Latest Folklore

This Brutus chap who turns up in London folklore is not the one from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but a supposed survivor from the sacked city of Troy. Have a look at “Brutus of Troy” on good old wikipedia for an excellent summary. The notion that a handful of Trojans would leg it all the way across Europe to settle down anew in misbegotten and backward Britain is probably a little far-fetched. There probably was a Troy (there is a corresponding archaeological site at Hisarlik in Turkey) and it may well have been sacked by a load of dudes from Mycenae about 1200BC, but there is no Brutus or similar name in the Iliad, which was written down from oral history about 800BC. So all in all a load of old cobblers? Not entirely as there have been waves of invasions from the continent, notably the Roman colonisers, and one feature of colonised literature is that old native stories are given a flavour of the occupying culture as a way of making them seem more respectable, a little like building a church in the middle of Knowlton Rings. Old stories about legendary king Bran/Bendigeidfran sounded much better in the early middle ages once they had been given that Latinate gloss. I find it easy to believe there was a native hunting ritual that took place here, which was assimilated and survived in some form until the 1500s, given a respectable “Diana” label. Corresponding Christian saints would be Hubert or Eustace (both symbolised by a stag’s head with a cross between the antlers, which will sound familiar to those of you who have read Riddley Walker), but I’m not aware of any old City churches dedicated to them geezers. Anyone up for a re-enactment?

North of the Roman road, and on West Compton Down, but on a portion now brought under cultivation, are two stones, generally considered to show the site of an ancient cromlech. They were formerly prostrate, but are now placed upright. This was done, I am informed on good authority, about forty years ago; a farmer, it appears, wishing to rid himself of these hindrances to the plough, endeavoured so much difficulty that he finally desisted, and raised them on end instead. The stones are of no mean size, and are said to extend beneath the surface to a depth equal to their height above the ground. As they now stand, one is three feet four inches above the present surface, and the other four feet. The breadth, measured across from end to end in the case of each stone, is about six feet six inches, with a thickness of about one foot six inches.

Oh yes, good authority I’m sure. But you’re still trotting out the same old themes of ‘great difficulty moving them so he put them back’ and ‘same below as above ground’. And come on – why would the farmer go to so much trouble to put them upright?! I’m not buying it which is why this is firmly in the Folklore category. From E Dunkin’s ‘Some Account of the Megalithic Remains in South Dorset’ in ‘Reliquary’ January 1871.

“On the farm of Knowley, stands an upright pillar known as the Tow Stone. Its significance is doubtful. Dr Stuart thought that it might of been the seat of tax-gathering in far back days (Sculptured Stones Of Scotland, vol. ii p. 44). But Professor Watson suggests to me that the name may be connected with the Gaelic toll, signifying a hollow.”

Folklore Of The Aberdeenshire Stone Circles 1926

STONE CELTS,
called soigheds, or “fairy darts,” are used by the “good people,” and any one that is “fairy struck” has been hit with one of them. If you find one, either on the ground or in the tillage, you should not bring it into the house, or bury it, or throw it away, but you should put it carefully in a hole in the field wall, or ditch, or in a tree, where it will not be easily found, otherwise something will hapen to you.
Aranmore is a great place for soigheds, and they are greatly venerated, although many of them apparently are of recent make.

It seems the blades were made in recent times on Aran for skinning seals for food and their skins, and

... even at the present day I have seen them used while skinning a calf. The Aranites very often carry a soighed with them when they are going to a patron on the mainland, and leave it behind them at the holy well as a votive offering...

Connemara Folk-Lore
G. H. Kinahan
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 2, No. 9 (Sep., 1884), pp. 257-266

St. Kevin allegedly died on June the 3rd. His feast day used to be a good excuse for feasting and partying at Glendalough (the place where he founded a monastic settlement). Apparently it all got more and more out of hand – and the festival was banned in the 1890s, according to Kevin Patton’s jocular website here
lionden.com/st.htm
- which calls for St. Kevin’s day to be celebrated once again.

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Johann Kohl’s 1844 ‘Travels in Ireland’ reports that:

The chief wonder in these cliffs is St. Kevin’s bed, a little hollow, which is seen some forty feet above the water, and is approached by narrow steps cut in the rock. It appears to have been hollowed out by the hand of man, and is so small that one person only can conveniently stretch himself out in it. It is also said by the people to possess the same virtues in regard to the fruitfulness of women which are ascribed to the cross I have already mentioned... [Their guide, an old woman, proclaimed] that it was her privilege to show a stranger the position of a woman in Kevin’s bed. She accordingly crouched herself in it like a bird in its nest, or the image of a saint in its niche, and as seen from the lake, presented a very comical appearance.

