Latest Folklore

The hollowed out footprint suggests a place of ancient inauguration of early kings.

Apparently the name comes from the Gaelic “Achadh na Cloiche” which means “Field of the Stones”?

Barclodiad y Gawres (the Giantess’s Apronful) is the largest of the chambered tombs of Wales. Some of the stones inside are decorated with amazing spirals, chevrons and lozenges, pecked out with stone tools, very similar to the ones you can see in the Boyne valley in Ireland (like Newgrange). To add to the site’s mystery, in addition to the expected burnt human bones found in the side chambers, the central space showed evidence of having had a fire in it, and then a ‘stew’ poured over it before being covered with pebbles and limpet shells. Who knows, perhaps the spilt stew was just the result of it being chucked on the floor in disgust at the taste: analysis of the bones in it supposedly turned up wrasse, whiting, eel, frog, toad, natterjack, grass snake, mouse and hare. Mmm, tasty. Sounds like a magic potion to me.

The megalithic walks site suggests you can get a key, assuming the place is still locked :
“To get one go to the village of Llanfaelog and find The Wayside shop, where for a £5 deposit you can get one. It is worth phoning to check they are open, they were on Sunday, the number is 01407 810153.”

A fabled cave lies in the cliffs below the tomb, connected with King Arthur. Arthur was supposed to be battling with the Irish, so to get his treasure out of harm’s way he stashed it a mile underground in Ogof Arthur. It’s said to be still there – but you’ll have to wait for an extremely low tide to glimpse the entrance to the cave.

If this is what the giantess was carrying in her apron, then you’ll have to go to Y Ddeufaen to see what the giant had been carrying (according to Grinsell’s source in ‘folklore of prehistoric sites in Britain’).

Legend has it that squeezing through the Maiden Stone will bring not only good luck, but also increase fertility. The charm is even greater should you do this naked!

There was a recent sighting of a big cat in this area, so I was a bit wary as I ran around the wet field, so excuse the quality of the pictures I’ve submitted.

Today there was another report of a big cat on the prowl, the Beast of Bodmin on holiday?

local saying…

“As old as Eggardon”

Arbor Low is also known as ‘the stonehenge of the north/Peak District’ but I don’t think much of this – you never hear people call stonehenge ‘the Arbor Low of the south’.

2 sisters turned to stone for not going to church.

Reading the Fortean Times website, I came across a post by ‘Marion’:

In the very early seventies I lived in the village of Stogursey , about two miles from the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor , I was only five but I still remember the absolute certaintly of the villagers young and old alike that the station had been built on a ‘fairy’s house’ and the fairies were still well pi**ed with the whole affair ! Several people had died during the building of the reactor – proof that the villagers were right ! There was a serious accident one night when a turbine shaft sheared off and went through a twelve foot ( or whatever ) thick wall , this was because a protective statue of a fairy had been moved or removed ! This statue was also said to move on its own and no one wanted to work on site at night. There was also an impression that more went on but people wouldn’t talk about it. And everyone was deadly serious about it too, it wasn’t a joke to them.

The giant Myen Du was said to live at Maen Castle near Land’s End, and the fairy folk called Coopers banged stones together to warn the inhabitants of St. Ives that rich shoals of fish were approaching.

Sir James Y Simpson (the first surgeon to use chloroform) was apparently also interested in rock art. In the 1864/66 volume of the Proc. Soc. Antiquaries of Scotland Simpson wrote an article about cups and rings on stones in Scotland.
This extract is from that article, but quoted indirectly from
geocities.com/newtonwinchell/scot.pdf
which is an article by Kevin L Callahan on ethnographic analogy and the folklore of cup and ring rock art.

(on the naming of Achnabreck)
..The rock upon which the first and largest collection of concentric rings and cups at Auchnabreach is placed has a Gaelic name, which, according to John Kerr, an old shepherd brought up on the farm, is ‘leachd-nan-sleagher’ – the rock of the spears. Mr Henry D Graham, to whom I am much indebted for drawings of the Auchnabreach sculptures and others, believes the word to be ‘leach-nan-sluagh’ – the rock of the hosts or gatherings. The rev. Mr M’Bride has perhaps more happily suggested it to be ‘leachd-nan-slochd’ – rock of the pits or impressions. The rock itself, let me add, is in a position which commands a charming view of the waters of Loch Gilp and Loch Fyne, with the distant and magnificent hills of Arran as a gigantic background...

er. hope that clears that up then.

The Devil’s Arrows are made of millstone grit, which suggests they might have been shifted from over a mile away near Knaresborough, across the River Ure, although it is possible they were found more locally, having been brought by glaciation. Then again, perhaps the traditional story is true: the devil stood on Howe Hill (near Fountains Abbey) to throw the stones at Aldborough. He shouted:
“Borobrigg keep out o’ way,
For Aldborough town
I will ding down!”
As usual he messed up and the stones fell harmlessly short of their mark. You can still raise the devil using them though – if you walk round them at midnight 12 times (widdershins of course). I also read that the grooves on the stones were from his attempts to hang his grandmother. Ah, I didn’t know the devil had a grandmother. She must have been a tough old bird because there are a lot of grooves on these huge megaliths.

