Latest Folklore

Bosworlas Lehau, the flat stones of Bosworlas, called by the country people the Giant’s Quoits, are about two miles beyond the monuments last named [at Trannock Downs]. They consist of several very large granite rocks, on the tops of which are numerous rock basons. Borlase, p. 180, mentions “a natural logan-stone in the large heap of rocks called Bosworlas Lehau;” but this is no longer to be discovered. The same writer says that the country people called the largest rock-bason at Bosworlas, a circular one six feet in diameter, the Giant’s Chair. Another one, of a similar kind, in the neighbouring rocks at Bosavern, was also said to have formed a seat for a giant. The Giant’s Chair is still shown at Bosworlas, as are also the Giant’s Table, and his steps leading up into the chair. Bosworlas Lehau looks at a distance as if it consisted of one immense flat piece of granite on the top of a large carn.

From Rambles in Western Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1861).

Shortly before reaching New Bridge, – in a field known as the Barn Field, which is next the road on the left-hand side, adjoining some new farm-buildings called Tremayne, – are two memorial stones between nine and ten feet asunder. The largest is of unhewn granite, irregularly shaped, six feet in height, and averaging about seven feet in circumference. The other stone, nearer the road, is still more irregularly shaped, and tapers nearly to a point at the top. This one is five feet and a-half high above the ground. These stones are figured by Borlase, ed. 1769, p. 164, together with a plan of their position in respect to a grave discovered between them, the whole being termed by him a “sepulchral monument at Trewren in Maddern.”

Borlase informs us that, “upon searching the ground between these two stones, October 21st 1752, the diggers presently found a pit six feet long, two feet nine wide, and four feet six deep. Near the bottom it was full of black greasy earth, but no bone to be seen. This grave came close to the westernmost and largest stone, next to which, I imagine, the head of the interred lay.”

The tradition of the locality is that the stones mark the grave of a warrior.

From Rambles in Western Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants by J O Halliwell-Phillipps (1861).

In the Tenement of Lanyon stand three Stones-erect on a triangular Plan. The shape, size, distance and bearing, will best be discerned from the plan and elevation of them (Plate XIV. Fig. I. and II.) The middle Stone (A) is thin and flat, fixed in the ground, on its edge, and in the middle has a large hole one foot two inches diameter, whence it is called the Men an Tol (in Cornish the holed Stone); on each side is a rude Pillar, about four foot high; and one of these Pillars (B) has a long Stone lying without it (C), like a cushion, or pillow, as if to kneel upon. This Monument as is plain from its structure, could be of no use, but to superstition. But to what particular superstitious Rite it was appropriated is uncertain, though not unworthy of a short enquiry.

[...] It is not improbable, but this holed Stone (consecrated, as by its structure and present uses it seems to have been) might have served several delusive purposes. I apprehend that it served for Libations, served to initiate, and dedicate Children to the Offices of Rock-Worship, by drawin gthem through this hole, and also to purify the Victim before it was sacrificed; and considering the many lucrative juggles of the Druids (which are confirmed by their Monuments) it is not wholly improbable, that some miraculous Restoration of health, might be promised to the people for themselves and children, upon proper pecuniary gratifications, provided that, at a certain season of the Moon, and whilst a Priest officiated at one of the Stones adjoining, with prayers adapted to the occasion, they would draw their infirm children through this hole.

It is not improbable, but this Stone might be also fo the oracular kind; all which may, in some measure, be confirmed by the present, though very simple, uses, to which it is applied by the common people.

When I was last at this Monument, in the year 1749, a very intelligent farmer of the neighbourhood assured me, that he had known many persons who had crept through this holed Stone for pains in their back and limbs; and that fanciful parents, at certain times of the year, do customarily draw their young Children through, in order to cure them of Rickets. He shewed me also two brass pins, carefully layed a-cross each other, on the top-edge of the holed Stone. This is the way of the Over-curious, even at this time; and by recurring to these Pins, and observing their direction to be the same, or different from what they left them in, or by their being lost or gone, they are informed of some material incident of Love or Fortune, which they could not know soon enough in a natural way, and immediately take such resolutions as their informations from these prophetical Stones suggest.

From the alternately imaginative and sceptical sounding William Borlase’s 1769 Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall.

