Latest Folklore

Another story about the Bulford stone in the river:

In the bed of the river, just above Bulford, a great Sarsen stone lies, like those of which Stonehenge is built; how it came there is not known. The traditional explanation is that the Devil, having, by Merlin’s command, bought the stones from an old wife in Ireland, bound them in a withy and flew hither with them, and as he was crossing the river at this point the withy slackened and one of the stones dropped out. There is another stone of the same kind in an upland field to the west.

From ‘Salisbury Plain‘ by Ella Noyes, 1913.

These legends [told of Killeen Cormac ] look like an interpretation from one more ancient concerning the hounds of Cuglos (son of Donndesa, King of Leinster), who was master of the hounds to Ederscoel, the great king of Erin. [...]

His dogs hunted a wild boar from Tara to the Hill of Urske, where they left the marks of their paws on the stones of a druidical circle crowning its summit. The same traces are to be found on some rocks at Manger, near Rathbran.

While pursuing their game up the hill over Beallach Dubhthaire, the ancient name of Baltinglass, Cuglos with his dogs, blinded by the mist and fog, chased their game into a cave on the summit of the mountain, and being there lost, his memory was perpetuated by giving his name to the scene of his untimely fate.

From ‘The Inscribed Stones of Killeen Cormac’ by J.F.S., in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record v4, no9, 1868.

It has been suggested that Killeen Cormac was in the pre-Christian period used as a place of pagan sepulchre. Its very peculiar construction and the indications of a sepulchral chamber within the moat, with passages to the terraces such are to be found in similar structures at New Grange on the Boyne, and in other localities, give an air of certainty to the suggestion, which is well sustained by the appearance of a stone on the south side of the mound about three feet high, fixed in the wall of the middle terrace.

It seems to be one of the jambs of a door to the entrance leading from the central cave. The side of this stone is grooved, the opposite jamb was likely hollowed in the same manner to receive a thinner flag to close the exterior entrance.

Killeen Cormac has the reputation of being full of rats, as well as of being the oldest cemetery in the whole country. These animals are up to this time the only explorers of the subterranean galleries under the mound, since they were closed up to preserve the remains of some pagan hero of the earliest dawn of history.

The most recent fact connected with this cemetery is, that about the year 1830 a stone wall was built around its area, some trees were then planted which add a phase of beauty peculiarly their own, while their shadows give a dim religious light in harmony with the venerable relics of antiquity of which they are the guardians.

Within the enclosure, and on the sides of the ruined terraces, are some inscribed pillar stones, with Latin and Ogham inscriptions, and some very curious incised figures, the description of which is reserved for notice at the close of this paper.

At the side of the mound, some paces from the entrance, is one pillar stone, now about three feet above the surface, on the top of which is an indentation resembling the trace of a hound’s paw, as if impressed on a soft surface. Excavations made around it did not reveal any features worth describing.

A very curious legend, founded indeed on historical facts, is told concerning this stone, with a view, perhaps, to account for the name Cormac being affixed to the locality. The tradition of the neighbourhood says that the pillar stone marks the grave of a Cormac, king of Munster. It states that he was carried to this cemetery for sepulture by a team of bullocks, which were allowed to follow their own instincts, a mode of settling disputes regarding sepulture not uncommon among the ancient Irish. [This tradition...] avers that he was carried from a long distance through Ballynure from Timolin, in the county of Kildare, and when the team reached that part of Ballymore now known as “the Doon” the exhausted bullocks, in the eagerness of their thirst, pawed the earth, and that a stream of water issued forth. Another version states that the teamster stuck his goad into the ground, whereupon gushed up a bubbling fountain, which is still to be found near the roadside, and is used as a watering-place for the kine pasturing on the fertile heights at the Doon of Ballynure.

The bullocks having satisfied their thirst, journeyed on till they came to the elevation now called Bullock Hill, beside the Griese, opposite to Killeen Cormac. Here they halted, and refused to proceed farther, from which it appeared that Killeen was to be the last resting place of the king. The bullocks having done their part, returned homewards across the marsh, and were engulphed in the waters of the Griese.

[...] Another version of this legend, but more confused, places a  hound on the team, which, when it stopped at Bullock Hill, jumped over to the cemetery, and left the impression of its paw on the pillar stone, thus marking the grave of Cormac; while another story represents this hound as jumping from the summit of Knockadhow, still more remote from the cemetery.

