Latest Folklore

... a quotation from Nichols’s “Leicestershire” that [says..] ” near the same place is a stone, which confirms the generally-received opinion of naturalists concerning the growth of these bodies; for, notwithstanding great pains have been taken by a late proprietor of the land to keep it below the surface, it defeats his efforts, and rises gradually..”

Nichols published his books 1795-1812, but this is a quote I found on p372 in ‘On the ancient British, Roman, and Saxon antiquities of Worcestershire’ by J Allies (1852), on Google Books.

This short north-west facing piece of land has a nice bit of folklore to go with it. Robert the Bruce was watching this shore from Arran, waiting for the signal that told him it was a good moment to return to the mainland and oust the English. Unfortunately it was all a bit of a mistake and he ended up retreating to the mountains (though he did take the castle at Turnberry later).

It is still generally reported, and religiously believed by many, that this [beacon] fire was really the work of a supernatural power, unassisted by the hand of any mortal being; and it is said, that for several centuries the flame rose yearly at the same hour, of the same night of the year, on which the king first saw it from the turrets of Brodick Castle, while some go even so far as to say, that if the exact time were known, the fire would still be seen. That this superstition is very ancient, is evident from the place where the fire is said to have appeared being called Bogle’s Brae (the ghost’s hill side,) beyond the remembrance of man. In support of this curious belief, it is said that the practice of burning heath for the improvement of land was then unknown, a spunkie (jack o’lantern) could not have been seen across the Firth of Clyde between Ayrshire and Arran, and that the messenger was Bruce’s kinsman, and never suspected of treachery.

All very confusing. From a note to Scott’s “Lord of the Isles” (canto 5), 1815.

Mr Charles Long communicated a Notice of the investigation of a British tumulus in Berkshire, directed by Mr Henry Long and himself some years since, and he produced a portion of a diminutive vase, found with the interent, and of the class termed by Sir Richard C Hoare, “incense cups.”

.. The barrow was situated near Stanmore Farm, at Beedon.. The common people gave the name of Borough, or Burrow, Hill to it, and they had a vague tradition of a man called Burrow who was there interred in a coffin of precious metal..

.. It was with considerable difficulty that Mr Long could prevail upon the tenant-farmer to give consent; his wife, moreover, had dreamed of treasure concealed on the east side, “near a white spot.” The promise, that all valuables discovered should be rendered up to them, at length secured their permission.

p67 in ‘The Archaeological Journal’ v7, 1850.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=UTQGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA66

A British fortress on Barra-hill in Aberdeenshire.. deserves notice. It is built in an elliptical form; and the ramparts were partly composed of stones, having a large ditch that occupies the summit of the hill, which as it is about two hundred feet above the vale, overlooks the low ground between it and the mountain of Benachie. It was surrounded by three lines of circumvallation. Facing the west the hill rises very steeply; and the middle line is interrupted by rocks; while the only access to the fort is on the eastern side where the ascent is easy; and at this part the entry to the fort is perfectly obvious.

This Caledonian hill-fort is now called by the tradition of the country, Cummin’s Camp, from the defeat which the Earl of Buchan there sustained, when attacked by the gallant Bruce.

From ‘A History of the Highlands and of the Highland Clans’ by James Browne v1 (1849) – which you may read on Google Books.

This might not be the right site. If it’s not the right site, then I think it must have been pretty close by (there are pits everywhere and perhaps it got swallowed up).

“In a field,” says Surtees, “on the right-hand side of the road from Eppleton to Hetton, and only one field from Houghton-lane, is a remarkable tumulus, consisting entirely of field-stones gathered together. At the top there is a small oblong hollow, called the Fairies’ Cradle: on this little green mound, which has always been sacred from the plough, village-superstition believes the fairies to have led their moonlight circles, and whistled their roundelays to the wind.
The subterraneous palaces of the fairy sovereign are frequently supposed, both in England and Scotland, to exist under these regular green hillocks:

‘Up spoke the moody fairy king,
Who wons beneath the hill;
Like wind in the porch of a ruin’d church,
His voice was loud and shrill.‘

But the Hetton fairies, of whom, however, there is no living evidence, spoke in a voice remarkably small and exile.”

Quoted on p369 of ‘An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive View of the County Palatine of Durham’ (1834).

This relates to many of the monuments in the area:

There are evident marks of a battle’s being fought in this parish. It is said to have been between the people of Inverness and the McDonalds, and to have happened in the 13th or 14th century. The plain on which this battle was fought, is to this day called Blair-na-coi; a name given it from this particular circumstance, that as one of the contending parties was giving way and flying, a tenant and his son who were ploughing on that field, had taken off the yokes with which the oxen were fastened together, rallied the routed troops, and with them recommenced the action and carried the day.

