There is St.Anne’s well here (a first century saint), who is seen as the mother of the virgin mary, which may not be of interest to those on this site. But St.Anne is seen as replacing Anu – the earth mother of celtic paganism, and as church, stones and tumuli are so close together, its interesting that paganism should once more rear its head next to a church. 9 wells here though only 4 can still be seen.
Breverton – Book of Welsh Saints
Knockgraffon.--Another noted Munster palace was Cnoc-Rafonn, now called Knockgraffon, three miles north of Caher in Tipperary, where the great mound, 60 or 70 feet high, still remains, with the ruins of an English castle beside it. Here resided, in the third century, Fiacha Muillethan [Feeha-Mullehan], king of Munster, who, when the great King Cormac mac Art invaded Munster in an attempt to levy tribute, defeated him at Knocklong and routed his army: an event which forms the subject of the historical tale called “The Siege of Knocklong.”
The fort is now as noted for fairies as it was in times of old for royalty: and one of the best known modern fairy stories in connexion with it will be found in Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends of Ireland” namely, “The Legend of Knockgrafton.” This Irish legend has been turned into English verse, but with much interpolation, by Thomas Parnell in his ballad, “A Fairy Tale.”
from
libraryireland.com/[...]yAncientIreland/III-XVI-17.php
Secret Sights book has this to say
“renowned as a place of otherworldly music. It was widly reputed in the 19th Century to be a place where ceolsidhe, the music of enchantment, could be heard.”
“it has an ancient well, where Fiacha had placed silver cups for anyone wishing to drink, to offer hospitality and show his rule of law.
7th century poem about it
“This great rath on which I stand
Wherein is a little well with a bright silver drinking cup
Sweet was the voice of the wood of blackbirds
Round this rath of Fiacha, son of Moinche”
(Joyce, 1913)
link to a pic of it.
The little village just below Seefin is actually Glenosheen. It is said to come from Gleann Oisin, meaning the Glen of Oisin and this according to legend is where Oisin fell off his horse after returning from Tir na nOg.
ballyhoura.com/attractheritageframe2.htm
Here on the summit of Ardpatrick are the remains of an Early Christian monastery. According to tradition, St. Patrick founded a monastery here in the 5th century, however modern scholars doubt if the saint ever came as far south as Munster. The attribution may derive from Ardpatrick coming within the sphere of influence of Armagh where Patrick was the patron saint.
Around the top of the hill on the northern side, outside the graveyard wall are a series of low earthern banks which may be the remains of this monastery – “an almost unique survival of the ancient agricultural endeavours of the monks”. The field patterns are clearly visible from the Kilmallock road in the sunlight.
These early monasteries were not laid out according to a standardised plan, but grew organically with simple huts for the monks clustered around a central church. Enclosing this was an earthern bank or stone wall, known as the vallum, which defined the area where the ecclesiastical rather than the secular law held sway. Consequently criminals or outlaws on the run, often sought sanctuary in these monasteries.
The Holy Well lies outside the present graveyard wall, and is possibly the oldest feature of the site. The worship of water was popular amongst the ancient Celts; according to local tradition Ardpatrick was a Druidical centre. With the coming of Patrick many of these pagan sites were converted to Christian use. Water from this well is said to cure lameness, rickets and rheumatism.
The present church ruin is medieval in date but probably stands on the site of a series of earlier churches which were built of wood ‘according to the Irish fashion’. The surrounding graveyard is still in use.
Important Irish monasteries were sometimes marked by a tall round stone-built tower. The round tower here is now reduced to a stump; it was struck by lightening during a storm in 1824. The base of the tower was excavated in the 19th century and parts of two bells were found.
Another important association of Ardpatrick is with the ancient roadway known as the Rian Bo Phadraig. The name derives from the legend of St. Patrick’s Cow; this supernatural beast made the roadway by dragging its horn across the countryside.
