Tanx to ocifant and excellent directions. These stones are really unassuming and a slight breeze whistling across the moor is enough to drown or a least disguise the distant roar of the A30 and you're deceptively secluded. Spectacular panorama. Not enough time to explore and walk to Stripple Stones/ Henge. Must return.
These stones are easy to find as long as you have an OS map and can read it whilst driving, I can, which is why Ive been here twice now, but unfortunately not to the Stripple stones henge located on the south flank of Hawks Tor, it looks a fair old yomp from the Trippet stones here past the farm and up the hill, i'll definately be back, my day on Bodmin has been wild, strenuous, wet, enlightening and sometimes scary.
As I approached the stones I heard a noise behind me, upon turning I saw a big red pickup truck and farmer, the cynic in me groaned.
But it shouldn't have for the red faced rotund agrarian was not only a comedic genius but a life lesson all in himself, we talked of the stones themselves, the government, new agers and of course the weather, after twice using my lighter to relight his gnarled roll up he coaxed the old truck back into life and bid me good day, I watched him drive away whilst removing my camera from it's bag, I thought to myself something had just happened, something to remember. The stones as ever are widely spaced, grey, tall and shapely, the two nearby tors are Carbilly and Hawks and both need you to clamber over and explore every rock and crevice, but the star of the day was either King Arthurs hall or old farmer chappie.
Whilst reading "The English Year - A month-by-month guide to the nation's customs and festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night" by Steve Roud, I came across an item in the section about traditional sports which could point to a possible origin of the name of the Trippet Stones.
"Tipcat was once and internationally popular game with children and adults alike, but is now largely forgotten in England. The 'cat' was a piece of wood, placed on the ground, so shaped at the ends that when a player hit it with their bat (or catstaff) it would fly into the air. As it came up, the player tried to hit it as far as they could. A large ring had been marked out, or agreed, and if the player failed to hit the cat out of the ring they were out. If they succeeded, then a score was awarded, depending on the distance the cat had travelled. Variant names for the game are 'Cat', 'Trippet', 'Nipsy', 'Piggy' or 'Peggy'.
The earliest reference to the game so far discovered in Britain is in an Anglo-Latin lexicon of c.1440, but wooden 'tipcats' were found in the ruins of Rahan, Egypt, dating from about 2500BC.
In a variant form, a number of evenly spaced holes were made round the circumference of a circle, and a player was placed by each hole, armed with a stick. The cat was thrown to the nearest batsman and if they hit it the players ran on from hole to hole until the cat was retrieved, scoring a point for each hole reached."
Holes with people in? In a circle? Sounds like a Pipers-/Hurlers-/Merry Maidens-/etcetc type legend to me!
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