Latest Folklore

There was a deadly feud between the Keiths and the Irvines. The Keiths were the ‘Marischals of Scotland’ which meant they kept tabs on the Scottish Crown Jewels, and looked after the king when he went to parliament. The Irvines also had a good pedigree, having been co-adventurer with Robert the Bruce. Eventually Alexander Irvine was asked to put a stop to all the feuding by marrying the daughter of the Marischal, which he did.

But, there was fighting with other people to be done, namely with Donald, Lord of the Isles. On the way to a battle at Harlaw,

..accompanied by his brother Robert, he [Irvine of Drum] halted upon the hill of Auchrony, in the parish of Skene, from the summit of which the house of Drum was visible on the one hand, and the field of battle on the other, and there seated on a stone, which still bears the appellation of Drum’s Stone, he advised Robert (if he himself should be slain), to marry his sister-in-law on his return, with whom, as he assured him, he had never consummated his marriage.

Irvine was killed, and there was, it’s said, a cairn at the site of his death, or perhaps of his burial. But according to the RCAHMS, there’s no trace now (at NJ 7513 2410). Apparently, (again taking my information from the New Statistical Account) “Robert having escaped the slaughter, married the lady according to [the] advice, and, upon succeeding to the estates, changed his Christian name to Alexander.” Now isn’t that a touch weird. Maybe that was normal in those days?! And can we really believe that the original Alexander’s marriage was such a feud-breaking device, if it was never consummated? But I don’t pretend to understand 15th century domestic and political arrangements.

I like this, it’s rather sarcastic but they obviously still like describing the goings-on.

The only remarkable spring here is that of St. Fillan, the Popish saint of Breadlbane, at the W. end of Stratherne.

This spring, tradition reports, reared its head on the top of Dun Fhaolain, (FILLAN’S Hill), for a long time doing much good; but in disgust, (probably at the Reformation!) it removed suddenly to the foot of a rock, a quarter of a mile to the southward, where it still remains, humbled indeed, but not forsaken. It is is still visited by valetudinary people, especially on the 1st of May, and the 1st of August. No fewer than 70 persons visited it in May and August 1791. The invalids, whether men, women, or children, walk, or are carried, round the well, three times, in a direction Deiseal, that is, from E. to W. according to the course of the Sun. They also drink of the water, and bathe in it. These operations are accounted a certain remedy for various diseases. They are particularly efficacious for curing barrenness; on which account it is frequently visited by those who are very desirous of offspring.

All the invalids throw a white stone on the saint’s cairn, and leave behind, as tokens of their confidence and gratitude, some rags of linen or woollen cloth.

The rock on the summit of the hill, formed, of itself, a chair for the saint, which still remains. Those who complain of rheumatism in the back, must ascend the hill, sit in this chair, then lie down on their back, and be pulled by the legs to the bottom of the hill. This operation is still performed, and reckoned very efficacious.

At the foot of the hill, there is a bason, made by the saint, on the top of a large stone, which [seldom?] wants water, even in the greatest drought; And all who are distressed [from?] sore eyes must wash them three times with this water.

From the eighteenth century Statistical Account of Comrie.

“The Sculptured Stones of Clatt, Aberdeenshire” by James Ritchie – from PSAS volume 44 (1909/10):

It was discovered in the foundation of a barn when it was being rebuilt in 1879, and was removed to the garden dyke for preservation by the late Mr Wm. Bisset, who all his life long took a great interest in such objects of antiquity. Where it originally came from is not known with certainty, but it was Mr Bisset’s opinion-- based upon the available information -- that it had been removed from the site of a dismantled stone circle which stood within a short distance of the farm buildings. Not a stone of the circle now remains, but the site is known in the neighbourhood by the name of “The Sunken Kirk.” The local tradition concerning the origin of the name is that in ancient times an attempt was made to build a kirk there, but that the attempt was frustrated by the devil, who caused the daily task of the workmen to sink out of sight during the night, till the builders gave up in despair. (It is curious that a somewhat similar tradition clings to the site of another now almost destroyed stone circle called Chapel o’ Sink, at Fetternear, about five miles west of Inverurie).

ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_044/44_203_215.pdf

The article also speculates a little on the cupmarks and there are two photos. The rest of the article is about the ‘Pictish’ sculptured stones in the area. But do they need scouring for cupmarks too?!

Here’s something on Drewbhoy’s ‘little mentioned cairn’:

In one of the plantations on Binghill, there is a Druid’s temple enclosed with a common stone dike; and near to it is a large tumulus, which is said to have been once the burying-place of the family of Drum, a property in a neighbouring parish, where the descendants of that family now reside.