In ancient tale, Ardpatrick is called Tulach na Feinne, the Hill of Fianna, the Fianna being the famous band of mythological warriors whose leader was Fionn Mac Cumhaill.
The site is signposted (it says Early Christian Monastic Site) from outside the Greenwood Inn, Ardpatrick There is a trail leading up the hill (225m high) to the site. Carparking is available in Ardpatrick.
ballyhoura.com/attractheritageframe2.htm
Lady’s Well and Tobar Righ an Domhnaigh
Some holy wells have a very long tradition of being venerated, possibly evolving from the pre-Christian tradition of worshipping water sources as deities. Holy wells were usually associated with a particular saint and offered cures for a range of aliments. On the feast day of the saint a pattern was held. The ritual of obtaining a cure or favour involved making the rounds of the well, saying certain prayers and leaving a charm or offering at the well or tying a ribbon or rag onto an adjacent tree of overhanging bush. This site is unusual as there are two wells in close proximity. The tree covered well is known as Our Lady’s well which is still venerated.
Tobar Ri and Domhnaigh or the ‘King of Sunday’s Well” is a water logged souterrain. Souterrains are under ground chambers which were built in the early Christian period. They are thought to be places of refuge or food storage and are often associated with ring-forts (early Christian farmsteads). There are a number of man made earthworks in the field. The existence of the holy well, the soutterain and the earthworks in the field suggest there was a settlement here in the Early Christian period.
Situated 1 mile from Kilfinane. The well is accessible across a field which is signposted at the style.
Taken from
ballyhoura.com/attractheritageframe2.htm
Cathair Murthuile Ringfort
Ringforts were farmsteads built in the Early Christian period (c. 500-1000 AD). They were agricultural centres, but also had a strong focus on craft. This fort location, on a hilltop, is an unusual location for a ringfort. The scale of the enclosing elements, and its location would indicate that this was a high status fort which was likely to have been more than a residential complex and may have some association with Ardpatrick which is visible from here on a hill top to the south. It has been suggested that this is the site of the old ‘Teamhair Luachra’ referred to in early Irish literature.
At 700 paces from the Pilgrims’ Way we (Mr. Payne and Mr. A. A. Arnold, F.S.A., August, 1889) came on the fine but little-known cromlech called by the local people “Coldrum Stones and Druid Temple.” [..]
About forty years ago, and when this property belonged to a Mr. Whitaker, and when the area within the dolmen was divided into two chambers by the medial stones, some unauthorized persons, simply to test the tradition of an underground passage, an evergreen idea, betwenn the dolmen and Trosly [ie Trottiscliffe] church, half a mile south-west of Coldrum, dug a cave, which my informant saw, at the entrance to the dolmen, now indicated by flint concrete. This falling in of the cave, too, has been the cause of most serious disturbances within the dolmen. The Vicar of Trosly here intervened and stopped this, fearing the stones might fall.
Coldrum Monument and Exploration 1910.
F. J. Bennett
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 43, (Jan. – Jun., 1913), pp. 76-85
That part of the Upper Icknield Way which, on the Ordnance Map, is called Ickleton Way, leads, “they say,” to the world’s end.
A gentleman once travelled along this road till he came to the fiery mountains. He turned back long before he reached them, for the smoke and smell nearly suffocated him. he lived near Watlington, but the woman who told me this had forgotton his name, though she had heard many speak of him. He died before she came into this part.The road is also called Akney Way and the Drove Road, on account of the number of sheep driven along it at fair time. It is said to go all round the world, so that if you keep along it and travel on you will come back to the place you started from. It is also said to go from sea to sea.
A drover who had been “everywhere,” Bucks., Oxfordshire, Herts., all over Wales, had always found the Akney Way wherever he had been. (Heard in 1891.)