It would appear the battle was bloody, and desperately fought, from the vast number of cairns of stones that are still to be seen there, covering the dead. These the people still hold so sacred, that though the place was in tillage when the battle was fought, the marks of the ridges being still visible there, and though a great deal of the adjoining moor is now cultivated, not one of these cairns has ever een touched.

Another circumstance that strengthens this opinion is, that the heights and adjacent places go by the name of Druim-na-deor, “the height or the Hill of Tears.” To the E. of where the battle was fought, are to be seen the remains of a Druidical temple, called James’s Temple; and to the W. of the filed of battle, are to be seen the traces of a camp, and a similar one to it on the S. on the hill of Kessock, the highest hill in this parish, where there is also a pretty large cairn of stones, called Cairn-glas.

..

From the Statistical Account, v12, 1794.

A seer declared from this seat that Inverness would be safe as long as they had this stone, which survived an assault on the town by Donald of the Isles. After Bannockburn a Highlander was hanged from an apple tree in the neighbourhood. Latterly women coming up with river water would rest their stoops on it.

Mr. D. Byrne sent a plan and description of an exceedingly curious Cromleac, situate on the top of Coolrus hill, in the parish of Ballyadams, Queen’s County [...] At about one hundred and twenty feet radius from the Cromleac, formerly stood a circle of large upright flag-stones, now removed. [..]

The name by which this remain of antiquity is known at present amongst the peasantry is the ”Ass’s Manger“, evidently a modern appellation. -- There is a strange and highly interesting belief regarding this remain of antiquity amongst the people. They assert that, frequently, even on an afternoon while it is light, funerals are seen passing the Cromleac; the procession appears for the first time a few perches below the monument, as far as the spot where the cists, already alluded to, have been found, it invariably disappears. Mr Byrne stated that he had made much inquiry about this strange matter, and had been at all times assured by the peasantry of its perfect truth!

From p132 of v1 (1849) of the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.
You can read it here at Google Books.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=zHk9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA132

A confusing tangled tale revolves around a bell here. Offa was supposed to have lived in Sutton Walls, or alternatively down in Marden below. As mentioned, there is a church on the spot where Offa murdered St. Ethelbert, and a few yards away, a pond. When the pond was being cleaned out, a bell was found, eighteen feet below the level of the adjacent ground.

The Dean of Hereford said (in the 1840s) that the bell “was formed of a sheet of mixed metal, which had been hammered into shape: it is four-sided.. riveted together on each side..” The Herefordshire SMR says it was of iron and bronze, and calls it ‘Celtic’, but it is surely newer – and where is it now?

He also said, “There is a tradition at Marden among the common people that there lies in the river Lugg, near the church, a large silver bell, which will never be taken out until two white oxen are attached to it, to draw it from the river.”
and elsewhere (eg at the Hereford Times ) there’s talk of a mermaid – the oxen had a go pulling the bell out, but the mermaid dragged it back.

It seems like one of those chicken-and-egg situations (like with the Mold cape) where you can’t tell how much story there really was before the discovery.

See the Archaeological Journal for 1848 (v5) p330
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XZ08AAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA330

The name Slievenamuck (Mountain of the Pigs) is derived from the legendary slaying of a sow by Fionn Mac Cumhaill. The sow, called Beo, had devastated much of Munster. Fionn had a pair of spears forged locally and killed the sow. He then took the sow’s head as a bridal gift to Cruithne the smith’s daughter. On the summit of the Ridge are two Megalithic Tombs, styled “Dermot and Grainne’s Beds”. The legendary pair are said to have rested here in their flight from the angry Fionn.

Taken from Aherlow House Hotel Website

A bit more from John Ryan:

CLOCH-A’-PHOILL, (literally the hole stone, in Irish.)
-- Two miles south of Tullow, in the parish of Aghade, is a huge piece of granite of singular appearance. It is about twelve feet in height and four in breadth, having an aperture through near the top.

There is a tradition, that a son of one of the Irish kings was chained to this stone; but that he contrived to break his chain and excape. There are marks left, caused by the friction of the iron on the stone. We would at once conclude that it was a bull, or some other animal that was chained here, and not a human being; were not the tradition confirmed by written history, the verity of which we are not disposed to controvert.*

The stone is now thrown from its perpendicular, and it was a practice with the peasantry to pass ill-thriven infants through the aperture in order to improve their constitution. Great numbers formerly indulged in this superstitious folly, but for the last twenty years the practice has been discontinued. My informant on this occasion was a woman who had herself passed one of her infants through the aperture of this singular stone. She informed me, that some of the country people talked of having it cut up for gate posts, but a superstitious feeling prevented them. Every antiquary would regret the demolition of the cloch-a-phoill.

