Latest Folklore

It remains to tell of my latest visit to the “The Stones” [as the temple is called by the natives]. I had resolved to go once in my life with the current or crowd to see the sun rise on the morning of the longest day at that place. This custom or fashion is a declining one: ten or twelve years ago, as many as one or two thousand persons would assemble during the night to wait the great event, but the watchers have now diminished to a few hundreds, and on some years to a few scores. The fashion, no doubt, had its origin when Sir Norman Lockyer’s theories, about Stonehenge as a Sun Temple placed so that the first rays of sun on the longest day of the year should fall on the centre of the so-called altar or sacrificial stone placed in the middle of the circle, began to be noised about the country, and accepted by every one as the true reading of an ancient riddle. But I gather from natives in the district that it is an old custom for people to go and watch for sunrise on the morning of June 21. A dozen or a score of natives, mostly old shepherds and labourers who lived near, would go and sit there for a few hours and after sunrise would trudge home, but whether or not there is any tradition or belief associated with the custom I have not ascertained. “How long has the custom existed?” I asked a field labourer. “From the time of the old people – the Druids,” he answered, and I gave it up.

At about 2am he goes to find a few hundred people already waiting, and the road to Amesbury looking like a ‘ribbon of fire’ from all the cyclists pedalling in.

Altogether about five to six hundred persons gathered at “The Stones,” mostly young men on bicycles who came from all the Wiltshire towns within easy distance, from Salisbury to Bath. I had a few good minutes at the ancient temple when the sight of the rude upright stones looking black against the moonlit and star-sprinkled sky produced an unexpected feeling in me: but the mood could not last; the crowd was too big and noisy, and the noises they made too suggestive of a Bank Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace.

A foolish rabbit makes an appearance and hundreds of people shriek and run to catch it. Then lots of people start packing onto the fallen stones ‘like guillemots on a rock’ and start messing about. Nearer the sunrise some posh people in motorcars turn up and are all greeted with whoops and silly remarks until they hurry to hide themselves in the crowd. It all sounds very raucous.

He returns another time at 3am and sits there alone musing on time and the mystery of it all, and wishes somebody could psychically tune in and see something from the past. ‘In the last few years’ various stories had been circulating about a child from the London slums who’d had a vision there of ‘a great gathering of people’ but he reveals this to be untrue and traceable back to a local boy with a creative imagination. Perhaps it says something about the Edwardian interest in the paranormal?

from ‘Afoot in England’ by William Henry Hudson (1909).

Local people are often concerned about the implications of their actions in relation to historic monuments and archaeological features in general. Many will not touch such features on their land in fear of some repercussions by the fairies. A former landowner of the ogham stone, who lived in the now ruined cottage close by, decided he wanted to remove the stone and began to dig around it. However, bad fortune was to follow, for no sooner had he started work than water began to rise in the byre bringing havoc to his buildings and his animals. When the farmer decided to stop the digging work normality returned to his farm holdings.

Local tales passed down from generation to generation also tell of one landowner, a giant of a man, who was tied to the nearby standing stone for some misdemeanor and guarded there by twelve strong men. However the landowner broke away from the stone and killed all the guards who traditions says were buried in the graveyard across the road. The story goes on to say that the landowner himself is buried under the ogham stone.

Taken from the info. board, erected by the Environment & Heritage Service and Omagh District Council

The fuggo at Bodinnar, called the Giant’s Holt, was a few years ago much dreaded, as it was thought to be the abode of ugly spriggans that kept watch and guard over treasures which still remain buried in that ancient hiding-place.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Sacred Texts Archive website.

About a furlong south-west of Trove, but on a tenement of Boleigh, is the Fuggo. It consists of a cave about six feet high, five feet wide and near forty long, faced on each side with rough stones, across which long stone posts are laid. On its north-west side a narrow passage leads into another cave of similar construction and unknown extent; as it has long been blocked up by a portion of the roof having fallen in. One may be pretty sure, however, that much of the stories about its great length are fabulous. They say that it extends from its entrance, at the foot of Boleigh hill, to the old mansion at Trove; in proof of this the old one has often been heard piping under a parlour of the house. It is supposed he meets the witches down there, who have entered by the Fuggo to dance to his music. Hares are often seen to enter the Fuggo which are never known to come out the same way; they are said to be witches going to meet their master, who provides them with some other shape to return in.

