Latest Folklore

The Sleeping Knights of Freeborough
One legend suggests there is a deep pit shaft running directly from the summit into the depths of the earth, and that this was used to bury hundreds of dead soldiers and horses after bygone battles.
Some say it contains the bodies of those who died during the black death: indeed a grave was found on the side of the hill during the last century. This was made of whinstone blocks, which had been carried three or four miles to this site, thus indicating a grave of some importance.
The is the legend of Edward Trotter who lived in a small holding in Dimmington.
When chasing a lost lamb he found a large hole the size of a badger sett. On crawling inside the hole he found a tunnel running deep into the hill. The tunnel grew larger as he passed through it. He then came across a huge chamber with a heavy oak door studded with iron with a large iron handle.
On entering the door, Edward encountered a man in chain mail with a long spear in one hand and a sword in the other.
The man awoke and stopped Edward from running away.
The man commanded Edward to be quiet. Edward notice that there were more men in similar dress all asleep and seated at a round table.
The guard informed Edward that “we are King Arthur and his Knights of the round table, we are sleeping until our services are again required.
He then swore Edward to secrecy and told him to leave.

“Some say his (Wade) grave is at Goldsborough where there is a standing stone called Wade’s Stone: others say it is at East Barnby where there is another Wade’s stone. The original two stones which were twelve feet apart have disappeared, and perhaps one of the remaining Wade’s stone was, at one time for his huge grave?
The two remaining Wade’s stones are a mile apart, but it would be a tremendous giant who was that tall... but if Wade really did build that causeway, if he did dig a handful of earth out of the Hole of Horcum and toss his hammer between Pickering and Mulgrave, then he could have been a mile high! Those two remaining stones might well be the extent of his grave”
Folk Tales From The North York Moors
Peter N. Walker

The roman road known as Wades Causeway was supposed to have been built by the local giant Wade. He built the road so that his wife, Bell, could cross the swampy moors to milk her giant cow.
Bell carried the cobbles and shingles used for the road in her giant apron. Occasionally Bell’s apron would slip, dropping piles of stones around the moors (the barrows and standing stones of the moors).

The devil is supposed to be responsible for the near by Hole of Horcum or the Devils Punchbowl as it’s known locally. Blakey Topping, Freeborough Hill and Roseberry Topping are supposed to be the result of the handfuls of earth thrown across the moors.
If you look at the sides of the hole you can still see his fingermarks.
Another folk tales attributes the Hole to the local giant Wade. He scooped the earth out of the ground to create Wades Causeway.

St Weonard’s Tump is a bronze age barrow reused as a Norman motte. Excavation in 1855 revealed two burnt human burials under a cover of stones. The village church was built less than 100m away.

It is a prominent landmark right at the centre of the village, and seems to have been used as a focus for the community for centuries: a Victorian writer (ok, maybe romantically) spoke of it being used ‘since time immemorial’ for fetes and dancing. It is planted with trees – most recently to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Just try to ignore the disused water tank sunk into the summit.

The folklore is christianised – St Weonard is said to be buried inside in a golden coffin, or maybe on a golden coffer filled with gold, with the inscription “Where this stood is another twice as good; but where that is, no man knows”.

This round barrow, one of the largest in Wiltshire, is said to conceal a golden chair at its bottom. Some visitors tried to open the hill, but were stopped by the local people. This was told to LVG in 1950, by Christopher Oliver of Shaw House, West Overton.

(From Grinsell’s Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain. Also in
Barrow Treasure, in Fact, Tradition, and Legislation
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 1. (Spring, 1967), pp. 1-38. ).

The area round these barrows is excitingly haunted by a headless horse and some spectral hounds. Stay on the path.

(Grinsell, ‘folklore of prehistoric sites in Britain’)

Grinsell (Folklore of prehistoric sites in Britain) says the barrow associated with the stones is supposed to be immovable. Though I don’t think there’s much left bar the stones, so it can’t have been that immovable.