In April, 1892, I walked along the Icknield Way from Crowmarsh, in Oxfordshire, to Dunstable, in Bedfordshire (a distance of 35 miles). I was unable to gain any further information about the legend previously mentioned, but, all along my route, heard that the road went all round the world, or that it went all through the island, that it went from sea to sea, that it went ” from sea-port to sea-port.”
Well regardless of the ‘Truth’ (see misc.), it was obviously a long distance route in the tales of the people living by it, so I don’t know what that means.
From
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170
This seems to support Stubob’s story -
You mention, in your History of Leicestershire, a hill called Robin o’ Tiptoe, in the parish of Tilton. Upon the summit is a fortification, of an oblong square, which I take to be Danish, containing about an acre. There is one tree within the camp, in a state of great decay; probably not less than a thousand years old: from this, I apprehend, the hill took its name. I purchased the hill, with other contiguous lands, for 11,500l.
From a letter of 1813 by W. Hutton, reproduced in ‘Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century’ v9, 1815.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=_DwUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA105
You can zoom right in with the Google satellite images.. but sadly there only seem to be cows and no tree. But you can see the enclosure very well.
I imagine the Corby of the name is really a ‘Corbie’? – that is, as the OED says, a raven (or maybe a carrion crow).
That’s a nice image – the Corbies’ Crags.
But they’re not always ‘nice’ of course, as in this traditional Scottish ballad, The Twa Corbies, in which they daydream about picking out and eating the eyes of a dead knight:
books.google.co.uk/books?id=_g4JAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA283&lpg=RA1-PA283
Careful on those crags then.
The strange name of Ephraim’s Pinch is attached to a spot a little south east of the circle and is the result of a wager many years ago when a man named Ephraim bet that he could carry a sack of corn from Widecombe to Postbridge without putting it down en route, a distance of some 5 miles. It was at the nearby bend in the road that he finally felt the ‘pinch’ of his heavy load on his back and had to drop the sack.
Almondsbury is said to have derived its name from being the burying-place of Alemond, a Saxon Prince, and father of King Egbert; but more probably from a burg, or fortification, constructed by him, and the remains of which are yet visible on an eminence to the eastward of the Church. The traces of a Camp are also discoverable round the brow of Knowle Hill, within the area of which is the Manor-House [..].
From ‘The Beauties of England and Wales’ v5 (1810).
Witt’s 1880s Handbook calls it ‘Knole Park Camp’ :
This stands on a steep hill in the parish of Almondsbuary, six miles north of Bristol. Though conforming to the shape of the ground, the camp was nearly oval. The defences consisted of a mound and two ditches, but these have been mostly destroyed by buildings, a large house having sprung up within the area of the ancient camp. There seems to have been an entrance at the north-east end, but nothing very definite can now be said on the subject. The views from this position are very fine, and embrace both shores of the Severn and the district of the Silures.
The fort doesn’t seem to be a scheduled monument? Maybe it’s just been ruined too far.
I wonder if Ike’s still about. I’d love to know how he knows about this site and its name.. I can’t see the name on the maps. But anyway. Once there must have been a barrow round here and maybe this is it.
In a Tumulus at Over, in this parish [Almondsbury], opened in the year 1650, was found a human skeleton, in a sitting posture, which report affirms to have exceeded the common stature by three feet. No well-authenticated account of the discoveries made on the opening of this sepulchre, appears to have been written.
Doesn’t seem unreasonable that a 8ft+ man would have been a king, fair enough.
From v5 of ‘The Beauties of England and Wales’, 1810.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=gtsuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA728
On a map from 1880 I see ‘site of tumulus’ is marked at 58828178. So maybe that’s the one referred to above, rather than Ike’s mound?
The name “Thunderbolt” was also given in Scotland to stone axes until within recent years. A finely formed axe of aphanite found in Berwickshire, and presented to the Museum in 1876, was obtained about twenty years before from a blacksmith in whose smithy it had long lain. It was known in the district as “the thunderbolt,” and had probably been preserved in the belief that it had fallen from the sky.