But why, you may ask, would a saint be associated with women’s fertility? That’s because Kevin was popular with the girls, until he decided he was going to be a Saint. But his poor girlfriend Kathleen still loved him. And when he went off to find somewhere quiet so he could try to forget her – his Cave – she insisted on following him. When he woke up one morning, there she was looking at him – he leapt up and shoved her backwards. Unfortunately she fell down the rocks and into the lake, where she drowned. He felt a bit sorry then and prayed for her soul, and that no-one should ever drown in the lake again. Which they haven’t of course.

“Often it is apparent that the names now in use have no connection with the origin of the monument, but are recent and frequently trivial additions. Johnnie Kelly’s Lass, a large cup marked standing stone on the farm of Balhalgardy, near Inverurie, perhaps the sole remnant of a circle, furnishes a good example of the trivial origin of what may be curious and puzzling names. The name is just a century old. Johnnie Kelly, for long a farm servant at Balhalgardy, when old age came upon him, took to knitting stockings, a common country occupation in those times. On fine days he climbed to the stone, resting against it as he worked, and scanned the rich plains of Garioch; the humour of the countryside dubbed his constant companion “Johnnie Kelly’s Lass,” and the name stuck.”

Folklore Of The Aberdeenshire Stone Circles 1926.

Another megalithic site associated with witchcraft is the tomb known as Le Trepied, in the parish of St Saviour, Guernsey. ‘It was a notorious meeting-place for Guernsey witches, the Friday night Sabbats being sufficiently important to be attended by the devil himself, and the place is repeatedly mentioned in the witch trials of the seventeenth century.’ -- (Sir) T D Kendrick. The Archaeology of the Channel Islands. I. The Bailiwick of Guernsey. 1928, pp188-9.

From a footnote in Leslie Grinsell’s ‘Witchcraft at some prehistoric sites’, in K Briggs’s ‘The Witch Figure’ (1973).

This article by the eminent Grinsell collects examples of witch and fairy lore being bound up with barrows:

Another possible instance comes from the trial of Elizabeth Pratt of Dunstable, Bedfordshire, in 1667:

“Elizabeth Pratt, when asked about two children of Thomas Heyward who were said to have been bewitched to death, accused instead three other Dunstable women. She said that ‘the devill appeared to her about a fortnight since in the form of a catt, and Commanded [her] to goe to those three persons aforesaid to seeke the destroying of the two Children...’ She said she was with them when they mett to bewitch the eldest childe of the said Heyward, and that they had two meetings about it whereof one was at the Three Knolls upon the Dunstable Downes, and the other a little lower upon the said Downes.‘

The ‘Three Knolls’ are of course the well-known group of Bronze Age barrows now known as the Five Knolls, three of which are bell-shaped and enclosed by the same ditch. Elizabeth Pratt was committed to Bedford Gaol where her name occurs next to that of John Bunyan in the prison register.

I know, I know, the whole ‘witchcraft’ thing is highly suspect as we don’t know if or how Ms Pratt was ‘encouraged’ to confess. But if someone else came up with the knolls as a location perhaps they thought them the type of place that would be right for a bit of witchcraft. Or, it really IS right for a bit of witchcraft.

From the eminent L V Grinsell’s ‘Witchcraft at some prehistoric sites’, in K Briggs’s ‘The Witch Figure’ (1973).

During the years previous to the victory of Trafalgar, every man, woman and child along the south coast lived in dread of invasion ... Detailed preparations were made in case the enermy should appear. On the hills, such as Shipton Hill near Burton Bradstock, beacons were kept in readiness. They were to be fired immediately there came news of a landing ... Tradition also has it that women drilled with pikes on the top of Lambert’s Castle “to frighten away the French”!

From ‘Dorset – Up along and down along’ (1935).

CAPRA’s list of caves here says that flints, antler and human bones from the Early Neolithic were found here when it was excavated in the 1950s.

Thomas Hinderwell mentioned it in his 1798 ‘History and Antiquities of Scarborough and the Vicinity’:

Upon the hill, above the house, is a small Cave, in a rock, called by the country people Ilfrid’s Hole; they inform the inquirer, from tradition of their ancestors, that a Saxon King of that name, being wounded in battle, fled from his pursuers, and took shelter in this cave, where he remained one night, and was next day conveyed to Driffield.

The following inscription, which was upon a stone over the Cave, and afterwards painted upon wood when the stone decayed, is remembered by some of the ancient inhabitants.