The area is “said to be” haunted by a lady in white (a ‘Lake Lady’ more fairy than ghost, says Ruth Tongue). However I am not wholly convinced that this bit of folklore was originally attached to this site. In PSAS v21 for 1875, the Lady in White is mentioned – but in a paragraph about Parc-y-Meirw at Fishguard, casually thrown into the middle of a discussion about Murtry Hill. I felt confused when I read it and I wonder if some people have got the wrong end of the stick from this very bit of writing. The idea is repeated in the 1912 ‘highways and byways in somerset’ by Hutton – but perhaps he just read it in the PSAS journal. I suppose the only way to know is to find someone who’s seen a white lady at Murtry Hill! Otherwise, it seems like the idea’s stuck anyway.

Ruth Tongue also mentions how some men were once employed to dig up the stones. They got down ten feet – but the stone was still going and it was still ‘rock’ solid. Suddenly it fell and squashed a man – and immediately (to the astonishment of the onlookers) returned to its original position. So do show the stones some respect should you visit – you never know...

(in ‘Somerset Folklore’ 1965. The workman’s fate was told to her in 1909 by a school friend. The 10ft anecdote was from the 1933 Somerset yearbook)

The stones are also mentioned in ‘The Sun and the Serpent’ (by Miller and Broadhurst) as one of the sites on the cross-England ley line of St Michael/Mary. If you go in for such things. It connects Glastonbury, Avebury and many other esoteric spots.

Pixie Rocks (aka Swincombe Rocks) are probably the source of the stone for the Longstone.
If you haven’t guessed, the crags of this quiet combe are also home to pixies.

There are 11 barrows here on Challacombe (’Homer’) Common. Westcote (in his 1630 history of Devonshire) said that these “divers hillocks of earth” were supposed to have fiery dragons flying and lighting on them*.

Nearby you may find the Negus stone which commemorates an 18 year old, Robin Negus, who thought the place was top.

*I haven’t read the original but this was noted in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

Fiddler’s Hill comes complete with picnic site, you lucky people.
It was thought that there was an underground tunnel connecting Binham Priory with the one at Walsingham. One day a fiddler decided to check the tunnel out to see if it was true. He took his dog with him for company. As he set off he started playing his fiddle, and the people of Binham followed the sound above ground. After a while the music suddenly stopped. This coincided with them reaching the mound now known as Fiddler’s Hill. The fiddler was never seen again (although his dog finally made it back to the entrance shivering and whining). The entrance to the tunnel mysteriously fell in.

I belive the story is similar to some in other parts of the country. William Mayne’s ‘Earthfasts’ uses a drummer boy to replace the fiddler.

The veracity of [this incident] is, however, proof against the valiant deeds of bygone generations, becauase “Jimmy Griggs” and his canine friend “Trap” were characters well known to the great-grandfathers of many of the unimpeachable inhabitants of Binham.

From ‘History of the Borough of King’s Lynn, volume 1’ by Henry J Hillen (1907).

Mutlow Hill is a mid Bronze age roundbarrow next to the impressive Saxon Fleam Dyke. It was reused by the Romans for a temple site. A gold coach is reputedly buried inside. An 1852 source put it that this “is, or should I rather now say has, been implicitly believed among the labouring classes thereabouts for many years.“(!)*

‘Mutlow Hill’ might come from ‘Moot Low’ / ‘Gemot hlaw’ – a Saxon meeting mound. It is at the boundary of three hundreds.

*quoted by Westwood and Simpson in their 2005 ‘Lore of the Land’.

Wayting Hill is just next to Ravensburgh Castle, an iron age fort and alleged stronghold of Cassivellaunus, said to have been attacked in 54BC by Julius Caesar.

A warrior lies sleeping (wayting?!) underneath the hill until the day arises when he will wake up and march to victory. (This has echos of the ‘sleeper under the hill’ legends attached to Arthur and such sites as Alderley Edge, does it not?) I read somewhere that it was actually a long barrow at the site(?); elsewhere J+C Bord say it is a round barrow. Neither is evident on the OS map.

At the foot of Wayting Hill was once a famous holy well and the shrine of St Faith’s. This was in the churchyard in Hexton – but was unfortunately destroyed in the 17th century.

Springs emerge from the hill beneath the fort, and next to them an area called ‘Fairy Hole’ – so all in all, this is a locality steeped in legend!