Elsewhere in the book (p19) he describes the story. I will try to summarise it because it’s pretty wordy. He doesn’t seem to notice the irony when he says “We shall relate it with as much brevity as may be consistent with a due regard to perspicuity.” But to be fair it is complicated.

Niall was the rightful king. But Eochaidh sets himself up at Tara as the king instead. ‘A druid of eminence’ tells him off and he scarpers. Soon after Eochaidh kills yet another druid for some ill-timed comments(I think). Niall promises the family that there’ll be revenge. But he ends up trashing Leinster in his pursuit of Eochaidh. The people of Leinster end up handing him over to prevent any more trouble. The druid chains him to the stone, and then gets nine soldiers to attack him. But Eochaidh manages to make a superhuman effort and forces one of the chain’s rivets. He grabs some weapons, hacks down the soldiers and dashes off to Scotland..

p338 in ‘The History and Antiquities of the County of Carlow ’ by John Ryan, 1833. Digitised on Google Books.

There is a tradition respecting the large top of a cromlech, in Cornwall, that was removed to a brook at a distance, and converted into a bridge; it is said that this stone possessed the power of speech, and answered questions put to it, until on a certain time, it cracked in an effort to speak, and has been silent ever since. This vague tradition must have originated in the oracular use made of the cromlech from whence the stone was taken.

Vague indeed. Unless someone can enlighten us..

From p279 of The Graphic and Historical Illustrator
Edward Wedlake Brayley (1834) – which can be perused on Google Books.

At the distance of about five hundred yards south-eastward of Kit’s Cotty House, has been another Cromlech, consisting of eight or ten stones, now lying in a confused heap, it having been thrown down about the beginning of the last century, by order of the then propietor of the land, who is said to have intended sending the stones “to pave the garrison at Sheerness,” after they had been broken to pieces.* This design was prevented by the extreme hardness of the stones..

*Thorpe’s account of Aylesford, in the “Custumale Roffense,” p 64-75.

p278 in The Graphic and Historical Illustrator
Edward Wedlake Brayley (1834) – which can be perused on Google Books.

Not far distant from Cloyne is Castle Mary, a seat belonging to the Longfield family : it was formerly called Carrig Cotta, which is supposed to be a corruption of Carrig Croith, or the Rock of the Sun,-- a name derived from a cromlech, or Druidical altar, still to be seen not far from the house.

This remain of paganism consists of a rough and massive stone, twelve feet in length; one end elevated about six feet from the ground by two smaller stones, from which its name of Cromlech, signifying a bending or inclined stone, is derived.

Close by it is a smaller stone or altar, supported in a similar diagonal position by a single stone. There is a tradition, that nothing will grow under either of these altars, an opinion that originates from the total absence of verdure, incident to a want of sufficient light and air*.

The top of the larger altar was richly covered with [Wood Geranium], the light feathery leaves and delicate pink blossoms of which formed a pleasing contrast to the solemnity and breadth of the altar.

*oh don’t be so boring. This from the chapter on Cloyne in Thomas Crofton Croker’s ‘Researches in the South of Ireland’ (1828).

The hill in front of these (a small mound form this angle) was a place where three witches apparently met.

It looked like a dog. I didn’t actually see anything, mind.

[Palm Sunday] gatherings at Deverill took place on Cowdown, i.e., the ridge, parallel with the road from Sutton; boys, as well as men, went up to “beat the ball”, i.e. play trap.
“When was the last time?”
“Oh! when I were a bit of a buoy, they gied over then, ‘cos of ‘en seed the devil; I were up there, but I didn’t see en’, but a were there like a girt dog, and a did rin about, and the chaps rinned away; I seed em rin, and I rinned too; ‘twere gied over ater that.”

From a piece by John U Powell in Wiltshire Notes and Queries, June 1898, p486.
wiltshire.gov.uk/community/gettextimage.php?book_no=002&chapter_no=11&page_no=0043&dir=next

In France, as in England, and indeed most countries [Stones] are usually connected in the popular belief with fairies or with demons – and in England, with Robin Hood. In France this latter personage is replaced by Gargantua, a name made generally celebrated by the extraordinary romance of Rabelais. A cromlech near the village of Toury, in Britany, is called Gargantua’s stone; a not uncommon name for the single stone or menhir is palet de Gargantua (Gargantua’s quoit).