In Shetland stone axes were said to protect from thunder the houses inwhich they were preserved. One found at Tingwall was acquired from an old woman in Scalloway, who believed it to be a “thunderbolt,” and “of efficacy in averting evil from the dwelling in which it was kept;” while another, believed to have “fallen from the skies during a thunderstorm,” was preserved in the belief that “it brought good luck to the house.”
In the North-East of Scotland they “were coveted as the sure bringers of success, provided they were not allowed to fall to the ground.”
In the British Museum there is a very fine axe of polished green quartz, mounted in silver, which is stated to have been sewed to a belt which was worn round the waist by a Scottish officer as a cure for kidney disease.
The late Sir Daniel Wilson mentions an interesting tradition regarding the large perforated stone hammers, which he says were popularly known in Scotland almost till the close of last century as “Purgatory Hammers,” for the dead to knock with at the gates of Purgatory.
From ‘Scottish Charms and Amulets’ by Geo. F. Black. (In v27 of PSAS -1893, p433).
You can check out his sources in the footnotes at
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_027/27_433_526.pdf
Taken from info board at The City of Shrone
‘On our right, we were much struck with the singular appearance of the two hills, called The Paps. They are smoothly formed to the fairest proportion, imitating the outline of a woman’s bosom‘
Diary of Traveller on Butter Road in 1797 from visit to Killarney Lakes
The Paps are named after Anu, prinicipal Goddess of pre-Christian Ireland and mother Goddess of the Tuatha De Danann, a legendary group of divine invaders who ruled Ireland until their final defeat at the hands of the Milesians. The Goddess Anu brought prosperity to Munster. Anu or Danu who appear to be one in the same divinity, was originally a European Goddess, her name being commerorated most famously in the River Danube. Anu is also identified with the Mor Riogach, a war fury or Goddess whose name means great queen, together with Badbh and Macha, she was one of the triad of War Goddesses known as the Morrigna, manifesting themselves as ravens. Immediately to the North East of the higher Pap is an area called Gleannfreagham “The Glen of the Crows” and a small lake of the same name. Such names in proximity with the mountains called after Anu shows how mythology lives on in place names. Ravens still inhabit this Glen and in suitable weather conditions can be seen gliding on the thermals above the cairns on the summits of the Paps.
The Paps’ cairns appear to be part of a deliberately placed series which overlook the plains of the southwest. The cairn on the eastern peak is a substantial monument, measuring a height of 4 metres and a diameter of 18m-20metres. The entrances of both cairns are aligned westwards, towards the setting sun. It is thought that the cairns contain Neolithic burial chambers. They are the subject of ongoing study and excavations to confirm such theories.
Taken from the 2 information boards in the vicinity of the site.
Known locally as The City, an amusing name for such a rural site. However “City” is a modern translation of ‘Cathair’ the Irish word that meant “Stone Fort of Castle” eg Cathair na Steige – Staighe Fort in south west Kerry – as there were no “cities” in Ireland at that time. Ongoing site excavations are attempting to establish the relationship between this ancient site and the cairn-crowned Paps Mountains. They are also investigation, the possibility that The City may have evolved from a sacred Neolithic monument.
The site is known locally as Cathair Craobh Dearg, meaning Fort of the Red Claw, which is thought to refer to one of the triad of war goddesses, who manifested herself as a raven in battle. Despite its pagan origins the name was bestowed upon one of the area’s three sister saints (St. Craobh Dearg, St. Laitiaran, St. Gobnait), revered from Early Christain times. The site’s holy well which was previously used in pagan spirituality is now a source of Christian Holy Water.
One of the western worlds oldest centres of continued worship and celebration, The City is symbolic of Ireland’s transition from paganism to Christianity. May Day scenes at The City have included pagan rituals, trading, the herding of my kin and other traditional breeds of cow (such as the Driomnionn) for healing at the site and prayer recitals whilst doing ‘the rounds’ which remain an annual occurrence here.
