Latest Folklore

They have a legend in Cornwall that St. Agnes “escaped out of the prison at Rome, and taking shipping, landed at St. Piran Arwothall, from whence she travelled on foot to what is now her own parish.

But being several times tempted by the Devil on her way, as often as she turned about to rebuke him, she turned him into a stone, and indeed there are still to be seen on the Downs, between St. Piran and St. Agnes, several large moor stones, pitched on end, in a straight line, about a quarter of a mile distant one from the other, doubtless put there on some remarkable account.”

From p240 of ‘Poetical Works of Robert Southey’ v1, 1843 – on Google Books.

Popular tradition has evinced her faithfulness in transmitting from age to age the superstitious belief that Fawdon Hill is the royal residence of the “Queen Mab” of Northumberland and all her elfin courtiers, and that the picturesque grounds adjacent are the scenes of the moonlight gambols and midnight revelries.

This is followed by pages of equal wordiness and an excruciating poem, which you may read on Google Books. It’s from the ‘Metrical Legends of Northumberland’ by James Service (1834).

The fort is also connected in various books to the battle of Otterburn – but I think this is more historical speculation than local folklore.

Brown Clee Hill has two summits – Abdon Burf is the highest one. Further down on the SW side is a fort called Nordy Bank. I’ve read there were also hillforts on both summits, not to mention various older barrows.

A large stone on the side of the principal branch of the Brown Clee Hill (Abdon Burf), belonging apparently to the class of monuments commonly called druidical, is called the Giant’s Shaft – shaft, of course, signifying an arrow.

Of course. That end of the hill has been extensively quarried, so I wonder if the stone is still there. I wonder if it has anything to do with the same Giant that sits on Titterstone Clee.

From ‘On the Local Legends of Shropshire’ by Thomas Wright. p56 in ‘Collectanea Archaeologica’ v1, 1862. Online at Google Books.

I hope I’ve got the grid reference right. The barrows were behind North Foreland Lodge (later St Stephen’s College, and now?).

Between Broadstairs and King’s Gate there is a lighthouse, erected, in 1683, on the North Foreland, the most easterly point in England*[..] A desperate battle is said to have been fought by the Saxons and Danes near this place in 853, the site of which is marked by two tumuli.

From p 442 of ‘The British Gazetteer’ by Benjamin Clarke (v1, 1852). Spotted online at Google Books.

*Not actually true. The bit about the battle might not be actually either.

The tradition is, that the Danes having landed on the Buchan coast, and pillaging their way to Murray, then in possession of their countrymen, were come up with, at the place where now stand the cairns of Memsie in the parish of Rathen, by the Scotch army, and defeated, three of their leaders being slain, over whose buried bodies the 3 cairns were raised, on the very spot where each of them fell; that the Danes retreated, and were again overtaken and defeated at Coburty*, the cairn being raised over the graves of their slain; and that the remains of this Danish army were finally defeated and cut to pieces, on a heath about a quarter of a mile W. from the church of Gamery**, which still retains the name of the Bloody Pots [or pits]; in memory of which victory, the skulls of 3 of their slain leaders were built into the inside of the church wall, where two of them still remain, the other being consumed through length of time.

p579 of v12 of the Statistical Account (1797), by Sir John Sinclair.

*somewhere here: NJ 924 642, one assumes.

**The church (also called ‘Kirk of Sculls’ – though whose skulls is debatable) is “not a mile” from Gardenstown so maybe here: NJ 790 644.
abdnet.co.uk/genuki/BAN/Gamrie/RevWilson.html – from V1 of the Statistical account.

The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould knew a lot about folklore but I think he made this story up for his novel ‘Mrs Curgenven of Curgenven’ (1909). It sounds as if it could be based on the discovery of the Rillaton cup. If you look at my notes on that page, you’ll see that Mr Grinsell had an inkling he’d made that ‘famous folklore’ up too. But still, what’s folklore anyway. Someone’s got to make it up sometime (unless the fairies really do exist..).

Here rises an immense cairn above some ancient Cornish king. Here the dead man lies with a golden goblet in his hand, and he turns his cup from side to side. When he is thirsty, he turns the bowl to the west, and thereupon the wind blows from the ocean and brings up rain that pours through the chinks of his grave and fills the cup. The dead man holds it till full, and then drinks. If his tongue be slaked, he turns the bowl downward and the wind shifts, the clouds disperse, and the sun shines. But he has his thirsty fits full often, and when they are on him rain falls incessantly, and the fire that consumes him seems unquenchable.

p300 in the edition digitised at the Internet Archive.
archive.org/details/mrscurgenvenofcu00bariuoft

The cairn is mentioned by the erudite Sabine Baring-Gould in his 1905 novel ‘Mrs Curgenven of Curvengen’ – but I’m sure it’d be based on his knowledge of local folklore. Well ok, he could have made it up.

