Latest Folklore

Whilst a farmer was removing some of the stones from the north east side of the larger carnedd to employ them in his repairs he came to the mouth of a passage covered with a square stone similar to that at Plas Newydd, anxious to reap the fruits of his discovery he procured a light and crept forward on his hands and knees along the dreary vault, when lo! in a chamber at the further end a figure in white seemed to forbid his approach.

The poor man had scarcely power sufficient to crawl backwards out of this den of spirits as he imagined however in the course of a few days instigated by the hopes of riches and the presence of many assistants he made his second entre into the cavern and finding the white gentleman did not offer to stir he boldly went forward and discovered the object of his apprehensions was no other than a stone pillar about six feet in height standing in the centre of the chamber.

His former consternation could now only be exceeded by his eagerness to see what was contained beneath the stone which he shortly overturned but treasure there was none, some large human bones lying near the pillar sufficiently testifying the purpose for which the structure was intended.

This is the substance of the account we received from the young man whose father was one of Colonel Peacock’s labourers and on the premises at the time of the discovery. The superstition of the common people still suppose this to be the habitation of spirits.

Our two conductors seeming rather to compliment each other about precedence I took the lanthorn and [crawled in].. my companions followed close at my heels.

He then mentions a ‘tribe of immense spiders who have reigned here unmolested for ages’ so that’s put me right off, far more than any talk of spirits.

From the fearless Rev. John Skinner’s ‘Ten Days’ Tour through the Isle of Anglesey’ (1804).

Coeten Arthur – Literally, Arthur’s Quoit – a cromlech near Llanddwywau, having the print of a large hand ingeniously cut on it, as if sunk in from the weight occasioned by holding it. It is a large flat stone somewhat of an oval form, about ten feet long, and, in the widest part, nearly seven broad, two feet thick at one end and not more than an inch at the other. It stands upon three rude stone pillars, each about half-a-yard broad. – Ed. Tr.

p152 in ‘Transactions of the Cymmrodorion’ v1 (1822). The first part of this seems to be copied from ‘The Cambrian Register for the year 1795’, except that says ‘a large hand dexterously carved on the side of it’.

The largest of the eight Long Stones in the County Kildare is the one at Punchestown, which is 19 1/2 feet in height above ground, and 11 feet in circumference ; like all the others, it is of granite. One the opposite side of the Wool-pack Road, within view, and a quarter of a mile to the west of it, on the Cradockstown townland, is another granite monolith.

The only tradition the peasantry have about them is that they were hurled from the Hill of Allen, seven miles off, by the giant Finn Mac Coole; one account says it was due to a trial of strength between Finn and a companion; and the smaller boulder they call “the Gossoon’s Stone”; the other accounts says that they were “fired” by Finn in this direction, as his wife was at Punchestown at the time!

The great lean on the Punchestown stone was caused by an attempt, it is said, of one of the Viscounts Allen to remove it to his mansion at Punchestown, for which purpose he yoked fourteen couples of plough-oxen by chains to the boulder, and tried to drag it from the ground – an attempt which fortunately failed. Of Punchestown House not one stone now stands on another, though an old farmer named Comfrey, of Cradockstown (strong and hearty in 1900), remembers to have seen the walls standing; they were eventually levelled, and the materials sold for building purposes.

It’s not explicit that the house and its family disappeared because of the stone-tampering. But perhaps it’s implied?

From the Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society 1906, in an article by ‘Omurethi’ entitled ‘Notes on Punchestown and Cradockstown’.

The accompanying photo
archive.org/stream/journalcountyki00socigoog#page/n64
shows the stone leaning massively (with a rather brave soul standing underneath it) so it’s obviously been straightened considerably since. There’s a photo of the Craddockstown stone too.

The site of the old fortress of Conyers, at Bishopton, called Castle Hill, is hollow, if folk-lore be true, and the abode of fairies. The same may in truth be said of almost every circular mound in the north. A most notable specimen near Thirsk, a large tumulus, possesses the euphonious cognomen of Pudding-pie-hill, inasmuch as the fairies there were positively so good as to furnish pies and puddings for their juvenile votaries, who went for the the good things of the fairies of its palaces within. Moreover, they heard the fairies’ music, which thing may be believed, as they had to go so many times round the hill before they put their giddy heads to the ground to hear the strains of the little green people. The appointed day for all this condescension was Pancake or Shrove Tuesday.

