Latest Folklore

In a townland, named Boleycarrigan, in this locality, there is a place called “The Griddle Stones”. The stones are standing around in a ring, on which Finn Mc Cool was supposed to have made his griddle cakes. In the centre of this ring there is a cave leading through the hillside on to Killranelagh, which highway men used to retreat with their gold, when they would be after robbing some man on the road or mountain passes. Old people say the gold is hidden there still.

Annie Byrne, Keadeen. My father, Joseph Byrne, aged about 49 years, told me this story

From the School’s Collection of folklore, being digitised at Duchas.ie.

Mr Michael Toole of Kelsha, Kiltegan tells me that not far from the ‘griddle-stones’ in the land owned Mr James Reilly of Ballycarrigeen, is a cave just a few yards out from these larger stones referred to earlier on in this book as “Finn MacCumhail’s griddle-stones.”
Mr Toole knows where the cave is but says that it is now closed up. There was a passage leading down to it, stone steps, and underneath was a spacious room.

This was written by the teacher at Talbotstown school, R. Mac Icidhe. The other mention reads as follows:

On the western side of Keadeen Mountain is a place where Finn Mac Cumail and his wife are supposed to have died. The remarkable thing about it is that even when the rest of the mountain looks green in the distance, the two brown patches stand out in contrast to the rest, and appear like two huge giants reclining on the mountainside.
In this townland also is a group of large stones so arranged as to form a circle.
These go by the name of Finn Mac Cumail’s Griddlestones.

The scanned images are here and here.

Ah, Craig Dorney. I feel sure he was in that programme with whatshisface? No, Rhiannon, the name means ‘Stony Hill’, from Creag: hill and Dornach: stony, as you can read amongst many other local etymological gems in Celtic Place-Names in Aberdeenshire by John Milne (1912).

This is all very strange and interesting but the handwriting is so hard to read! Perhaps you can decipher it better.

Between this cromlech and the top of Knockree there is a ‘Giant’s Stone’ which has not a flaw in it.

It is said that the druids used worship here and here two kings held council when forming up and making a [drove?] to the top of the hill and down the far side and then up the valley to a fort.

Those taking part went on foot and horseback and it is said they went that route up to 30 years ago. Old people said they heard them regularly. Two men told J- S- that they used see bright lights under this cromlech.

The horses made a great noise galloping over the rocky hill and down by Lacken.

The wood of Lacken situated on the hill was replanted with young trees 80 years ago but after two years the ghostly route was mysteriously burned from the top to the bottom of the hill. Not a tree grew till it was replanted again 5 years ago.

[?] (says Mr J- S-) that half of the trees on the old route are now dwarfed and the other half are dead.

From the 1930s Schools Collection of folklore, now being digitised at Duchas.ie. Perhaps the Giant’s Rock is the impressive quartz outcrop depicted on Megalithomania. It’s rather interesting that Fourwinds mentions possible alignments at the site when there’s folklore about fairy/druids lines / ghosts heading across the landscape.

In the townland of Carrickacleven there is a little garden and in it there is a rock shaped like a mouth. It is said that there is money under it, and an old woman minding it and there is to be a life lost at the getting of it.

In the same townland there is a house with five big stones and the one on top is said to bear the weight of six tons. A long time ago there were priests and ministers at it and they said there is an old chieftain buried there and all his riches with him in a crock coffin.

Some people came to it one night after they heard what was under it. They dug until they came to a flag that is over the chieftain and they could get no further. So no one ever went near it after that.

From the 1930s Schools Collection of folklore, now being transcribed at Duchas.ie. There is a photo and description in the 1972 Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland but I don’t know how it’s faring now.

In a field in Meeambee in the parish of [?], there is to be seen a cromlech. It is called locally Leabaidh Éirn.
There were four upright slabs, some of which are now fallen, topped by a huge oblong slab, many tons weight.
Near at hand there is a circular raised mound of earth enclosed by bushes called “The Fort” which his believed to be visited by the fairies. None of the bushes have been cut down, lest some dire misfortune should follow. A chieftain named Earn is popularly supposed to have lived in this district.