“Alfrid, King of Northumberland, was wounded in a bloody battle near this place, and was removed to Little Driffield where he lies buried: hard by, his entrenchments may be seen.”

An inclosure at the west end of Ebberston, adjoining the Pickering road, now known by the name of Bloody Close, strongly indicates that a battle has been fought there; but the tradition is, that Alfrid was wounded in a battle within the lines of Scam-ridge, (either Six Dikes, or Ofwy’s Dikes) near this place.

This Cave is now almost filled up by the falling in of the rock ; but several of the old people of the village remember when it would have contained eight or ten persons.

*Corrupt name for Alfrid’s Cave.

The tumulus is about 30 feet square, with sides running parallel to the road, having a large fir-tree growing at each angle, of which the people around say that the four trees represent four knights who were killed and buried there. This, however, can only be conjecture, as the trees are but the same age as those in the “Avenue” which were planted in 1740 by John, Duke of Montague.

In ‘Open-Air Assemblies’ by G Laurence Gomme, in Antiquary (Dec. 1887, p233).

Confusion as to the dating of these barrows occurred with the dedication of the area as a Recreation Ground on Jubilee Day 1897 by the Mayor of Newbury, Robert Long. Two of the mounds in the barrow cemetery have dedication stones on them, one of which is ‘Sacred to those who fell in the Battle of Newbury, Sep 20 1643’. From this local legend grew that the three burial mounds contained the dead of that battle, one for the Roundheads, one for the Royalists and one for the horses, but it is believed that the Civil War dead were buried on Round Hill some 300 yards from the barrow cemetery.

Three generations of my family have called this ‘The Wishing Stone’ but I cannot find any reference to the stone’s proper name, or in fact any reference to the stone at all.

We have always gone up to see the stone if we had any issues which needed to be mulled over. The fabulous views, the bracing air and the ambience of the stone have definitely put a new perspective on many things over the years!

In Tom Weir’s Scotland the famous mountaineer and walker gives the legend in the chapter, on page 49, entitled:

Craigmaddie: The Secrets of the Muir

“The folk tale is that three witches wagered each other as to who could carry the heaviest stone in their aprons. Two managed to put their stones down side by side, but the third one capped their efforts by placing her larger stone on top of the other two in the form of a roof. A variation of the same tale is that it was a trial of strength to see who could throw a stone the farthest, and the biggest landed on top of the other two.”

He also mentions Hugh MacDonalds book “Rambles Around Glasgow” giving his 19th century beliefs.

“By some this gigantic cromlech is supposed to be a Druidical altar, whereon, in a dim prehistoric era, the dark rites of pagan worship may have been celebrated”. On an old map it was shown as a “Druidical Cromlech,” and the cavity between the stones was thought to be for the reception of human remains after blood sacrifices.

Weir goes on to say that he noticed initials and dates at first. The next day he was startled to find 8 carved heads that he didn’t notice the previous day. His good friend Prof. Alcock, of Glasgow University said that even his students had missed the faces. He then continued:

“I think it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that the capstone was placed on top of the two smaller stones by the Celtic people who carved those heads. The vertical lift is not a big one , and it could have been done with wooden rollers”

Weir asked if the people who erected the stones worshipped at it. The professor answered:

“I think we could call them people under Roman influence. The carvings recall the severed heads of Gaul-one of the leading images of the Celtic religion. Notice too, that the heads are confined to the east and north, while the two most arresting of them look out from the north-eastern and south-eastern edges. That would be a remarkable coincidence if the heads were the work of casual visitors.”

To be fair to Weir he gets independent views from Dr. Rolf and Dr. Ingham of Glasgow University. “They were in no doubt that the stones were of a glacial origin, but beyond that they were not prepared to speculate.”

First published in 1980.

Several tumuli at one time existed on Selattyn Hill, and there are still the remains of one at “Orsedd Wen”, which has been opened and which tradition connected with Gwen, the son of Llywarch Hen, who is said to have been slain on the adjacent Morlas, near “Prees Gwyn”.

From a review of the “History of Selattyn Parish” in Archaeologia Cambrensis, Jan. 1898.

But I suspect this is no local tale at all but comes from a highly imaginative article in the same journal, back in 1851. The author seems desperate to prove the site contains the son of Llywarch Hen, using various tiny ambiguous snippets from old manuscripts, but he basicially ransacks the cairn – the poor occupant is not treated with any dignity. It’s a strange combination of attitudes and if I met thedigger/author, W Wynne Foulkes, I think I’d give him a piece of my mind.

