Latest Folklore

Hunt called the circle ‘the Nine Maids or Virgin Sisters’ and also calls them nine ‘Moor Stones’. He has a dry sense of humour: “From one person only I heard the old story of the stones having been metamorphosed maidens. Other groups of stone might be named, as Rosemedery, Tregaseal, Boskednan, Botallack, Tredinek, and Crowlas, in the west, to which the same story extends, and many others in the eastern parts of the county; but it cannot be necessary.”

(’Hals’, as mentioned by Stubob below, is W Hal’s ‘Compleat History of Cornwal, general and parochial’ (1702).)

Another story about the Spriggans from Trencrom Hill can also be found amid Hunt’s book:
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe045.htm
and hinges on the slightly weird idea that the pixies would be counting their riches at a human’s house. The old woman who owned the house stole their money and moved to St Ives. Well that was her excuse for her sudden improvement in wealth at least. However, you can’t mess with the pixies: her comeupance was that one touched her clothes, and she had awful pains.

Spriggans from nearby Bartinney Downs substitute a child with one of their own? Or just plain child abuse. Make your mind up with the song at sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe033.htm
Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (1886).

Here’s an extract that mentions the ritual at the well which Janey attempts to get rid of the changeling.

On the three first Wednesdays in flow’ry May
She plunged it deep at the dawn of day--
Pass’d it slowly three times against the sun,
Went three times round,--and when all was clone,
The imp of a child roar’d aloud for fun.
No tongue can tell
The trouble it gave her
To dip the shaver,
And work the spell.

Probably the source of Holy McGrail’s folklore, this is from Hunt’s 1886 ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’.

At Ransom Mine the “Knockers” were always very active in their subterranean operations. In every part of the mine their “knockings” were heard, but most especially were they busy in one particular “end.” There was a general impression that great wealth must exist at this part of the “lode.” Yet, notwithstanding the inducements of very high “tribute” were held out to the miners, no pair of men could be found brave enough to venture on the ground of the “Bockles.” An old man and his son, called Trenwith, who lived near Bosprenis, went out one midsummer eve, about midnight, and watched until they saw the “Smae People” bringing up the shining ore. It is said they were possessed of some secret by which they could communicate with the fairy people. Be this as it may, they told the little miners that they would save them all the trouble of breaking down the ore, that they would bring “to grass” for them, one-tenth of the “richest stuff,” and leave it properly dressed, if they would quietly give them up this end. An agreement of some kind was come to. The old man and his son took the “pitch,” and in a short time realised much wealth. The old man never failed to keep to his bargain, and leave the tenth of the ore for his friends. He died. The son was avaricious and selfish. He sought to cheat the Knockers, but he ruined himself by so doing. The “lode” failed; nothing answered with him; disappointed, he took to drink, squandered all the money his father had made, and died a beggar.

(Rosewall Hill mines were also known as Ransom United Mine)
mindat.org/loc-1261.html

Mr Hunt collected this for his ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (originally published 1865). He says: “the following, communicated to me on the 8th of August, is too good to be lost. I therefore give it in my correspondent’s own words:”

“I heard last week of three fairies having been seen in Zennor very recently. A man who lived at the foot of Trendreen hill, in the valley of Treridge, I think, was cutting furze on the hill. Near the middle of the day he saw one of the small people, not more than a foot long, stretched at full length and fast asleep, on a bank of griglans (heath)*, surrounded by high brakes of furze. The man took off his furze cuff, and slipped the little man into it, without his waking up; went down to the house; took the little fellow out of the cuff on the hearthstone, when he awakened, and seemed quite pleased and at home, beginning to play with the children, who were well pleased with the small body, and called him Bobby Griglans.

“The old people were very careful not to let Bob out of the house, or be seen by the neighbours, as he promised to show the man where the crocks of gold were buried on the hill. A few days after he was brought from the hill, all the neighbours came with their horses (according to custom) to bring home the winter’s reek of furze, which had to he brought down the hill in trusses on the backs of the horses. That Bob might be safe and out of sight, he and the children were shut up in the barn. Whilst the furzecarriers were in to dinner, the prisoners contrived to get out, to have a ‘courant’ round the furze-reek, when they saw a little man and woman, not much larger than Bob, searching into every hole and corner among the trusses that were dropped round the unfinished reek. The little woman was wringing her hands and crying, ‘O my dear and tender Skillywidden, wherever canst ah (thou) be gone to? shall I ever east eyes on thee again?’ ‘Go ‘e back,’ says Bob to the children; ‘my father and mother are come here too.’ He then cried out, ‘Here I am, mammy !’ By the time the words were out of his mouth, the little man and woman, with their precious Skillywidden, were nowhere to be seen, snd there has been no sight nor sign of them since. The children got a sound thrashing for letting Skillywidden escape.”