From an informant for the 1930s Schools Collection of folklore, now being transcribed at Duchas.ie.

The information via the Archaeology.ie mapviewer says that the huge chunky 3x3m, 60cm thick roof stone has subsided to the north, with one north sidestone and two sidestones and the septal-stone surviving on the south side. Also that there is a headstone 3m east of the tomb with a date of 1748 and an otherwise illegible inscription: this is reputedly made from the missing portal stone.

Old people believe that at regular times during the year the fairies hold important horse fairs. One special ‘fairy’ man near this village relates how he was ordered to get up in the middle of the night to change horses from Mount Mary near the town of Ballygo down to Rathcroghan near Tulsk.

Hundred of horses with small ‘mineen’ riders galloped down across the country in the moonlight November Eve.

The great grandfather of the present blacksmith had his instructions to be always ready on Halloween night to put on shoes on the little travellers’ horses.
One night he was dozing by the fire when a shout + tramp of horses wakened him. He was going to lift the horse’s hind foot, when he noticed the animal had only three feet. “I can’t shoe this horse” he said. “It’s all right we will help you” said a score of little riders. The work was done and away went the fairy host, galloping like the wind, on their way to Rathcroghan for the great horse fair.

From the 1930s ‘Schools Collection’ of folklore, now being digitised at Duchas.ie. It seems like another one of those half-told tales (the three footed horse) where you are supposed to be in the know already and instinctively understand what it means from all the other three-legged animal tales you know. I’ll have to work on it.

Elf Stones:- The following account is given by Michael Fitzsimons, age 75, Doon, Tierworker, Bailieboro.

Elf stones were supposed to fall out of the air with a shower of rain. They are a grayish white colour nearly like a sea-shell. If any of them fell on a cow she would get into a sickness called Paralysis. It was said that people would cure the cow of the sickness if they got nine of these elf-stones in a porringer or any other suitable vessel and go to a stream bordering two counties before the sun rises in the morning and get some of the river water in the vessel along with the elf-stones and bring them home and go round the sick cow three times.
While doing so keep praying some special prayers. Before very long the cow would be better.

A man named Philip Carry, Doon, Tierworker, Bailieboro, Co. Meath had two sets of Elf-stones and all the people round this locality used to go to Philip Carry’s for the elf stones when they had cows sick. Elf stones are kept at certain houses yet. The nine stones were in the Prophet Malcolmson’s house. Then a man named Andrew Clarke Lisnasanna, Kingscourt, Co. Cavan got them to make the cure and another named Connor Muldoon, Cordoy, Kingscourt got them from Clarke to make the cure and they remain in that house yet.

When they are given away to make the cure the man that gave them away could not take them back to keep, unless to make the cure or they would be no good. They are kept at some houses yet. It was a good cure for paralysis.

When cows were struck with those stones they were said to be “elf shot”. The hair would stand on them and they would be unable to move until the cure was made.

From the Schools’ Collection of folklore, made in the 1930s, and now being transcribed at Duchas.ie. Elf stones can also be interpreted as Neolithic arrow heads. But you never know.

There’s an article on this massive stone by Serge Cassen and colleagues in this month’s edition of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal (v28:2, 259-281 – ‘The ‘historiated’ Neolithic stele of Saint-Samson-sur-Rance’). Eight meters’-worth sticks out of the ground at 42 degrees, and the four sides are aligned to the points of the compass. It’s made of granite, the nearest source of which is 4km away.

The researchers recently used various lighting and 3D techniques to highlight the carvings on the stone, and conclude that those on the different sides represent different aspects of the world (viz. an empty boat (east), human artefacts (south), wild animals (west) and domesticated animals (north). Whether you agree with this analysis is up to you… the depictions look a bit ambiguous to me but what do I know. There are also 100 cupmarks (none on the east face).

They talk about the folklore too, which is mostly from a 1902 article by Lucie de Villers (’Le Menhir de Saint-Samson pres Dinan’ in Revue des Traditions Populaires 17(6)):

The vein of quartz diagonally crossing the stone was supposed to be from the devil’s whip, or perhaps from the chains he used to try to drag it into hell. The devil wanted to use the stone as a key to open up hell (so he could pop some sinners in there) – but Saint-Samson and his pal Saint-Michel chased him away before he’d completed his evil plan.