[Esther] kept to the heights, now traversing whole villages of ancient circular huts, some within pounds and fortifications, some outside, at what date tenanted none knew. Now and then she startled a couched moor colt or a heifer, or a frightened curlew with a whirr and scream rose from under her feet. Then she made Tolborough, with its cairn crowning the summit, a chambered cairn with a passage leading into its depths, where dwelt the pixies. She passed without fear, the Good People had never hurt her. She belonged to them; they would protect her when taking refuge in their domain, their last refuge from the encroaching plough and the sound of church bells.

p298 in the edition digitised at the Internet Archive.
archive.org/details/mrscurgenvenofcu00bariuoft

In Thomas’s History of the Diocese of St. Asaph, p. 687, the legend connected with the erection of the present church is given as follows: --

“The legend of its (Corwen Church) original foundation states that all attempts to build the church in any other spot than where stood the ‘Carreg y Big yn y fach rewlyd,’ i.e., ‘The pointed stone in the icy nook,’ were frustrated by the influence of certain adverse powers.”

No agency is mentioned in this narrative. When questioned on such a matter, the aged, of forty years ago, would shake their heads in an ominous kind of manner, and remain silent, as if it were wrong on their part to allude to the affair. Others, more bold, would surmise that it was the work of a Spirit, or of the Fairies.

From p175 of ‘Welsh Folk Lore’ by the Rev. Elias Owen (1887) – online at Project Gutenberg.

Evidently the Rev was taking some of his words from Thomas Pennant:

A Monument of our superstition remains in the Carreg y Big yn y fach Rewlyd, a pointed rude stone, which stands near the porch. We are told that all attempts to build the church in any other place, were frustrated by the influence of certain adverse powers, till the founders, warned in vision, were directed ot the spot where this pillar stood.

from ‘Tours in Wales’, p 203, v2, 1810.

There’s a bronze age cairn on the very top of Moel Eilio. And this is my excuse to mention the mountain’s fairies:

They were said to live in hidden caves in the mountains, and he [Mr Jones] had heard one old man asserting his firm belief that it was beneath Moel Eilio, also called Moel Eilian, a mountain lying between Llanberis and Cwellyn, the Tylwyth Teg of Nant y Bettws lived, whom he had seen many a time when he was a lad; and, if any one came across the mouth of their cave, he thought that he would find there a wonderful amount of wealth, ‘for they were thieves without their like.‘

p82, ‘Celtic Folklore Welsh And Manx’ by John Rhys (1901) – from a letter from a Mr Gethin Jones from 1881 – online at the sacred texts archive.

And a story with familiar motifs, based at this fairy hill.

Glasynys’s tale.. originally appeared in the Brython for 1863, p. 193. It is as follows:—

“One fine sunny morning, as the young heir of Ystrad was busied with his sheep on the side of Moel Eilio, he met a very pretty girl, and when he got home he told the folks there of it. A few days afterwards he met her again, and this happened several times, when he mentioned it to his father, who advised him to seize her when he next met her. The next time he met her he proceeded to do so, but before he could take her away, a little fat old man came to them and begged him to give her back to him, to which the youth would not listen. The little man uttered terrible threats, but he would not yield, so an agreement was made between them that he was to have her to wife until he touched her skin with iron, and great was the joy both of the son and his parents in consequence.

They lived together for many years, but once on a time, on the evening of Bettws Fair, the wife’s horse got restive, and somehow, as the husband was attending to the horse, the stirrups touched the skin of her bare leg, and that very night she was taken away from him. She had three or four children, and more than one of their descendants, as Glasynys maintains, were known to him at the time he wrote in 1863.”

‘Glasynys’ was actually the Rev. Owen Wynne Jones, and he said that he heard the story “scores of times when he was a lad”.
From p14 of ‘Welsh Folk Lore’ by the Rev. Elias Owen (1887) – online at Project Gutenberg.