*Quite recently I heard, in St Agnes, heath-flowers called “the blowth of the griglans ?

Online at the sacred texts archive at
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm

Perhaps the fairies lived in one of the cairns?

I see on the map ‘Skillywadden’ is the name of a nearby house (a barn where you can stay) – it’s on the 1880s map too.

Jo May (the former owner of the fogou) mentions some legends connected with the site.

Firstly, ” in AD937 the fields surrounding the site witnessed the slaughter of the last of the Cornish Celts led by Howel in their final battle against King Athelstan and his invading Saxon army. The fogou is known as the ‘Boleigh Fogou’ and Boleigh means ‘place of slaughter’. Legend has it that after the battle the stream by the fort ran red with blood.”

He also has a tale connected with the Civil War: that in 1646 some Royalist soldiers who were fleeing the Parliamentary troops were kindly concealed in the dank fogou for several days by a member of the Levellis family. May points to two apparent blocked vents in the roof as a relic of this episode.

May also suggests that the fogou was used as a hiding place for smugglers’ and wreckers’ booty.

The place became known as the Grambler Grove, it was “..well wooded and the upper part thickly covered with hazel, thorn and elder, with a tangled undergrowth of briars, brambles and furze. Few persons liked to pass this place, because strange noises were heard and fires often seen within it by night, when no one would venture near the place.”
(Jo May, who seems to be quoting Blight’s ‘Churches and Antiquities of West Cornwall’ (1885) in ‘Fogou’ (1996), a sample of which is online at
gothicimage.co.uk/books/fogou1.html

There are four round cairns near Netherwitton, three between the River Font and a nearby tributary. Some contained a stone cist. I can’t help thinking that the following story is set specifically in Netherwitton because of the presence of these mounds.

THE FAIRY NURSELING

A cottager and his wife residing at Nether Witton were one day visited by a fary and his spouse with their young child, which they wished to leave in their charge. The cottager agreed to take care of the child for a certain period when it had to be taken thence. The fary gave the man a box of ointment with which to anoint the child’s eyes; but he had not on any account to touch himself with it, or some misfortune would befal him. For a long time he and. his wife were ‘very careful to avoid the dangerous unction; but one day when his wife was out curiosity over-came his prudence, and he anointed his eyes without any noticeable effect; but after a while, when walking through Long Horsley Fair, he met the male fary and accosted him. He started back in amazement at the recognition; but instantly guessing the truth, blew on the eyes of the cottager, and instantly blinded him. The child was never more seen.

The book also contains this anecdote:

many years ago a girl who lived near Nether Witton, as she was returning from milking with her pail on her head, saw the fairies playing in the fields, and though she pointed them out to her companions they could not see them. The reason it seemed was her weise or pad for bearing the pail on her head was composed of four-leaved clover, which gives the power of seeing fairies.

From ‘The Fairy Mythology’ by Thomas Keightley [1870], online at the sacred-texts archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/index.htm

Unsurprisingly, the Puckstone’s alternative name is the Fairy Stone. Heaths can be weird places.

The stone is marked on the 1:25000 map – perhaps juamei missed it because he wasn’t in quite the right spot? It’s north of the Agglestone, right by a track. It’s the same type of rock as the ‘holy’ stone, but apparently with a scarier reputation.

(mentioned at the swuklink site
swuklink.com/BAAAGBSE.php)

From “Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines”
by R.M. Ballantyne (1869), a slight variation on the stories below:

One of these giants was a very notable fellow. He was named ‘Wrath,’ and is said to have been in the habit of quenching his thirst at the Holy Well under St. Agnes’s Beacon, where the marks of his hands, made in the solid granite while he stooped to drink, may still be seen. This rascal, who was well named, is said to have compelled poor St. Agnes, in revenge for her refusing to listen to his addresses, to carry in her apron to the top of Beacon Hill the pile of stones which lies there.