In the neighbourhood of the castle may be traced the obscure remains of several specimens of the edifices generally termed British huts. The country folks call them “the huts of the old people,” – a traditional name agreeing with the results of recent investigation. Upon excavating one of them, there were found a small quantity of charred wood, a great number of burnt stones, and as many fragments of pottery as filled a small bason.

From Rambles in Western Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants by J O Halliwell-Phillipps (1861).

The dimensions of the cap-stone are thus given by Borlase: – “This quoit is more than forty-seven feet in girt, and nineteen feet long; its thickness in the middle on the eastern edge is sixteen inches, at each end not so much, but at the western edge it is two feet thick.”
The cromlech is sometimes called by the country people the Giant’s Quoit, and occasionally the Giant’s Table. My measurement made the covering-stone forty-six feet in circumference, with a thickness varying from ten to eighteen inches. It is not improbable that the stone has been chipped off at one or two of the corners since the time of Borlase. Between the cromlech and the road are the remains of a stone and earth circular barrow about eighteen feet in diameter.

There is an odd tradition that the first battle fought in England was decided in the locality of Lanyon Quoit.

From Rambles in Western Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants by J O Halliwell-Phillips (1861).

The hill on the left-hand side is noted as having once had on its summit that “notable treble intrenchment of earth called Lescaddock Castle, that name referring to Cadock, earl of Cornwall, whose broad camp or castle of war it was, as tradition faith.” Some write the name, Lescudjack, and others, Lesgud-zhek; the latter explained by Borlase as the “Castle of the Bloody Field.” The provincial name of it was “The Giant’s Rounds.” The only portion of this fortification now remaining is a large raised circular mound, enclosing several fields. The mound is nearly perfect, and there is a pathway outside it which was probably the site of the original intrenchment.

From Rambles in Western Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants, by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps (1861).

At a quarter of a mile from Sennen is the hamlet of Mayon, an insignificant assemblage of a few cottages, only deserving notice as containing a celebrated block of granite, three feet thick, with a flat top measuring about seven feet by six, called Mayon Table. The stone is at the back of a small blacksmith’s shop, and the tradition is that seven Saxon kings, about the year 600, paying a visit to Cornwall to see the Land’s End, dined at this table. Ethelbert, king of Kent, was one, and the most celebrated of the sovereigns at this the earliest recorded picnic at the Land’s End.

According to another version of the tradition, only three kings dined at the Mayon Table on that occasion; and there is a prophecy of Merlin to the effect that a larger number of crowned heads will one day be assembled at dinner around this rock previously to some great catastrophe, or to the destruction of the world itself.

From Rambles in Western Cornwall by the Footsteps of the Giants, by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps (1861).

A hunter was pursuing a deer one day. Over hill and dale he chased, never getting any nearer to it, although he repeatedly galloped faster. At last, drawing his bow, he shot an arrow at it, exclaiming, “Should you be the devil himself I will pursue thee till eternity.”
The deer struck by the arrow halted at the entrance of the dolmen and turned into a maiden of dazzling beauty.
“Have thee thy wish,” she cried. “Thou shalt hunt for ever.”
She vanished and the huntsman, it is said, may still be seen careering madly on a white horse, bow in hand, after an invisible quarry.

Another story relates to the days of Druidism.
It was the custom of this particular sect of Druids to offer up to the sun human sacrifices two or three times a year. Usually the victims were criminals or prisoners captured in war.
On one occasion the larder of victims was bare – not a criminal, not a prisoner of war. One of the priestesses who did the butchering was a young and lovely girl.
“No victims,” she said. “Then you shall have my youngest brother.”
Screaming with horror the boy was placed on a flat altar stone in the mouth of the dolmen and the priestess sharpened her knife in anticipation of the cruel deed entrusted to her.
The boy pleaded in vain for his life.
“Were you God himself I would kill thee,” his sister said.
Just as she was about to plunge her knife into his helpless body, he cursed her.
“May your soul be doomed to haunt this spot for ever,” he cried.
Quite unmoved, she ripped his stomach open and then calmly and slowly cut his throat.
She did not survive him long. For her impious words and in fulfilment of his curse she was doomed to haunt for ever the Fairy Rock.