There are various beliefs about a flood in Armorica: Ys is a legendary city in the bay of Douarnenez – it was submerged when the key of the dyke protecting the city was stolen from the king. In the 19th century local people said the stele was the key to the sea, and if the stone was removed, the sea would flood across the whole of France.

In other legends the stone is only one of three keys to the sea (one of the others was stolen by an evil woman from Breton in cohoots with the devil, and the third was kept in a distant country – or perhaps the other two were lost, or in the hands of a witch). The reason the stone is at such an angle is because the devil tried to take it away but didn’t succeed. If someone dares to turn the stone, the sea will bubble out from under it and cause more trouble than Noah’s flood.

One of the alternative names for the stone is ‘Pierre Bonde’ – bonde is the same word as the wooden bung used to seal a barrel.

Despite all this connection to the sea, the stone is about 20km from the sea and 55m above it. It’s suggested in the article that it’s at the point of the river where the maximum extent of the tidal wave would have been in the Neolithic, and that points to the reason for its location.

Originally built at H273211 in Aughrim townland, this was excavated and moved to the grounds of the swish Slieve Russel Hotel. The owner of both sites was once one of the the richest men in Ireland. Some in the area believe in the old ways:
independent.ie/irish-news/sean-quinns-downfall-is-fairies-revenge-say-locals-in-cavan-26794562.html

According to Affleck Gray’s Legends of the Cairngorms (1987) when the Comyns were Lords of Badenoch the Chief enlisted the services of the Witch of Badenoch, who for a large sum of gold agreed to transport stones to the site he had chosen to build a huge impregnable castle.

She searched for two similar huge boulders for doorposts on the outer gate and could find none in Scotland but found some with help from a sister witch on the Isle of Man. So she flew to the Isle of Man and found them without difficulty.

She listed one enormous stone and put it in her apron and set off back to Badenoch. She was passing high above Glenfernate at dawn when a deer hunter spotted her great black mass flying above him. He dropped the deer haunches he was carrying and cried out in astonishment “Dhia gleidh sinn” (God bless us).

The utterance of the holy name destroyed the witch’s power and her apron strings broke, sending the great boulder rolling down to the bottom of Glenfernate where it rests to this day, known locally as Clach Mor or the Witch’s Stone.

The witch could never get her apron strings to hold even the smallest boulder again, and the castle was never built. Tradition says that on the anniversary the Witch returns and works from sunset to dawn trying to move the stone, and for a long time people gave the unhallowed spot a wide berth on that particular night.

The Banshee Lives in the Handball Alley

The Banshee Lives in the Handball Alley is a short compilation derived from a larger collection of folklore recorded in three primary schools in Limerick City as part of the Cuisle Poetry Festival and Young EV+A in 2004 and 2005.

youtube.com/watch?v=X764d7yCQFs&feature=youtu.be

Llyn Moel y Llyn – the hill’s haunting upland tarn – is, it would appear, referenced in Caer Arglwyddes, ‘The Lady’s Field’, sited below to the west. According to Dr Gwilym Morus: “I had a conversation with an old lady who’s father had been born at Cae’r Arglwyddes, and according to her the name of the farm refers to a ‘lady of the lake’ folktale about the small lake up on Moel-y-llyn”.

So, yet another reason to visit this enigmatic northern outlier of Pumlumon crowned by a quartet of Bronze Age cairns....