Aldborough is the modern town where the Roman Isurium Brigantium used to stand, the civilian capital of Brigantium. On the unlikely webpage of ‘Britannia: America’s gateway to the British Isles’ I found the following alternative story:

“The King of the Brigantian Celts, to weigh the merits of the Druids’ lore against the newly-come teaching of the Christians, bade that both should be debated before him. At first the new faith made ground, until a late arrival among the Druids turned the tide by his strong personality and his ridicule. But a movement of his cloak showed that his feet were melting the rock he stood on, and sinking into it. Discovered, he rose into the air in a smother of curses. He moulded into bolts the masses of half-molten rock which clung to his legs and flew towards Iseur, the capital city, intending to destroy it. But the bolts were miraculously intercepted, and fell harmlessly to earth. ”

A different interpretation of the stones comes from the modern leyline/earth energy fold, which suggests that the needle like shape of the Arrows was chosen deliberately because of how it can influence or control the movement of energy through the land.

Moel Ty Uchaf (highest house on the bare hill? feel free to disagree) sits on the slopes of Cader Berwyn. In 1974 this mountain was the scene of a UFO ‘incident’. A unknown light had been seen moving low over the area at night for a number of months. In January white lights were seen up in the mountains; some said they saw streaks of light across the sky, accompanied by a loud explosion (registering 4/5 on the Richter scale). The army cordoned off roads. UFO or army plane?? Or earthlights?

The earnest Paul Devereux reports that a geiger counter used at Moel ty Uchaf gave anomalously high readings. But am I right in thinking that granite might well be in this area – even used for the stones? and granite is naturally radioactive? Mr Devereux also (with his typical manner of relating anecdote as containing deeply significant information) recounts an encounter with a walker at the site who explained the skylarks hovered overhead ‘because of the ultrasound’. I didn’t even realise skylarks had a particular interest in ultrasound – I thought they just liked hovering :)

There are rectangular cists at the site, which Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust says may be Iron Age or even medieaval.

According to Corbett in 1962, the Thorstone is said to have been cast down form the skies by Thor, God of storms. I believe its more likely to be a corruption of the name of ‘Hoar’, the great Goddess. Indeed the Hawk Stone, and various Hoar stones stand widely hereabouts and probably derived their names from the same deity.

In 1278 CE, the village of Taston was recorded as being called ‘Thorstan’, so it seems likely that the village derives its name from the stone itself. About 10ms away is a huge old stone cross, the top it now fallen, which is said to have been erected to abate the evil influence of the ancient standing stone. (Bloody early Christians wanting a monopoly on history and goodness again!)

Cornish hurling is a bit of a frightening game. It’s only played at St Ives and St Columb now. The hurling ball weighs about a pound, and is made of an orange-sized piece of applewood coated with silver. Two teams, the town and the country, battle to get to their goals, which are about two miles apart. The St Ives version takes place in February on Feast Monday (the day after the nearest Sunday to the 3rd) and at St Columb it’s on Shrove Tuesday and the next week’s Saturda. There would be forty to sixty men a side and as you can imagine things might get pretty rough.

St Cleer spotted a group of people playing the game one Sunday, on his way to prayer. He demanded they should come with him, but they weren’t up for it. Rather meanly he decided to turn them into an example for people who insisted on messing about on the Sabbath, and now you can see the players turned into stone.

Like many other circles, these stones have the reputation of being uncountable. Dr James Yonge the Plymouth surgeon, writing in 1675, said ‘They are now easily numbered, but the people have a story that they never could, till a man took many penny loaffes, and laying one on each hurler, did compute by the remainder what number they were.’ (quoted in J Westwood’s ‘Albion).

So that’s how you do it.

In the village itself is the 15th century-housed St Cleer holy well. Apparently there was also a bowssening pool here (a total immersion pool) which was used to cure the insane.

It was thought that the actual stone was a ‘druidical stone’ which had toppled over.
Legend has it that the stone marks the final resting place of a suicide or murder victim. It has also been suggested that this is the grave of Macbeth.

‘Coetan’ basically means ‘quoit’ – like a flat discus for throwing, presumably referring to the huge capstone: the type of thing that no doubt Arthur (in his giant form, rather than his sword-in-the-stone form) chucked about for fun.

Ben Colman / Mark Ynys Mon’s site at
druidic.org/visits/churches/12.05.02/pages/Standon-stone2.htm
gives a picture of the stone in its current spot (and don’t miss the wicked romanesque font in the nearby church, also a picture on the site – sorry but I can’t help it)

Puddingstone – or Breeding / Mother stone – is made up of littler rocks conglomerated into one lump. Hertfordshire puddingstone is comprised of little pebbles. Apparently, if you take out one of the pebbles, another will grow back. Though I reckon that’d be quite difficult, because the matrix is so hard that the rock tends to split right through the lot – the pebbles aren’t like raisins in a cake.

