Latest Folklore

Apparently the Devil threw the Goldstone here after it fell on his foot as he was excavating the Devil’s Dyke (he was trying to let the sea through into the Weald to drown all the people there).

I had to include this stone – firstly for its excellent name, but also for the piece of folklore attached to it, which seems strangely upside down.
This stone (3ftx3ftx2ft) is apparently a boundary stone, and lies between Southwick and Thunders Barrow (at TQ229083). It is said that it used to be part of the parish church. ?!

The Wimblestone / Wimble Stone stands in a field at Pylle Well, to the NW of the Star Inn. It’s 5’6” high, 6’2” broad and 18” thick.
Legend has it that it can move (wimble means giddy or lively – though it’s also the name of a stonecutter’s tool for boring holes, and the stone does have a hole). On nights when there’s a full moon or on Midsummer’s eve (especially both) it goes dancing round its field. Underneath it is said to be a pot full of gold.
One day a farmer decided to move the stone, so he chained it to two of his horses. They struggled all day but had to give up, exhausted. That evening the stone leapt up and roamed across the Mendips to the nearby Water Stone near Wrington to tell it all about how stupid the farmer was. The Water Stone always contains water in the hollow of the capstone, and the Wimble Stone had a good drink before returning to its own field.

[I imagine I read this in Grinsell’s collected ‘Folklore of Prehistoric sites’]

The remains of this burial chamber are just south of Bristol Airport. The mound is almost gone. The cover slab remains – with a hollow in it that collects the rain water, hence the name. The slab is said to always have water in it, and this was taken advantage of by the Wimblestone, who once came to drink here. It’s also said (R Tongue – ‘Somerset Folklore’ 1965) that offerings of primroses and milk were once made here.

A mile or so to the west is Goblin Combe – definite proof of the area’s general otherworldly credentials, don’t you think. Goblin Combe has a folktale involving primroses too.

There was a parcel of children and they was a-picking primroses, see, and one poor little dear her wandered away on her lone self right down into Goblin Combe. She were only a little trot, see, and didn’t know no better. Well, when she do find she’s a lost she cries, and the tears do run down her dear little face, and dap on her pinafore like summer rain, and she do throw her self against a rock. Then the rock opens and there’s the fairises all come to comfort her tears. They do give her a gold ball and they lead the dear little soul safe home – on account she was carrying primroses, see.

Well, twas the wonder of the village and the conjuror he gets the notion he’d aget his fistes on more than one gold ball when next the fairises opened the hill. So he do pick a bunch of primroses and he go on up Goblin Combe, and he was glad enough to get in to the rock after all he see and hear on the way up. Well, twasn’t the right day, nor the right number of primroses, and he wasn’t no dear little soul – so they took him!

From ‘Folktales of England’ by Briggs and Tongue (1965). It was collected by Ruth Tongue who heard it told in chorus by two old ladies from Clevedon in 1945.

This long barrow lies near Rode church, and is apparently a popular spot for local people to scatter the ashes of their departed loved-ones*. Also it is a spot on the Mary or Michael ley (I forget which), which some people believe crosses from Cornwall to East Anglia, and is explored by the dowsing writers of ‘The Sun and the Serpent’*.

In the Bath Nat. Hist. and Antiq. Field Club journal for 1872, there is an account of an excursion to the area. They spoke to a local man who said that the Bed and Bolster was once twice as large as it is now, adding that when people had tried to take the stones away, bad weather had always prevented them. At the time about 22 sarsens were visible, with 5 upright – 3 or 4 (strange they couldn’t remember) at the east end, and one large flat one at the west. The writer also noted that the site was in full view of the Wiltshire Downs and the White Horse (at Westbury).

(on my visit in 09/07 you could certainly not see the horse, and only part of the downs if you walked further along the path).

You can see two bell barrows here, one on either side of the road. The common is the original landing place of the Martians in Wells’ War of the Worlds! and is a rare piece of heathland.

The stone at Pyrford is said to move about at midnight (surely this was not noticed en route home from the pub?). It used to lie in the centre of the road but was moved to the side (1976?). It’s on the corner of Upshott Lane – I hope the OS ref is accurate.

St Nicholas’s church up the road has a circular churchyard, which has been suggested as proof of the site’s pre-christian origins.