From ‘The Inscribed Stones of Killeen Cormac’ by J.F.S., in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record v4, no9, 1868. Comes with illustrations of the stones.

There is a fort in Dromin in the land of Michael Seannel and it is a very eerie place. Many strange stories are told about it. One night a man by the name of Cronin was coming home from town and as he drew near the fort field he heard an awful noise. As he was passing the gate a big man asked him to play a football match with them and he said he could. The side that the man played with won the game and when it was over the man went home. When he reached home he went to bed.

When the people of the house got up next morning, Cronin was very bad and he was all black from head to foot. The people of the house sent for the doctor and the doctor said that there was nothing to be done for him but to send for the priest, and the priest came and he was anointed. About an hour or two later the man died because people say that he got a fairy stroke.

There is another story told about that place. One night a man was standing beside the wall and as he was just in the act of coming home he heard all the talk going down the field. The man says the people did not come up the road or down the road or go in the gate, but the talk was going down the field at the same time and Seannel’s dog was barking.

More fairy weirdness from the Schools Collection of the 1930s, online at duchas.ie.

I mind seeing the finest crop of potatoes in the parish growing in that field beside Bough Fort. One day, six of us started to dig the potatoes. We had a good lot dug at dinner-time, more than they’d dig now.

We went over to the ditch to eat our dinners when, all of a sudden, what did we see but six women, wearing cloaks and hoods, coming out of the fort. They came, and started picking the potatoes into their aprons.

I can tell you we were well frightened, because something told us they were the daoine maithe you know. We let them alone, and they stayed picking for about ten minutes or so. They never looked towards us, but when they were finished, back with them again, and out of our sight.

We were too frightened to move for a bit, but when we went back to our work what did we find, that there was not a single potato missing. It is said, that it is not right to touch a stick or a stone in these old forts.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, being digitised at Duchas.ie.

According to the information via the Historic Environment Viewer, the rath “is enclosed by a substantial earthen bank and a wide, shallow, partly waterlogged fosse” – I guess the ditch of the story. The “daoine maithe” are the Good People, the fairies.

This is a wishing-well of some note in the
district; people even now go there to drop in
crooked pins, and wish. It is only a square hole
in the ground high up on the cliffs, at the base of
an overhanging rock, situated at the end of a nut
grove; a stream runs along the side, and a little of
it flows into the well by a gutter.

From “Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall” – M&L Quiller-Couch (1894).

Not far from the Rock of Thorm there is a hill called Slieve Muc. There is a great crack in the hill. My grandmother told me that there was a great pig roaming around Slieve Muc so Finn and the Fianna went to kill it. When they found the pig they surrounded it. Finn, the leader, approached it with his sword in his hand. The pig, upon seeing Finn, attacked him. Finn fought for some time and wounded the pig. Then when the pig was tired, Finn, raising his sword above his head, put all his strength to one mighty stroke. The sword descended with such force that it severed the pig’s head from its body and also made a great hole in the hill. It was from this episode that the hill got the Irish name of Slieve na Muc.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, now being digitised at Duchas.ie

Archaeologist Tom talking to Mick Aston on the Time Team episode about Mine Howe:

- So what do the local people think of this area then, Tom?

- Well I think it’s always been considered as somewhere a bit special, a bit unusual.You’ve got [Mine Howe] here, this thing with this ditch around it which might pre-date it, you’ve got a medieval chapel over there, and you’ve got the burial ground as well and it’s still in use. But people used to say that there were always things here, you know there were always stories related to this mound.

- What do you mean, things here?

- Well, they, um... back in the old days people believed in trows, which is the Orkney word for fairies...

- Fairies! (snort)

- Yeah they used to have a few ale houses on the way over to Durness and people used to have to stop and get tanked up before they could go past this place at night...

- Yeah? (incredulously)

- ... because they thought there was trows around.

- Because there were spirits about.

- mm and then when they got to Dingieshowe in Durness they would have to have a few more to go past that as well, because it was also believed to be an abode of trows. And there was actually a story about a fiddler that went into the mound of Dingieshowe and played for a night for a trow, and when he came out he discovered he’d been away for fourteen years! Everything had changed – apart from him, he was exactly the same.

- Is it not more to do with the local whiskey than anything else?

- Erm a bit of that probably as well the home brew, it certainly heightened the attention/tension.

