Legend has it that St. Catherine of Alexandria let fall a drop of oil that she was carrying to Queen Margaret from Mount Carmel or Mount Sinai and a spring welled up. As well as treating eczema it was alleged that this well was used for treating leprosy, but this may be based only on the fact that the neighbourhood within which the well is situated- Liberton- may have derived from the name ‘Leper-Town’.
Easy to find, next to the north side A45 at the top of Knightlow Hill sits the Wroth Stone.
This small yet enigmatic stone sits on a mound which, some say, marks the resting point of some ancient warrior. On the OS map it is called Knightlow Cross and it has the look of a base for wayside cross/marker. However the A45 an old coaching road and the Wroth Stone almost certainly pre-dates this.
Why get all worked up about a time weathered stone at the side of the A45?
The stone marks the site a ceremony which goes back to, at least, the time of the conquest. The Wroth Silver ceremony is performed at sunrise on 11 November each year where representatives of villages of the Knightlow Hundred pay a consideration to the Duke of Buccleach.
Those who do not cough-up (1893 was the last time someone didn’t) either face either a fine, or offers a white bull with red nose and ears (very, er, pagan). After the ceremony invited guests go to a local pub for a big breakfast with milk (and rum!).
Feudal lord and master exercising his rights over the peasants – or Bronze age samhain festival – you decide.
An excellent web page on this is at
There is also a locally produced book called (I think) Stretton on Dunsmore – Village history. Lots of information and photos about the ceremony.
The images above show a close up of the stone and one of the mound (if you look closely!).
Lastly, this monument is on private land – please be very
respectful.
Carreg Leidr, the “thief stone”, is said to be a thief who, having stolen a bible from the local parish church, turned to stone as he carried it away on his shoulders.
“At Llandyfrydog, in Anglesea, there is a curious stone, resembling a humpbacked man. It is said that a man who had stolen several valuable articles from the parish church at last desired to obtain the Bible from a cupboard under the altar, where it was kept locked up when not in use. The sacred volume was contained in a special cover made of carved wood, inset with precious stones and gold. It took the man several hours in the night to secure the Bible, and, under cover of the darkness, he ran away with it on his back. For this shameful theft he was turned into stone. [Rev. Elias Owen, “Welsh Folk-lore,” p. 260]”
This is one of a few tombs in North Wales to have a name from folklore. ‘Llety’r Filiast’ means ‘Lair of the Greyhound Bitch’, a name shared with several other tombs in Wales. There is no surviving story to explain it.
Local tradition says that this stone was used in some way (?) to rid the place of a fiery dragon! The stone may have been moved in 1840, only to be returned to it’s original setting.
Information from the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority:
Cerrig y Gof (the name means “blacksmith’s stones”) is thought to date from around 3500 BC. The five box-like stone chambers stand on a low, circular mound about 15m across. This is the remains of the original cairn. Each grave has between two and six side-stones, and four of the five capstones are still present, though dislodged from their original position.
Cerrig y Gof is on private property. Public access is permitted but please be sure to close the field gate.
One of the links on the Llangynfelyn website mentions another local site – two stones in a field belonging to the Yurglawdd farm (there is an Erglodd farm in the vicinity? which would sound similar). Allegedly, once a third stone appears then that’ll be the end of the world. I wonder if the two stones are still there?
llangynfelyn.org/dogfennau/bedd_taliesin_mynegiad.html
(This super website has masses of information on the stones).
3.11
I can’t see them mentioned on Coflein. The folklore book above says they are ‘in a field called Llettyngharad on this farm [Eurglawdd], which is in the parish of Llanfihangel Genau’r Glyn, there are two stones respecting which an ancient prophecy says that when the third appears, the end of the world will be at hand’. Erglodd was the site of a mine.
Bedd yr Afanc means ‘grave of the water monster’. This area is full of streams, and the water monster used to live in a pool near the bridge over the Brynberian river. The local people didn’t like him for some reason, so he was killed and buried in this mound. The long low oval mound/cairn is a ‘gallery grave’. No capstones survive of the chamber, but you can see a long low passage of ten pairs of ~50cm uprights leading to a small circular chamber made by seven stones. The site nestles below the Preseli Mountains, where the bluestones for Stonehenge originated.
