I've got to chuck my ha'pennorth in at this point. But I'm thinking on the hoof, so forgive me if it gets a little garbled.

Baza, you say: "Most of the tales seem to follow certain patterns, e.g.

The devil / a giant / etc threw it at a church / his dog / etc and missed.

Dancers turned to stone.

At midnight, they all go down to the stream for a drink.

Someone took ten horses to drag a stone down a hill, he was plagued with misfortune until he used one horse to drag it back up again.

I just can`t see how such tales can add to our knowledge."

Well, this tells us a couple of important things. Firstly, much of the above stem from early Christian 'propganda', when they were fighting to wipe out the Old Religion. Stories like that sanitise/demonise practices they couldn't succeed in wiping out, or didn't like. So this reflects the existing power and control of these sites, in a form that although twisted by external forces, was still just about able to endorse that energy. (Yet not get you strung up too readily for believing it). The fact that these stories have carried on down through the centuries simply serve to underline the very essential power of these places for us today.

Rhiannon is right when she cites us not being able to get into a Neolithic mind-set. Neither can we access a tenth century mindset that easily. Remember we live in an enlightened society that allows us to form our own beliefs and reasoning - hence your lack of requirement for the folklore; you can go and appreciate the power openly, and worship it readily, if you so wish, without fear of reprisals. In the tenth century you couldn't, because you'd be burned alive as a heretic.

So strangely, the folklore has in some way served to preserve the sites you love, and let you come full circle (maybe, we're not Neolithic, how will we know), and enjoy/worship at them the way it was always intended to be.

Also, you know, these stories, whether you believe/like them or not, they're still in your subconscious; and they will continue to deliver symbolic images of the magnificence of these sites, whether you are aware of it or not. Bit like psychic adverts, really.

Lights blue touch paper, retires to safe distance . . . :-)

treaclechops xx

I'm with you on this one. Much as i like to read the stories, surely folklore and mythology are just the 'cod' science of their day. An explanation of how something 'ancient' came to be where it is. I heard a programme on radio 4 a few month's back that was about 'oral tradition' the guy interviewed on the programme stated that he'd done studies all over the UK and the conclusion drawn was that after 3 or 4 generations, word of mouth facts cannot be proved or disproved as apsolute truth, it gets a little like 'Chinese whispers'. I think he said a period of 120 years or so was the apsolute maximum that folktales that had become 'fact' could be varified or not.
I mean we all take Harvest festival to be an 'ancient' custom, though another of those elusive Radio 4 programmes said that it was 'invented/ reinvented' by a vicar in the mid nineteenth century.
An Re: the Christianisation/demonisation of older festivities, well isn't the whole 'Christain Year' just a blanket overlay, give or take a few occations of earlier celebrations. I read in Ronald Huttons' book, The Ritual Year that Christmas was originally in springtime (which would make more sense) and was only moved due to those good christain folk still observing those alledgedly 'heathen' mid winter piss ups. Er, I've strayed off the point a little...sorry about that! I'll shut up now : )