In this district there is a large stone on the top of Ward’s hill. It is said that when the Giants were in Ireland one of them was standing at Tara and threw the stone from there so it landed on the top of Ward’s hill. This stone is on the hill ever since and the track of the Giant’s five fingers is on the stone. Some people say that the Giant was at the races in Mullacurry and threw the stone from there. The fairies were supposed to dwell under the big stone.

A story from the Schools Collection at Duchas. ie. Perhaps that’s the stone in Ryaner’s photo.

Gubbin’s Moat.

This is situated in the townland of Ballingarry, Barony Coshlea. A “light” was always associated with it. It is near a graveyard and the light was supposed to be seen going from there to the moat and back again. In my young days when passing by that moat (there is a double ditch beside it, a short cut to village of Ballylanders) we would walk very quietly and silently and never go nearer than the double ditch and we would not dream of crossing at night. Now all that fear is gone.

A story was told by my father (RIP) how one night about midnight he was returning from a hayrick and a light left this moat and went along the road before him and when he came to the crossroads near Ballingarry he heard trampling as if horses were travelling fast but saw nothing and the light was still there. The noise turned at the cross and went along the road whence he had come, towards the churchyard, and the light left him and also went back, and he could see the light facing for the moat again. He used to say that it was a funeral of someone who had been buried in a place he or she did not like and was coming back to their own burial ground.

I think this must be the right place from its proximity to the churchyard and the footpath. It’s recounted in the Schools Collection of the 1930s, now being transcribed at Duchas.ie.

Glenbrohane (Knocklary, Barony of Coshlea, and Co. Limerick) has a collection of moats. Hardly a farm that does not hold a moat and the old people and some of the younger generation hold these moats in great awe and veneration. No one would be allowed to cut a bush off one of them or interfere in any way with them, and stories are told of punishments meted out to some who did dare to interfere with them.
In this place are 13 or 14 moats and from the top of any one of them, three more are visible.

The largest moat of all is in a farm called Quane’s, and is known as Quane’s moat, and it is said to be the second largest in Munster, and it is said that it is from a chief who once lived there that the name Glenbrohane is got. The Glen of the Brohans (Brohan’s being the name of the Chieftain). From this large moat, the others circle so that a complete half circle is formed by all. An underground channel connects all but so far, no one seems to have gone down and explored any of these passages.

One of these is said to have removed from one farm (Madden’s) and goes across the river to another farm (Howard’s) in one night. The hollow is in Madden’s farm where they say the moat once stood. The late owner of the farm – Howard’s – would not allow a bush to be cut from the moat, so that it is overgrown with furze bushes, and I remember myself as a child passing by that silently and very [sickened?] lest the fairies would hear us within. That idea prevailed in this place up to the last generation, who had a great dread of insulting the fairies or rousing their anger in any way, but at present bushes are being cut and these moats are regarded as part of the farms and no more. But when the antiquarians were excavating in Cush-Kilfinaine, Co Limerick, which is only one mile from here – a man who had a moat on his farm would not allow them interfere with it, lest there may be reprisals by the fairies.

Laune’s Moat, in the townsland of Glenbrohane, is a very large moat and though it was overgrown a few years ago, a man came along and cut away all the furze from it, but he lost the farm, and the old people said that it was not right to interfere with the moat.

Story:- The owner of this – Morgan Laune (RIP) had made up his mind to cut the bushes from this one day, years and years ago. He had a very quiet old horse and he harnessed him meaning to take down a car to bring home the bushes. No sooner was he harnessed than away with him from under the car, towards the moat and fell dead at the entrance to the moat.
Ever after, no one ever interfered with that moat during his life time, but the bushes are being cut now and the grass mown off it.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, currently being transcribed here and here at Duchas.ie. I’m not sure which of the many moats are the ones referred to. The grid reference I’ve give is the largest and is named ‘Doonglara’ on an old map.

Underneath a natural bower, on the bank of the lowest rampart but one, is a small arch of stone, covering a well of clearest water, fed by a spring that never in the fiercest drought runs dry. The overflowing stream makes a small pond below, but the well itself is almost out of sight under overhanging bushes, in the shadow of the north side of the hill.

This is King Arthur’s Well. A miraculous fountain, into the depths of which you may still peer and see things strange and wonderful. In a basin, some two feet deep, the sheltered water, never moved by wind, lies still and pure as a transparent magic crystal.