Mr. C- L- told Mrs S- the large slit at the top of the Hawk Stone was worn by the friction of the chain when witches were chained to it and burnt.
Scraps of English Folklore, XVII. Oxfordshire
Grace Heuman; Elsie Corbett; A. A. Antrobus
Folklore, Vol. 40, No. 1. (Mar. 31, 1929), pp. 77-83
From Mercian Mysteries 2: 11 – If the Webb Stone at Bradley was moved, crops and livestock would suffer.
Another tradition relating to fertility was that young girls had to bow to it, or they would never be married.
(Puts on sarky voice:) ooh, better get bowing, girls.
Legend has it that in AD 61 Queen Boudicca made a gallant last stand against the Romans at Ambresbury Banks
Associated with the Penshaw Monument is the tale of the Lampton Worm, which is apparently how the hill got its rings, indeed this type of hill fort would be highly unusual, even in the period in which it was built few such ornate hill forts existed for hundred’s of miles.
See the website for the full text.
As well as the Gawain and The Green Knight Story I have also heard that the only time the sun shines directly into Lud’s church is at midday on the summer solstice. I don’t know whether it is true or not, never having been lucky enough to get there on the day in question. However if it is true then maybe that is how it got it’s name as Lugh (commonly anglicised to Lud, as in Ludgate in London) was a Celtic sun god. While visiting also go to Hanging stone which is a couple of miles away and well worth the visit.
I can remember a local tale that the Four Stones are the burial ground of four kings of ancient Wales, and that if you tap the ground between them it sounds hollow.
Also according to Radnor legend, the stones go to nearby Hindwell pool to drink at midnight. This has also been attributed to several other standing stones in the area.
The rock you are talking about (I think) is called Cropna. Legend has it that on Yule morning (Old Christmas) when it hears the cocks crowing at Orbister, it goes down the hill and washes its feet in the loch below.
It also has a friend somewhat squarer and a little smaller called Bonna.
Nearby there is a flatter rock with a space below it where apparently men used to hide from the press gangs.
The son of King Osmund of Northumbria was prince Oswy.
The kings wise men told him that Oswy would drown before his third birthday.
After Oswy’s second birthday, Osmund instructed his queen to take Oswy to the highest part of the land, the summit of Odinsberg (Roseberry).
He told her to make use of the hermitage.
To cut a long story short, the boy drowned in the spring that flows from the top of the hill.
The boy was buried in Tevotdale, the queen was so distraught that she died soon after. King Osmund buried his queen beside his son. Tivotdale was given a new name. it was called Oswy-by-his-mother-lay and is known today as Osmotherley.
Long Meg and her Daughters are associated with several common pieces of megalithic folklore. The first (as with the Rollrights and Stanton Drew for example) explains the circle as people turned into stone for their sins. In this case, they were witches holding a sabbat, with the renowned 13th century Scottish Borders magician Michael Scott taking offence. However, although the people-to-stones idea is common, it seems Long Meg and her daughters is the only circle to made up of purely witches. Perhaps it is a product of paranoid times. ‘Long Meg’ was apparently a popular nickname in medieval times for any long slim object (like cannons) – this would be around the same time as the hysteria about witches.
In common with many other sites, the stones allegedly cannot be counted – though the first person to count them correctly twice in succession will break the spell and the stones will be turned back into witches. You’ve been warned.
Despite the story about witches, oerhaps the stones are literally ‘Long Meg and her Daughters’; other stories have the circle as her lovers or her sisters. If a piece is chipped off Long Meg apparently she will bleed – rather like the elder at the King stone at the Rollrights.
Camden used a description by earliest Westmorland antiquarian (and headmaster of Appleby school) Reginald Bainbrigg, sent to him c 1600. This was the first time the name ‘Meg and her daughters’ or ‘Long Meg’ is recorded.