A very common name for cromlechs among the peasantry of France is fairies’ tables, or devils’ tables, and in one or two instances they have obtained the name of Caesar’s table; the covered alleys, or more complicated cromlechs, are similarly named fairies; grottos, or fairy rocks. The single stones are sometimes called fairies’ or devils’ seats.

The prohibition to worship stones occurring so frequently in the earlier Christian ecclesiastical laws and ordinances, relates no doubt to these druidical monuments, and was often the cause of their destruction. Traces of this worship still remain.

In some instances people passed through the druidical monuments for trial, or for purification, or as a mode of defensive charm. It is still a practice among the peasantry at Columbiers, in France, for young girls who want husbands, to climb upon the cromlech called the Pierre-levee, place there a piece of money, and then jump down. At Guerande, with the same object, they despose in the crevices of a Celtic monument bits of rose-coloured wool tied with tinsel. The women of Croisic dance round a menhir. It is the popular belief in Anjou that the fairies, as they decended the mountains spinning by the way, brought down the druidical stones in their aprons, and placed them as they are now found.

From Thomas Wright’s ‘The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon’, parts of which are reprinted in a review in The Gentleman’s Magazine v.193 1852 Jul-Dec (p233).

Dol is situated in the north of the departement of Ille-et-Vilaine, not far from the sea-coast. Near it, in a field called the Champ Dolent (’Field of Woe’), stands a gigantic menhir, about thirty feet high and said to measure fifteen more underground.

It is composed of grey granite, and is surmounted by a cross . The early Christian missionaries, finding it impossible to wean the people from frequenting pagan neighbourhoods, surmounted the standing stones with the symbol of their faith, and this in time brought about the result desired.

A strange legend is connected with this menhir. On a day in the dark, uncharted past of Brittany a fierce battle was fought in the Champ Dolent. Blood ran in streams, sufficient, says the tale, to turn a millwheel in the neighbourhood of the battle-field. When the combat was at its height two brothers met and grappled in fratricidal strife. But ere they could harm one another the great granite shaft which now looms above the field rose up between them and separated them.

Legends and Romances of Brittany, by Lewis Spence (1917) p24.

Perhaps someone knows the stone to which this daft story refers.

On the Causse above Terrasson, in Dordogne, is a dolmen with a cuplike hollow in the capstone. A friend of mine living near learned that the peasants were wont to place either money or meal or grapes in it. So one night he concealed himself within the cist. Presently a peasantess came and deposited a sou in the cavity, when my friend roared out in patois: “Ce n’est pas assez. Donnez moi encore!” whereupon the woman emptied her purse into the receptacle and fled.

Well I hope he was proud of himself. From p64 of Sabine Baring-Gould’s 1911 ‘Book of Folklore’.

In Brittany are monoliths about which women dance in a state of nudity, and rub themselves against them in hopes of thereby becoming mothers.

Near Dinan is the stone of St Samson. Girls slide down it, as it is on an incline, and if they can reach the bottom without a hitch, they believe that they will be happy mothers when married.

Some of these stones are pitted with artificially cut hollows. The stones are washed, to produce rain, are anointed, and the cup-marks filled with butter and honey. Most in France are now surmounted with crucifixes, or have a niche cut in their faces into which an image of the Virgin is inserted.

From p37 of Sabine Baring-Gould’s ‘Book of Folklore’ (1911).

Also see
themodernantiquarian.com/post/67112/folklore/illeetvilaine_35.html

Thanks Moth for matching this to its geographical location!

Some small stones have been found [in the parish of Wick], which seem to be a species of flint, about an inch long and half an inch broad, of a triangular shape, and barbed on each side. The common people confidently assert, that they are fairies arrows, which they shoot at cattle, when they instantly fall down dead, though the hide of the animal remains quite entire. Some of those arrows have been found buried a foot under ground, and are supposed to have been in antient times fixed in shafts, and shot from bows. Some stones also of a flinty nature have been found, which when broken contained the shape of serpents coiled round in the heart of the stone.

From the Statistical Account of 1791-99 vol.10 p.15 : Wick, County of Caithness.

The “Paddock Stane,” a large rude block, stands in the same locality [as a stone circle], and in its vicinity stone coffins, containing rude clay urns and human bones, are frequently found. Tradition points to this stone as that which the devil threw across the Tay from one of the Fifeshire hills, when he saw St Boniface building his church at the estuary of the burn of Gowry; but, mistaking his distance, the stone fell nearly a mile farther north, and rested on the spot where it now lies!

From ‘Notice of the Localities of Certain Sculptured Stones.. pt III’ by A Jervise. From PSAS, on line at ADS:
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_002/2_442_452.pdf

The story seems to link in with two stones near the church itself, but they’re on the beach apparently:

When the Yowes O’ Gowrie come to land,
The Day o’ Judgment’s near at hand.