This cashel, caher or stone fort is known locally as ‘The City’. In pre-Christain ritual, this site was associated with The Paps which represent Anu, the Mother Goddess. The cairns on the summits of The Paps are likely to date to either the Neolithic or Bronze Age (Connolly & Coyne 2002). The term ‘Crobh Dearg’ (“red claw”) suggests a triad of war goddesses who manifested themselves as ravens or crows.
In Celtic spirituality, The City was a Penitential Station. John O’Donovan (1841) reported that the peasantry performed stations (or rounds) there and drove their cattle to drink from the holy well in the west side of the site. In his book, “In the Shadow of the Paps” (2001), Dan Cronin gives details of the traditional manner of “paying the rounds”.
For much of the 20th century Christian piety and festive frolics attracted crowds on May Day. Traders came from as far away as Cork City.
In recent decades people came during May to pray the Rosary as they walk clockwise inside and outside the cashel wall.
So I returned [from Lowther Hall] 4 mile back to Peroth ... and came by a round green spott of a large circumfference which they keep cut round with a banke round it like a bench; its story is that it was the table a great Giant 6 yards tall used to dine at and there entertained another of nine yards tall which he afterwards killed; there is the length in the Church yard how farre he could leape a great many yards; ...
Travel book, manuscript record of Journeys through England including parts of the Lake District, by Celia Fiennes, 1698.
Taken from the very excellent website
Guides to the Lakes
geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/simpson/smp3fram.htm
There are several legends relating to this stone. the best-known is that the stone is effectively a memorial to a young man names Morris who was in love with the maid of Pontfaen, whom he could not marry because of her father’s opposition. there was another suitor, and according to the tale the two suitors fought a duel on the highest point of the road between Pontfaen and Newport. Morris was killed in the duel, after which of course the poor girl also died -- of a broken heart.
The other legend is that the robber called Morris (who lived in a cave on the mountain and was always accompanied by a small white dog) was caught and executed here.
According to tradition, the small boys of newport parish are always beaten here (very gently) during the annual “beating of the bounds” ceremony. This is supposed to ensure that they do not forget where the parish boundary is located.
This site has a mass of folklore attached to it. I’ve tried to capture the “magic” of the mountain in the six novels of the Angel Mountain Saga (published 2001-2007) in which the heroine, Martha Morgan, has frequent encounters with the supernatural and has a very special relationship with the mountain. The mountain is, in effect, a character in the story.
More info:
The name of the barrow is thought to be a corruption of “colt-pixie”. These creatures were supposed to lure young ponies to their deaths in the water logged marshy parts of the heath. Another explanation is that the creatures were part horse and called other horses into the barrow.
The legend of Carnac which explains these avenues of monoliths bears a resemblance to the Cornish story of ‘the Hurlers,’ who were turned into stone for playing at hurling on the Lord’s Day, or to that other English example from Cumberland of ‘Long Meg’ and her daughters.
St Cornely, we are told, pursued by an army of pagans, fled toward the sea. Finding no boat at hand, and on the point of being taken, he transformed his pursuers into stones, the present monoliths.
The Saint had made his flight to the cost in a bullock-cart, and perhaps for this reason he is now regarded as the patron saint of cattle.
From ‘Legends and Romances of Brittany’ by Lewis Spence (1917?), which you can read on the Sacred Texts Archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/lrb/index.htm
After nearly an hour’s walking, we reached the village of Crehen, on the other side of which the character of the river and of its banks changes. Near the village my guide pointed out to me a tumulus, evidently the work of man.
He said that “les paysans” told a great many strange tales about it; that human bones had been found by digging in it; and that, in stormy nights, a female figure, dressed in white, came forth from it, and went down to the river to wash her clothes, making the whole valley resound with the strokes of her beater upon the linen.