Online at:
athelstane.co.uk/ballanty/deepdown/mines19.htm

The earliest reference to the monument is on a 1771 map where it is refered to as “Mitten full of Stones”. A local legend tells how the devil was carrying stones in his mitten to Dunbar to build a dam across the Tweed to Kelso, when the mitten burst and the stones fell on the moor. There is also a tale of gold wrapped in a hide of an ox and buried beneath the cairn.
The cairn was excavated by Lady John Scott in 1871 who “failed to find anything of interest” and then in 1924 by James Hewat Craw.
Hewat Craw uncovered a number of walls and areas of disturbance which led him to the conclusion that the long cairn may have contained “enclosed chambers of one sort or another and which have as yet yeilded only relics of the stone phase of culture”

All information from
The Mutiny Stones, Berwickshire
By James Hewat Craw F.S.A. Scot
Proceeding of the Society of Scottish Antiquities 1925

Some people from the Knockrome and Ardfarnal crofting township believed that Jura was named after two great warriors, Diu and Rah (Diura is Gaelic for Jura). These warriors fought a battle here in which they both died. Their bodies were buried at the foot of these standing stones. When you walk up or down the road, tradition says that you are “Eadar a Diura” (between the two Jura’s).

This stone is nearly 5ft high and stands (according to the Herefordshire SMR) in a pentagonal base – maybe a cross base. But they do say it’s prehistoric. Bar the cross base.

Gough’s 1806 ‘Camden’ mentions two stones, perhaps the remains of a cromlech. The meadow where they were was called ‘Wergins’, hence the name. An alternative title – the Devil’s Stone – comes from a strange incident in the 17th century:

Between Sutton and Hereford, is a common meadow call’d the Wergins, where were plac’d two large stones for a watermark; one erected upright, and the other laid a-thwart. In the late Civil Wars, about the Year 1652, they were remov’d to about twelve score paces distance, and no body knew how; which gave occasion to a common opinion, That they were carried thither by the Devil. When they were set in their places again, one of them requir’d nine yoke of oxen to draw it.

from Daniel Defoe’s 1720s ‘Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain’ (excerpt online at ‘A Vision of Britain Through Time’ visionofbritain.org.uk/Travellers/contents_page.jsp?t_id=Defoe_2&cpub_ID=0

The stone is right by the road, according to the OS map, so barring any hedges you might be able to see it from the comfort of your car.

Graeme C’s ‘Yorkshire Rock Art’ site has this quotation:

WELL OF THE CUPS, North Uist. PSAS vol 16 p 400. – Near the old churchyard on the Ardivoran peninsula, there is a holy well called the Well of the Cups. The spring of water flows from beneath a rock which has a cross carved on it, there are also several cup marks along the top of the rock and on other stones nearby. An old inhabitant remembered hearing that people used to make an Easter pilgrimage to the holy well, taking hard boiled pashe eggs with them to place in the cup marks around the well.

alkelda.f9.co.uk/lore1.htm

According to the Scottish Monuments Record on Canmap, the well was variously known as the well ‘of the priest’, ‘of the cross’ and ‘of the cups’. Above it is a massive rock and just above the high water line, a 14” Latin cross has been inscribed.

Nine yards to the SE are 24 cupmarks arranged along the twin narrow and parallel ridges of a boulder embedded in the beach. Other cupmarks are said to exist, both above the well and on various stones at the NE side of the same promontory, but perhaps some of these are natural hollows.

lmid1.rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.details_gis?inumlink=10335

Graeme C’s ‘Yorkshire Rock Art’ site has the following quotation:

CUP MARKED STONE near Arisaig, PSAS vol 16 p397 – In the ground of Arisaig House there is a large block of stone with over eighty cup marks on its upper surface. A local belief connected with the stone is that an apprentice blacksmith could gain additional skill and strength in the craft by washing his hand in the water collected in the largest cupmark/basin on the stone, this act was to be performed at sunrise on the first of May.

alkelda.f9.co.uk/lore1.htm

Amongst the remains of the easternmost of six stone-walled round huts here there is a stone, in which is cut an 8” deep/diameter cup. The information in the National Monuments of Scotland record says it is locally supposed to have curative properties and is/was known as the “Wailing Stone”.