[...] The well is also a wishing well. It was a picnic day when I was there – and to see the country maids trip down the foot-worn path between the trees, big and little, plump and lean, all in white frocks, and treading upon each other’s heels, was better than a day-dream, ever so much. And they did drink. If they only wished as hard as they drank, there was a determination about it which, with a little patience and good-temper, and no fortune but a pretty face, was bound to bring success.

There is a ceremony with this sort of thing. Each spread her “hankercher” upon the broad, flat stone beside the well, turned up her white skirt, knelt, both nees, upon a petticoat as white, leant over the water and dropped an offering in, dipped with her hand and drank out of her hollow palm. She rose and gazed into the future with what, in the best fiction, is called a wistful, far-off look, until the next girl promptly elbowed her aside and said,
“Let I.”

It was a Sunday School and Bible Class that I saw intoxicate itself with the secret desire of its own heart. The “titcher” stood on one side. A spinster, tall, thin, sharp-featured, and born, upon a moderate computation, not later than the early sixties. Through a pair of glasses, she watched this pagan rite, smiling with an air of superior toleration upon such follies, because it was a holiday. The bigger girls implored her to drink, too. “Now do ee, Miss ---,” they all said. (In view of what came after, the name shall never be revealed by me.) “Do ee, then.” But persuasion could not move her. She was a total abstainer, and would not touch a drop; and, presently, the girls all went off up the glade, she marching in the rear.

Soon an unaccountable thing happened. That woman came back, quickly, glancing behind and upon each side, to make sure no one saw. She dared not lift her skirt. She had not time to kneel. But she took a tumbler out of her pocket; plunged it in the spring; leaned forward as she held it dripping to her lips, and swallowed half-a-pint. Ah! She did not merely wish to quench her thirst. That is incredible, since there was tea upon the hill.

By Walter Raymond, in ‘The Idler Out of Doors: Camelot’ – The Idler, November 1898.

In the townland of Ballyvocogue there is situated a fort. This fort belongs to Pat Kennedy. Some years ago a dog was seen coming out of the fort, and run along the bank of the fort. It is said that the dog used be throwing fire from his mouth, and all along the bank of the fort people used see burnt patches. The colour of this dog was white.
All the people in the district, and the people in the surrounding districts knew about this dog, and even some of the people in the district shunned that after sunset. No one knows how the dog went out of the fort but, he was not seen after the owner cutting down some of the trees on the bank of the fort.

This is rather odd – a white not a black dog. But it’s still rather otherworldly what with barking fire everywhere. And also rather backwards is its disappearance after trees were cut, rather than the usual fairy disapproval of such things. Perhaps he actually wanted them cut so he could have more room to run around in, dogs being dogs and all. From the 1930s Schools Collection being digitised at duchas.ie.

Quite close to this school on the top of a hill there is a fort which is situated in the townland of Lisbanagher.

Formerly the fort was surrounded by a wall which is now crumbled to heaps of stones, and on this there are trees growing.

It is said that chiefs lived there long ago. In the middle of the fort the chiefs used have castles, but there is no trace of these castles now.
Some chiefs had a good deal of money and used have three walls around their castles and smaller chiefs used have two walls and smaller still used have one wall for protection from their enemies.

The people are in awe of these forts because they say they are inhabited by fairies.

I heard the following story told about the fort.

One morning Mrs Morrison who lives near the fort, got up early. She went to the door and looked out and was surprised to see a great many tiny little men with little creels on their backs coming down to the bog for turf. She went into the house again and said that she got up too early.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, being digitised at Duchas.ie.

There is a hill in this locality called Keash Hill. Caves at the back of this hill are still pointed out as places where giants lived. Nearby there is a hollow with a flag flooring which is called the “Giants’ Table” and likely it is here they cooked and eat their food.

Running parallel to this hill and at the back of it is a place called “Dun Ui Bhéara” where the Cailleach Bhéara is supposed to have lived.

Old people tell stories of a fight between the Cailleach Bhéara and one of the giants. He stood on the summit of the hill and fired stones down at her. She lifted stones and earth and fired them up at him. The stones that reached the top of the hill form a “cairn” which is still to be seen. The place from which they were taken formed a small lake which remains to the present day.