Tradition also has it that round the rock, with hands clasped, lovely fairy girls used to dance and sing nightly, when the moon was full and the stars shone brightly. On one occasion a country swain stood watching them and was so enraptured that he knelt down and worshipped them.
“Go home,” they cried, “and see what awaits there.”
He tore himself reluctantly away, and went home to find to his great surprise, a large box full of gold coins, a gift from the fairies. He was a rich man.
He spent his money quickly and when it was all gone, he visited the Fairy Rock night after night, but he never saw the fairies again.

Certainly not the usual Victorian language, but still revelling in Druidic gruesomeness: The Midnight Hearse and more Ghosts by Elliott O’Donnell (1965).

Mr. C. E. Ponting writes that in 1889 he noticed that this hill appeared from the Pewsey Vale of a bright yellow colour, caused by a mass of yellow Ladies’ Fingers (Lotus corniculatus?) in flower, with which the whole hill was covered. He suggests that this is the origin of the name.

Possibly not so comprehensively explained as the other idea on this page. Some may think it more convincing. But where’s the ball.

In the Wiltshire Arch. and Nat. Hist. Magazine for 1897 (v24).

Yet another boulder with a name in the vicinity of Bourtie and its circles. A report from the Boulder Committee of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1872) mentions it:

Boulder, about 20 tons. Longer axis E. and W. Called “Bell Stane,” the church bell having once hung from a post erected in it.

There’s a picture on the Canmore website which shows it in 1902, and calls it The Bell Rock. And on a 25” map from 1900 it gets called Bellman’s Stone, so it has a variety of similarish names to choose from. Maybe someone should go and tap it to see if it’s really called the Bell Stone because it rings. Or, since we’re in Scotland, could it even be a Bel stone like Beltane. I mean maybe you would ring a bell from it, though you’d think it’d be better to ring it from the church itself – it seems a bit like a convenient way to Christianise it perhaps. Ah the realms of speculative folklore etymology.

In his book ‘Behold the Hebrides’, Alastair Alpin MacGregor (1925) explains how the people of the Hebrides are surrounded by the sea and it though the sea is part of them and they are part of the sea. He says it was known as well as though it were a member of their own family and that to them the sea spoke in Gaelic. He says they listened to what it said and from this they prophesied good and bad fortune, at home and abroad, and how by its sounds and moods they could tell what weather was coming. There was the ‘laughing of the waves’ – ‘gair nann tonn / gair na mara’ and sometimes this laughter would be mocking and derisive when a storm had risked life and feeble humans had struggled to survive it. He also describes the laughing of waves across a great stretch of sand on Lewis in calm and frosty weather as being “weird and eerie”.
In the Hebrides there are many descriptions of the sounds and moods of the sea. Here are a few of them.
Nualan na mara – sounds like the lowing of cattle
Buaireas na mara – restless sea
Gearan na mara – complaining or fretting sea
Mire na mara – joy and cheerfulness of sea
Osnadh – sighing of sea, like the breeze through pine and larch at nightfall
Caoidh na mara – lament of the sea.

He says that sometimes the sea is totally still and silent as though it sleeps, and the people nearby are lulled into sleep also; and he says that people who live by the sea derive their vision from it.

Martin Martin, writing of the Western Isles in 1695 says of the inhabitants of one of the small, then inhabited, islands round Lewis, that they took their surname from the colour of the sky, the rainbow and the clouds.

Source: ‘Mother of the Isles’ by Jill Smith

Perhaps, unless we except the so-called “Druidical” Standing-stone in Balinoe, the oldest memorial in Tyree, older even than the Culdee Churches, is the Clach a Choire, the ringing-stone – literally the “kettle” stone- which stands a little removed from the shore near Balephetrish, not far from the old marble quarries. It is a mass of stone, roughly cubical, balanced upon one edge, and computed to weigh about ten tons. When struck, no matter where, or however slightly, it sends forth a clear ringingnote. The people have a tradition that the stone is hollow and contains gold, but happily they have also another tradition to the effect that when the ringing-stone is cleft, Tyree will sink. On the surface of the stone are some thirty circular indentations, which I think most persons familiar with such things in other places, would unhesitatingly suppose to be cup-markings, but which, it is only fair to say, are also explained away as traces of many years of experimental stone-tapping. Apart from the fact that it seems hardly likely that even in the course of ages, native curiosity would compass so prominent a result, there is nothing to differentiate this rock from others admittedly “cup-marked” elsewhere, and they are found in great numbers in the British Isles and in Scandinavia.

From The Outer Isles by A Goodrich-Freer, 1902.

