[visited 24/12/02] Originally a Logan stone, this is a large natural rock outcrop that is impossible to miss. I came here after a long day out and it really is a delight. I for one wouldn?t have rocked it, as when you stand underneath it now it towers up as if it might fall at any moment.
The Puckstone is visible as a mound to the North and the large mound very close by to the west is artificial.
" A musing stroll across the heath from Studland, brings you to the Aggllestone, the holy stone (Helig - Anglo-Saxon for holy) hurled by the devil on to the crest of a hillock rising above the peaty waste. Fiends often do dress like angels, and it is certainly hard to detect anything of the devil when the Madonna-blue chalices of that visionary flower, Gentiana pneumonanthe, are open on the heath. But devils did traffic with holy stones in archaic England, for devils were once gods themselves fallen from heaven upon evil days, the days when the usurping Celts looked with dread upon the works of their predecessors. For the Agglestone is a menhir".
Taken from
Downland Man by H.J. Massingham
Pub 1927 by Jonathan Cape
As is often the case, there are alternative versions of the tales below - other versions say the Devil was throwing it at Blindon Abbey or Salisbury Cathedral. Another name for it is the Devil’s Anvil.
Myths {..} are often found attached to erratic blocks of stone. Thus, one of a somewhat analogous character is current in relation to that remarkable mass of ferruginous sandstone known as " the Agglestone," in the Isle of Purbeck.
The country people say of it that his Satanic majesty (who is often a very important personage in these capricious freaks) was one day sitting on the Needles Rocks, Isle of Wight, whence espying Corfe Castle in the distance, he took the cap from his head and threw it across the sea, with the intent of demolishing that structure.
But it would appear that he had over-estimated his powers of jactation, for the missile fell short of its mark, and there it stands to this day on Studland Heath, a monument of disappointed malice, a wonder to the peasantry, and a theme of antiquarian conjecture. "
C. W.
From Notes and Queries, March 3rd 1866.
An earlier mention is made in The Beauties of England and Wales, Or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive of each County. Vol 4. John Britton and Edward Wedlake Brayley, 1803, on page 407:
On the common are several barrows, differently shaped; some large and oblong; most of them round and rude; but what particularly excites remark, is, the Adlingestone, or AGGLESTONE, an extraordinary insulated rock, which rests on an apparently natural eminence to the west of Studland Bay...
..The country people call it the Devil's Night-Cap; and there is a tradition, that his Satanic Majesty threw it from the Isle of Wight, with an intent to demolish Corfe Castle.
I detect some plagiarism with the previous quote also saying 'Satanic Majesty'?! Who knows.
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