Crossing writes in his Guide to Dartmoor that the cairn got its name after a baby was found on Stall Moor and adopted by local people. He was given the name Hillson and after a while moved up onto the hill and built himself a house amongst the stones of the cairn. Here he made a living making clocks...out of what it doesn’t say, but it does say that a Mr Hillson who lived in Cornwood in the mid 1800s had one of these clocks.

It’s not really ‘to do with’ the settlement, but it features silently as the landing spot in a strange tale. This is what allegedly happened:

The story runs that [Robert] Willance, who was a successful lead miner, was out hunting when the moors became enveloped in fog. However, he galloped on towards the cry of hounds in front to the edge of the precipitous cliff. Unable to pull up the horse went over, and falling the 200 odd feet to the valley below was killed outright. The rider escaped with a broken leg, and tradition says he lay where he was for three days, blowing his horn at intervals to call aid. It is hardly likely he would escape the search parties who would certainly scour the district for him, so long, but let that pass. Another local tradition is that he cut open the belly of his horse and put his fractured limb inside to preserve it from the frost. Anyhow it had to be amputated and was buried in Richmond churchyard till such time as its owner should complete the interment. This took place on Feb. 12, 1615, Willance having in the meantime become an alderman of his native town and having had three stones erected at the place where his horse took its fatal jump. Each stone was placed twenty-four feet apart, and two of them were inscribed: “1606: Glory be to our merciful God, who miraculously preserved me from the danger so great.”

The whole thing sounds very fishy to me, including the stoney bit – why was the horse leaping for one thing? But I shouldn’t question it as the locals love it – they erected another stone there in 2006.
The story above is courtesy of J Fairfax-Blakeborough, in Notes and Queries for Sept. 26th, 1925.

A CROMLECH.--Passing lately through the village of Stoke-Bishop, a little beyond the western side of Durdham Down, I observed in an angle of a field immediately facing the road to Westbury a remarkably fine cromlech. The cap-stone, which appears to weigh about a couple of tons, rests against the last remaining support. Two former “supports” are lying prostrate by the side of it, as well as a third stone, which stood probably at the head of the monument, to indicate the burial-place of a chieftain.

Being a stranger in the neighbourhood, I inquired of the first passenger whom I met ( a labourer) what name the stone in question bore, and what was known of it. He replied, that it had not stood very long in its present position; that an old man in the village had assured him it had been brought into the field under very mysterious circumstances; in short, that it had been found there one morning! This is a repetition of an old-wives’ tale, as common in the East as in the West.

A second labourer, to whom I appealed for information upon the subject, said that nothing whatever was known about the stone; that some thought it very ancient indeed, and others that it was quite modern...

From ‘Notes and Queries,’ Dec 14th, 1867.

Also in Mr Britton’s 1801 ‘Beauties of Wilshire’ it’s mentioned that Alfred’s Tower “was erected [in 1772) by Mr. Henry Hoare, to commemorate a signal victory which Alfred obtained over the Danes near this spot... Tradition (which has commonly some foundation for its stories) says that there was so much blood shed in the above-mentioned battle, that the water was stained therewith three leagues below Christ-church.”

And to link the King Alfred and the beacon stories together (see misc. post), the website devoted to the tower quotes Harper’s Weekly from 1901: “Local tradition says that on Stourton hill... the beacon was lighted that summoned the men of three counties to Alfred’s standard.”

The site also suggests that the boundaries of those three counties (Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset) once met up here. Probably.

This page on the Tha Engliscan Gesithas site is an interesting argument for the hills here being the ‘Woden’s Hlaew’ mentioned in Anglo Saxon documents – and thus once sacred to Woden.

Maybe it could be that people were aware of the earthworks up here and just put them down to Woden (in a kind of ‘Grim’s Ditch’ sort of way).

That’s if there’s truly any link at all of course...

The Somerset HER website describes this as possibly the biggest hillfort in the country! covering the whole top of the hill. And there are finds from Mesolithic to R*man times. So you’d think there’d be room for a few ghosts.

Hamdon Hill is, as some might say, ‘seriously haunted’, with descriptions of ‘bizarre shapes outlined by light’ to those of Roman soldiers walking the hilly ramparts.

... G F Munford [one time editor of the Western Gazette] was an avid collector of supernatural tales ... one of his favourites concerned a local witch whose spirit is still said to haunt the district.