Saint James’s magazine, v1 (1850), p 231.

The folklore of the axes is another subject beyond the scope of this work, but it may not be amiss to record here some opinions concerning these implements that were expressed in the hearing of Captain Francis du Bois Lukis on the occasion of a visit to Alderney in 1853.

In general these remarks support, of course, the common belief that the axes were thunderbolts, a belief that was on another occasion charmingly confirmed by a Guernseyman who had discovered that when the broken pieces of these bolts were rubbed together their origin was thereby demonstrated, in as much as one could ‘smell lightning’; he referred, of course, to the curious chemical phenomenon of an empyreumatic or ozone-like odour, accompanied by luminosity, that is often a result of the rubbing together of pieces of quartz, flint, and chert.

Only two people did not share this popular belief; one was a labourer who recognized the axes as implements because he had seen them taken out of the ‘Druids’ Vaults’ in Herm, and the second was a man who knew that axes were used by the ‘old people’ to throw at one another when fighting.

The following are examples of the orthodox belief: A labourer found a thunderbolt near L’Etac, and said that he thought these thunderbolts must hit the ground very hard as they were so often broken. Another man knew what a thunderbolt was, but he had never found one himself, although he had often seen the holes that they made in the ground. Another islander stated that he had found a thunderbolt that had actually knocked down his wall*; he had had the prudence, however, to cover it up at once with big stones to prevent it doing further mischief. This is a departure from the usual custom of preserving the axe in or close to the house as a certain protector against lightning.

In the same notes Francis Lukis also records a remark of an Alderney man about ‘cromlechs’, or megalithic monuments; this informant had told him that they were erected by the Catholics as sites for the performance of human sacrifice; but this was a long time ago, since his family, the oldest in the island, had no recollection of it.**

Another and different belief about stone axes was to the effect that they had been thrown to the earth by fairies and hobgoblins, and for this reason it was sometimes the custome, when an islander found an axe on his land, that he should immediately smash it to pieces upon a larger stone. This information is contained in some remarks by Dr. Frederick Lukis that were quoted by Lieutenant Oliver.

Collated in ‘The archaeology of the Channel Islands’ by TD Kendrick and J Hawkins (1928), v2, p59.

There’s a story about the hill in ‘The Vale of Strathmore – its scenes and legends’ by James Guthrie (1875). But it’s couched in the most outrageous language (’when the silvery moonbeams lovingly slept in dreamy beauty..’) and it’s too excruciating to copy out. Whether it’s even based on local tradition is a good point. But according to the RCAHMS record, the fort has a wall an impressive 8m thick and 5m high. So you’d think it’d capture local attention.

It seems the fairies had decided they couldn’t have any human beings building places to live inside the fort. So they did a deal with some evil spirits – if anyone tried to live there, their attempts would have to be ‘blasted in the bud’. Of course, soon someone turned up and started work. That evening, the demons did their duty and hurled all the stones into the vale below. The next morning the builder was a bit surprised but started afresh on some even more sturdy foundations. Rather meanly the demons allowed him to continue a bit longer this time. But then they demolished it all as before. Not learning from experience the man rounded up lots more workers and began again. But of course their efforts were all swept away once more. He was only pursuaded to get lost once and for all by the demons shrieking at him ‘Go build the castle in a bog, where it will neither shake nor shog!’ Hmm.

I rather wonder if the fort at Camp Hill is the site for the following folklore. There is a ‘Keys to the Past‘ page about the fort though it doesn’t seem much is known about it. I can tell from the map that you would seem to get to it by walking up Clayport Bank. And Swansfield Park is the name of the golf course in which the fort now resides. But maybe someone from Alnwick would know.

.. on moonlight nights these tiny folk trooped out of dell, and cavern, and mine, and from beneath the bracken, and from under green knowes, and out of other lonely places to hold their revels, with music and dance, in the Fairies’ Hollow at the top of Clayport Bank.

On one occasion, while visiting Alnwick, Mr. Tate pointed out to me the Fairies’ Hollow at the head of Clayport, and a series of steps, or rather little benches, caused by subsidences of the soil, rising in a gentle gradient to Swansfield Gate, which had obtained the name of the “Fairy Steps.”