This block of hard mica-schist has a 6” diameter hole, 11” deep. Traditionally known as ‘St Columba’s Font’, it was used for baptisms “within living memory” according to a 1970 source, and for medicinal purposes. On the banks of Loch Ness, it is apparently set within a 3m diameter circle of large irregularly shaped boulders. It is put forward in the Scottish National Monuments Record that it isn’t actually a half-finished millstone, in case you were wondering. It is a strangely deep hole compared to its diameter though?

Saint Columba himself apparently once saw off the Loch Ness Monster, according to his biographer Saint Adamnan (c597AD). One imagines the heathen picts were so impressed that they would have been queuing up for baptism in the aforementioned font.

On another occasion also, when the blessed man was living for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Nesa (the Ness); and when he reached the bank of the river, he saw some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate man, who, according to the account of those who were burying him, was a short time before seized, as he was swimming, and bitten most severely by a monster that lived in the water; his wretched body was, though too late, taken out with a hook, by those who came to his assistance in a boat. The blessed man, on hearing this, was so far from being dismayed, that he directed one of his companions to swim over and row across the coble that was moored at the farther bank. And Lugne Mocumin hearing the command of the excellent man, obeyed without the least delay, taking off all his clothes, except his tunic, and leaping into the water. But the monster, which, so far from being satiated, was only roused for more prey, was lying at the bottom of the stream, and when it felt the water disturbed above by the man swimming, suddenly rushed out, and, giving an awful roar, darted after him, with its mouth wide open, as the man swam in the middle of the stream. Then the blessed man observing this, raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, and, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the ferocious monster, saying, “Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed.” Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes, though it had just got so near to Lugne, as he swam, that there was not more than the length of a spear-staff between the man and the beast. Then the brethren seeing that the monster had gone back, and that their comrade Lugne returned to them in the boat safe and sound, were struck with admiration, and gave glory to God in the blessed man. And even the barbarous heathens, who were present, were forced by the greatness of this miracle, which they themselves had seen, to magnify the God of the Christians.

online at fordham.edu/halsall/basis/columba-e.html

Graeme C’s ‘Yorkshire Rock Art’ site additionally mentions that the stone was “held to be beneficial in connection with child birth.” The cavity was said also “to be always full of water and if it was emptied out it would fill up of its own accord”.
alkelda.f9.co.uk/lore1.htm_

The full story of the Burnmoor corpse road ghost is as follows:-

A young lad died, and was being carried across Burnmoor, in a coffin strapped to the back of a horse. At a certain point the horse was frightened and bolted into the mist and couldn’t be found.

His mum was told of this and suffered a heart attack. A few days later she died. She, too, was carried in her coffin by horseback over Burnmoor. Her horse bolted at exactly the same place.

A search was made, and the son’s horse and coffin were found. The mother’s was never found.

In times of storm and mist, a ghostly horse, with a dark, box-like shape on its back, thunders past anyone alone on Burnmoor.

It is commonly said that all the heirs of Balvarran were christened
at the stone, a new cup or basin being made for each infant, but that
General Reid was not so christened: at his baptism in the house a silver
bowl was used, with the disastrous result that there were no more male
heirs and the family died out.

From the article by John Dixon at
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_055/55_095_099.pdf
in the 1920/21 volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

From Graeme C’s ‘Yorkshire Rock Art’ site:

The Witchcraft Stone – Clach na Buidseach – Strathtay, Perthshire PSAS 1920-21 p38 – This is the name given to a large cup marked boulder built into a dry stone wall on Tullypowrie farm. No tradition was noted regarding how the stone came by this name, although local opinion was that the stone was a cresset to hold lamps for monks attending midnight services.

alkelda.f9.co.uk/lore1.htm

“The top of Beacon Hill is the finest view-point in the county. The outlook embraces Lincoln Cliff, the Carr lands as far as the Ouse, and the country west of the Magnesian Limestone escarpment. Here are earthworks believed to date back to Roman or British times. Prince Rupert encamped here before going to the relief of Newark in 1644.”
nottshistory.org.uk/swinnerton1910/chapter26.htm
from ‘Nottinghamshire’ – HH Swinnerton (1910)

The spectacular view out may have looked rather different in the past when the lower lands were undrained – and from down there, the elevated beacon looked even more impressive?