I rather like the wording of this earlier commentary on the rock:

At Balphetrish there is the famous Ringing Stone. Its dimensions are 7 feet by 6 square, and 4 1/2 feet thick. It is of a dull grey colour, very hard and compact, and totally different from the surrounding rocks. It is evidently spotted with stars of black mica. Its hardness is so great that it is not possible with a common hammer to break off even the smallest bit. It is not intersected by any vein or cutter. Its solidity and equal texture must account for the clear metallic sound, for when struck on any place with a stone or a hammer, it sounds or rings like brass or cast iron. It has for ages past excited the admiration of the common people.

It excites my admiration too and I’d definitely like to see it, but I would try to resist trying to break a bit off.
From The Scots Magazine volume 60 (1798).

Legend has it that Samson was playing with a friend from the village of Orus, throwing stones across the valley, and left this one behind.
Hence its alternative name – Palet de Samson. Palet = puck.

Sensigl or Senigl means ‘Ox-eye daisy’. But the field looks a bit devoid of them in the photos. Maybe there’s some further up the hill.

Following on from Fitzcoraldo’s quote, it says:

According to another account, the stones do not actually represent the Apostles, only ‘it is allowed that the Apostles put them there’! and it was the farmer himself who wished to take away all the stones, but was stopped by the proprietor.

This is a report from the Rev. W.C. Lukis, who’d been sent on a Survey of various megalithic monuments of Scotland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland in the summer of 1884. The sort of mission I’m sure many contributors here would have been quite happy to assist with.

Cubbie Roo’s castle is just over the sound on the little Isle of Wyre. S Cruden rather confidently suggests in The Scottish Castle (1960) that

This name is certainly a corruption of Kolbein Hruga, Kubbe or Kobbe being a Norse term of familiarity for Kolbein.

There’s lots more at the lovely Orkneyjar site which tells about this giant’s exploits. There’s an article disputing any connection with a real Norse person, that the ‘Kolbein Hruga’ thing is all of a muddle. But I think that’s not so important is it... he’s clearly a bit more than an ordinary person in the stories. Maybe his ‘Burden’ is the stones that he dropped, rather like the Devil’s Burdens elsewhere?

The Orkney Book (“for young Orcadians”) says the giant’s name “is even yet used to terrify into good behaviour some obstreperous youngster, in the awful threat, “Cubbie Roo’ll get thee!” ”

Some background (what little there is) on the saint after whom the stone is named. And it’s a big stone, it needs a name. From the second edition (1956) of Butler’s Lives of the Saints.

In the churchyard of Llanfan Fawr (i.e. Great Avanchurch), in the hills a few miles north-west of Builth Wells in the county of Brecknock, is an ancient tombstone bearing the inscription Hic Iacet Sanctus Avanus Episcopus: “Here lies Saint Avan the Bishop.” The existence of this stone, which naturally arouses the interest of the visitor or reader, is the sole reason for mentioning St Afan here, since nothing whatever is known about his life. The lettering is said to be not older than the end of the thirteenth century, but St Afan certainly lived long before that: by some he has been identified with a holy Afan, of the house of Cunedda and a kinsman of St David, who lived during the early part of the sixth century and was the leading holy man of his district, being known as Afan Buellt, i.e. of Builth. According to the local legend he was put to death by Irish raiders.

The following is related by Gerald the Welshman in the first chapter of the first book of his Itinarary through Wales: “In the reign of King Henry I, the lord of the castle of Radnor, the territory adjoining Builth, went into the church of St Afan (called Llanafan in the British tongue) and rashly and irreverently spent the night there with his hounds. When he got up early the next morning (as hunting men do) he found his hounds mad and himself blind. After living for years in darkness and misery he was taken on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for he took care that his inward sight should not similarly be put out. And there, being armed and led to the field on horseback, he spurred upon the enemies of the faith, was mortally wounded, and so ended his life with honour.”
An anecdote which tells us something about the religious ideas of the twelfth century, but unfortunately nothing about St Afan.

I beg to differ: it tells us that not unreasonably he didn’t like dogs in his church. And maybe he didn’t like hunting either. Anyone who is prepared to go blind into battle can’t be very sensible anyway.