From the Denham Tracts – the first paragraph he has copied from Tate’s History of Alnwick.

I found George Tate writing about the Fairies’ Hollow elsewhere. I can’t help thinking he’s writing autobiographically! as it’s curiously imaginative otherwise...

The fairies, it is said, have been dead and were buried at Brinkburn many a long year ago. This, however, will apply only to the Brinkburn community, for in other localities the belief in the “good folk” has lingered on even into the present century. Some forty years ago, or more, we had near to Alnwick, the Fairies’ Hollow, on the top of Clayport bank. At that period a boy who, having drunk more deeply than was perhaps good for him out of the wells of imaginative literature, stole away from his bed on a moolit night, and ensconsed among the rocks overlooking the hollow, waited and watched till the “witching hour of night” to catch a glimpse of the fairies tripping out of the caverns and hills. The grass waved to and fro by a gentle breeze, and the pale light flickered over the hollow, as fleecy clouds sailed over the moon; imagination was excited, aided, it may be, by the “foure-levit clover” hidden in his cap, and troops of green-clad tiny elves appeared to swarm over the hollow, and to join in the mystic mazes of the dance. Soon, however, darker clouds obscured the moon, and threw a shadow over the scene; the illusion was dispelled – the vision melted away – and the boy reluctantly returned home to his bed, to dream of fairy land.

Printed in the Border Magazine for July 1863.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2GcEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA294

And now we may make a brief reference to an old belief which has died out with a bye-gone generation. Half a century ago the fairies were supposed to have local habitations in our district [..] Brinkburn and Harehope Hill too they frequented. Old Nannie Alnwick, the widow of the last of the ancient race of Alnwick, the tanners, had faith in the good folk, and set aside for them “a loake of meal and a pat of butter,” receiving, as she said, a double return from them; and often had she seen them enter into Harehope Hill, and heard their pipe music die away as the green hill closed over them.

p 439 in volume 1 of George Tate’s ‘History of the borough, castle and barony of Alnwick’ (1866).

Harehope Hill has a couple of cairns on it on the current OS map. The Keys to the Past website suggests there would have been many other Bronze Age cairns up here too. Some swords were found here in the 19th century, which have been taken to mean that the hilltop was reused for burials in the Anglo Saxon period. The map also shows some shakeholes. And they’re a bit weird.

I think this curious story could well be about Kemp’s Cairn. First he talks about Knaughland and how on top of the hill there are the ‘faint indications of an old cairn’. Then:

Mr Cruickshank is between sixty and seventy, and remembers the removal of another cairn, much farther down the hill, in 1816. Part of it, however, had been removed a century ago, and a cist disclosed, which was allowed to remain entire till 1816, and of which the cover yet remains. He says the cist was built of small stones, and was about 1 1/2 foot deep, or high, and covered by the large stone yet remaining.

He mentioned a curious thing. The farm has been in their family two hundred years. In the rebellion, his grandfather, on the approach of the rebels, buried his cheese in the stone grave, raising the lid with a “pinch,” and letting it down again. He has heard him tell of it.

In 1816 the whole was removed by Mr Cruickshank’s father, and the cover only preserved. It is fully 6 1/2 feet long by 4 to 4 1/2 broad, and about 6 inches thick – like a strong flag.

He also mentions a suspected ‘Pict’s House’ (an underground chamber) and also a stone with 13 or 14 cupmarks – the RCAHMS record shows the latter couldn’t be found in the 1960s, but if you read the description it makes you wonder if it’s not so far from Conjure Cairn.

From PSAS v7 (1868), ‘Notes of Early Remains on the Farm of Knaughland, Rothiemay’ by James Hunter.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=h0wGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA572

Found you a little bit Chance, for your lovely carved stone. But sounds like whatever curses worked at the time they didn’t last enough to stop it being moved in the end.

Not very long ago the authorities of Geneva conceived the idea of carrying away, and placing in the Botanic Garden of the city, the great Druid Stone of Troinex, known as the Pierre aux Dames. The project went so far that a trench was dug about the block, rollers were on the spot, and the removal was about to begin, when the people of the neighbourhood raised such an outcry and besought the Council of State so earnestly to let the stone be, that the order was countermanded, and the Pierre aux Dames of Troinex still remains undisturbed where it has lain for unnumbered ages.

