Around 1823 this stone was dug up and moved about 20 feet. At a depth of 3 or 4 feet under it was found an urn containing ashes, a piece of tartan too decomposed to be identified or moved, and copper and silver coins dating from the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. The urn was reburied in situ.
Around 1951, the stone was moved again, the farmer dumping it by the side of the field at NJ 5184 3048, where it lay "largely obscured by a grass-grown pile of stones, and farm rubbish" when visited in 2002 by the RCAHMS.
A .. story is told of the Drumel Stone on the farm of Old Noth, near Gartly. The stone was taken to the farm to make a lintel over a doorway in the steading, but thereafter the steading door was so often found open, and the interned animals wandering about the countryside, that at last it was decided to put the stone back again. When this was done the trouble ceased.
From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.
Sixty years ago I used to go for holidays in Aberdeenshire with my grandparents. Grandfather was a shepherd in the Glen O' Noth, Gartly. There was an old stone standing in a field on New Noth Farm which I passed every day when going for milk. It was supposed to mark the grave of an old warrior. The story I was told was that one year they were building a new cow house and took the stone to use as a lintel. The first night after the cows were shut in, they made a great rumpus. The farmer and my grandfather went out the next night to stand guard with guns. They never told what they heard or saw, but the stone was taken out and put back in the field.
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