From the Peterculter chapter of the New Statistical Account.

--There are many large heaps of stones, commonly called cairns, on a heath or moor near Culblean, in the east end of Tullich: and they are said to cover the graves of those who fell in flight after the battle of Culblean or Kilblane, which, according to Buchanan, B. ix. c. 23, was fought between the adherents of King David Bruce and the followers of Cummin, Earl of Athole, in 1335. But, as none of these barrows have yet been opened, it is not known what may be under them, or whether they may not be of a still earlier date.

From the New Statistical Account of Glenmuick, Tullich, and Glengairn.

Part of an encampment still remains in the moor of Kinmuck, where tradition records that a great battle took place between the Danes and the Scotch. The latter are said to have slain a boar in their advance, and hence the name of Kinmuck, or boar’s head. The place of combat bears the name of Blair Hussey, or field of blood. In a large barrow or tumulus, about eighty yards from a Druidic stone, a chance visitor observed an urn partially uncovered. It was found to contain calcined bones. Two larger urns were subsequently found in a reversed position to the other, and were taken out in fragments. The bones in all three were put into a box, and buried in the original spot.

It’s a nice touch that the bones were reburied. This from the New Statistical Account.

Very dubious sounding but there you are.

The etymology of Echt is not known with certainty. An old tradition refers it to the Gaelic word “Each,” which signifies a horse. It bears that a division of an ancient Caledonian army having encamped in this parish, the officers and men, in the time of a severe drought, were reduced to great straits for want of water, when a horse which had been brought to the camp was seen to gallop to a spot where he had been accustomed to drink; and that, by pawing and scratching with his feet, some signs of water were discovered; in which spot, a well having been dug, afforded relief from thirst to the army. In memory of that event, this particular district, and afterwards the parish, is said to have been designated by the above term.

This from the New Statistical Account, by the Rev. William Ingram.

Question. Where have ye been to-day?
Answer. Where the devil hanged his grannie.

[The devil hanged his grannie on “the bowed rock on the brae,” a hanging crag, on the slope of Doddington Hill, that faces Wooler. It is a cavernous rock – one of Cuddy’s or St. Cuthbert’s coves – and has cut on its sides a few Runic characters, and on its top some of those mysterious cup-markings, ascribed to the ancient Britons, which are so frequent on this hill. On the summit of the rock, which is of sandstone, the rain gathers into little circular pools, which, being whirled about by the wind and partly filled with sand, are becoming deeper and deeper. They empty themselves when full along many deep gutters, round the brow of the rock, that resemble hollows made by ropes fraying the softer parts of the stone [...] – History of Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, vii., p75. – J. H.]

From the Folklore Society’s reprinting of the Denham Tracts, v1, 1892.

Tradition points out Shafto Crags, as a place of the Earl’s concealment; a spot in that wild district, which is called “Sawter’s [soldier’s] Nick,” is said to be the place where, by descending a precipitous cliff, he escaped from the sentries who had tracked the noble fugitive to his quarry.

From “Dilston Hall : or, Memoirs of the Right Hon. James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwenter, a martyr in the Rebellion of 1715” by William Sidney Gibson (1850).

The Jacobite uprising in 1715 was the third major attempt to get the descendants of the catholic King James VII of Scotland (II of England) back on the throne – they believed they had the Divine Right to be there. There’s plenty of information on the Northumbrian Jacobites website, which mentions the legend that Derwentwater and his brother escaped from the authorities by taking refuge in the caves at Shafto Crags.
northumbrianjacobites.org.uk/index.php

The virtue of the Kilmalkedar stone was some fifty years ago equal in repute to that conceded to the Stennis example, and even, in some respects, superior; for, it was further firmly believed by many of the old inhabitants of Kerry, that persons afflicted with chronic rheumatism, ‘falling sickness’, or some other ills, might, by passing three times round it (with faith, and by the offering of certain prayers), be restored to health.

From ‘Wakeman’s Handbook of Irish Antiquities’, by John Cooke (1903).

In several parts of the country the gallaun is still considered by many of the people to be something weird, and, ‘to be let alone’. The late E A Conwell, in his work on the supposed tomb of Ollamh Fodhla, points out that, about two miles north-west of Oldcastle, there is a townland called Fearan-na-gcloch (from fearan, land, and cloch, a stone), so called from two remarkable stone flags, still to be seen standing in it, popularly called Clocha labartha, the ‘Speaking stones’: and the green pasture-field in which they are situated is called Pairc-na-gclochalabartha, the ‘Field of the speaking stones’.