Some time ago if children were bold their mothers threatened to tell Cailleach Bhéara and immediately they got quiet. She was able to walk across Lough Arrow and the waters at their deepest part just reached her arm pit.

From the Schools Project of the 1930s, now being digitised at Duchas.ie.

Having gratified my curiosity at [Coeten Arthur], I made for a farm, a mile off, called Ystym Cegid, where I had the pleasure of beholding another, the most beautiful of any I had seen in my journey; the farmer, however, through a natural propensity to render any thing useful that may lie on the ground, has converted it into a sheepfold, by filling up the interstices with stones, very dissimilar to those originally erected to support the coping-stone, of the Cromlech: I have left them out, and the annexed print will shew its prior appearance. The coping-stone takes a triangular form, its thickness is about eighteen inches every where, and it measures thirty-six feet round; it is raised so high as to allow a person on horseback to go underneath. This also is called Arthur’s Quoit: which (to carry on the story [at Coeten Arthur]) we may suppose to have been thrown by the same hand; but, owing to a slip of the foot, in the moment of exertion, it went wide of the mark at least one mile.

From Edward Pugh’s ‘Cambria Depicta’ (1816).

In the village of Lavally about three miles from Clarenbridge there lies a Cromlech. The field where this Cromlech lies belongs to Thomas Heaney now but it was sold to him a few years ago by William Feeney. The Cromlech lies within 20 yds of the road wall. This field belonged to William Feeney when the Cromlech fell about eight years ago.

It is thought that this Cromlech would not have fallen only for a constant grazing of the sheep wore the clay from around the three standing stones so that they could not afford to hold up the top stone. The top stone is about 26 1/2 feet in circumference and about a foot and a half in height. The perimeter of the underneath is about 14’2”.

It is not known for certainty why this Cromlech was erected. Most people think that this was a druid altar in olden times but it is also thought that Diarmuid and Grainne took shelter under this Cromlech. There is also another stone in the wall not far from the Cromlech and is exactly like the stones of the Cromlech. It is thought that this stone was brought to be put in the Cromlech but it was brought no further.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, now being digitised at Duchas.

It’s not looking so good at Lavally, as you can see by this 2002 photo on FourWinds‘ Megalithomania site.

The illustration from Borlase’s ‘The Dolmens of Ireland’ book (made towards the end of the 19th century) shows rocks on top of the dolmen. This isn’t mentioned in the text. But it rings a bell with me... I’m sure I’ve read about people somewhere throwing stones up onto cromlechs for luck, or maybe for a more specific outcome. I’ll have to look into it. Maybe people still do it elsewhere...

I’d not thought of this, but the trouble with putting your cathedral in a fort is that all the soldiers get in the way. Apparently.

One its short sheep-bitten turf may yet be traced, in dry weather, the outlines of the foudation walls of its ancient and once splendid cathedral, built by Bishop Osmond – the Conqueror’s nephew – but transferred by Bishop Poore in 1220, from that bleak and barren position, into the sheltered vale and fertile meadows of the fishy Avon beneath. Old Aubrey gives the following version of the cause of its removal, which he says he had from Bishop Seth Ward, who extracted it from the musty records of the cathedral.

The old church in the castle of Old Sarum being seated so high was so obnoxious to the weather that when the wind did blow they could not heare the priest say masse. But this was not the only inconvenience. The soldiers of the castle and the priests could never agree; and one day when they were gone without the castle in procession, the soldiers kept them out all night, or longer. Whereupon the bishop, although much troubled, cheered them up as well as he could, telling them he would study to accommodate them better. In order thereunto he rode several tymes to the Lady Abbesse at Wylton to have bought or exchanged a piece of ground with her ladyship to build a church and homes for the priests. A poor woman at Quidhampton that was spinning in the street, sayd to one of her neighbours, “I marvell what the matter is that the bishop makes so many visits to my lady; I trow he intends to marry her.” Well the bishop and her ladyship could not conclude about the land, and the bishop dreamt that the Virgin Mary came to him and told him she would have him build his church at Merrifield, and dedicate it to her. Merrifield was a great meadow where the city of New Sarum now stands and did belong to the bishop, as now the whole city belongs to him.

From an article about books on Wiltshire in ‘The Quarterly Review’ for January 1858.