There are also traditions of this cavern having served as a place of refuge to some of the Levelis in troublesome times; and of its having frequently been used by our fair-traders, as it afforded them a secure hold for storing their goods, and to have a carouse therein.

[...] A short time ago an old inhabitant of Boleigh informed us that many persons in that neighbourhood are afraid to enter the Fuggo, even by day, as they believe that bad spirits still frequent this place. Women of villages near often threaten their crying babies that they will carry them down to the Fuggo, and leave them there for the Bucca-boo if they don’t stop their squalling. there are traditions that almost all these caves were haunted by beings of a fearful nature, whose path it was dangerous to cross.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Sacred Texts Archive website.

William Wilson was told in the 1840s that the stones had been moved here by the mytes [sic]. He believed these to be spirits, and I think mytes is a reference to the bible’s “Mighty that were of old” in the plural.

‘Kenneth the 2nd of Alba, King of Scotland was the son of Malcolm 1 of Alba, King of Scotland. He died at Finella’s castle, Fettercairn, Scotland, possibly murdered. He is buried on the Isle of Iona, Argyllshire.

Kenneth the 2nd, of Scotland, gained the title Kenneth of Alba. He succeeded to this title during 971.

He was possibly killed by Finvela, a noblewoman, whose son was killed by the king. She is said to have lured Kenneth into her home promising to unmask traitors. In one room a statue connected to several hidden crossbows which were set to fire bolts from every side when a golden apple was lifted. After a great feast, at which wine flowed freely, Finvela took her guest to the fatal room and offered him a golden apple as a gesture of peace. As he lifted the apple, he was struck by a hail of bolts.‘

The Peerage.com

Once when William Ellis, of the Gilwern, was fishing on the bank of Cwm Silin Lake on a dark misty day, he had seen no living Christian from the time when he left Nantlle. But as he was in a happy mood, throwing his line, he beheld over against him in a clump of rushes a large crowd of people, or things in the shape of people about a foot in stature: they were engaged in leaping and dancing. He looked on for hours, and he never heard, as he said, such music in his life before. But William went too near them, when they threw a kind of dust into his eyes, and, while he was wiping it away, the little family took the opportunity of betaking themselves somewhere out of his sight, so that he neither saw nor heard anything more of them.

This is in ‘Cymru Fu’, edited by Isaac Foulkes (1862), which is in Welsh, but I have taken it from John Rhys who considerately translated it in his ‘Celtic Folklore’ of 1901.

Not a terribly cheerful story, actually it’s quite ghastly. I imagine the giants used to live in the hillfort at Aberystwyth? And Penparcau is just outside the ramparts. Perhaps you know the location of the other places mentioned in the tale??

(p47) Some fifty years ago, a headless dog was said to be seen near Pen Parcau, Aberystwyth. A MS. collection of giant stories made in the sixteenth century tells how a giant, going to his father’s rescue, rode at such a rate that his dog could not keep up with him and its head came off in the leash, at a spot between the two places where the headless dog was visible fifty years ago.

(p78) Maelor, [a] Cardiganshire giant, with his three sons, Cornipyn, Grugyn and Bwba, lived near Aberystwyth. One day, Maelor was caught by his enemies at Kyfeliog, some twelve miles from his stronghold. Being over-come, his request to be allowed to blow his horn thrice before being put to death was granted him. The first time he blew until his hair and his beard fell off, the second until the nails fell off his fingers and toes, and the third until the horn was shattered. Cornipyn, hearing the sound of the horn, understood what was happening, and sorrow for his father came upon him at a place still known as Cefn Hiraethog (hiraeth, longing). As he rode to the rescue, his dog failed to keep pace with him, and its head came off in the leash, at Bwlch Safn y Ci, ‘the Pas of the Hound’s Mouth.’ Cornipyn made his horse leap the valley, landing at a spot named Ol Carn y March, ‘the Steed’s Hoofmark.’ Coming to his father, he was also killed. The two other brothers were afterwards killed though cunning.

From ‘Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom’ by T. Gwynn Jones (1930).