welshmythology.com/tag/cwm-einion/

Anyway, some threads are so bright that they have to be picked up. This is the case with King Nechtan, whose name is perhaps found in Dunnichen (‘the fort of Nechtan’) and the English name for the battle where the Northumbrians were defeated by the Picts nearby, Nechtansmere. Before we consider which Nechtan Dunnichen is named after, there is the matter of confirming this as the place of the battle in 685 AD. To the Northumbrians the site of their national disaster was called Nechtan’s Mere, signifying the swamp or shallow lake in the shadow of Dun Nechtan. But the Welsh, who spoke a very similar language to the Picts, called the body of water Llyn Garan, the Pool of Herons. Was this the original name of the place or did it somehow have two names? (The Irish, meanwhile called it the battle of Dun Nechtan.) It would seem to cast a fragment of doubt over the identification of Dunnichen as the battle site. In fact Dunnichen was not positively identified as the place of the conflict until the connection was made by George Chalmers in his Caledonia in 1807. Chalmers pointed out that the ‘eminence’ on the south side of Dunnichen Hill, still visible in his day and known as Cashili or Castle Hill, must be the ‘fortress of Nechtan’. Chalmers also speculated that the neighbouring hill of Dumbarrow, ‘the hill of the barrow’, signifying notable burials there (Caledonia, I, 155.)

[Note also the King’s Well on the east side of Dumbarrow Hill.]

Angus Folklore : In Search of King Nechtan in Angus and Elsewhere

The Castle of Dores was situated on the summit of the Hill of Dores; it is traditionally said to have been a residence of Macbeth. Great quantities of ashes have been found at various places on this hill, as well as at the site of the Castle. They are thought to be from beacon fires.

Presumably the tradition concerning a castle of Macbeth arose from this; there is no trace of a castle.

Historic Scotland

For the young antiquary. Series IV.

Hole stones are more abundant in Ireland than is generally supposed, and we have some fine examples in the North. The best I know is “The Holestone,” Doagh, County Antrim, a very massive galean of basalt, with a bevelled hole through the upper part, bevelled on both sides so that the actual hole or centre of the stone is not large. Whatver may have been the original use to which this stone was put, one legend says criminals were chained to it, others that it was a contract stone, contracts of various kinds being ratified by joining hands through the hole. In later days it seems to have been – and possibly still is – used by engaged couples to ratify their engagement. It stood when I last saw it very close to the edge of a quarry that was rapidly approaching it. I trust that it may not follow other fine prehistoric memorials of the same area destroyed through the ignorance or apathy of the farmers on whose land those memorials stood. [...]

Robert J Welch encouraging the youth in the Northern Whig, 20th March 1924.

The line of the Devil’s Ditch and the county boundary runs pretty straight towards Park House (still a hotel, on the old line of the A303), which sounds like where Park Gate must have been, and presumably the stone. So it makes you wonder if this huge stone did have some significance. I can’t see it marked on a map so not sure quite where it was – it’s hard to tell which direction the ‘narrow lane’ was heading (possibly NW back along the boundary but who knows). Now the area is carved up with roads so I fear it won’t be there any longer. But it sounds impressively big.

The county boundary at Clarendon Hill, about a mile west of North Tidworth, turns towards the south along an old landmark called the “Devil’s Ditch,” on the western side of Beacon Hill, down to Park House. The burial mounds called barrows abound in the direction of Ambresbury; and no wonder, for we are approaching what was once the fashionable burying-ground of eminent Ancient Britons.

[...] At Park Gate, on the county boundary, on the road between Andover and Amesbury, there is, or was, in a field abutting on a narrow lane leading from the roadside inn, a flat stone, of large dimensions, 11ft. long, 12ft. in breadth, and 5ft. in thickness. One of the many traditions about Stonehenge is that the great Sarsens came from Andover, and this Park Gate stone, in order to help the tradition, is quoted as having been on its way thither but abandoned.

From ‘Notes on the Border of Wilts and Hants’ by the Rev. Canon J.E. Jackson, in WANHM v21, 1883.

Dick the Fiddler’s Money

The adventures of rakish Richard (a ‘fiddler’ in more ways than one, not to mention waste of space husband to his long suffering wife) featuring his dodgy bewitched seashell currency obtained whilst returning home from Darowen. The hamlet displayed some pseudo-political ‘comment’ of very dubious far left intellect in its windows at the time of my visit. Hence I did not attempt to engage any local, instead making straight for the excellent Fron Goch Camp rising above. Superb viewpoint, it has to be said.

