William Weaver Tomlinson, the first edition of whose Guide to Northumberland was published in 1888, says that the name Hurl Stone is probably a corruption of 'Earl's Stone'. He goes on to say...
"According to a local tradition, some persons once exploring the subterranean passage which is said to extend from the Caterane's Cave on Bewick Moor to the Henhole on Cheviot, had got as far as the Hurle Stone when their lights went out, and they heard above them strange voices repeating, amid the trampling of horses' feet, the elfin rhyme -
'Hup, hup, and gee again!
Round and round the Hurle Stone.'
Terror-stricken, they retraced their footsteps through the darkness to the mouth of the cave as fast as possible."
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The story of Egbert's Stone is an early English rather than a megalithic one, of course: in 878ce, King Alfred rallied armies from three counties (Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire - apparently the Dorset men were occupied at the coast) to fight the Danes.
Tradition has it that they met at Egbert's Stone - and there are at least three different sites claiming to be that of the stone (others being a three-counties boundary post at Bourton, and the site of the 18th century folly King Alfred's Tower - both are a few miles from Kingston), although it seems that the Kingston Deverill site (or, rather, Court Hill, where the stones are assumed to have come from) is regarded as the strongest claimant.
After the armies met, they marched to Ethandun (Edington) and defeated the Danes - somewhere near the White Horse of Westbury/Bratton.
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Enthusiast of megalithic (as well as Roman and mediaeval) sites, formerly based in Warminster, Wiltshire and now in Oxford. My site: hatmandu.net
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