‘There can be little doubt, ’ he proceeds, ‘the pagan rites of incantation and divination had been practised at these stones, as their name, so curiously handed down to us, imports; for, in the traditions of the neighbourhood, it is even yet current that they have been consulted in cases where either man or beast was supposed to have been “overlooked”; that they were infallibly effective in curing the consequences of the “evil eye”; and that they were deemed to be unerring in naming the individual through whom these evil consequences came.

‘Even up to a period not very remote, when anything happened to be lost or stolen, these stones were invariably consulted; and in cases where cattle, &c., had strayed away, the directions they gave for finding them were considered as certain to lead to the desired result. There was one peremptory inhibition, however, to be scrupulously observed in consulting these stones, viz. that they were never to be asked to give the same information a second time, as they, under no circumstances whatever, would repeat an answer.‘

These conditions having, about seventy or eighty years ago, been violated by an ignorant inquirer who came from a distance, the ‘speaking stones’ became dumb, and have so remained ever since.

There were originally four of these stones: of the two that remain, the larger may be described as consisting of a thin slab of laminated sandy grit. Its dimensions are as follows:
total height above ground, very nearly 7 feet;
extreme breadth, 5 feet 8 inches;
breadth near summit, 3 feet 6 inches;
average thickness, about 8 inches.
In no part does it exhibit the mark of a chisel or hammer.

The height of the second remaining stone, above the present level of the ground, is 6 feet 4 inches;
it is in breadth, at base, 3 feet 4 inches, and near the top 1 foot more;
thickness at base, 14 inches.
The material, unlike that found in the generality of such monuments, is blue limestone.

From ‘Wakeman’s Handbook of Irish Antiquities’, by John Cooke (1903).

St. Cornely was Pope at Rome, from whence he was hunted by Pagan soldiers who pursued him. He fled before them, accompanied by a yoke of oxen, which bore his baggage and on which he mounted when weary. One evening he arrived on the outskirts of a village called Le Moustoir where he wished to stop; having, however, heard a young girl insulting her mother he continued on his way and arrived shortly at the foot of a mountain where there was another small village. He then saw the sea in front of him and immediately behind him soldiers in battle array. He stopped and transformed the whole army into stones. As a souvenir of this great miracle the inhabitants of the surrounding country erected on the spot where he stopped a church dedicated to St. Cornely. That is the reason why these long lines of stones standing to the north of the village of Carnac are seen, and why so often at night ghosts are observed walking in the alleys called ‘Soudardet sans Cornely’ or ‘Soldats de St. Cornely’. Pilgrims from all countries flocked to the place to implore St. Cornely to cure their diseased cattle. He cured them all in remembrance of the great services rendered to him by his yoke of oxen during his flight.

The pilgrims, coming to the ‘Pardon of St. Cornely’, passed among the stone soldiers. The men were supposed to bring stones, the women earth, and to drop them on an elevation near to Carnac, where in time they formed the mount of St. Michel.

Le Rouzic then goes on to hint that perhaps the worship of St. Cornely actually replaced the original worship of the ox here. Hmm who knows.

From ‘The Megalithic Monuments of Carnac and Locmariaquer’ by Z Le Rouzic (trans. W. M. Tapp), 1908, which you can see in full on the Internet Archive.

“The large stone here is associated with St Margaret and was visited by women who hoped to concieve or sought a successful birth. The eight-foot high stone is said to mark the resting place of St Margaret when she journeyed between Queensferry and Dunfermline. Margaret had eight successful pregnancies and probably needed to rest quite a few times on her travels!”

Places Of Interest.

Joyce Miller.

“Newly married couples would walk round the stone in order to ensure good luck and fortune in their marriage. This was also done at the Granny Kempock Stone at Kempock Point near Gourock. This is a six foot tall stone and, traditionally, couples and fishermen would walk round it seven times, carrying a basket of sand. It was believed that this would bring good winds and catches for the fishermen and success and happiness for the newly weds. In 1662 Mary Lawmont (or Lamont) was accused, with other women, of attempting to throw the Kempock Stone into the Clyde as part of a charge of witchcraft. Some of the women confessed that they intended to destroy boats and ships by this act. The women were not successful, and were most likely executed.”

Stones

by Joyce Miller.

