The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Roseberry Topping

Sacred Hill

Folklore

Who, that has not seen, but has heard of Roseberry Topping? – The pride of northern England – familiar as household words to a wide and wealthy district – a subject of enquiry and wonder unto all who have for the first time looked upon its isolated and lonely magnificence, its gigantic cone, like some eastern pyramid, now lit up, glowing suddenly as a huge furnace, now black and bare, its narrow peak shooting abruptly into the sky, the very image of solitude and desolation. No wonder that its neighbourhood is the deposit of many of those grotesque and fearful legends, arising out of, and connected with, the most ancient of our superstitions; and that the almost universally exploded belief in supernatural agency, witches, fays, and all their subsidiary marvels, should linger in these comparatively untraveled recesses, unquestioned and undenied.

The opening lines of The Witch of Roseberry Topping or the Haunted Ring.
Blackwood's Magazine.
1835
Available via Google Books.
fitzcoraldo Posted by fitzcoraldo
11th December 2009ce

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