Another story says the stone turns round when the clock on St Nicholas’s strikes midnight. But in true local humour style, the church has never had a clock.

(I think these snippets may come from one of the Bord’s collections).

A farmer returning home late one night heard music coming from Willy Howe. On investigation he found a door which neither he or anyone else had seen before.
He peeped inside and saw a table groaning with food and a bunch of hobs making merry.
The hobs invited him in and offered him a drink. He took the drink and then dashed off with the cup. The hobs gave chase but as soon as he crossed the first beck on his route they gave up and returned to their feast.
On arriving home he saw that the cup was a fabulous gold vessel.
He presented this cup to King Henry I who later passed it on to his brother-in-law King David of Scotland

With reference to the previous folklore post.
“In the 1930’s an old farmer in the Roppa area, used the phrase ‘He wur swearing like Billy Norman coming out of the fog on the moor’ “.

The North York Moors, An Introduction
Stanhope White
1979

A Local saying

Cleveland in the clay,
Bring two shoes, carry one away.

A a, flea fly, a magpie an bacon flitch
Is t’ Yorkshireman’s coit-of arms.
An’t reason they’ve chozzen theaze things soa rich
Is becoss they hev all special charms.
A flea will bite whoivver it can-
An soa’ mi lads, will a Yorkshireman;
A fly will sup wi’ Dick, Tom and Dan-
An soa i’gow will a Yorkshireman;
A magpie can talk for a terrible span-
An soa an’ all, can a Yorkshireman;
A flitch is noa gooid whol* it’s hung, ye’ll agree-
No more is a Yorkshireman, doan’t ye see.

*till

Folk tales of Yorshire
H.L. Gee
1952

This well known site has long had a sinister reputation for human sacrifice. Excavations which took place in the late 1950s found offerings of human remains, suggesting this may well have been the case.

From Burl’s ‘Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany’:

“In September, 1935, Boyle Somerville returned to Drombeg with a psychic, Miss Geraldine Cummings. She did not like the place. She felt it was a centre of nature and sun worship conjoined with the moon, a place where animals, if not small children, were sacrificed at each winter solstice. She ‘saw’ a priest in blue and saffron robes standing at the altar of the recumbent about to kill his human offering.
There were weekly ceremonies but ‘the great Day of the Blood Sacrifice was near the end of December. Then horrible things were practised in the twilight. There were strange dances in which men and women stabbed each other in a frenzy. There was an abandonment in action and behaviour which I may not describe.’ Drombeg was cursed. It was ‘guarded by the spirits of darkness’.”

Anyone who has read Alan Garner’s books will be particularly transported by visiting The Edge. His first, ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ is based on this story about Merlin. King Arthur and his knights sleep on under the Edge waiting...
web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/conkers-and-ghosts/alderley-edge.htm
(part of the KidsArk website)

‘Two miles east of Dunkeld are the Standing Stones of Newtyle, commonly called the Druid Stones, near the “Doo’s Nest”, a projecting crag on the road to Caputh. These stones were probably monuments before the Druidic period, but the Druids or Pictish Priests generally annexed such monuments, and the name clings through the ages. The Newtyle Stones are possibly remains of a Circle; it is conjectured that, as a spur of Newtyle Hill rises sharply behind, the remainder of the Circle might have been where the road now runs, and had been destroyed during its construction. They are of common quartzose schist differing in height. The largest is over 6 feet at the north corner and 3 feet at the east. A fence divides them from the road; unfortunately, owing to the growth of ferns, bushes and trees, there is a danger that they may soon be lost to sight. Dr Marshall in his “Historic Scenes of Perthshire” alludes to these two upright stones at the Doo’s Nest, but says they are supposed to mark the graves of two Danish warriors returning from the invasion of Dunkeld. Antiquarian research, however, as reported in the Society’s Proceedings, places them among pre-historic monuments.‘
From ‘Dunkeld- An Ancient City’ by Elizabeth Stwart (1926).