There’s a bit of a military theme with this spot. Maybe that’s no surprise if it’s on a road following the Annan valley, heading north-south? An RCAHMS report from 1920 says the “stone is said to have been erected to mark the spot where Prince Charlies’ troops bivouacked on their march into England in the ‘45.” That’s the 1745 uprising led by ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ ‘f course. Though confusingly, this book thinks that it was actually another Charles, the English Charles the second, who stopped here for breakfast with his army, in 1651. And according to another contemporary story* “there is a house called Powdine..; that house hath been haunted these fifty or sixty years.. I spoke with the [owner].. He told me many extraordinary relations consisting in his own knowledge; and I carried him to my master, to whom he made the same relations – noises and apparitions, drums and trumpets heard before the last war; yea, he said, some English soldiers quartered in his house were soundly beaten by that irresistible inhabitant..” And Not that I’m saying the stone is related to this folklore (although the house is just across the road) but it’s got a similar theme?

*From ‘Laws’ Memorials’, quoted in ‘Witchcraft and superstitious record in the south-western district of Scotland’ by JM Wood (1911).

The earthworks on Dechmont Law are very slight now, but the Canmore record concedes they’re probably the remains of a hill fort.

The woods around the base of the hill were the setting for one of the UK’s weirder ufo-ish experiences. You can read all about it at the ‘UFO Evidence‘ website.

Dechmont Hill, situated in the parish of Cambuslang, was a place where our forefathers lighted the Beltane [fire]. In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1848) it is stated that a thick stratum of charcoal was discovered underneath a structure of fine loam on the summit of the hill. When the country people saw it they expressed no surprise, as the tradition was familiar to them that it was here where the former inhabitants of the country had been in the habit of lighting their Beltane.

From ‘Old Scottish Customs’ by E J Guthrie (1885). I can’t see the story in the Statistical Account, though I could be looking in the wrong place.

(Yep – here
books.google.co.uk/books?id=o5DVAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA83)

Somewhere in the vicinity of St Serf’s Water, a barrow was opened prior to 1800, and two urns containing bluish 4” polished axes were found. St Serf’s Well was here too, but ‘Canmore’ says that it’s been lost since the Water level rose.

Nigh to this place is St Serf’s Well, and the moor whereon St Serf’s market is held. He was the tutelary saint of the parish of Monivaird. This well is a plentiful spring of water. About sixty years ago, our people were wont, on Lammas day, to go and drink it, leaving white stones, spoons, or rags, which they brought with them; but nothing except the white stones now appear, this superstitious practice being quite in oblivion. It has been useful in a strangury, as any other very cold water would be; for a patient, taking a tub full of it immediately from the well, plunging his arms into it, which were bare to the elbows, was cured. St Serf’s fair is still kept on the 11th of July, where HIghland horses, linen cloth, &c. both from the south and north, are sold.

‘Extracts from a History of the Parishes of Monivaird and Strowan’, by Mr Porteous, in vol.2 (1822) of Archaeologia Scotica.

A full account of the ‘Lady of the Lake’ legend is given in W Jenkyn Thomas’ ‘The Welsh Fairy Book’ (1907)... “High up in a hollow of the Black Mountains of South Wales is a lonely sheet of water called Llyn y Fan Fach.....”

However there is an overview for the curious – maybe contemplating a visit? – here:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb03.htm

Cwm Llwch, the great glacial valley below and to the north west of Pen-y-Fan is rich with folklore regarding the Tylwyth Teg, ‘the little people’.

Below is an extract regarding the valley’s circular lake taken from ‘The Welsh Fairy Book’, W Jenkyn Thomas (1907):

‘..In very ancient times there was a door in a rock hard by, which opened once in each year — on May Day — and disclosed a passage leading to a small island in the centre of the lake. This island was, however, invisible to those who stood upon the shore. Those who ventured down the secret passage on May Day were most graciously received by the fairies inhabiting the island, whose beauty was only equalled by their courtesy to their guests. They entertained them with delicious fruits and exquisite music. and disclosed to them many events of the future. They laid down one condition only, and that was that none of the produce of the island was to be carried away, because the island was sacred...‘

More of the legend here:

sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb12.htm

During one of the later outbreaks of plague in the 1660’s, the Rector of nearby Vernham Dene, convinced all the villagers suffering from plague to leave and set up camp on this nearby hill. He convinced them he would bring supplies to them. However, once they had gone he ‘forgot’ about them, and their makeshift camp starved to death.
His ghost is now said to walk towards the top of the hill, always fading from view just before he arrives at the former campsite.