The Rev. Baring Gould (Lives of the British Saints) says Afan

..is traditionally said to have been murdered by Irish pirates – by Danes, according to another account – on the banks of the Chwefri, and that the tomb here marks the site of his martyrdom. In the neighbourhood are a brook called Nant yr Esgob*, a dingle called Cwm Esgob, and a small holding called Derwen Afan (his Oak).

*Bishop

Naturally this camp hasn’t really anything to do with the Danes, but is a hillfort from the Iron Age. When some of the site was excavated in the 1990s, various earlier artifacts were found too, so it’s known the promontory was being used in the Bronze Age and Neolithic too. It’s right on the cliff overlooking the Thames, so it only has earthworks on three sides. The SMR says “The site offers a clear vantage point onto the river, and wide views across the flood plain into Berkshire.” This attractive spot wasn’t overlooked by more modern settlers either, so that is why there is now a hotel there. Alas when the house was built c1900, they just flattened the western banks entirely and bunged the building on top. Apparently “A short section of the inner bank and ditch survives as earthworks to the south of the mansion, adapted in the early 20th century to serve as a rock garden with an ornamental walkway.” So that’s handy isn’t it. You can even be taken on a tour of the gardens this summer, as part of the National Gardens Scheme.

My attention was drawn here by a totally unprehistoric but weird bit of folklore, about the Uncorrupt Hand of St James. Yep that’s (allegedly) St James the apostle himself, Jesus’s mate – here in Buckinghamshire. Who’d have thought it. His hand used to be kept in a chapel that was right here in the fort (the chapel, along with another house, got knocked down to be replaced by the present Danesfield House). Once upon a time it was kept in Reading Abbey and was a big draw for pilgrims. And today it resides at St Peter’s church in Marlow, and you can see it there for yourself. There’s a colour photo on Elizabeth Chadwick‘s blog, if you’ve got the stomach for it. I was reading about some of its adventures here in a 1901 book called ‘Memorials of Old Buckinghamshire’, by P H Ditchfield. So, not prehistoric. But says something about how we give meaning to and value the ancient past perhaps.

Local folklore relates that the stone landed at its current location after being thrown by a giant at his fleeing wife.

The Cornwall HER says that traditionally, people used to stroll out here after their Sunday lunch (= after church?). And why not. Surely they might like to yet (despite the doubting of the HER).

Tom Thumb (so the 1621 pamphlet by Richard Johnson goes) was a very tiny person “of the bignes of my thumb.” He was born to a ploughman and his wife – they’d specifically asked Merlin for a bit of assistance, and the birth was attended by the queen of the fairies. “After some boyhood adventures appropriate to his size and character, he is eaten in succession by a cow, a giant, and a fish, by which means he ends up at King Arthur’s court (the fish having been caught for Arthur’s table).” He sits at the round table and is the king’s companion, and goes out riding with him. “For more than a century, the tale of Tom Thumb was the most widely known and popular version of the Arthurian legend in circulation in England”. Which seems quite strange now. The Tom Thumb stories have international parallels too.

Later, Henry Fielding wrote a satirical book in which Tom was a giant-killer, and there was lots of murder and love-intrigue. Later on he became a more child-friendly figure.

(quotes and info. from ‘Tom Thumb and Jack the Giant-Killer: Two Arthurian Fairytales?’ by Thomas Green, in
Folklore , Vol. 118, No. 2 (Aug., 2007), pp. 123-140.)

But what does this have to do with the rock? Is it just supposed to be amusing because Tom Thumb is tiny and the rock is massive? Or is it related to his giant-slaying days? The rock gets a slight blob on the map in the 1870s, but only gets its name marked in the 1970s. The HER suggests that this means the name is quite recent (it being English too). But who knows.

More juicily, the HER says “There is a piece of oral folklore associated with the rock that suggests it was used as a place for sacrifice at the time of the St Just feast.” Those druids eh. Though I don’t know what they were doing following the Christian calendar. I notice that the St Just festival “was always held on the nearest Sunday to All Saints-day”* so maybe the druids were celebrating more of a Samhain thing instead. All a bit muddled up but never mind.

*Cornish Feasts and ‘Feasten’ Customs – M A Courtney, The Folk-Lore Journal v4 (1886).