We pursued this [rough track] until the extreme ruggedness of the plain rendered further advance almost impossible.. I was [pleased] that my drive was at an end, and was not less pleased to find that no garrulous guides pounced on me when I alighted from the carriage.. I was happily alone; for Carnac is one of those places where solitude becomes a luxury, and consequently where guides would be more than usually vexatious and troublesome;

for what could they tell the visitor respecting the mysterious ranks of obelisks, the purposes of which have baffled speculative investigations and learned inquiries?

Nothing beyond the whimsical legend current among Bretons, that the stones of Carnac are the soldiers of a mighty army petrified by St. Cornely, who, being hard pressed by them, took the effectual method of frustrating their murderous purposes by turning them into stone.

The skeletons of the soldiers, adds the legend, may be seen on certain occasions at midnight, in the churchyard at Carnac, performing penance for the sins committed in the flesh against the saint, and listening reverently to sermons preached by Death himself.

If you are curious to know more, you will be shown the pulpit of the grim preacher, a dilapidated stone Calvary, and, if you have sufficient courage, you may even hear the sermon; though, if accounts be true, the penalty of intrusion, on being detected by the ghastly congregation, is far more severe than that with which Tam o’ Shanter* was threatened.

p246 of Charles Richard Weld’s “A vacation in Brittany’ (1856) – now digitised at Google Books.

*of Robert Burns’ poem.

The great Menhir of Kerloaz stands on a dreary moorland, with no object near it to distract attention from the impressive mass. It consists of a single granite block, thirty-seven feet nine inches high, having a quadrangular base, with a curious round protuberance on two of its sides, about three feet from the ground.

Numerous conjectures have been hazarded respecting these bosses, none of which are supported by tradition. They are regarded with extraordinary veneration by the peasants. Villemarque states that newly-married people repair to this imposing Menhir at nightfall, and divesting themselves of a portion of their clothes, the husband goes to one boss, the wife to the other, and rub their naked bodies against the stone; the man believing that by this ridiculous ceremony he will be the father of male children only, while the woman hopes that she will have dominion over her husband.

The ground surrounding this Menhir is called in Breton ”Kerglas,” which means the field of grief or mourning -- traditionary evidence that the obelisk was erected as a funeral monument. In this case, Villemarque justly observes, the vast size of the stone denotes that the grave contained a mighty chief, for generally speaking, the bulk of the monument raised over the bodies of chiefs was proportionate to their rank and valour in war.

I just love it when these people call something ‘ridiculous’ and then come out with something equally spurious.

From p187 of Charles Richard Weld’s “A vacation in Brittany’ (1856) – now digitised at Google Books.

Other stones whisper too, at the Rollrights?

When living in that neighbourhood, this was my favourite resort. I have been there at all hours, in sombre moonless night, and in the brilliance of a full moon – at the hours of sunrise, noon, and sunset, enjoying the lovely prospect of a fertile valley winding below me in a tortuous course towards the range of the Cotswold hills.

..I may add that the surrounding fields abound in pieces of crystallized spar (though the Druidical stones are not at all of this nature) and I am told that the numerous rills of clear water which trickle down the hill possess a petrifying quality. This seems probable.

On my last visit to this hill I was rambling about the fields in my descent, when, about half way down, I found almost concealed, a large collection of rough stones, all of which had been broken down; and a beautifully pure spring issuing from among them.

I was carrying away a piece of the crystallized spar in my hand, and hurrying homewards, for it was becoming late in the evening, when a person came from his door, in Long Compton, and following me for some distance, begged me, if I valued my night’s rest, not to steal any of the whispering stones. Having thanked him for his kind advice, I proceeded onwards, with about a dozen boys at my heels through the town.

Egomet Ipse.

“Egomet” clearly thought the man was bonkers. But why mention it, if he didn’t have an uncomfortable suspicion that it related to the stone in his hand, not the whispering knights? or am I reading too, too much into it. Perhaps the man just thought he looked the type to go meddling with things.

From p476 of ‘The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction’ v16, 1830 (which may be seen on Google Books).

I imagine these could be the stones to which the Rev. refers – there are two of them, and they are on the way home to Breachacha castle (the Macleans’ abode) from Grishipoll. But let me know if you know better.

Finding our labour [on Grishipoll cairn] ineffectual, we left our work, and returned to Mr. M’s house. In our road, I saw several upright stones, particularly two, called the whispering stones*, which they call the giant’s grave, and also evident traces of ancient cairns; all of which, though hardly noticed by or known to the natives, bear strong marks of monumental labour.

*So called from a silly trick, practised by the natives, of placing a person behind one of the stones, pretending he may hear what is whispered at the other, and having thus stationed him, he is left a dupe to his own credulity.

