
Posted by drewbhoy 18th August 2023ce |
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