Part of a letter in the ‘Royal Cornwall Gazette’ on March 18th 1869:

... the rock rests at the bottom of the quarry, precisely as it stood in its former proud pre-eminence; and the sacrificial basins, lips, and channels, described by Borlase, may now be seen as they have probably existed for two thousand years. I saw it yesterday in deep grief and mortification, for I am a Cornishman, and have Constantine blood in my veins. I don’t here mention the tradition that exists throughout this district against him who injures this Tolmen. I would rather believe that his own reflections will be sufficient punishment for the irreparable loss he has occasioned to the antiquities of Cornwall.
F.G.S.

I have taken the stone’s grid reference from an 1880s map which shows its ex-location.

Ceidio, in the promontory of Lleyn, is under the remarkable isolated hill of Carn Madryn, which takes its name from Madrun. The local tradition is that on the burning of the palace of Gwrtheyrn, under Tre’r Ceiri, Madrun fled with Ceidio, then a child in arms, to the fortress on Carn Madryn; and that later in life Ceido founded the church that bears his name beneath the mountain.
[...]
About half a mile east of Rhayader, in Radnorshire, there is a barrow, in a field called Cefn Ceidio, under which it is supposed that he has been buried.

Lives of the British Saints, v2, by Sabine Baring-Gould and John Fisher (1908).

A clue to the name in the 18th century Statistical Account of Scotland:

Towards the end of the last century, a man was burnt for a wizard, at the foot of the Gloom Hill, not many yards from the town of Dollar.

Zealous Antiquaries, strange to tell, have not yet succeeded in manufacturing the Standing Stones of Torhows into pigsties and byres ‘for their better preservation,’ as they have done with most Galloway antiquities; and so they stand there yet, and enduring testimony to the authenticity of the ancient traditions of the district.

In my young days there used to be four stones standing on the high side of the road, and twenty three on the low side of it, and they were arranged in a circle.

The tradition about them was that in those ancient times the Picts, when hard pressed, formed themselves into a ring and defended themselves in that way from attacks on all sides, and as soon as they saw a weak place in the ranks of the enemy, they lengthened the ring into a triangle or wedge and forced a way through their opponents; and it is recorded that the Galloway men or Albanich as they called themselves, who were the descendants of the Picts, fought in a wedge-shaped phalanx at the battle of the Standard in eleven hundred and something.

Well, it happened that the Picts at Torrhows were like to be beaten at one time, and were obliged to form a circle, and there was a most desperate struggle till the king came up with assistance, and a great many of the chiefs or great men, who fought in the front rank, were killed by the Danes.

When the battle was over and they assembled to bury the dead, a great stone was set up wherever any of the chiefs fell fighting, to mark the spot, and it is said that there were originally sixty stones, one for every chief killed, and the place was therefore called Torrhows, which means something about a bur[y]ing-ground, though I never heard it said that any of the chiefs were buried at the stones.

It was said at one time that the Laird was going to hoke them all up to send to Edinburgh, to try if they would give him F.S.A. to put to his name, but I think it hasn’t been done yet.

A not altogether serious account from Galloway Gossip by Robert Trotter (1877).

[Having crossed the Ochils and descended to the moor below..] The whole moor was covered with a luxuriant crop of bent and heath, and while surveying the modest blossom of the latter, we could not help heaving a sigh for the many brave hearts which had sunk there to “fill a nameless grave.” After having made a circuit of the scene of the battle, we directed our steps to a number of large stones, almost in the centre of the field, and upon which, tradition avers, the Highlanders sharpened their broadswords, dirks, and axes, the evening previous to the engagement. Indeed, from the appearance of the stones, one would be led to suppose as much, for they are all more or less scratched, as if they had been acted upon by these warlike weapons; but, judging from the date of the battle, it surprised us how these marks could remain so long without suffering from the effects of the weather, situated as the stones are in a cold moorland district, where the snow lies long, and where they are beat upon by every blast that blows. If these marks have been occasioned by what tradition says, they will, in all likelihood, remain for many years to come.

One of the stones is called the “Belted Stane,” from a grayish sort of belt encompassing it. A few inches still remain between the two extremities of the belt; but we are informed that this space has become gradually less within these fifty years, and the credulous peasantry around are in the firm belief, that as soon as

The twa ends o’ the belt embrace,
A bluidy battle will tak’ place.

A pertinent question is, how did these stones come to be placed in their present situation? They are of great size, and must have been carried a considerable distance. There is no tradition as to their being of Druidical origin.

In The Scottish Journal, 1848. Has the belt joined up I wonder. And how scratched does the poor thing look.