The Reverend Clarke sounds like The biggest cynic of all time – he can’t even believe in other people’s belief?

From p235 of ‘The Life and Remains of the Rev. Edward Daniel Clarke’ (a professor of mineralogy at Cambridge) by William Otter (1824) – viewable on Google Books. He visited Coll in 1797.

Coflein says the stones were known as ‘Na Sgialaichean’ in 1937 and still in 1972 (what is the translation?). They were by tradition “ancient burial marks”. They are 46 feet apart; one is 5 ft tall, the other 6.

Falling into conversation with [Mr Maclean] on the subject of cairns, he informed me, there was only one in the whole island, called Cairn mich Re, signifying the cairn, or tomb, of the king’s son. I thought this would be a very favourable opportunity.. of opening one of these cairns; and expressing a wish to that effect, Mr. Maclean informed me he had often thought of doing it himself, and if I pleased, we would set out for the spot immediately..

.. It is situated [by the roadside] near the village of Grissipol.. We soon fell to work.. While we were thus employed, a venerable figure, with hairs as white as snow, came slowly up to the cairn, shaking his head, and muttering something in Gaelic, which I did not understand. Mr Maclean interpreting for me, told me he said ‘it was unlucky to disturb the bones of the dead!’..

..I am sorry to add, our labours at the cairn were not productive of much information. We dscovered nothing; but in casting out the stones I found several of that description of stones which are venerated in Mull for their imaginary virtues: also several specimens of beautiful black Mica.

Mr M. said, and I believe it with truth, that cairns were not erected merely where a person was interred, but often to commemorate the spot on which he died; and also at all the places where his body rested, from the place of his death to the place of his interment.

The old man informed us, he remembered the time when at any common funeral in Col, if the body was carried by that cairn, every one of the attendants cast a stone upon it. It is an expression of friendship and affection, at this hour among the islanders, to say, ‘I will cast a stone upon your cairn!‘

“We discovered nothing” yet he found axeheads? What was the man hoping for I wonder. From p235 of ‘The Life and Remains of the Rev. Edward Daniel Clarke’ (a professor of mineralogy at Cambridge) by William Otter (1824) – viewable on Google Books. The excavation took place in 1797.

Canmore says that “According to local tradition it was opened about 1765 by three Norwegians in the presence of the laird of Coll. They took the relics discovered home with them, claiming them to belong to a fellow-countryman.” Well maybe that’s why the Rev. was disappointed..

Impatience from the Rev. Edward Daniel Clarke, who probably believed all sorts of unlikely things himself.

The superstition of the inhabitants, not only of Mull, but of the neighbouring islands, is beyond belief. Stones of any singular form.. have each a peculiar characteristic virtue. They are handed with veneration from father to son, and esteemed as a remedy for every species of disease incident to the human or animal race. As there is not in the whole island of Mull a single surgeon or apothecary, it is well for the natives they can have recourse to a mode of relief so universal and so efficacious.

.. It was with much difficulty I could prevail upon these credulous quacks to part with any specimen of their potent charms. I succeeded, however, in purchasing two, during the time I remained in Mull. One of these, a hard and polished stone, evidently appears to have been once used as an axe, or hatchet, and bears a strong resemblance to the specimens of similar instruments brought by circumnavigators from the South Sea islands. The other is of the same nature with the first, with respect to the use for which it was originally fabricated, although it differs in its composition; it was probably once an instrument of war.

By holding the former over the head of any diseased cattle, and pouring water upon it, letting the water at the same time fall on the animal, the beast is said to recover without fail. The latter is a sovereign remedy against barrenness in cows, if it be used in the same way. If either of them be dipped in water, the water cures all pains of the head or teeth, it also removes the rheumatism or sprains in the joints, with a variety of other virtues, too numerous to mention.

Several others which I saw, possessed virtues as various as their forms. Some of these were fossil shells; others like the flint of a gun, called Fairy speds*; and again, others, mere oblong pebbles, which they distinguished by the appellation of ‘Cockaroo-hoo-pan’, a sovereign antidote for barrenness in the female sex.

* I guess these could have been flint arrowheads. ‘Sped’ means ‘discharged or let go’ which sounds like what a fairy might do to an arrow? Also, if anyone’s got an axe I’d like to try it on my sciatica please.

From p229 of ‘The Life and Remains of the Rev. Edward Daniel Clarke’ (professor of mineralogy at Cambridge) by William Otter (1824) – viewable on Google Books.