It’s been speculated that puddingstones were used as track markers on the Icknield way, for example. Perhaps they were also used as sacred standing stones. From these tentative ideas some people have inferred that the common use of them in the foundations of churches was to continue the ‘sacred’ idea – building the old into the new. But I’m kind of inclined to think they may have just been seen as bloody good hard, decorative rocks with which to build. Who knows.

from Benedict’s Pool
by Fred Archer

“Behind the monastery at the foot of Bredon Hill, enclosed by two copices, lies Benedict’s Pool. Few villagers fish from the dark pond, nor will they visit it on moonlit nights, for it is said to be haunted by a mysterious lady in white.

You can see the fortifications of an Iron Age camp on the summit; Roman coins and pottery have been turned up by the plough; and remains of mutilated skeletons found – evidence of a bloody battle before the Roman invasion. The spirits of the ancient soldiers – Briton, Roman and Saxon – are thought to live on in the beech trees, and the sound of men marching has been heard from under the soil.”

The ‘Beast of Bredon’.

Described as a large black cat, this animal has been sighted by many local people, mostly at the eastern end of the hill. The story about this beast first broke on the 21st April 1995 when a Mr. Watkins of Ashton-under-Hill found some large paw prints in the mud near his home. This claim was accompanied by both photographs of the prints and supporting testimony of one Mr. Figgett from Tewkesbury. He said that he saw the animal going through a hedge near the Westmancote turning between Bredon and Kemerton. Sightings elsewhere included that of the 24th April when the Gloucestershire Echo reported another sighting in Cirencester. By May 1995 reports of big cats in Gloucestershire and surrounding areas had reached the point where the Ministry of Agriculture had drafted in a tracker hound to try to locate one of the animals. Sightings of the black beast have far from diminished in the last four years. Many serious attempts have been made across Britain to catch one of these animals, mostly in the south-west of England, but none have proved successful as yet. The Beast of Bredon has had a serious effect on some locals. A Worcester lady I spoke to recently says that ever since she saw the ‘beast’ on Bredon Hill she has been concerned when out walking. This big cat is one of Bredon’s more modern and tangible mysteries.

Excerpt from Bredon Hill, by Brian Hoggard

Also known as the ‘Elephant Stone’, it’s a natural conglomerate stone within the fort.

“Cottagers at the foot of Bredon Hill, near Tewkesbury, assured me in 1906 that there is treasure hidden near or under the Bambury Stone, which goes down to the Avon to drink when it hears the clock strike twelve.”

From: Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs, by J. B. Partridge, in Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 332-342.

from White Dragon, by Liam Rogers
whitedragon.org.uk/articles/malverns.htm

The Colwall stone has several stories surrounding it. A giant is thought to have hurled it there from Clutter’s cave after seeing his wife with another man, killing her. Another story says it was due to a boundary dispute between two giants, they agreed that one should throw the stone over the hills and where it landed should be the boundary between their lands. A third option was told to Alfred Watkins – the Devil was carrying the stone and his apron strings broke at this spot. It is also believed to turn around nine times when it hears midnight strike.

Palmer says that the stone was only set up in the late eighteenth century, but Smith claims that it is a replacement of an earlier monolith. Therefore we cannot rule out the possibility that a genuine Bronze Age standing stone once stood here or nearby.

Roy Palmer, The Folklore of Hereford & Worcester, Logaston, 1992
Brian S.Smith, A History of Malvern, Alan Sutton, 1978

Local superstitious people thought that the caves were inhabited by supernatural beings, hiding in the darkened corners and were scared to go near them after dark

Decidedly anti-pagan folklore claims that druids made human sacrifices at these pools, the pools filling up with blood. Sounds like a bid by the church to stop people sneaking off down the steps after the service?! Was the church built to surplant the natural site? or did the church at some point embrace it? It’s been suggested that the church was built where a stone circle once stood, incorporating the stones into its walls, or that they were taken from a circle the other side of the Den.
The carving on the cross marked stone supporting the church’s sundial is said to be from 800AD.

The large Celtic cross in the den is thought to be relatively recent. There is also the shape of a hollowed out footprint in the rock.

Despite the fact that there are inaminate rocks and stones of passing interest to some, the human stories are far more interesting. It was just off Bostadh at an island called Beirisadh that Niall the last chief of the Macleods of Lewis made his last stand against the Scottish Crown. Niall Macleod also had a part in the sinking of the pirate Peter Love’s ship Priam in 1610. The remains of the ship and its treasure taken from an English merchantman is not precisely known but is thought to be between Circebost harbour and Bostadh.