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb27.htm

Bala Lake

Long, long ago, there was a fertile valley where now roll the waters of Bala Lake.

“At last he reached the top of a hill, some considerable distance ‘from the palace”.... Although the story isn’t specific – mythical legends, eh? – I guess it’s not utterly unreasonable to suppose Moel y Garnedd, overlooking Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), may have been the inferred destination of the harper... being an old man and presumably not up to a trek up any mountain proper:

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb23.htm

More fairy capers involving the “Fair Family”, this time concerning changelings at Dyffryn Mymbyr:

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb43.htm

The Mantle of Kings’ Beards:

An account of the titanic, legendary struggle between King Arthur and Rhitta Gawr. Needless to say Arthur emerged victorious – well he would, wouldn’t he? – the story (arguably) lending credence to the theory that Yr Wyddfa Fawr (Snowdon) was once crowned by the premier Bronze Age cairn in all Wales:

“...And Rhitta gave up the ghost, and was buried on the top of the highest mountain of Eryri, and each of his soldiers placed a stone on his tomb. The place was afterwards known as Gwyddfa Rhitta, Rhitta’s Barrow, but the English call it Snowdon.”

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb39.htm

Concerning one Ifan Sion Watkin – apparently once generally known as Ianto Coedcae – and his far out trip away with the fairies upon Mynydd Pen Cyrn. With “an abundance of strong ale and old mead to drink” one is tempted to hypothesise that the gentleman was pissed... however isn’t it funny how such legendary antics find themselves associated with great Bronze Age sites?

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb21.htm

The Fairy Harp:

A reminder to visitors out and about in the environs of this fine mountain to keep an eye out; not just for his giant-ness, Mr Idris (shouldn’t be too hard to spot, to be fair)... but also the diminutive fairies at the other end of the scale, which, according to local lore, used to do the rounds knocking on locals’ doors. Suffice to say it would appear wise not to upset the little people. Good for your elf, one might conclude:

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb19.htm

oh, and... The Man with the Green Weeds:

A cautionary tale for those intent upon venturing to the summit of Cadair Idris – yeah, Idris’s Chair itself. You have been warned!

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb53.htm

The Fairy Wife... apparently there were interesting goings on around Llyn y Dywarchen (the Lake of the Sod) back in the day:

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb15.htm

Dimas Emrys... Why the Red Dragon is the Emblem of Wales... and why every proud Welshman/Welshwoman (not to mention Briton... or anyone else, for that matter) able to make a visit to this haunting site really should do so:

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb11.htm

That night the three heroes [Laegaire, Conall and Cuchulain] were given as good a feast as before, but they were put to eat it in a room by themselves. When night came on, three enchanted monsters, with the shape of cats, were let out from the cave that was in the hill of the Sidhe at Cruachan, to attack them.

When Conall and Laegaire saw them, they got up into the rafters, leaving their food after them, and there they stayed till morning. Cuchulain did not leave his place, but when one of the monsters came to attack him, he gave a blow of his sword at its head; but the sword slipped off as if from a stone.

Then the monster stayed quiet, and Cuchulain sat there through the night watching it. With the break of day the cats were gone, and Ailell came in and saw what way the heroes were. “Are you not satisfied to give the Championship to Cuchulain, after this?” he said. “We are not,” said Conall and Laegaire; “it is not against beasts we are used to fight, but against men.”

...

There was at Cruachan the Hill of the Sidhe, or, as some called it, the Cave of Cruachan. It was there Midhir brought Etain one time, and it is there the people of the Sidhe lived; but it is seldom any living person had the power to see them.

It is out of that hill a flock of white birds came one time, and everything they touched in all Ireland withered up, until at last the men of Ulster killed them with their slings. And another time enchanted pigs came out of the hill, and in every place they trod, neither corn nor grass nor leaf would sprout before the end of seven years, and no sort of weapon would wound them. But if they were counted in any place, or if the people so much as tried to count them, they would not stop in that place, but they would go on to another. But however often the people of the country tried to count them, no two people could ever make out the one number.

From Lady Gregory’s ‘Cuchulain of Muirthemne’ (1902), page 68 and page 148.