He told me all this with a sneer of supreme contempt for the good rustics who believed thes old-world tales; for my friend, the letter-carrier, had served in the army, and seen the world, even to the extent of having been quartered in Paris for three months.
So he had returned to his native village an educated man, and an “esprit fort,” far too wise to “believe any thing of which he did not know the why and the how.” Thus, with the same self-sufficient educated ignorance, which, in minds too suddenly emancipated from the trammels of long-reverenced ideas, produces similar results in more important matters, he had rejected the truth together with the fable.
For true enough it is, as I afterwards ascertained, that bones to a considerable amount had been found in the tumulus in question, which, in all probability, had been a Celtic place of sepulture.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=XqIKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA227
From ‘A Summer in Brittany’ by T A Trollope (1840).
As this book was going to press, the tumulus which bore the now demolished Prince’s Tower in Jersey, and which is known as “La Hougue Bie,” was opened by the Societe Jersiaise, under the supervision of my friend Mr. E. T. Nicolle.
The legend concerning it was that it was once the lair of a devastating dragon. A gallant knight, the Seigneur of Hambie, crossed from Normandy to slay it. He succeeded after a desperate fight, but was murdered by his treacherous squire. The latter returned to the Seigneur’s beautiful wife, and married her on the strength of his lying statement that he was solemnly enjoined to do so by his master, whom, he said, the dragon had killed. The false squire was later unmasked and executed.
The tumulus, which is forty feet high and one hundred and eighty feet in diameter, has been found to contain a covered way, four feet high and five feet wide, leading to a central chamber seven feet high, thirty feet long, and twelve feet borad, the length of the whole structure being about seventy feet.
Further particulars as to this magnificent discovery are not yet forthcoming, but it is evidently a sepulchral chamber, which, judging by the numberous other megalithic remains in Jersey, is of neolithic age. It is exactly the kind of relic of an earlier race which would give rise to the legends which form the nuclei of so many of our fairy-tales.
From ‘The Folklore of Fairytales’ by MacLeod Yearsley (1924?), p 235.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=au0RPGI2K8QC&pg=PA235
About the year 900 [..], Ethelfleda built a town called Eddisbury, in the very heart or “chamber” of the forest, which soon became populous and famous for the happy life led by its inhabitants. Though all vestige of this once happy town has now disappeared, yet its name remains, and its site in the chamber of the forest can still be pointed out.
And certainly a finer site the Lady Ethelfleda could not have chosen. It was placed on a gentle rising ground in the centre of the forest, overlooking finely wooded vales and eminences on every side. A little brook rippled past through a small valley, and the old Roman road wound its way round the eminence on which the town was built.
This antique Saxon lady seems to have had a strange passion for building, as we are told she not only built this town, but that she also built fortresses at Bramsbury, Bridgenorth, Tamworth and Stafford, and most probably would have built many more had she not died at Tamworth in 922.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=sN0wjxyotFwC&pg=PA214
From ‘English Forests and Forest Trees’ (1853). Information about Ethelfleda largely comes from a short Anglo Saxon document called the ‘Mercian Register’ which covers the years 902-24.
La glissade appears rarely to have been practised on true megaliths, for the reason that they rarely present the inclination necessary to its accomplishment. It is, however, said at Loc- mariaker, in the Morbihan, that formerly every young girl who wished to marry within the year, on the night of the first of May got on the large menhir, turned up her skirts and let herself slide from top to bottom. The menhir mentioned was the largest one known; but it is now broken in four pieces which lie on the ground; according to most authors it was still standing at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This custom, which could not be followed when the stone stood vertical, twelve meters in height, is, then, relatively modern, yet it is possible that the young girls of the locality have come to follow, on the pieces, an ancient custom which was formerly held on some natural stone in the neighborhood.
The Worship of Stones in France
Paul Sébillot and Joseph D. McGuire
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jan. – Mar., 1902), pp. 76-107