At Blidworth in a hollow to the west of the village are some masses of Bunter conglomerate, which stand out above the level of the fields. They remind us of the Hemlock Stone, and like it, are connected by tradition with the pre-Roman past, under the name of Druid Stones. The largest of them rests upon a knob of rock which juts a little above the soil; it has been hollowed from the western side for a distance of about six feet into the interior of the mass. The hollow is pierced through the back in such a way that, it is said, the aperture exactly faces the sun on the morning of Midsummer Day. Thus we are again pointed, as in the Beltane usage on Stapleford Hill*, to rites in which reverence for the sun played a leading part.

*ie the location of the Hemlock Stone.

From ‘The Victoria History of the County of Nottingham’ v1 (1906), edited by William Page.

Julliberrie’s Grave – origins of the name

According to ‘The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 7’ by Edward Hasted, published in 1798 Chilham

“LIES upon the river Stour, about six miles southward from Canterbury. It is called in Domesday, Cilleham; in Saxon, Cyleham; which signifies the cold place; and some think this place was antiently called Julham, or Juliham, i. e. the village or dwelling of Julius, in regard to Julius Cæsar, the Roman emperor, who had several conflicts with the Britons in and near it.”

What this suggests is that the name Julli in Julliberrie’s grave and the first syllable of Chilham are related – both coming from one source, whether than be the Saxon ‘Cille’ (’chill/cold’) or an earlier (and doubtful) ‘Julius’. The similarity between the ‘j’ and ‘ch’ sounds are obvious, and can easily be mistaken/swapped.

This further suggests that we are looking at two linked placenames – Chil-ham and Chil-berry, the latter a possible derivation from either Burgh (again, doubtful) or bearw, as in ‘barrow’ in Anglo-Saxon. In other words Julliberrie’s grave is simply the barrow near, or of, Chil-ham.

If this etymology is correct we are looking at an original meaning of the ‘cold barrow’, or ‘the barrow near the cold place’ – rather apt for the misty, frosty stour valley in winter. Another idea may be that it comes from ceorl-ham, the settlement of the churl (a landholder) or it is a debased Saxon personal name, such as the Guthlac that survives as ‘Gilli’ in Gillingham.

The other possibility is that it does derive from an earlier Roman or Celtic word – but seeing as neither possessed the ‘j’ sound (Julius Caesar being originally Iulius Caesar) this is extremely doubtful.

John Grigsby www.johngrigsby.co.uk

The cairn on top of Carn Mor is modern, but it’s thought to hide the remains of a prehistoric version. There are a few boulders around the edges which could have been kerb stones.

Grimm refers to a remarkable instance of this superstition, which occurred in the island of Mull as recently as 1767, which vividly illustrates the “toughness” of tradition, as Dasent expresses it. He says:- “In consequence of a disease amongst the black cattle, the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and nine spindles, long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect.

They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants, they contrived to have them extinguished, and on that morning raised their fire.

They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the pile, and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came as the master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the spell, he said the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again.”

I don’t know where he’s quoting this Grimm from, but this is collected in Hardwick’s “Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore” (1872).

As I have previously observed, striated boulders, brought from a great distane by what geologists term the “glacial drift,” are especially regarded as debris resulting from giant warfare or amusement. Many rocks of this class lying to the south of Pendle Hill, near Great Harwood, I am informed, are still looked upon by the vulgar as stones which have been hurled by giants from the surrounding hills.

From ‘Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore (chiefly Lancashire and the north of England)’, by Charles Hardwick (1872).

This hill is next to Croxton Abbey, whose Abbot looked after King John when he died in Newark in 1216. Apparently he got to take the king’s entrails / his heart back (whilst the rest of the body went to Worcester). That’s fairly gruesome an idea. You’d think the guts would have been put in the abbey, but the Remember Waltham On the Wolds website has the nice local twist that they ended up in this barrow (there’s also a photo. Of the barrow, not the entrails.)

If you look at the scheduled monument information for the site, it says it’s the remains of a medieval post mill. But it concedes it ‘is thought likely to have utilised a well preserved Bronze Age burial mound.’ Because the mound of a post mill wouldn’t really be a suitable resting place for a kings innards would it. And the idea of reusing a prehistoric mound for burying people in later times is common enough.