“Another skill that fairies could transmit was prophecy. Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas – whose real name was Thomas of Ercildoune – was a thirteenth-century poet and seer. It was said that Thomas met the Queen of Fairies on the Eildon Hills near Melrose. Thomas followed the queen after kissing her on the lips, and he had to serve her for seven years. While in the fairy realm, the queen gave Thomas a magical apple, which was the source of his ability to predict the future honestly – hence his second epithet, True Thomas. Although Thomas of Ercildoune is credited with writing “The Romance Of Sir Tristam”, he was better known for his prophecies. It is said that Thomas predicted the crowning of Robert The Bruce in 1306 and the defeat at Flodden in 1513. Since many of the prophecies do not appear in print it is, therefore, very difficult to prove their authenticity. It is interesting to note that Andrew Man, in his confessions about his association with the fairies, described meeting both Thomas The Rhymer and James IV, who was killed at Flodden, as ghosts at a fairy meeting. Although he did not say when this meeting occurred, it was presumably in the mid- to late-sixteenth century.”

Magical Spirits

Joyce Miller.

“East Lothian has a rather dubious reputation for having had a large number of witch trials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Spott was one of the centres of accusations in 1662. The stone is said to be near where Marion Lillie, the Ringwoodie Witch, was executed, reportedly in 1698. One story is that she was the last of those accused of witchcraft to be burnt in Scotland, but this is unlikely to be true as there are (unfortunately) later stories from Dornoch and Crieff. Recent reports have coins, candle wax, and the remains of incense being found at the stone.”

Magic and Witchcraft in Scotland

by Joyce Miller.

“The impressive standing stone at Strontoiller is a rough-cut pillar, standing some thirteen feet high, which was used in healing rituals. It is said to mark the grave of Diarmid, the mythical hero. The adjacent cairn was excavated and some cremated bone was found. Quartz chips and pebbles were found under the kerbstone: quartz is often associated with burial sites in the west.”

Magic and Witchcraft in Scotland

by Joyce Miller.

“There is an extremely unusual hexagonal vaulted chamber, adjacent to the present church, known as St Triduana’s Chapel or Well. It is comprised of the lower parts of a two-storey building, and water still flows from a spring here under the floor. Requests to use the water are still being received today.

Triduana’s shrines were supposed to help blindness and other eye complaints and conditions. Triduana was an early convert to Christianity who was the object of desire of a Pagan prince. The prince particularly admired Triduana’s eyes and, instead of being forced to marry him, it is said that Triduana plucked out her own eyes and presented them to him on a thorned branch. There is a similar story attached to St Medana, (although her eyesight was restored; Triduana’s was not) as well as other examples from Ireland and the Continent.

The church, which is dedicated to St Mary and The Trinity, was founded as a collegiate establishment by James 111 in the 1460s, although it is a much older site.”

Magic and Witchcraft in Scotland

by Joyce Miller.

“The standing stone is said to mark the site of Kate McNiven or MacNieven’s, sometimes known as the witch of Monzie, execution. The story goes that she was put in a barrel and rolled down what is now known as Kate MacNieven’s Craig on the north side of the Knock of Crieff before being burnt. Kate had been the nurse to the Grahams of Inchbrackie, and was accused of witchcraft, including turning herself into a bee. Graham of Inchbrackie tried to save her but to no avail, but as she was about to die it is said that she spat a bead from her necklace into his hand. The bead -a blue sapphire- was turned into a ring and it was believed that the ring would keep the family and lands secure. She did, however, curse the laird of Monzie, although whether this worked or not is not known. MacNiven or Nic Niven was also believed to be the name of the Queen of Fairies.

Indeed it is not clear whether Kate MacNiven was a real person or is a conflation of stories. There do not appear to be any contemporary records of her execution at or near Crieff, and dates for her unpleasant death are variously given as 1563, 1615 and 1715.”

Magic and Witchcraft in Scotland

by Joyce Miller.

“The Eildon Hills, near Melrose, have many stories associated with them, not least that Thomas the Rhymer disappeared to fairyland here for at least seven years after meeting the Queen of the Elves at the Eildon tree. The famous wizard, Michael Scott, is also said to have gained his powers in the hills, and to have instructed the famous Evil Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle.

The summit of Eildon Hill North, the largest of three peaks, was occupied since at least the Bronze Age. Some of the 300 or so houses (represented by house-platforms) date to the late Bronze Age but others are Iron Age.”

Magic and Witchcraft in Scotland

by Joyce Miller.

The Keeldar Stone .. is still pointed out, as a boundary mark, on the confines of Jed forest, and Northumberland. It is a rough insulated mass, of considerable dimensions, and it is held unlucky to ride thrice withershins around it.

From ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’ by Sir Walter Scott (1802).

The New Statistical Account of Scotland (written in 1845) describes cists being found on Minch Moor. Also, according to Scott’s ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’ (1802)...

There is, upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peebles-shire, a spring, called the Cheese Well, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese, as an offering to the fairies, to whom it was consecrated.

The great distinctive headland of the Mull of Galloway is traditionally described as the scene of the last stand made by the Picts, as they were driven backwards and seawards to destruction by the overwhelming force of the Scots.