Besides Little Salkeld.. wher the Romaines have fought some great battle, ther standes certaine.. pyramides of stone, placed ther in the manner of a crown. They are commonlie called Meg with hir daughters. They are huge great stones, long meg standes above the ground in sight xv fote long and tre fathome about.
It’s also reputed that the squared off sides of Long Meg are aligned to the points of the compass – but I must say I didn’t have my compass when I visited – can anyone confirm?
‘…Jonet Boyman of Canongate, Edinburgh, accused in 1572 of witchcraft and diabolic incantation, the first Scottish trial for which a detailed indictment has so far been found. Indeed, it is one of the richest accounts hitherto uncovered for both fairy belief and charming, suggesting an intriguing tradition which associated, in some way, the fairies with the legendary King Arthur. At an ‘elrich well’ on the south side of Arthur’s Seat, Jonet uttered incantations and invocations of the ‘evill spreits quhome she callit upon for to come to show and declair’ what would happen to a sick man named Allan Anderson, her patient. She allegedly first conjured ‘ane grit blast’ like a whirlwind, and thereafter appeared the shape of a man who stood on the other side of the well, and interesting hint of liminality. She charged this conjured presence, in the name of the father, the son, King Arthur and Queen Elspeth, to cure Anderson. She then received elaborate instructions about washing the ill man’s shirt, which were communicated to Allan’s wife. That night the patient’s house shook in the midst of a huge, and incomprehensible ruckus involving winds, horses and hammering, apparently because the man’s wife did not follow the instructions to the letter. On the following night the house was plagued by a mighty din again, caused, this time, by a great company of women.‘
From ‘Scottish Fairy Belief’ by Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan (2001) 127-128.
Legend has it that in September 1128, King David was hunting in the Royal Park and he was attacked by a stag that had been lying beside a spring. This was no ordinary stag though as it had a cross attached to it’s antlers. Although injured the King managed to garb the cross whereupon the animal vanished towards the spring.
‘Even in Edinburgh, little bands of the faithful may be seen making their way through the King’s Park to Arthur’s Seat, and, as in the eighteenth century,
ON May-Day, in a fairy ring,
We’ve seen them round St. Anton’s spring,
Frae grass the caller dew-drops wring,
To weet their een,
And water clear as crystal spring,
To synd them clean.‘
From ‘The Silver Bough Volume Two’ by F.Marian McNeill (1959) Page 65.
‘Edinburgh
Beltane Rites
(First Day of May)
Arthur’s Seat, a hill of over 800 feet, behind the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is one of the traditional sites on which our pre-Christian forebears were accustomed to light their Beltane fires at sunrise on the first day of May, to hail the coming of summer and to encourage by mimetic magic the renewal of the food supply.
“For the growth of vegetation, not only sunshine, but moisture is necessary: hence not only fire, but water had its place in the Beltane ritual. To the Druids, the most sacred of all water forms was dew, and to the dew of Beltane morning they attributed special virtue, gathering it before dawn in stone hollowed out for that purpose. May dew, in a word, was the ‘holy water’ of the Druids. Those on whom it was sprinkled were assured of health and happiness and, tradition has it, where young women were concerned, of beauty as well, throughout the ensuing year.”
To this day, all over Scotland numbers of young girls rise before dawn on the first of May and go out to the meadow or hillside to bathe their faces in the dew. Arthur’s Seat is a favourite meeting place, and nearby is St. Anthony’s Well, to which many used to resort to “wish-a-wish” on this auspicious day. This picturesque survival of the old pagan rites, together with the Christian service on the summit of the hill, draws hundreds of people to the site. As dawn approaches, numbers of young girls dally on the slopes of Arthur’s Seat, laughing and chattering as they perform the immemorial rite, and are regarded with amused tolerance by the majority of the arrivals as they climb to the summit to join in the Sunrise Service.‘
From ‘The Silver Bough Volume Four’ by F. Marian McNeill (1968) 78-79.