It used to believed in days gone by (and the belief probably still lingers in the remoter parts of the Pays de Gex) that the Pierre aux Dames, an the three Druid stones between Versonnex and Grelly, were thrown thither in sport by the giants who, according to tradition, once dwelt in the fastnesses of the Jura. Another legend has it that the giants placed the stones in their present situation to protect the treasures which are supposed to be buried at immeasurable depths underneath them. These treasures are further and more effectually guarded by the giants’ curse, which will pursue anybody who attempts to destroy or remove the stones; and it is a well known fact that evil has never failed to befall the reprobates who have dared to lay unhallowed hands on these mysterious relics of the past.

From ‘Tales and Traditions of Switzerland’ by W B Westall (1882).

Also there is a long-winded tale about a stone at Versonnex in the same chapter.

Switzerland has very little, if any, folklore concerning megalithic sites. This is because the tribes that lived in the area adopted a scorched earth policy and destroyed all their villages before beginning their doomed mass migration in 58 B.C.. When Julius Caesar burned the bridge of Geneva, to stop the advance of the Helvetii, the area around Troinex would have been trashed too.

See – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetii

The Pierre-aux-Dames is a mystery of this period. The four sculpted figures are attributed to the Gallo-Roman period due to their dress, the use of metal tools and the craftsmanship employed. That said, the mound and the tombs were clearly placed in the late Bronze Age which could have been 1,000 years earlier. It may be possible that the stone was sculpted by Greek or Mediterranean stone masons commissioned specially for the task. Alternatively, the sculpture may have been produced after the Roman conquest of the area by descendants of the Helvetii in order to preserve the memory of their ancestors.

Whatever the truth behind the Pierre-aux-Dames, modern myths are being created about the fertility of the soil and the grapes that are grown to produce wine in the area.

From Samuel Lewis’ A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, 1849.

“The church, dedicated to St. Peter, is an ancient structure; according to an absurd local tradition it was originally intended to erect it at a place about forty yards to the right of the road, where are four or five broad stones, eight feet high, standing upright; but the workmen found that what they executed by day was removed at night, and therefore commenced the building on the site it now occupies.”

Absurd indeed!

From Rhys’s ‘Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx’ (ch. 7):

Next comes the story of Llynclys Pool in the neighbourhood of Oswestry. That piece of water is supposed to be of extraordinary depth, and its name means the ‘swallowed court.’ The village of Llynclys is called after it, and the legend concerning the pool is preserved in verses printed among the compositions of the local poet, John F. M. Dovaston, who published his works in 1825 [..] How much exactly of the poem comes from Dovaston’s own muse, and how much comes from the legend, I cannot tell. [..]

Alaric’s queen was endowed with youth and beauty, but the king was not happy; and when he had lived with her nine years he told Clerk Willin how he first met her when he was hunting ‘fair Blodwell’s rocks among’. He married her on the condition that she should be allowed to leave him one night in every seven, and this she did without his once knowing whither she went on the night of her absence. Clerk Willin promised to restore peace to the king if he would resign the queen to him, and a tithe annually of his cattle and of the wine in his cellar to him and the monks of the White Minster.

The king consented, and the wily clerk hurried away with his book late at night to the rocks by the Giant’s Grave, where there was an ogo‘ or cave which was supposed to lead down to Faery. While the queen was inside the cave, he began his spells and made it irrevocable that she should be his, and that his fare should be what fed on the king’s meadow and what flowed in his cellar.

At this point the retelling gets very complicated. But basically the queen was actually an ogress on her day off and she wasn’t very happy at the interference. So she sank the town under water so all the miserable clerk would get would be slimy water and pike to eat. I don’t know if she was intending to get rid of her bored husband at the same time but that seems to have been the side effect.

The visitor will, Dovaston says, find [..] stories which the villagers have to tell of that wily clerk, and of ‘the cave called the Grim Ogo’; not to mention that when the lake is clear, they will show you the towers of the palace below, the Llynclys, which the Brython of ages gone by believed to be there.

This is not to do with this site necessarily – which is a small hillfort on a site previously occupied in the Neolithic – but does have links with the farm at its base, Bagbury. It struck me as odd to find a story about a strange and supernatural bull when there’s one about a strange and supernatural cow not so far away at Michell’s Fold. It even gets a bit of a stony connection, as the bull had to be contained by burying under the door stone of the church. It sounds awfully pagan vs christian – the bull ruled the area before the church turned up, and he even tried to destroy the building until he was firmly put in his place. I think Alan Garner would love it.

The story is in Collectanea Archaeologia (1862), in Thomas Wright’s ‘On the local legends of Shropshire’. He also tells the story of the Mitchell’s Fold stones and their cow.

There are quite a few versions in Burne’s ‘Shropshire Folk-Lore’:
https://www.archive.org/stream/shropshirefolkl00burngoog#page/n132/mode/2up and the following pages.

There are two large carneddau on the Carno mountain, where a sanguinary battle was fought between Ethelbald King of Mercia and Roderic Molwynog, a prince of North Wales, in which the latter is said to have been victorious. This bit of legend is offered in ‘A topographical dictionary of Wales v1’ by Samuel Lewis (1833).

I wonder how the site of the cairn might relate to its landscape. ‘Eglwys Faen’ means ‘Stone Church’ and is the name of a big cave in the limestone cliffs immediately below. There is an extensive cave system under here (and shake holes above) – you can read all about it here.

It is almost impossible to realise the extent to which the coast-line must have altered. According to tradition, a long spit of land once ran out from Sudbrook Point in a south-westerly direction, extending as far as the Denny, a rocky islet now lying in mid-channel at a distance of over four miles from Sudbrook.

Sudbrook fort’s certainly been nibbled away at by the Severn over the years. And there’s a lot of mud about. It’s a long way though!

In the 17th C. Camden described the erosion rather elegantly: The Church whereof, called Trinity Chappell, standeth so neare the sea, that the vicinity of so tyrannous a neighbour hath spoiled it of halfe the church-yarde, as it hath done also of an old fortification lying thereby, which was compassed with a triple ditch and three rampiers, as high as an ordinary house, cast in forme of a bowe, the string wherof is the sea-cliffe.”

From AE Lawson Lowe’s article on the camp in Archaeologia Cambrensis (Jan 1886).

A MONUMENTAL (?) STONE. -- On a small farm near Aberdunant, named Y Fach Goch, is to be seen a curious stone having a monumental appearance. The oldest inhabitant of the hamlet of Prenteg, Sian Griffith, who attained her ninety-fifth year in June 1886, tells a tale thereanent to the effect that it was talked of as having much gold beneath it when she was a girl. It was said that whoever should dig down to get it would raise such a storm of thunder and lightning as the world has never known, and that they would wish they were dead.
H.W.L.

From the 1886 edition of Archaeologia Cambrensis (p235).

Said in local folklore to have been a thunderbolt cast down from the skies by Thor, God of storms, (Corbett, 1962), and first recorded in the late thirteenth century in the survey of the Chadlington hundred. It is possible that the name Thor Stone is from the name of a nearby village of Taston, recorded as Thorstan in 1278 CE. Close by is a stone cross, placed there by early Christians to abate the evil influences from the Thor Stone

Between these two old monuments was once an elm tree which was a meeting place of the villagers in times gone by (Pumphrey,1990)

Local legend connects the stone with the burial place of Merlin the Wizard. Merlin was said to be buried 183m NNW of Drumelzier Church, close to the right bank of the River Tweed. There are no structural remains and none have ever been recorded at the place in question, but it is possible that the tradition may have been originated from the unrecorded descovery of a Bronze Age cist in the area, which links to the Drumelzier Stone.

There aren’t any details about this stone on its Coflein record. Maybe this unpleasant / unlikely story is about it. (Maybe it’s about the Gwern Einion stone but that, at 1m, would hardly seem to be towering anywhere.) Or maybe you know the stone it refers to. You’d hope it’d be safe if it was in a wall.

In the parish of Llanfair, on a small farm called Gwern Einion, is [a] cromlech, of larger proportions than those already mentioned [...]

Not far from this spot is a remarkably fine maenhir, built in the middle of a high wall; over which it towers, and presents a conspicuous mark against the setting sun. This stone, local authorities say, was originally dedicated to the sun; and when it was judged expedient to burn a human victim in honour of that luminary, the unfortunate sufferer was secured by iron chains to the stone. The lower part of the stone is now embedded in the wall, so it is not easy to make out the traces of the fire; which otherwise would, no doubt, be discovered, and believed by the peasants of the district. There is little doubt that many other monuments of the same character have once existed in this district, as here and there fragments of them may be found in the stone walls which divide the enclosures.

