Latest Folklore

Apparently the Hemlock Stone was a stone hurled by the Devil at Lenton Priory, but fell 4 miles short. He was standing on the hill above Castleton in Derbyshire at the time. That’s some throw even for the Devil. (see the ‘At the Edge’ webpage for more revolting detail).

According to ‘Rambles round Nottingham’ (v1, 1856), p224, the stone gets its name from the “tough green rag-stone or horneblend, called in the vernacular of the district ‘hemlock stone’.”

Also that (p225) “A sensible countryman, whom we encountered near the spot, when hard pressed to state the prevailing opinions regarding the Hemlock Stone, perseveringly declined to advance any but his own, which was, ‘that it had been left by Noah’s flood.’ There can really be no other supposition.”
It beats the usual ‘Druidic sacrifice’ explanations I guess.

In chapter 4 of JG Frazer’s “Golden Bough”, he mentions that:

On the Hemlock Stone, a natural pillar of sandstone standing on Stapleford Hill in Nottinghamshire, a fire used to be solemnly kindled every year on Beltane Eve. The custom seems to have survived down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; old people could remember and describe the ceremony long after it had fallen into desuetude.

Under an oak in Shebbear village square is a big conglomerate boulder. Every 5th of November, the bellringers lever up the stone and turn it over, then ring a peal of bells. Apparently the devil lives under the stone, and this stops him wreaking havoc for the next year. There is another stone about 750m north too but it doesn’t get a name.
The custom has nothing to do with increasing the trade in the nearby ‘Devil’s Stone Inn’.

Also it seems that the inn is haunted:
hauntedinns.co.uk/devil.htm
according to Craig Tennant~Smith. But whether that has anything to do with the influence of the stone, who can say...

You can’t really beat the King’s collar-stud holder anecdote for a good story connected with the Rillaton barrow ( the cup was claimed as Duchy Treasure Trove to William IV and remained in the royal household until King George V died – he kept it on his dressing table).

Leslie Grinsell visited the site and spoke to some boys who lived nearby – they said they knew the barrow as ‘King Arthur’s Grave’ (this from his 1936 ‘Ancient Burial Mounds of England).

users.zetnet.co.uk/pgoodearl/laceygreen/sdean/sdean.htm

On the eastern side of the hill there was a dell, in which sycamore trees once grew. It was said that if one could run around the dell four times, whilst holding one’s breath, the aroma of brimstone would arise. If a fifth circuit could be completed, then the Devil himself would appear. As far as is known no one ever managed to complete the circuits. However, this caused much excitement amongst the children

“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

Here you go luvies
This stone is the meeting place of the dunsinane witch sisters in Bill Shake’s Macbeth.

The Deity stone opposite the entrance is supposed to smack anyone who swears near it. As usual not everyone believed it, and one man who went up there one night to “f and blind” at the stone was found dead the following morning.

The Eagle Stone is similar in appearance to the Mother Cap Stone and lies at the edge of a cairnfield, on Baslow Edge.
On certain mornings of the year the stone is said to bounce around the moors. Eagle Stone is thought to be a corruption of Aigle’s Stone a Celtic deity who threw large stones.

Could the path be an old Corpse Way? A ritual route that was used to transport the recently deceased, and believed to be a conduit for supernatural or shamanic energies... These ways are sometimes marked with stones, either ritual or practical. Is it dead straight, as these paths often are...

Paul Devereux goes into detail about such features in ‘Haunted Land‘

The story about St Kieran has him turn the giants to stone when they don’t listen. Perhaps this is a bit of a joke, because the 6th century saint never left Ireland (from Burl’s Carnac to Callanish). Maybe this is a bit like the folklore motif of stones moving when they hear the church clock (stones can’t hear – or else the church doesn’t have a clock). Otherwise, a bit unfair as I’m sure his voice wasn’t loud enough for the giants to hear.

Burl mentions the site in his book about stone rows ‘From Carnac to Callanish’ – a man was playing leapfrog on a Sunday, and the devil turned him into stone by leapfrogging over him. You wouldn’t think the devil would care about Sunday leapfrogging.
Whatever, it is very unusual to find a stone row in this part of the country -or even a single stone, in amongst the brussels sprout fields. Burl is quoting Dyer’s Penguin book of Prehistoric England and Wales and doesn’t mention what clues there are to this having been part of a row, but I’d like to find out some more. Maybe the idea of the row has got more to do with the game and the legend than any archaeological remains? Also, the stone is near Marston Moretaine, which has an unusual church with the tower separate from the rest of the building: this is blamed on the devil too.

see the legend at the ‘Mysterious Britain’ site at
mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/bedfordshire/bedfordshire2.html

The map from 1892 shows the nearby pub called the ‘Jumps Inn’.