From ‘Place Names of Strathbogie’ p253 James Macdonlad 1891

Clochmaloo, is a spur of rock jutting out on the side of the Tap o’ Noth overlooking Scordarg, and half-way up the Tap. The face of this perpendicular rock is about 30 feet high, and behind, standing clear of the hill, it is 7 or 8 feet high. Two names occur elsewhere which help us to understand this puzzling name. In charters of date 1450, and 1508, we have in the barony of Lochawe, Kilmolew, and in Morvern, Kilmalew, both churches dedicated to Saint Molocus, bishop. The Saint’s name usually takes the forms Moluach, Moluoc, Molua, and Molew, which last gives the exact pronunciation as in Clochmaloo. Moluach is patron saint of Mortlach, and at Cloveth (Kildrummie) is Simmerluak’s well. Clatt was also dedicated to this saint; and in that parish there was in old times St. Mallach’s fair, and there is a farm close to the Kirktown of Clatt called Persylieu, which may contain the saint’s name. Tarland is another dedication, and in this parish is Luoch’s Fair. We have thus four dedications of Moluach within no great distance from Rhynie, two of them being in the neighbouring parishes; and Clochmaloo, ‘the stone of Moluach’, suggests the possibility that he was also patron saint of Rhynie. I may notice that clach means ‘a stone’, and it is unusual to find this word applied to a spur of rock. As it is so used here, it may indicate that the name is artificial, thus differing from all the Gaelic names around it.

A little westward of this rock, and near the base of the cone, is a large boulder called the Giant’s stone. The legend connected with it is, that in the days when giants inhabited this part of the world, the giant of Dunnideer made an assault on his brother of the Tap, who, in defending his fort, pitched this great stone from the rampart against the enemy. Dunnideer to show his contempt put out his foot and checked the boulder in its downward course. The stone remains son the very spot it was arrested, and the imprint of the giant’s foot may still be seen upon it.

A more modern update on giant-related folklore, and why not:

I followed, and found myself in the famous subterranean passage known as Chapel Uny Cave, walled and roofed with flat stones of granite. It is thirty-five feet long, and leads to a circular domed chamber twelve feet in diameter, now open to the sky.

I remarked upon the size of the slabs of granite that form the roof, and asked the farmer how these heavy weights, that a football team could hardly lift, were placed in position.

“The giants put them there,” he answered. I pricked my ears. Was I, on my last day, to stand face to face with a man who believed in the giants? Alas no! He did not refer to the fabulous Bolster, nor to the giants of Trencrom and St. Michael’s Mount, who played at bob-button, but to mortals, Cornishmen of vast strength and stature, like Anthony Payne, who seem at one time to have been common in Cornwall.

He spoke of John and Richard Row, brothers, who could lift enormous stones with the greatest ease. Once the wheel of a heavily laden waggon came off. John raised the waggon with his mighty shoulder, while Richard replaced the wheel.

From ‘Days in Cornwall’ by Charles Hind (1909).

Pendene vowe, a holl or deepe vaute in the grounde, wherinto the sea floweth at high water, very farr under the earth: Manie have attempted, but none effected, the search of the depth of it.

From John Norden’s “Speculi Britanniæ pars: a topographical and historical description of Cornwall”, written in the beginning of the 17th century. (I have transcribed this from the scan on Google Books.) I take it he didn’t go in. But then I’m a coward as well.

Borlase (in 1769) didn’t think much of his story – “but the sea is in truth more than a quarter of a mile from any part of it. The common people also thereabout tell many idle stories of like kind, not worth the reader’s notice, neglecting the structure, which is really commodious, and well executed.”

I think he rather liked the place, saying “Of all the artificial Caves I have seen in Cornwall, that called Pendeen Vau (by the Welsh pronounced Fau) is the most entire, and curious”, and “You see nothing of this Cave, either in the field or garden, ‘till you come to the mouth of it, as much privacy as possible being consulted.”

It was previously thought that treasure was buried under the monument, and digging over the years certainly weakened the foundations and probably contributed to its collapse.

Fowre Burrows, fowre litle hills raysed upon the vaste Downes nere the north sea; they stande together, and are the burialls of slayne men in the feylde. In those partes are manie like borrowes, as in manie partes ells of Englande, upon the spatious playnes wher, in the Saxon and Danish Broyles, battells have bene fowghte.

From John Norden’s “Speculi Britanniæ pars: a topographical and historical description of Cornwall”, written in the beginning of the 17th century. (I have transcribed this from the scan on Google Books.)