This is a nice little story that I got from the Dúchas Visitors’ Guide to The Loughcrew Cairns:-

The four hills are shown on Ordnance Survey maps as Sliabh Na Caillí or the Hills of the Witch. Legend has it that the Hag or Witch (sometimes known as An Cailleach Bhéarra) jumped from one hill to the next, dropping stones from her apron to form the cairns. After she had jumped onto three hills, she still had to get to another and make a fourth group of cairns in order to attain great power. As she attempted to get to the last hill, she fell and was killed. The story says she was buried where she fell, on the slopes of Patrickstown Hill.

” A very old custom, but which has now been pretty nigh stamped out by the county policeman, is that of ’ Riding the Stang’. It is not dead yet though; I witnessed the stang being ridden as recently as 1891 in Guisborough, and in many of the villages in Wensleydale it i9s to this day resorted to when considered needed.
The Stang is held in wholesome dread by a certain class of evil-doers. Wife-beaters and immoral characters chiefly had and have the benefit of the stang. Whatever their discovered sin might be, was fully set forth in the stang doggeral. One or two points have to be, or at least are, most carefully observed: (1) The real name of the culprit must not be mentioned (2) The stang must be ridden in three seperate parishes each night: and in many places to make the proceedings quite legal, it is considered a sin qua non that the stang master must knock at the door of the man or woman they were holding up to ridicule, and ask for a pocket -piece, i.e. fourpence.
The whole proceeding was carried out as follows:-
An effigy made of straw and old clothes representing the culprit was bound to a pole* and set in an upright position in the centre of either a handcart or a small pony cart, in which was seated the stang master: and folowing behind were gathered all the ragamuffins of the village, armed with pan lids, tin cans, tin whistles, or anything which could be made to produce a discordant sound.
Being ready ,the cart was drawn in front of the culprits house and after a fearful hubbub, the stang master cried out in a sing song voice:-

Ah tinkle, Ah tinkle, Ah tinkle tang,
It’s nut foor your part ner mah part
‘At Ah rahd the stang,
Bud foor yan Bill Switch whau his wife did bang,
Ah tinkle, Ah tinkle, Ah tinkle tang.
He banged her, he banged her, he banged her indeed,
He banged her, he banged her, afoor sha steead need;
Upstairs aback o’ t’ bed
He sairly brayed her wharl she bled,
Oot o’ t’ hoose on ti’ t’ green
Sikan a seeght ez niver war seen,
Ez neean c’u’d think, ez neean could dream.
Sa ah gat ma few cumarades
Ti traal ma aboot:
Sae it’s hip, hip hurrah lads,
Set up a gert shoot,
An’ blaw all yer whistles,
Screeam, rattle an’ bang
All ‘at ivver ya’ve gitten,
Foor Ah ride the stang.

Then, for a few moments, there arose a tumult of sound, to which the wildest ravings of bedlam would seem insignificant. This performance lasts three nights, and on the third, the effigy is burned in front of the culprits house.”

* The Pole was a stang or cow-staff

Yorkshire Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs
R. Blakeborough
Published 1911

I doubt there’s much left to see of this Neolithic causewayed camp, seeing as how it’s surrounded by houses and the racecourse. It was excavated in the 30s and the detail that interested me was that two fossilised sea urchins had been buried with some people. Folklore has it that fossil sea urchins are ‘fairy loaves’ or ‘fairy stones’. I guess they are pretty strange – obviously not ordinary rocks, but they look like something living or manmade. Also without their spines they bear little resemblence to anything alive that you’re familiar with, particularly if you’re not living by the sea (like at the Five Knolls in Bedfordshire). I’ve also read that people have kept them in their houses so that their loaflike similarity would ensure the occupants would never go without bread (or food, no doubt). They were also kept in dairies to stop the milk going sour.

Of course, none of this need have any relevance to the reason these prehistoric people took them to their graves. They presumably serve no hands-on practical purpose? so we have to assume that they did hold a symbolic value of some kind (even if it could have been merely that they were weird and interesting?).

The village sign shows Ye Ancient Britons and the nasty Danes in front of the hill fort. Legend has it that their battle was rather vicious, hence the rather disgusting name of the road down the hill – Bloodgate – down which all the blood from the slaughter flowed. Nasty.

Warham camp overlooks the river Stiffkey (Stewkey) with a sweeping view. It’s bound to be Iron age but tradition has it that the Danes built it after they landed at Weyborne Hope (He who would Old England win, must at Weyborne Hoop begin)

Next to the Devil’s Ditch on Garboldisham Heath, a round barrow supposedly the resting place of Queen Boudicca..