Quarrying operations at one time threatened to destroy this far-famed natural curiosity, but the Duchy of Cornwall has wisely limited the scope of their destructive efforts. [...] Immediately outside the rampart of the stone fort above the Cheesewring is a large natural block of granite, hollowed out by the weather into a rude seat called the Druid’s Chair. It is said that whoever sits in it is destined shortly either to become a poet or go mad – in fact, the Laureateship or Colney Hatch!

From a report about an excursion to the Cheesewring in Archaeologia Cambrensis, July 1896.

The notion of [another writer], that the stones once formed some of the supports of a covering stone of a large sepulchral chamber, appears probable. The prevalent local tradition which he and the author of the History of Radnorshire record, that the font in Old Radnor Church was hewn out of one of the missing stones, shows that the supposed removal took place at a remote period, and is so far valuable; but an examination of the four stones does not support the tradition of the use which was made of one of their missing fellows, for they are clearly erratic boulders from the adjacent volcanic rocks of Hanter or Stanner, of which a very truthful and picturesque sketch is given in Murchison’s Silurian System. Any local stone mason would, on examination, at once say the four stones could not be dressed or hewn into a regular form, as they would shatter into irregular fragments when broken or dressed.

From ‘The Four Stones, Old Radnor’ by Richard W Banks, in Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club 1886-1889.

I have shown (in the Antiquary for April, 1912) why the Tolven Stone was set up on edge, and although this was done as recently as the middle of the nineteenth century, it had long ago acquired a reputation as a “crick-stone.”

Four years ago I had a chat with the daughter-in-law of the man who built the house at the back of which the stone stands, and who raised it to its present position. She told me that, quite recently, children had been passed through the hole in order to strengthen their backs, and added, “our old dog (a collie) ought to be strong enough in the back, for he’s backwards and forwards through it forty times a day.”

From Correspondence in ‘The Antiquary’ v10 (April 1914), our correspondent being George J Beesley. The reputation had to have been developed after it was put up, because otherwise, how would you shove infants through it? Or is he conceding that it already had the reputation (suggesting it had already been standing at some point)?

At the southwestern end of Mynydd Rhiw there is a very prominent conical outcrop called Clip y Gylfinhir:

Mrs Williams, of Pwll Defaid, told me that the rock opposite, called Clip y Gylfinhir, on Bodwydog Mountain, a part of Mynydd y Rhiw, was the resort of the Tylwyth Teg, and that they revelled there when it was covered in mist; she added that a neighbouring farm called Bodermud Isa’, was well known at one time as the place the fairies came to do their baking.

From Celtic Folkore – John Rhys (1901)

The name translates at Crag of the Curlew (literally “long beak”).

There is an old lios in the townland of Castlefarm, the next village to Clooneen. It was generally known that the owner of the land on which the lios was, would never remain too late at work and that he would not go out to work early in the morning. His neighbours asked him what was the reason of this and he told them that one morning he went out at day-break and began to plough near the lios, and a friend of his who had been dead for years told him to cease working at such early hours. He did as he had been advised, went back to bed for a few hours and when he returned he found that half the field had been ploughed in his absence. He then yoked in his horses, began to plough and did an ordinary day’s work. A few weeks later his cow strayed from him one evening and he could not find her.
It was near midnight when he went to the lios in search of her and he had a lantern in his hand because the night was very dark. As he came near the lios he heard the nicest music he ever heard played. After a while it changed into a kind of “caoining”.
He became very much afraid of this strange sound and he left the field and returned home and told his wife and family. Very soon after he became ill and he lived only six weeks.
Ever since people take care that they do not enter this field at a late hour.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, now being transcribed at Duchas.ie.

In Gartan Co Donegal there is a huge stone which is kept in remembrance of St Colmcille. Long ago some Protestants were removing this stone and trying to hide it on the Catholics. When they had it some distance away a plague of black rats surrounded them so they thought they would leave the stone back again and when they did so the rats disappeared. The Protestants never interfered with the stone again.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, now being transcribed at Duchas.ie.

Another story which I’m hoping applies to this stone. You get a lot packed in – fairies, Finn McCool, special tree species and petrification.

In a field at Balcunnin two miles from Skerries, there is a tall stone shaped somewhat like a man. It is said that a fairy queen was going to Fionn Mac Cumhail when a man leapt out of a hedge and tried to seize her. Like magic a hazel rod appeared in her hand and she turned her man into a rock.

From the Schools Collection of the 1930s, now being transcribed at Duchas.ie.