‘In Edinburgh the observance of May Day was never entirely abandoned. Long after the Reformation, sick people were brought to Arthur’s Seat before dawn to bask in the beneficent rays of the ‘new sun’, while others went on pilgrimage to the healing-well of Our Lady of Loretto, at Musselburgh. In the early nineteenth century, says Chambers, the area gates of the Edinburgh houses would open about 4 a.m. and the servant lasses would emerge in their best attire. They were joined by the prentice lads, and together with other enthusiasts, young and old, flocked through the King’s Park to Arthur’s Seat, where a maypole was erected. The proceedings began at daybreak, when the bakers and other craftsmen began to dance round the maypole to the music of pipes, tabours and fifes. At six o’ clock the gentry began to put in an appearance, and soon afterwards the servant lasses left to prepare breakfast. By eight o’ clock the fun was all over.‘
From’ The Silver Bough Volume Two’ by F. Marian McNeill (1959) Page 81.
This is no ordinary church – it’s a 150m long cleft in the gritstone here, dripping with ferns and sogginess. At its deepest/highest point the walls tower 14m above you.
It is (possibly) the legendary chapel of the Green Knight in Arthurian legend: Gawain met him for the second time here. To discover the story, I urge you to get hold of this:
amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0571223273/sr=8-3/qid=1209570128/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1209570128&sr=8-3&seller=
The Rollright Trust website also has a page explaining the wide amount of folklore connected with the complex.
rollrightstones.co.uk/index.php/stones/detail/myths-and-legends/
Could it be relevant that the church was built so that the monolith is on its North side? Not only has this cut the sun from the monolith, the door on the north of a church is known as the Devil’s Door. It wasn’t (isn’t?) used so often – for taking the coffin out after a funeral, and also it was left ajar during christenings, so that the devil could escape through it and leave the child alone. Or perhaps it was just a way of making sure that the church-goers didn’t go past it every time they went to a service, reminding them of it. But then, why not just demolish it? Scared eh? or respect? Hunt (in his Victorian ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’)says:
Strong prejudice has long existed against burying on, the northern side of the church. In many churchyards the southern side will be found full of graves, with scarcely any on the northern side.
I have sought to discover, if possible, the origin of this prejudice, but I have not been able to trace it to any well-defined feeling. I have been answered, “Oh, we like to bury a corpse where the sun will shine on the grave ;” and, “The northern graveyard is in the shadow, and cold ;” but beyond this I have not advanced.
We may infer that this desire to place the remains of our friends in earth on which the sun shines, is born of that love which, forgetting mortality, lives on the pleasant ‘memories of the past, hoping for that meeting beyond the grave which shall know no shadow. The act of planting flowers, of nurturing an evergreen tree, of hanging “eternals” on the tomb, is only another form of the same sacred feeling.
A contributor to Notes and Queries in 1850 has this to say:
North Side of Churchyards (Vol. ii., pp. 55. 189).—One of your writers has recently endeavoured to explain the popular dislike to burial on the north side of the church, by reference to the place of the churchyard cross, the sunniness, and the greater resort of the people to the south. {254} These are not only meagre reasons, but they are incorrect.
The doctrine of regions was coeval with the death of Our Lord. The east was the realm of the oracles; the especial Throne of God. The west was the domain of the people; the Galilee of all nations was there. The south, the land of the mid-day, was sacred to things heavenly and divine. The north was the devoted region of Satan and his hosts; the lair of demons, and their haunt. In some of our ancient churches, over against the font, and in the northern walls, there was a devil’s door.
It was thrown open at every baptism for the escape of the fiend, and at all other seasons carefully closed. Hence came the old dislike to sepulture at the north.
R.S. HAWKER.
gutenberg.org/files/13462/13462-h/13462-h.htm#page251
Another folktale is that the stone is supposed to have grown there in one night! Rather like a mushroom by the sound of it. Or maybe a toadstool (they’ve got a bad reputation themselves).
(from Grinsell’s folklore of prehistoric sites, plus ideas about the North door from various internet pages and Hunt’s book online at sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm)