Folklorist George Paterson recalls....
The King’s Ring was a grand place once, but they took stones to build the lock on Newry Canal.There was a time when there was music in the ring. It was quare music, one minute it would coax the heart out of you, and the next it would scare the living daylights out of you. Maybe it is laments for the oul’ kings that are played.
Further to Schlager Man’s folklore post.....Finn McCool is reputed to be buried here.
Local Tradition holds that if you successfully land one stone in three on top of the capstone you will be married before the year is out. It also claims that the giant, Parra Bui MacShane, lies here after his fatal encounter with Finn McCool.
From The Gap of the North by Noreen Cunningham & Pat Mcginn.
George Paterson recorded the following story about the tomb.
Sur’ he saw no hurt in the breakin of it. But he never lived till finish it. For hundreds of years it has been there – maybe indeed since the beginning of time. I always remember it. Sure, it was there that I saw the first wee people.
From the Gap of the North by Noreen Cunningham & Pat Mcginn....
Near the boundary line, between this parish and Monmouthshire, is a small tumulus, like those over graves in country church-yards, with a stone at each end, without any inscription, called Bedd y gwr hir, the giant or tall man’s grave, but who the hero here interred was, or at what period his death happened is not known; the legends and tradition of the country inform us that a person of very extraordinary stature, above ten feet high, a chieftain of Blaenau Gwent, having been slain in the valley, was brought thus far by his friends, who were desirous of burying him honourably on his own demesne, but that a sudden fall of snow in the night, prevented their further progress, and compelled them to desposit the corpse here.
Part of the old road from Abergavenny to Llandilo Crescenny, about half a mile from the town, is called Cefn beddagor, corruptly from Cefn y bedd y gwr, or gwr hir, or the ridge of the giant’s grave, and from this corruption probably sprung the giant Agros, the supposed founder of a castle at Abergavenny, long prior to that of Drogo de Baladun; the tradition also in the neighbourhood of Llanelly may have formerly buried this same giant among their mountains, if so we must reverse the tale and suppose he was an inhabitant of the valley, and that he fell not far from this spot, in an attack upon the Gwentians: to hazard a conjecture as to his name or the time he lived would be idle, all we can fairly infer from the former being lost, is that he was of very remote antiquity.
From ‘A history of the county of Brecknock’ by Theophilus Jones (1809), who got unnecessarily tangled up in the second part of that quote.
At Slieve-na-Glaise, in Clare, is a dolmen, to which an old woman gave the name of Carrig-na-Glaise, that is, the Rock of the Sea-Green (Cow) – the word bo, “a cow,” being understood, as it is in the name of the ancient MS., Leabhar na h-Uidhri, that is “Book of the Dun (Cow).” After she had told me the story of how the poor enchanted cow, from whose udders used to flow all the rivers on the mountain-side, had been tricked by an impious old hag, who, in place of a milk-pail, had milked her into a sieve, and how, in consequence, she had either died of grief or deserted that locality for ever, I ventured to ask her the question whether there were any cows of that colour to be seen nowadays – whether, that is to say, she applied the term glas to the colour of any of the cows we saw on the mountain. She replied by a decided negative*, and added that the enchanted cow was the only one of that colour ever known, and that she travelled through Ireland from end to end in the space of a single day. The name of the Smith Gavida, the cow’s owner, in the tale, as still related in Donegal, was not remembered by my informant, although the name of one of the hills near by, on which were several dolmens, Glasgivneach, proved that it was once current there.
From ‘The dolmens of Ireland’ by William Copeland Borlase (1897).
*Of course not, you idiot.
This country is well sheltered on every side (except the northern) by high mountains; on the western by those of cantref Bachan; on the southern, by that range, of which the principal is Cadair Arthur, or the chair of Arthur, so called from two peaks rising up in the form of a chair, and which, from its lofty situation, is vulgarly ascribed to Arthur, the most distinguished king of the Britons. A spring of water rises on the summit of this mountain, deep, but of a square shape, like a well, and although no stream runs from it, trout are said to be sometimes found in it.
This mountain is now called, by way of eminence, the Van, or the height, but more commonly, by country people, Bannau Brycheinog, or the Brecknock heights, alluding to its two peaks. Our author, Giraldus, seems to have taken his account of the spring, on the summit of this mountain, from report, rather than from ocular testimony. I (Sir R. Colt Hoare) examined the summits of each peak very attentively, and could discern no spring whatever. The soil is peaty and very boggy. On the declivity of the southern side of the mountain, and at no considerable distance from the summit, is a spring of very fine water, which my guide assured me never failed. On the north-west side of the mountain is a round pool [.. from which] issues a small brook [..] I am rather inclined to think, that Giraldus confounded in his account the spring and the pool together.
From Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s translation of Giraldus Cambrensis’s Itinerary and Description of Wales, of the 12th century.
In a story told by Patrick Will, confirmed by RCAHMS, the woods next to Shethin have a horrible tale.
‘Three sisters were hunted down, why nobody knows. Sadly they were killed and the cairn at Lindsayhill Wood used as their burial place.‘
Sadly, for me, I’d ran out of time but I will go back and have a look to see if there are any remains of this cairn.
I don’t know what’s here but it sounds interesting.
Mr. James Murton forwarded the following notice of the “Buck Stone” at Silverdale, near Lancaster:
“I send a pencil sketch and also a photograph of a curious monument of a past age, which ihas not been noticed in any archaeological work that I am aware of, and may, perhaps, be considered worth mentioning in our Journal. It is known locally as the ‘Buck Stone’, and the Ordnance surveyors calle it ‘The Rocking Stone’ in their maps. It would probably be unsafe to attempt to make it oscillate; but it may be classed among those mysterious remains of antiquity termed ‘logan stones’ or ‘rocking stones’. It is situated in an open field, on a gentle slope which a few yards lower down becomes more steep. This ban appears to have been originally part of a scar or cliff, from which the rock has been worked away, leaving the ‘Buck Stone’ isolated in its present position. In a line with this slope, about twenty-five yards distant, the cliff remains, and is about on the same level as the top of the slope [..] The stone is about 10 ft. high, 33 ft. 6 ins. in girth horizontally, and probably weighs about thirty-five tons.
There are various rude legends connected with this stone, of which the following is one. About three hundred yards distant there is a small, deep lake or tarn called ‘Haweswater’; and the story goes, ‘that in times past an enormous eel or serpent was wont to come up from the lake, and coil itself round the ‘Buck Stone’, and that it devoured sheep from that field.’ The name ‘Buck Stone’ suggests that the knoll on which it stands was a resort of the red deer, which formerly were plentiful here, as is evidenced by frequent discoveries of the antlers of these animals in the sand of the estuary and in the peat mosses of the district.”
From the Journal of the British Archaeological Association for 1874.
Two little phrases about the hill:
When Simonside puts on his cap, rain is sure to follow.
and
Simonside may lee, but Cartington Hill never.
(I suppose the latter means Simonside is sometimes alright weatherwise, but Cartington Hill is always appalling?! A better interpretation might be required.)
– mentioned in ‘Upper Coquetdale, Northumberland: its history, traditions, folk-lore and scenery’ by D D Dixon (1903).
[From] the lucid notes of Capt. Hedley [...]
“A fine entrance to this camp may be seen at the S.E. corner, where a ledge of rock forms an excellent passage to the hill face overhanging Rothbury. This gateway may have had some connection with a rampart and ditch, which, first seen near the County Hotel, run up the hill face towards the camp, and join in a portion of their course a deep gully known as Anton’s Letch, which once used to harbour a ghost [..]”
“A large oblong rock, jutting out from the southern face of the hill on which the camp stands, is known as “Kate’s Kist.” It has a horizontal cleft near its top. Whether this curious name is a freak of modern local nomenclature, or whether it enjoyed a more extended use, going back to pre-Roman times, it is not for us to suggest [..]”
Below the camp also is Cartington Cove, a recess or cave which, local tradition says, is connected by a subterranean passage with Cartington Castle, three miles distant! The rock at Cartington Cove had at one time a series of incised concentric circles and central hollows, which were called in the locality “Cups and Saucers.”
Captain Hedley’s words were originally in Arch. Aeliana vol 13. Quote from ‘Upper Coquetdale, Northumberland: its history, traditions, folk-lore and scenery’, by D D Dixon, 1903.
A short distance below Windyhaugh the Coquet has cut for itself a pasage through the solid rock, forming a long deep pool, known as “The Wedder Loup,” famous for its big fish, but dangerously near the road that skirts its brink.
The tradition attached to this pool is, that during the later moss-trooping days, when that respectable border profession was on the wane, a “lifter” one night carried off a nice plump wedder from the flock grazing on the slopes of Shillhope Law. The daring sheep-stealer had not proceeded very far ere the loss was discovered. Immediately the owner and his men gave chase.
The “Hot Trod” proved short but decisive. Handicapped by the wedder tied round his neck, hill fashion, he was run to bay at this particular spot. To leap the chasm was his only chance of escape; therefore all was risked in one desperate bound. His feet touched the opposite bank; he clutched and struggled, but in vain – the wedder around his neck proved a very millstone to the fugitive, dragging him with his ill-gotten booty backwards into the murky depths of the pool below. Since then its name has been “The Wedder Loup.”
Nah not hugely megalithic, other than the sheep came from Shillhope Law. But the story is one attached to a number of ‘hangman’s stones’ across the country, where the struggling be-shouldered sheep (being balanced on a stone) pulls its thief to a similar doom. It’s called ‘Wedder Leap’ on the modern map.
From ‘Upper Coquetdale, Northumberland: its history, traditions, folk-lore and scenery’, by D D Dixon, 1903.
From “Mysterious Wales” – Chris Barber (Paladin 1983):
This stone, 7 feet high and 5 feet broad, stands in the middle of a field to the west of Llanfihangel Rogiet church. One historian suggests that it was placed in the field to mark the height to which the water rose on the occasion of the Severn flood in 1606. The legendary origin is much more interesting. It was hurled from Portishead, or some other spot on the far side of the Bristol Channel, by the Devil in a fit of temper!
Sadly Barber doesn’t give any source for this legend.
Taken from D.P. Sullivan’s “Old Stones of the Cotswolds & Forest of Dean” (Reardon Publishing)
A note from Mr J.C. Wood (Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society vi., 1881-2 357), quoted by Crawford says ..
“The first halting place was at a remarkable monolith by the side of the highway ... This monolith is of unhewn stone, and stands 8ft above the ground, and probably is as deep beneath it. It is known as the ‘Long Stone’. No tradition conserning it remains except if it be pricked by a pin exactly at midnight, it will bleed.”
There are no visible traces of an associated mound or any other stones in the vicinity. Ray Wright quotes a source from 1857 telling of a carving of a mask on the side of the stone facing the road. I have been unable to find this piece of Victorian vandalism, but have, by photographic accident, noticed a bizarre simulacrum on the side of the stone facing towards Staunton. In the right conditions it is possible to discern the image of a human form on the surface of the stone, with arms outstretched in the manner of a crucifixion.
The Long Stone forms the important centre point of Ray Wright’s ‘Leyline Cross’, as described in Secret Forest.
(D.P. Sullivan)
Some time in the early 1970s, Mr R’s mother and father to-be were driving past Cley Hill with two friends. It was night, and it had been snowing and the fields were covered. They saw lights silently firing out of the ground like a train with its lit-up windows running vertically into the sky. Obviously they thought it was totally strange but Mr R’s rational father tried to think of sensible explanations.. I can’t remember what those might have been, but they watched it for some time. The next day they went back but (And this is the clincher) there were no traces in the unbroken snow where they’d seen the lights. The silence is a weird thing too – and this was way before the lazer shows we might blame now.
Yes it’s easy to misunderstand lights in the sky round modern Warminster what with all the military goings-on in the vicinity. But the snow makes for an extra weird tale. I’d love to hear more of local people’s recent experiences here.
Slightly longer extract from “Romances of the Peak” by W.M. Turner (London 1901), including local “bravery”:
“... coming away from a visit there in the year 1897, I accosted a young herdsman who was attending some cattle grazing by the wayside. After touching on several points I came cautiously to the Druidical circle business. I wanted to know how it came there and its purpose and so forth. He could not tell. It had been there undisturbed for generations and according to the account given him by the old people, and that was all, excepting, there may have been a battle there and people buried about the place.
‘How did he come to know that?’ ‘Well, you see’, he said, ‘the folks round about never go that way at night for fear of boggarts. Several have been seen prowling about, and it is the common talk that people must have been buried there’. ‘Did you ever go that way at night?’ I asked. He said that he had not, but he bravely added, he would not mind, for he did not believe in such things.”
I can’t work out where this ‘cromlech’ can be, I’m wondering whether it is in fact this stone. If not, it must have been close by (but I can’t find one on an old OS map)?
Last summer I came across a native of the neighbourhood of Carnarvon, who told me of a cromlech which interested me[..] The cromlech is called Coetan Arthur, that is to say, Arthur’s Quoit, and it stands in the parish of Llanrug, on a hill-slope belonging to a farm called Y Fodlas (i.e., Hafod-las), and about four miles from Carnarvon.
The spot is commonly called Parc Smith, but the proper name of the mountain is Y Cefn Du. The Cefn Du is exposed, especially to winds from the north and the east [..] and it is on the north-eastern corner of it, on the left of Y Fodlas, that the cromlech is to be seen. There used to be two or three meini hirion near it, but my informant does not know whether they are still in situ.
Now, there was a saying which he heard scores of times from old people, that whoever slept under the cromlech through the night of St. John’s Festival (Nos dydd Gwyl Ifan) would rise in the morning either a giant in point of strength, or else as weak as a dwarf. Instances used to be adduced to prove it, such as old Ffowe of Ty Du, and Margret ‘ch Ifan of Cwmglas, who owed their remarkable strength to the origin here indicated. Others, who were supposed to show traces of the contrary effect of the pernoctation were the Siontwms of the Fuches Las and the Deios of Cwm Brwynog.
My informant does not tell me why the cromlech is called Coetan Arthur, though he intimates that there was a story current which explained it [..]
A letter by John Rhys in Archaeological Cambrensis, January 1888.
From ‘Exploration of a second mound near Stonyhurst’ by the Rev. J R Luck:
Many legends find currency among the country people concerning it. According to one, a powerful chieftain, robed and seated in a chair, was entombed within; another told of a casket of gold lying beneath; while a third relates that Oliver Cromwell, or at least some of his troopers were buried in it. However, the most generally received tradition is that the followers of Wada, slain in the battle between that rebellious chief and King Eardwulf, were buried here, while those slain of the king’s army were buried in the other mound. The victims of the routed army being more numerous than those of the victorious, of course accounts for the greater size of this mound.
Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, v13 (1896).
The Rev dug into the mound and concluded it was a natural feature left behind by glaciers, but the modern SMR is more forgiving.
In the cliffs at the west end of Lleyn is a wishing-well called Ffynnon Fair, or St. Mary’s Well; where, to obtain your wish, you have to descend the steps to the well and walk up again to the top with your mouth full of the water. Viewing the position of the well from the sea, I should be disposed to think that the realisation of one’s wish at that price could not be regarded as altogether cheap.
This spring is in the cliff just beneath the stone, it would seem.
From an article on ‘Sacred Wells in Wales’ by John Rhys, in The transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion for 1892/3.
At the highest point of this hill is a cairn, with traces of a kerb. It does look a little bit Odd, from this geograph photo by Ken Craig:
geograph.org.uk/photo/534761
Or is that just because of the hint of mist?
The gudeman of Siggie Taft had been at Ori with his oil teind and when returning home in the humin riding on a grey mare and leading a red staig he had to pass Stakkaberg, a feat which in those days required both nerve and hardihood. But Siggie Taft possessed both in a remarkable degree for it was said of him that he neither feared man nor deil in light or mirk.
As he rode slowly along he heard a voice saying “Du ‘at rides de grey and rins de red tell Tona Tivla ‘at Fona Fivla is faan i’ de Velyna Vatyna.” On coming to his house, as he passed the byre door, he called out the strange words he had heard and was surprised to see an “uncan” woman jump up from the side of his cow and in her hurry she left a pan of curious workmanship standing in the bizzi (stall in a byre). As the woman disappeared through the byre lum she explained “O care an’ dol, dat’s my bairn ‘ats faan i’ de kirnin watter.”
The milk pan thus secured was kept in the house of Taft for generations and always brought luck. But it had to be sained every night and left hanging in de ringalodi [crock and links for suspending a pot over the fire]. One night this duty was neglected and in the morning the pan had disappeared. After this the Trows seemed to have taken a spite at the people of Siggie Taft.
Noted down from the narration of William Laurenson, Aith, Fetlar, by E.S. Reid Tate.
From the Shetland Folk-book II, but I have copied it from Katherine Briggs’s ‘Dictionary of British Folk-Tales’.
A staig is a young horse. I know this because of the interesting book here
archive.org/details/glossaryofshetla00angu – a glossary of Shetland words from 1913. There are some really good ones.
Nether Swell. -- Within a stone’s throw from the north-west angle of the church, on the summit of the rising ground, in the allotments, stood, within the memory of the writer of this paper, a familiar, yet most venerable monolith. It was known as the Whistlestone (so called, perhaps, from this, the Wheat Hill, as the one beyond was the Oat Hill). This stone was the last, most probably, of a cist. Many stones were found at its base.
A witticism, amongst the villagers, was this:- “When the Whistlestone hears Stow clock (a mile off) strike twelve, it goes down to Lady-well (at the Hill’s foot) to drink.” Alas, poor Whistlestone!
Farmer Illes, one of the olden time, one day picked up two of a perfect set of teeth, in plowing by the stone, but so harried was he by the weirdy teeth, that he replaced them speedily where he found them.
But a later occupier did what the good folk of the village declared could not be done – for “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men” could not cast down nor carry away Whistlestone – but it was carried away – yet rescued from the roads or profane use. In the vicarage-paddock the pre-historic block now finds asylum.
From v7 of the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (1882/3), in a piece by the Rev. David Royce about an excursion to Stow on the Wold.
Trellyffant apparently means Toad’s Town, and I had come across a story some time ago that said a chief had been buried at the cromlech who had been eaten by toads.
Well there is a different version of the story and the man eating toads. In this version Giraldus Cambrensis tells of a young man called Cecil Longlegs who “during a severe illness, suffered as violent a persecution from toads, as if the reptiles of the whole province had come to him by agreement; and though destroyed by his nurses and friends, they increased again on all sides in infinite numbers; being wearied out, he was drawn up in a kind of bag into a high tree, stripped of its leaves; nor was he there secure from his venomous enemies, for they crept up the tree in great numbers, and consumed him to the very bones”
Poor old toads no wonder the witches were always boiling them up! taken from
Myths and Legends of Wales; retold by Tony Roberts
The stones here are recorded on Coflein as a ‘stone setting’ and apparently align with a third on the skyline. There is a four stone row and a pair of stones nearby.
[Here are] two unhewn blocks of white quartz, almost certainly placed by artifice, with a small natural outcropping boulder midway between them, to which the local tradition points as marking the site where Owen Glyndwr “held parley, and made his covenant.” The boulders are on the north-western slope of Plynlumon, 100 yards above the right bank of the river Hyddgen [..] Each stone is 2 feet high, and shows no trace of tooling. They are 60 feet apart and are aligned exactly north and south. Though not placed in an elevated position, they can be seen from afar, and show up conspicuously in the sunlight.
From ‘An inventory of the ancient and historical monuments of the county of Montgomery’ (1911).
Your post made me think, Carl. Maybe this stone is the one that features in the folklore about Wibdon Broad Stone about a stone throwing contest (which is where Ike’s thought should have led me before).
According to Coflein there are quite a few cairns on this hilltop. Perhaps you will be able to see which is most suitable for a king to sit on if you visit.
On an eminence bordering with Garvock, called Kinchet, or, more properly, King’s Seat hill, there is a large heap of stones, where, according to tradition, a king used in ancient times to sit in judgment.
Among other complaints here preferred to him, many were lodged against Melville of Allardice, at that time sheriff of the county, for his oppression. The royal judge, either wearied with the complainers, or enraged at the offender, exclaimed, “I wish that sheriff were sodden and supped in brose!” Such was the savage barbarity of the times, that the barons, who were little accustomed to the formalities of a trial, laid hold on these words, and put them literally in execution.
The place where the deed was perpetrated, a the bottom of the hills, on the side next Garvock, is not unlike the cavity of a kiln for drying corn, and still retains the name of the Sheriff’s kettle.
In the Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-99 for the parish of Benholme.