A prophecy prevalent in the Carse of Gowrie and in Angus-shire. The Ewes of Gowrie are two large blocks of stone, situated within high-water mark, on the northern shore of the Firth of Tay, at the small village of Invergowrie. The prophecy is ancient, perhaps by Thomas the Rhymer, and obtains universal credit among the country people. In consequence of the natural retreat of the waters from that shore of the firth, the stones are gradually approaching the land, and there is no doubt will ultimately be beyond flood-mark.
It is the popular belief, that they move an inch nearer to the shore every year. The expected fulfilment of the prophecy has deprived many an old woman of her sleep; and it is a common practice among the weavers and bonnet-makers of Dundee, to walk out to Invergowrie on Sunday afternoons, simply to see what progress “the yowes” are making!

From ‘The Popular Rhymes of Scotland’ by Robert Chambers (1826) p 97, which you can read on Google Books.

The PSAS article mentions the Goors o’ Gowrie too, but doesn’t mention any devilish connections – though some internet pages seem to consider them additional diabolical missiles aimed at the church. The PSAS article says “There is nothing in their appearance to attract notice, and it may now be said that they have all but ‘come to land’ since they are separated from the common course of the Tay by the embankments of the Dundee and Perth Railway.” Oh well.

Another thing that links them is that they’re made of the same stone (allegedly):

On the road to Liff, about a mile from the Tay, stands a very large boulder of gneiss, perfectly isolated, vulgarly termed the “Paddock Stane;” and two more of the same sort are to be seen at the extremity of Invergowrie Bay, within a short distance of the land.

From the New Statistical Account, v11 (1845) p575.

I have been informed by a priest, but I know not how far it may be correct, that Carnac signifies literally, in the Breton language, a field of flesh. If this be the meaning of the word, it would lead one to conjecture that these stories were placed in memory of some great battle, or as memorials in a common cemetery of the dead.

The people here have a singular custom, whenever any of their cattle are diseased, of coming among these stones to pray to St. Cornelius for their recovery. Such a practice may be a remnant of pagan superstition continued in Christian times; but I must remark that St. Cornelius is the patron saint of the neighbouring church.

I cannot learn that the peasantry of this country have any traditions about Carnac; and I must here observe than no relations or accounts given either by the poor or more enlightened people of Brittany can be depended upon.

.. Tradition has given to the site of these stones the name of Caesar’s Camp, but tradition in such a question is an insufficient guide. M. Cambry, led by another tradition, reported to him by an old sailor, that a stone was added every year, conjectures, though with hesitation, that the monument has some connexion with the astronomy of a remote age.

From ‘The Penny Cyclopaedia’ v6 by George Long (1836).
Digitized at Google Books, here:
books.google.co.uk/books?id=ztqyJi7Ec9UC&pg=PA304

From Somerset Brrows by L.V.Grinsell.
This is said to contain the remains of a saxon chief killed in battle, or of soldiers killed in a battle. An oak or elm, which grew on this barrow until 1937, is said to have bled when cut with a knife.
Wedlake, W.J. (1958) and Tongue, R.L. (1965).

King Minos of Knossos clearly was a real person, but the treatments of Homer are difficult to discern, since the poet liked to toy with his readers in intermixing fact with embellishment. Factually Minos reigned at Knossos as the king of all Crete prior to the Trojan War (early to mid second millennium BC).

Legend holds that Poseidon gave Minos a splendid bull for sacrifice, the elegance of the bull placed Minos in awe, so that he refused to sacrifice the animal. The enraged Poseidon punished Minos by causing his wife, Pasiphae, to have a child that was half-bull, half-man, the Minotaur. Minos ordered Daedalus, his master architect, to design the labyrinth at Knossos to confine the bull-man Minotaur.

Minos’ human son Androgeus competed in the first Panathenaic Games in Athens, but King Aegeus was angered when Androgeus won all the contests; Aegeus slayed Androgeus, with Minos responding with war on Athens; Athens capitulated to a peace by sending seven fair young women and men yearly to Crete to be imprisoned with Minotaur in the labyrinth.

The Minotaur stalked them within the giant maze; the process endured for three years until Aegeus’ other human son, Theseus, penetrated the labyrinth and slayed the Minotaur; Theseus Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, gave Theseus a spool of thread, which he unwound as he explored the labyrinth, allowing him to retrace his steps and escape the enormous maze. The above story is further memorialized by the historian Plutarch, who further muddles fact with fiction and adds a moralistic ending.

In any case the actual Minos was a potent king who died on Sicily in an attempt to re-capture Daedalus.