From ‘Cromlechs in North Wales’ by E L Barnwell, in Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. 15 (1869).

About a mile from the Summer House, to which a pleasant path conducts the visitor, -- in the wood of Stanton Meend, stands a curiosity highly deserving notice, called BUCKSTONE.

This ponderous body of rock, on whose summit many persons might be commodiously seated, rests literally on a pivot so small, that is will scarcely be believed by the spectator, more especially when he is informed that it has remained so for ages. It is generally supposed to be a Druidical relique, of which there are many of the sort in this kingdom.

The Rev. Dr. Booker thus mentions it, in his Poem called the “Hop Garden:“--

The most perfect the Author ever saw, is in a fine wood, the property of Lord GAGE, near Monmouth, commonly called the ‘Buckstone;’ probably from the Deer having been accustomed to resort to it, both as ‘a shadow from the heat, and a shelter from the storm.’ The tradition that a BUCK, in order to escape from its hunters, when closely pursued, bounded upon the top of it, -- only merits a place among those marvellous legends which are received by idle credulity.

So exactly does this gigantic insulated Rock seem to equilibrate, that a spectator would almost suppose, he could dislodge it from its narrow base with the force of his single arm, and send it headlong down the steep declivity on which it stands. Such attempts, an aged villager informed the author, he had often seen made, by the united efforts of a number of stout young rustics; and that he had perceived it gently to move in a kind of rocking motion; but invariably settling on its ancient pivot, from which it is evidently detatched.-- Close by it is another Druidical relique, not unlike a small baptismal font, or rather Romish recess for holy water; used, most probably, for some sacrificial purpose.

Mr. KING, in his “Munimenta Antiqua,” certainly alludes to this stone:--
[...] “At a small distance, to the east, is a rock scooped into a kind of bason, with a channel, seemingly intended to let out the water after it is filled to a certain height. Whether this was a work of art or nature, may be doubtful; but the whole seems to indicate a Druidical superstitious designation.”

From the extravagantly titled ‘Descriptive account of the Kymin Pavilion and Beaulieu Grove, with their various views: also, the Naval Temple with new notices of Buckstone, a supposed Druidical relique, near it : to which is added, Lord Nelson’s visit to Monmouth, his speeches and conversation at the dinner table, his own remarks on his important victories, with his public reception at Rudhall, Hereford, and other places, on his tour’ by Charles Heath. (Hume Tracts, 1813).

Old traditions, crumbling with time..

I suspect that this news comes in defence of folklore which in turn preserves the archaeological monuments by superstition or ‘piseogs’ to use the rather lovely Irish word.........

Superstitions may seem strange and baseless, but somehow they have clung on for thousands of years. Are they a sign of respect for the past and if so just how much longer might they last?

WHEN I WAS growing up, there was a ring fort at the end of our road. We were warned not to play there. It was accepted that fairy forts contained some mystique or potential for harm. Our parents were probably told the same by their parents, and so on through the generations. But has belief in science and technology replaced faith in superstitions?

Perhaps not. Dara Molloy, a former Roman Catholic priest based on Inis Mór, is in demand to perform Celtic rituals and blessings. When we spoke last week, he was at a wedding ceremony in which he used blessings dating from what he terms “Celtic Christianity”. It involves the tying of knots and sprinkling of water from a nearby well. These practices predate the Roman Catholic Church, he says, and are more in keeping with old Irish customs and beliefs. “We held on to a lot of traditions but they were pushed to the margins of the church,” he says. “People still visit holy wells, climb Croagh Patrick or go to Lough Derg, but many other Irish customs and traditions didn’t carry on and some local priests were instrumental in encouraging them to be abandoned.”

Molloy says when he first moved to the Aran Islands 25 years ago, he was struck by the reverence the locals had for ancient sites and monuments. “Neighbours of mine on Inis Mór who were born and raised on the island had never been up to the hill fort of Dún Aengus,” he says. “One of the reasons given was that their parents wouldn’t let them. They said the place was lived in by the sióga or other world folk. Nowadays some young locals want to have their weddings up there because they believe the energy of the sióga is there. The belief hasn’t been lost. It is just used differently. I have witnessed young adults who want to go to Dún Aengus and sleep there overnight to get the feeling that is up there.”