The road up the hill is associated with a classic ‘road ghost’ – recounted at the Road Ghosts website
tudor34.freeserve.co.uk/CasesUKaccounts6.htm

“We were travelling From Misterton to Gringley (Notts). Just before the last corner leading up to Beacon Hill, in the headlights we saw a white figure about 3ft into the road. It was that of a young lady, beckoning us to come towards her with her left hand. My father slowed down. As he did she was smiling.

“At this point we noted that her flowing white gown was somewhat 8 to 10 inches from the floor with no feet visible. As my father accelerated past she retreated (floated) backwards at an angle in front of us with an angry scowling face, through a closed iron farm gate and quickened pace until almost a blur, across the field until she vanished into the hillside. Lengthy discussions followed on the way home with my father refusing to believe what he had seen.

“Over the past years since then, both my mother and father have seen the same apparition twice, years apart, but around the same autumn period in the same place. Discussions have ensued after each occurrence, my father now reservedly admits he has seen something; my mother, well, she would not mind seeing her again.

“Some years after our experience, a bus crashed at that same spot, he was coming down the hill and said he had swerved to miss a ‘woman in white’. No one else was found around the crash.”

The Cheese Well fairies are mentioned in Sir Walter Scott’s 1806 ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II’, which is online at
fullbooks.com/Minstrelsy-of-the-Scottish-Border-Vol-II-of3.html

The ‘Mysterious Britain Gazetteer’ says that the circle is associated with strange lights. This stone
themodernantiquarian.com/post/30255
is called the Fairy Stone – are the lights the work of fairies or are they ‘earthlights’? (some cynics would go for neither, of course.)

The caption to the MBG photograph suggests that the shape of the fairy stone deliberately matches that of Win Hill (SK186850) on the horizon.

mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/derbyshire/derbyshire3.html

William Simmonds lived near Stroud and collected photographs and information about local rural life. An online exhibition is at the Museum of English Rural Life
ruralhistory.org/online_exhibitions/simmonds/cat_photo.html

“[He spoke to] George Hunt, a plasterer, from Far Oakridge
(A pencil note adds, ‘died 1937 aged 93’) “W.G.S.:Do you know Haresfield Beacon Mr Hunt. Cromwell is said to have watched his armies from there.
Mr H. : Oh yes and the story goes that he fired at the cathedral tower from there, and they put sacks round it to protect it. That’s how the story goes but I aint never been up there. ”

British History Online has the information that the earthworks at Haresfield Beacon were once known as Evesbury / Ezimbury.
british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=15822

This is a massive quartz block 2m long, 1.2m wide and 1.65m high. The Somerset Historic Environment record says that the farmer of the land gives its local name as ‘The Devil’s Stone’ and that the Devil hurled it from Dunkery Beacon. The field name is “Hour stone” which sounds suspiciously like “Hoar stone” – another quite common name for lone standing stones in England. Apparently in local tradition it was also thought of as a boundary or path stone. It looks as though it’s on a direct (and old) path between two villages, and very near to where the path crosses a stream.
Despite all this hopeful folklore pointing at its importance in local consciousness, the record suggests it’s probably not prehistoric. I guess it’s just big. But you could go and look at it.

13th May – GARLAND DAY AT ABBOTSBURY.

Do we offer floral tributes to Neptune in England to-day? Yes, at Abbotsbury on the 13th May every year the children go round the village with large garlands, asking for gifts from the inhabitants. When the round has been completed, a start is made for the beach, the flowers are placed in boats, and put out to sea--not for Neptune to do as he likes with--for they are brought back again, taken to the church, where a service is gone through. Here then is an excellent instance of a Christianised pagan superstition, for the floral tributes, if Neptune is to be worshipped, should be committed to the waves. The idea was to propitiate the god and bring luck in fishing. In all probability the custom will linger for some years to come, but it is already robbed of its original significance, and shows some signs of decay in consequence. Maybe some modern pagan, interested in old customs, will induce the inhabitants to return to the old rite of trusting the floral gifts to Father Neptune.

(from https://www.sacred-texts.com)