(more gleaned at ukdecay.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=215&sid=5f22e11c463d3c880583e3a0869ad914)

Cow castle (aka Ring Castle) was built by the pixies at the confluence of the Barle and White Water. The good pixies were constantly at war with the bad mine spirits. The pixie queen decided to build the castle on this conical hill. Each stone and turf was carefully imbued with the memory of a good deed. Thus the whole place was infused with good vibes and the evil mine spirits just couldn’t get in.

The Reverend George Tugwell (in his North Devon Scenery Book of 1863 – and noted in Bord’s 2004 ‘Fairy Sites’) also said that the fairies placed a standing stone at the entrance, and that people had seen them as bright lights flying around the fort.

In Toulson’s ‘Moors of the Southwest 1’ (1983) she describes a conical outcrop of rock which is just to the south of Cow Castle, near the river. It is known as the Calf, and she says it was this that the fairies built to protect themselves from the earth spirits.

Another site on the Icknield Way, Galley Hill has two rather mauled barrows on it. One was used for the site of a gibbet (galley from ‘gallows’?), and lots of people including so-called witches were hanged here. A horse’s skull with a dice at the end of its nose was found buried in the barrow, which Dyer says “probably relates to witchcraft.”

(info in Dyer’s Southern England)

It’s apparently intervisible with Five Knolls.

A long distance photo is here: themodernantiquarian.com/post/54446

Dragonby is a small village to the North of Scunthorpe just off the A1077 to Winterton. About half way down the only road through the village there is a gap in the houses on the right hand side – a track leads out onto some open ground and you will see the dragon on your right winding its way up the hill.

It is a natural rock formation caused by a limestone spring but local legend says it is the body of a dragon that was turned to stone by a wizard. Another story claims that it is the top of a church that sank into the earth with the congregation still inside and that once a year the ghostly bells can still be heard ringing.

The village name Dragonby is only fairly recent, it was changed by local land owners, the Elwes family, from Conesby Cliff in honour of the dragon!

This circle is known in the neighbourhood by the name of Mitchell’s Fold. The traditionary story of which is – that within this circle an old man of the name of Mitchell kept a cow, which cow was indued with so much benevolence for the human race, that she contributed to the supply of almost all the wants of the surrounding peasantry, constantly suffering herself to be milked for any one’s benefit; and whatever was the quantity required by the person who was milking her, she supplied it. No vessel, however capacious, was suffered to return empty, nor to be only partially filled; till, at last, an old wicked hag of a witch, jealous of and hating so great a good, brought her pail and milked the generous beast; at the same time threw a spell over her, which prevented her from ever afterwards supplying her owner, or the neighbourhood with a single pailful.

p144 in ‘Museum Europaeum’ by Charles Hulbert (1825).

This version misses off the more satisfying ending which I know, viz, the cow was pretty disgusted and disappeared, never to be seen again – and meanwhile the witch was turned into the largest standing stone.

But on second thoughts, maybe the people were taking advantage of the overly generous cow – and the witch did a good job of saving the poor animal from Abuse. They didn’t have the RSPCA in those days you know.

There are apparently some good carvings of the story at a church at SO298993, done in 1879, which could be worth a look.

The story is mentioned in the third volume of ‘The Family Memoirs of Rev. William Stukeley’:

Cherbury, Shropshire.-- “A proverb in this country, ‘Medgelly’s cow, for one that gives a deal of milk.’ The report of this temple is that a cow in this place gave milk to all the honest and good folks of the neighbourhood; but one of evil life milked her into a sieve, whereupon the cow disappeared and never came more.” --1753. p179.

Stukely quoted in Edward Peacock’s contribution to
Notes and Queries
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4. (1888), pp. 273.

The mound is the result of the devil scraping his spade after he’d dug his ‘Devil’s Ditches’ in the locality. If you walk round the hill seven times at midnight you’ll get to meet him. A hollow in the hill is known as ‘the Devil’s Hole’.

There are also said to be golden or silver bells buried in the mound.

(J+C Bord, ‘Atlas of Magical Britain’)

This, believe it or not, contains a golden wheelbarrow.

[edit] – I’ve now found where this story probably comes from, and I expect I originally saw it in Grinsell’s 1976 folklore book:

Littleton Drew, Barrow Lane: anyone digging in vicinity is asked, ‘are you digging for the golden wheel-barrow?’ (Rev. R. B. Lamplugh, vicar, to L.v.G., about 1950.) The Lugbury long barrow (in Nettleton parish) is near.