Devil’s Dyke and the Slad (to the east) are thought to be the remains of the stronghold of Cassivellaunus, the king of the Catuvellauni tribe. One version of events is that Cassivellaunus invaded the territory of the Trinovantian tribe, murdering its king. At this point the king’s son Mandubracius fled to the Romans for help, giving Caesar an excuse to invade Britain. In his article about Colchester Dr Mike Ibeji writes,

...after a botched attempt in 55 (which even his own propaganda cannot quite disguise), Caesar returned to finish the job in 54 BC. He chased Cassivellaunus back to his stronghold, which he stormed from two sides, forcing Cassivellaunus to flee and come to terms.

Captain McKay, a ferrylouper, the destroyer of the Odin Stone, was finally stopped only after the destruction of of one stone and the toppling of another of the Standing Stones of Stenness.

The many strips of cloth (or “clouties”) which adorn the trees here. This tradition is still quite common in Britain as it is in many other parts of the world. The idea being to tear a piece of cloth from the part of the body which is ill, and as the cloth rots on the tree so the hurt disappears with it.

A few years ago there was great consternation in the local pagan community when unidentified persons took offence at the “heathen” practice and cut down the branches to which the clouties were tied. An act showing great disrespect for the beliefs of those who left offerings. On the other hand, however, some people miss the point and leave all sorts of things – plastic bags, crisp packets, foil wrappers – which can be an eyesore.

MacBeth’s name is strongly linked with this area. Birnam Wood lies up by Dunkeld, there are traces of a hill fort on Dunsinane Hill a few kilometres SSE, and a nearby hill to this is still named King’s Seat. Despite the bad press he received from the Saxon playwright, Shakespeare (who never visited Scotland, and was sucking up to the Stewart monarchy), MacBeth is regarded as one of the better monarchs of Scotland during the troubled times he lived in. He reigned for 17 years, and was the penultimate Celtic King of Scots. He managed to visit Rome on pilgrimage in 1050, when it was reported that he ‘scattered money like seed to the poor’. He is described thus in the prophecy of Saint Berchan:

‘The ruddy faced king... will possess Scotland.
The strong one was fair, yellow-haired and tall.
Brimful of food was Scotland, east and west,
During the reign of the ruddy, brave king

It is appropriate that this immense stone bears his name.

Many superstitions were attached to the barrow and its destruction in the 1860s, with the country people speaking of the place being haunted by boggarts and children having been known to take off their clogs and walk past barefoot at night.

This is a pretty big stone – 14 ft tall – but it only seems to be on the old Ordnance maps? Chris Barber’s 1986 book ‘More mysterious Wales’ has a photo, so surely it can’t have disappeared?

You may have been to Devil’s Bridge? Well the devil was collecting stone for this over on the top of Trichrug Mountain. He’d bit off a bit more than he could chew with this huge stone, so sat down for a bit of a rest. He’d been gripping it so hard that his fingers left marks in the stone (can you see them?). He was just drifting off into a nice nap when a cockerel patrolling the field spotted him, and sneaking up behind gave a deafening crow. The devil leapt to his feet in surprise and ran off, leaving the stone behind. Where you’ll (hopefully) find it today.

Llech Bron means ‘huge brown stone?‘

This doesn’t look a very comfortable place for a stone judging by the map. It’s hemmed in by the M4, the railway, a small road, and there’s an industrial estate across the way. But when it was thrown here by St Sampson (from Margam mountain) for reasons left unsaid by Barber in his ‘More mysterious Wales’ – well it was probably a nice spot, not far from the sea and the sand dunes, and the mountains to the north.

Worth checking out just for the situation? But don’t turn up before cockcrow on Christmas day or you won’t see it – the stone will have uprooted itself and be on its way down to the river for a drink. Grinsell (in ‘folklore of prehistoric sites in Britain’) specifically mentions the sea at Sker as its favoured drinking location. Sker House itself dates back to medieval times and is said to be very haunted. Perhaps that’s why the stone is drawn there. Or maybe it’s more prehistoric connections – you can see a mace found there at
walespast.com/article-print.shtml?id=15&image=3

By the way – if you go to see it move, try not to get in its way. Bad luck is supposed to fall on anyone who obstructs its path.* Not to mention the fact that you’ll get squashed, of course.

* Mentioned in the leaflet here: bridgend.gov.uk/Web1/groups/tourism/documents/marketing/002556.pdf

Another stone lies fairly near by , but it’s on the Roman ‘Water Street’ and maybe connected with that?

Perching above Rhisga (Risca) in Gwent, this Iron Age fort crowns the mountain. On the summit, locally known as ‘the pimple’ is an impressive mound – a barrow? Though some people think that it’s part of Norman defences. Whatever, this place has been a favourite spot for a long time, and people still come to look at the view, watch fireworks, dance at the Brecon free festival, and er morris dance.