That feeling may relate to the fact the site has been used by locals for centuries as a place of gathering or safety.

Piseogs [superstitions] are still heeded on the islands too, says Molloy. That is why a red-haired woman who turns up at a door on New Year’s Eve is unlikely to be shown indoors. “It would be a bad omen for the coming years,” he says.

Colm Moloney, managing director of Headland Archaeology, says much has been lost in recent years in relation to Irish folklore. “My own childhood revolved around my dad, who spent a lot of his time walking his greyhounds (and his children) around the landscape of east Cork. Every hill, river, nook and cranny had a story attached to it and he told them so well it was captivating,” he says. “Modern Ireland does not readily facilitate this kind of activity. Landowners have a problem with people wandering across their land and kids have so much to distract them, it is near impossible to get them outside.”

Moloney says much of our folklore is in danger in the hands of the current generation. “The Irish psyche has changed. The respect that was there for the past is losing ground. Our knowledge and links to the past through oral traditions were what made us unique.”

There have been reports recently that a farmer destroyed a ring fort in Co Cork. This would not have occurred a decade ago, he says. Folklore often existed to protect the built heritage and vice versa.

“Every country boy knew the traditions associated with ring forts,” he says. “If you touched the fairy forts something very bad would happen to you. This tradition and similar kinds of piseog resulted in the preservation of archaeological monuments across the country, probably for thousands of years.

“This is a frightening development, where 30 sq m of farmland is of greater value than a monument that may have stood on that spot for 1,200 years.”

EMILY ROSS

irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0104/1224286698278.html

Cdw o Frydain, (or Caw of North Britain,) and Lord of Cwm Cawlwyd, who then lived in Edeyrnion, or its neighbourhood, and had two sons; the eldest was the famous Gildas, the querulous historian, an excellent scholar; the second was Huail, a perfect libertine. Arthur becomes jealous of the latter’s having an intrigue with one of his mistresses; -- resolves to go privately armed, to watch his going to her house: he soon appeared; and after a short conversation, they drew, and fought. After a long conflict, Huail had the good fortune to wound Arthur terribly in the thigh: upon this, the contest ceased, and a reconciliation took place, upon condition that Huail, under the penalty of losing his head, should never upbraid the king with this advantage he had over him, &c.

Arthur retires to his palace, which was then at Caerwys, in Flintshire, to be cured of his wound: he recovered; but it occasioned his limping a little ever after. As soon as he got well, he fell in love with a lady at Rhuthin, in Denbighshire; and, in order to carry on his intrigue more privately, he dressed himself in female attirement; and, as he was dancing with her and her companions, Huail happened to see him, and knew him on account of his lameness; and said, “this dancing might do very well but for the thigh.” The king overheard him, and withdrew, and sent for Huail; and after upbraiding him with the breach of his promise and oath, ordered him to be beheaded upon a stone, which lay in the street of the town, which was, from this event, denominated Maen Huail, and which it retained in the author’s time. (It is still to be seen at Ruthin.)

Copied from Edward Lhuyd’s manuscripts, which was transcribed by him from a Welsh MS. of the hand-writing of John Jones of Gelli Lyfdy, in Flintshire, dated June 27, 1611.

Arthur sounds rather like a humourless double-standarded philanderer with no sense of proportion? And you thought he was noble and fair.

From ‘The Bardic Museum’ by Edward Jones, 1802.

Sometimes there breaks out water in the manner of a sudden land flood, out of certain stones (that are like rocks) standing aloft in open fields near the rising of the river Kenet in this shire, which is reputed by the common people a fore runner of death. That the sudden eruption of Springs in places, where they use not always to run, should be a sign of death, is no wonder. For these usuall eruptions (which in Kent we call Nailbourns) are caused by extream gluts of rain, or lasting wet weather, and never happen but in wet years (witness the year 1648 when there were many of them) In which years Wheat, and most other grain thrive not well (for a plain reason) and therefore a dearth succeeds the year following.

From ‘Britania Baconica: or, The natural rarities of England, Scotland, and Wales’, written by J Childrey (1662).