Another startling story tells of ... David G., a retired postal worker [who] was visiting friends in the nearby hamlet of Hamdon Hill. It was a humid afternoon in the summer of 1957 and his first excursion to Somerset. He was driving along the boundary of the hill ...

“There wasn’t another car in sight, and although it was broad daylight I couldn’t help feel that something wasn’t right. I was also feeling tired, but not sleepy. There were lots of people walking towards me. Bit of a surprise. I stopped and turned off the engine. The shock of it was that these people were dressed in armoured uniforms. They looked the spitting image of Roman soldiers, bit like the ones I had seen in ‘The Robe’, which was showing that year in town [at the cinema]. I really thought a film was being shot, until they just kept coming on and walked right through the car and me. Everything turned very cold. Believe me, it took a long time to get started. I arrived to my friends safe and sound. Never said a word, until you brought up the subject of ghosts.”

Mr G. allegedly asked his friend not to share the story with anyone until after his death (which the book says was the year after his experience).
From ‘Haunted Somerset’ by John Garland (2007).

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I so want the nearby knoll of ‘St Michael’s Hill’ (known as Lodegarsburgh in Saxon times) to have prehistoric significance. But if there ever were traces they’ve been destroyed by the overlaying layers of Norman castle. It’s got interesting (and madly complicated) stoney folklore, according to Alan Holt’s ‘Folklore of Somerset’ (1992). A blacksmith dreamed that Jesus told him to dig on the top of the hill. He had to dream it three times before he was convinced. In the hole he found a ‘great stone which miraculously split in two, and in the cleft they saw a great crucifix of glistening black flint. Beneath it was a smaller one, an old bell and an old book.’ Then the Dane Tofig stuck the cross on the back of a cart, drawn by 12 red oxen. The oxen didn’t want to go anywhere except Waltham, where Tofig built his Abbey. He displayed the crucifix and when King Harold turned up it bowed to him.

Giant stones? Flint? Blacksmiths? Red oxen? Crucifixes? Mental.

From John Garland’s ‘Haunted Somerset’ (2007):

The pretty little hillside village of Stogumber boasts one of the hardest to find and reach promontory fortresses, Curdon Camp, carpeted with undergrowth and thick foliage. It is in Curdon Copse, which locals say is haunted by ‘queer looking pixies’, and will-o-the-wisps have been witnessed hovering over its brook.

The Somerset HER suggests this may be an Iron Age hill-slope enclosure, rather than a full-blown hillfort. The banks have been quarried but there may still be something to see on the west and south sides. It’s a scheduled monument so you would hope the destruction is at an end.

Curiously, directly on the other side of the Donniford Stream.. and the electricity pylons.. and the railway.. was allegedly another camp, called ‘Turks Castle Camp’. Although there don’t seem to be any traces (the railway was put straight through it) it still gets a mention on the OS map, while Curdon Camp languishes in obscurity.

John Garland says (in his 2007 ‘Haunted Somerset’):

Hill climbers and ramblers often report strange and ‘distant voices’ and on occasions feel as if ‘being watched’ by unseen eyes in and around Porlock’s Berry Castle, situated on a lower ride of one of Exmoor’s combes, acclaimed for its scenic beauty.

The Somerset HER says that this site is likely to be an Iron Age / Romano-British era hillslope enclosure. It might never have been finished (you know how these DIY projects drag on). Another small enclosure exists up the slope to the south west. The record suggests the land is open access here.

It is believed that there is an invisible door in Cadbury Hill, Nailsea. ... whoever finds this door and enters will encounter the ghosts of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

The door recalls that at Alderley Edge. But I do hope it’s the real Arthur and his knights, and not just ghosts. From the 2007 ‘Haunted Somerset’ by John Garland.

Just beyond Cannington... a lane reaches out to a desolate field encircling a quarry. It is called the Warren. Archaeological excavations may have answered the talk about ‘several misty figures’ and the area’s sometimes sombre mood. Not only were a number of skeletons unearthed, but experts believe it is the site of a huge battle because several of the skeletons showed signs of injury.

Cannington Park ... [spurs] forth a pack of demon hounds on misty mornings. Cynwit’s Castle ... is said to be very haunted by scary faeries and a demonic wild hunt. ... [The] Park’s headless horsemen of ‘The Devil’s Hunting Ground’ have given the Park’s wilderness a grim reputation. It has also given good incentive for the locally superstitious to uphold the custom of either carrying a small cross of aspen wood, wear blue, or simply avoid the place after sunset...

Seemingly a bit geographically confused? but you hope the stories really are still doing the rounds. From ‘Haunted Somerset’ by John Garland (2007).