This looks like a round barrow because it straddles the county boundary, and the Hertfordshire side has been ploughed, but it’s actually* a long barrow [*er, actually, see below]. I had a childhood friend from Pegsdon and I remember her mentioning the story that you could hear someone inside knocking. I was (pleasantly) scared to believe it but I wanted to believe it. I can’t remember if she said she’d heard it herself but I’m sure we must have pressed her on the point..

In her book ‘Albion’ Jennifer Westwood agrees that there is an old man inside who knocks to be let out. She mentions the Herts Illus. Review for 1894, which says a British Chieftain is buried here with his treasure chest. From time to time he knocks thrice on it to make sure it’s still there (I guess it’s dark in there). The hill is/was also known as ‘Money Knoll’.

Westwood also suggests the name could come from ‘cnycyn’ – the welsh for a bump or small hillock. It’s a long way from Wales, mind.

In her later book, ‘Lore of the Land’ (2005) Westwood mentions the Hertfordshire folklorist W B Gerish, who heard from a Mr Aylott that it was a ‘warrior in armour’ knocking. Purple pasque flower grew (grows?) on the knoll, and this was said to grow only where Danish blood had been spilt.

Magic powers they have
Men that are sick
Fare to that stone;
and they wash that stone
and bathe away their evil.

Layamon reporting in ‘Brut’ in the 12th century.

Manley, V.S. (1924). Folk-lore of the Warminster district: a supplement to the History of Warminster and the Official Guide. Collected by V.S. Manley.
Warminster: Coates & Parker. I’m sure I’ve seen a copy but don’t have one now. In a review of Manley’s book in WANHM v43, it says that

“One of the most curious items is ‘The Spirit of Cley Hill,’ a legend which would apparently have died with its narrator, an old woman of 80. The legend records that the guardian spirit of the Bugley folk lived inside the barrow on the top of the hill, and one day hearing water running beneath him he directed its course underground until it came out at Hogs Well. He told the people not to drink it but to use it only for curing weak eyes, and an old woman who disregarded his order and drank the water died that night, and a cow that polluted the water was drowned in the mud. It is in any case a fact that until recently this water has been in great request for bad eyes, 6d. a bottle being paid for it, provided some Ground Ivy was included to be brewed with it. The appearance of the Well Fiend is recorded of Bicker’s Well, in Prince Croft Lane, at Bugley, and under a large oak tree which formerly stood where North Lane meets the Half, below Blue Ball, Bugley, elves lived and might sometimes be seen gambolling by children.

This is a weird kind of place.

The folk of Devizes had offended the devil, who sore he would serve them out. So he went “down the country” (ie into Somerset), and found a big “hump” and put it on his back, to carry it and fling it at them. On his journey back he met a man and asked the way to Devizes. The man replied,
That’s just what I want to know myself. I started for Devizes when my beard was black, and now it’s grey, and I haven’t got there yet.
The devil replied, “If that’s how it is, I won’t carry this thing no further, so here goes, ” and he flung the “girt (great) hump” off his shoulder, and there it is.

Collected in Warminster, 1893. On p78 of
Folklore Notes from South-West Wilts
John U. Powell
Folklore, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Mar., 1901), pp. 71-83.

Running along the side of Boat Howe, the track from Boot to Burnmoor Lodge and beyond, is a corpse road in use until as late as 1901.

Legend has it that a packhorse carrying the body of Thomas Porter of Wasdale took fright, and bolted (the body still strapped to it’s back) over Boat Howe never to be seen again. There are those who have heard the sound of hoofbeats when the mist descends.

Another tale of the Wasdale corpse road involves the Rowan, a tree sacred to Vikings, and still held to have restorative properties among the more superstitious locals. On one occasion a coffin was jolted violently against a Rowan growing beside the track, and either the shock or, as some say, the peculiar properties of the tree, revived the seemingly dead woman who was carried home with much excitement by those who had come to bury her. A while later the woman died and was, for a second time, carried in her coffin over the moor. As the little procession approached the tree, the widower, who obviously did not relish a repeat of the previous journey, was heard to exhort his son leading the horse ‘Take care o’yon Rowan, John’.