[..]

Not far from this classic spot, a favourite haunt of the fairies is located. South of Portankill there is a small fortification called the Dunnan. On this spot there came once upon a time to a man sitting there, on a fine summer evening, an old-fashioned looking, diminutive woman dressed in green, carrying a tiny ailing child on her back, and holding a little wooden water stoup in her hand. She earnestly asked this man to go to the far-famed and quite near “Well of the Co’ ” and bring her some of the healing water for the decrepit little morsel she carried, as she was tired and done. Churlishly enough the man refused, and roughly told her she could go her own errands. The little woman bore his abuse patiently enough, then, naming him, solemnly warned him “never again to sit down on her hoose-riggin’ or he might look to it” – and then somehow she seemed to disappear. The man began to regret his ungracious conduct, all the more that it was generally believed that beneath the “Dunnan” lived the fairies, and if that was so, then at that very moment he was actually on their “hoose-riggin’.” Much disturbed in mind, he made for home; but tradition affirms that from that day forward everything went wrong – cattle died and crops failed, and eventually, going one night to the Dunnan to watch a vessel that was likely to come ashore and so help his own evil plight, he was stricken with illness at the hands of the fairies – so the country-side said – and died.

From ‘Witchcraft and superstitious record in the south-western district of Scotland’ (1911), J M Wood.

Or for a version more in the local dialect (perhaps) then see Galloway Gossip.

A local tale tells of Canobie Dick and his adventures upon the hills. He was a “jolly rattling horse-cowper, who was remarkable for a reckless and fearless temper, which made him much admired and a little dreaded amongst his neighbours.”

One moonlit night he was riding home over Bowden Moor, with two horses that he’d not been able to sell. He came across a man “of venerable appearance and singularly antique dress”, who took an interest in the horses and how much they might be bought for. Now Canobie Dick wasn’t that bothered who he dealt with, in fact he’d have overlooked the cloven hooves of the devil himself, and still had a go at cheating him. But when the stranger paid up, Dick was surprised that the gold coins he were given were weird old things – unicorns, bonnet-pieces. But they were gold, so he wasn’t that bothered. He sold quite a few horses to the same man over then next few weeks, but his customer insisted they should meet only at night, and always alone.

Eventually Dick suggested that they seal their deals with a little drink, at the house of the stranger, but he said “if you lose courage at what you see there, you will rue it all your life.” Dick laughed it of though, and followed the man up a narrow footpath that led to a peculiar feature between the south and central peaks of the Eildons, called the Lucken Hare*. This is “famous for witch-meetings.” His guide disappeared into the hillside “by a passage or cavern”, but Dick was very surprised as he’d never seen nor heard rumour of such a thing, though he knew the spot well.

On they went. “They entered a very long range of stables; in every stall stood a coal-black horse; by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn sword in his hand; but all were as silent, hoof and limb, as if they had been cut out of marble.” When they got to the end of the hall, a sword and horn lay on an antique table. “He that shall sound that horn and draw that sword, shall, if his heart fail him not, be king over all broad Britain. So speaks the tongue that cannot lie.”

The reckless hasty Canobie Dick seized the bugle and blew a feeble note. “Thunder rolled in stunning peals through the immense hall; horses and men started to life; the steeds snorted, stamped, ground their bits and tossed their heads” – the warriors sprang up brandishing their weapons. In his sheer terror, Dick dropped the horn and scrabbled for the enchanted sword, but he heard a loud voice intone:
“Woe to the coward, that ever he was born,
Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!”
and he was propelled out of the cave by an invisible whirlwind, and “precipitated over a steep bank of loose stones, where the shepherds found him the next morning, with just breath sufficient to tell his fearful tale, after concluding which he expired.”

*I suppose the Lucken Hare could be ‘Little Hill’.

The story is summarised from the version in ‘Folk-lore and legends; Scotland’ (1889).

An old bastile-house (Hebburn Castle or Tower, the old seat of the family of Hebburn) stands in the southern part of Chillingham Park, from which a concealed passage was said to have passed to a pillar-like stone, named the Horl-stone or Hurl-stone, in a field near the New Town of Chillingham or Chillingham Newton.

Hebburn Castle must be Hepburn Bastle, a 16th century tower house in Chillingham Park, which is a mile or two to the east, across the river.

Horl-stone is by some conjectured to be Earl’s Stone. It was erected in a socket by Mr. Jobson, late farmer of Chillingham Newton: and some years ago had a portion struck off it by lightning.

These quotes are from the Denham tracts, and you can read more from them about the connection between the Hurlstone and Cateran’s Hole on the latter’s page.