Barrow Treasure, in Fact, Tradition, and Legislation
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 1. (Spring, 1967), pp. 1-38.

It’s no good – farmers with all their horses chained up to the stones just can’t shift them. Besides this would deprive a demon of his breakfast – if you pour some water into the depressions on the top slab you can guarantee that some fiend will have drunk it by the morning.

At midnight the Devil yokes up 4 white oxen to try and mve it – and even he can’t. (Why he wants to do this when it’s his own den I don’t know). A great white dog watches them from under the capstone, with eyes like burning coals. Or perhaps it’s a giant white rabbit with similar eyes (or a hare? – that seems a bit less soppy?). White animals (with red ears) generally come from the underworld in Celtic mythologies.

(these stories in ‘Folklore of Ancient Wiltshire’ by Katy Jordan)

Fort / ancient flint mines reputedly the last stronghold of the fairies in England. Apparently they left in 1925 when the flint mines reopened. Too much noise I expect.

How’s this for a weird bit of (modern) folklore? (found in Grinsell’s ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’)

The Manton round barrow was excavated in 1906, and they found an old woman’s skeleton amongst a number of grave goods. For some reason (unspecified) the skeleton was kept in a shed for a number of years. The owner of the shed apparently decided to send one of the skeleton’s fingers away to a friend overseas. He himself had circulatory problems and soon it turned out that he had to have a finger amputated. For some reason he then took it upon himself to replace the skeleton’s finger with his own, and he reburied the whole skeleton back in the barrow*. A ghost was then repeatedly seen looking in at his cottage window for the next few weeks.

(v odd and even sounds quite muddled, as you’d have expected the replacement of the finger to have happened after the ghost appeared. And you’d have thought being stored in a shed would annoy you more than having your finger removed. Dunno. For those interested, Grinsell notes the original sources and you could always look these over.)

*As MJB mentions below – the reburial in the barrow is at least actually true.

May 2025. I have discovered that this story – skeleton uncovered, wailing outside the window, vowing to rebury the skeleton, keeping the little finger, the wailing continuing, the excavator’s finger gets infected and needs to be amputated, they bury the finger in the grave and everything’s great again – it’s a story by Ethel Hampton in the Tatler of 18th February 1931 (“The Bath Road, an eerie story of the Wiltshire Downs”). I don’t think it’s even pretending to be anything other than fiction?

Grinsell said (in his 1975 folklore collection) “In dry summer weather I occasionally see children sliding down the shaggy grass-covered steeps... They sit on the discarded paper bags that held chemical fertiliser.” Much comfier than a jawbone.

A G Bradley’s 1907 ‘Round about Wiltshire’ says:

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, great sports were held up here on Martinsell. The custome still, I believe, survives in picnics for children. But at the original function a part of the programme consisted in sliding down the almost perpendicular face of the hill seated on the jawbones of horses, a practice which an antiquarian friend in the neighbourhood believes to show some trace of pagan origin. I can myself remember as a child the well-worn mark of a slide traced down this three or four hundred feet of precipitous turf, and the legend that a certain grave episcopal and academic dignitary, then living, had been persuaded to launch himself down it, without the assistance even of the horse’s jawbone, and that having once started had to continue his career unchecked till he landed safe but sore in the vale of Pewsey. All trace, however, of the historic slide has long vanished. But within the memory of men only elderly, the pugilists of the neighbouring villages used to take advantage fo what was left of the ancient festival, and fight out their battles on the top of Martinsell. These encounters were sometimes so ferocious that unsuccessful efforts were made to stamp out the festival, which, however, died a natural death.

At Cissbury Ring there is a treasure concealed in an underground tunnel guarded by serpents. Perhaps this is linked to the extensive Neolithic flint mines on the western side of the hill? 250 blocked shafts have been found – up to 12m deep with side galleries.

The Ring itself is actually a lump of earth thrown off the Devil’s spade as he was digging his Devil’s Dyke.

from Janet and Colin Bord (in ‘Prehistoric Britain from the air)

“when a horse can ride
with paniers astride
though st levan stone
the earth will be done”....?

best keep the halves together then guys