I was reading Chris Barber’s ‘more mysterious wales’ in which he recounts a story which sounds like a modern version of your classic ‘storm following tampering’ story.

In June 1984 Terry Wilmot was helping to repair the erosion done by walkers and scramble bikes to the mound. He was busy constructing some wooden steps when a long swarm of bees appeared and flew around the heads of him and his team. They were forced to stop work for 20 minutes until the bees had left.
Later, on returning to their van, he found the door half covered with the swarm.

In Wirt Sikes’ book “British Goblins” of 1880, swarms of bees were supposed to be fairies in disguise. There are other stories of people ‘in the distant past’ being disturbed by swarms on Twmbarlum.

Of course, some people (terrible cynics who don’t believe in fairies) would say you’d expect to find bees swarming in June anyway.

Another story about the Wimblestone – from Gray Usher’s article ‘Spade and Plough’, as reported in Third Stone 25 by Phil Quinn.

On one of the Wimblestone’s midnight rambles it felt tired and lay down for a rest. In the darkness a farmer mistook it for a cow escaped from his field, and encouraging it to move, gave it an thwack with his stick. The stone was infuriated, and reared up and rolled at the terrified man. He was forced to run to Rowberrow churchyard – the stone couldn’t enter the consecrated ground and had to pace up and down outside the gate all night waiting for him to come out. In the end dawn broke, and ‘Wimble’ was forced to roll home unavenged.

information from Phil Quinn’s article in Third Stone 25:

Francis Knight, in his 1915 book ‘The Heart of Mendip’ tells how there was once a famous strongman in the region. The devil got fed up hearing of his exploits and decided to challenge him to a match of strength. The two contestants and all the local people gathered on Shute Shelve Hill. The devil hurled a huge stone with all his might down into the Vale of the Axe below. When the strongman’s turn came, his stone went much further, and landed just east of Lower Weare.

unfortunately his recounting of the story stops here, but I’d like to think the devil got very angry and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

whatever, it seems that the strongman’s stone was removed before Francis’s retelling, and its exact site is unclear. The devil’s stone still remains, in a pasture south of Bourton Lane in the hamlet of Cross. It is about 4ft high, and Quinn claims the shape of its top echos the shape of nearby Winscombe Hill (and Crook Peak?) – though you’ll have to go check that for yourself.

Browsing through an old copy of Third Stone I found Phil Quinn’s record of this 8ft standing stone.

He describes how John Strachey wrote in 1730 that the stone was called ‘Wooks Cait’ after the giant at Wookey Hole, further along the mendips. Quinn claims another stone to be nearby on the 1882 ordnance survey map (though I can’t see it on the 1887 copy) – ‘although this has since disappeared’.

If you want to visit the quoit, apparently the farmer at Yarberry farm in whose land it stands is happy to grant permission if you call in.

According to the information in the EH scheduled monument record, this stone is made of sandstone and stands about 2.5m high and is 1.5m wide. It is described as being rather weathered and having a crack down the middle that almost splits it in two.

There are some obvious hills in the vicinity – Crook Peak, Banwell Hill – but the stone was positioned down on the flat of the valley, on the floodplain not far from the waters of the Lox Yeo river.

Why, you may ask, is this stone leaning at such an angle? Well, it wasn’t placed here carefully, it was actually thrown from the top of nearby Pen y Gaer (a hillfort). A giant was up there, and he’d left his flock of sheep in the protection of his sheepdog. However, the dog had sneaked into the protection of a nearby cromlech (Cwt y Bugail) for a crafty nap – so the missile was thrown in an attempt to wake him up and put him back on the job.

(from Chris Barber’s More Mysterious Wales)

Known as Carreg Lefn (smooth stone) and Maen Pres (brass stone). If you trace its shadow at a certain time of day, and dig inside its outline on the earth, you should find some treasure buried in a brass container. If this proves difficult, if you can find the inscription allegedly on this 12ft megalith, and read it out, the stone will obligingly step aside to reveal some treasure.

(from C Barber’s More Mysterious Wales)

This hill fort overlooking the sea contains ‘Bwrdd Arthur’ – Arthur’s Table. If you search you can find a large circular stone with 24 ‘seats’ around. The geologically-minded might interpret this as part of a limestone pavement.

The 3 leaps are three stones in a field next to the georgian mansion called Plas Gwyn. They were placed there in remembrance of a competition between two men for the hand in marriage of St Geraint’s grand=daughter, supposedly in the 6th century. By adopting a triple-jump style approach, Hywel ap Gwalchmai was able to beat his opponent and get his girl.

(can’t remember where I read this – possibly in LV Grinsell’s collection, ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’ 1976.)