In some cases [during the excavations] when night was stealing on, and an urn had been but partially discovered, in order to ensure its preservation, I have bivouacked around the fire with my labourers till near midnight; no pleasant situation on a bleak and elevated Dorset Down in a November night.

Men were employed in dragging furze from an adjoining spot, and it was a fine subject for the talent of an artist to have described the venerable urn, smoking at the flame, while a red and flickering gleam played upon the countenances of the labourers, who stood around the fire, speaking in low and smothered tones, allowing their fears to work upon their imaginations, – their eyes fixed upon the flame and dead men’s bone, – were afraid to look into the surrounding darkness.

The swell of the passing breeze as it fanned the fire, raised them from their reverie, or roused their attention from some direful story of goblin damned, which was gravely related and as faithfully believed. The effect produced by the narrative of the village thatcher added most strongly to the horror of their situation, as he gravely declared that his father and his elder brother had been most cruelly dragged about and beaten by some invisible hand, on the very down on which we stood. There was no danger of a deserter from my party, as fear kept them together...

‘Most Haunted’ eat your heart out. From p 28 of ‘A Description of the Deverel Barrow, opened AD1825’ by W.A. Miles (link below).

From the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 2nd June 1828.

“notable antiquity of the Druids on Deverell down, which is only a short distance from the turnpike road....E.M.Pleydell, Esq. has had a wall about 46 yards in cicumference built around this ancient consecrated spot, within which are 25 stones, from 1 1/2 to 25cwt, now lying in the same plan of iconography as when the Druid’s antimensum of earth was spread over this sacred spot. Here the Druids met as judges and arbiters for public and private judgements, took cognizance of murders, inheritances, and boundaries, and decreed rewards and punishments”.

According to Coflein the 1st edition OS map had four stones! and the fourth has been found in woodland on the far side of the farm drive. They do suggest it could be a Bronze Age stone row, but also that it could be (shock) an C18th boundary feature. But then why would the fourth be across the drive? Mysterious.

And how strange that such little stones get such a big story (including verse). There are only two in this version!

In a field near the porter’s lodge of Plas Gwynn, there are two stones, at a considerable distance from each other, which mark the place where tradition says Einion ap Gwalchmai, some centuries ago, obtained his wife by an uncommon exhibition of activity in leaping fifty feet!

There were two competitors, and the female decided their claims by taking the man who could leap farthest. Einion, it is said, some time afterwards, went to a distant part of the country, where he had occasion to reside several years, and he found on his return that his wife had, on that very morning, been married to another person. He took his harp and sitting down at the door, explained in Welsh metre who he was, and where he had been resident. His wife narrowly scrutinised his person, unwilling to give up her new spouse, when he exclaimed--

“Look not, Angharad, on my silver hair, Which once shone bright of golden lively hue:
Man doth not last like gold, – he that was fair will soon decay, though gold continue new.

[I will spare you the rest until the last verse]

Full fifty feet, as still the truth is known, And many witnesses can still attest,
How there the prize I won, thyself must own, This action stamp’d my worth within thy breast.”

From ‘Excursions in North Wales’ by William Bingley (1839 ed. p78).

Near the summit of a hill.. called Cefyn Creini, The Mountain of Worship, there is a vast circle of loose stones, which bears the appearance of having once been a British fortification. This is called Caer Drewyn and Y Caer Wen, The White Fort. It is near half a mile in circumference, but the walls are at present in such a state, that at a distance they appear like huge heaps of stones piled round the circumference of a circle.

Owen Gwynedd is believed to have occupied this post while Henry II had his men encamped among the Berwyn mountains, on the opposite side of the vale. It is also related that Owen Glyndwr made use of this place in his occasional retreats.

p39 in ‘Excursions in North Wales’ by William Bingley (1839 ed.)

This hillfort with its huge stone walls would have overseen the important routeway of the Avon Dyfrdwy (the Dee). Owain Glyndwr was apparently born and lived in the valley below – it’s said to be the place where he gathered his army.

At Cromhall, in Gloucestershire, there is a field called “Bloody Acre;” which name records a skirmish between Cromwell and the Royalists.

Notes and Queries, June 9th, 1855.

When in doubt, you may blame any of the following: Cromwell, The Romans, fairies, Danes, giants, The Devil, or (in moments of desperation) the Phoenicians.

This mountaine is so high and farre mounted into the ayre, that when the countrey about is faire and cleere, the toppe thereof will be hidden in a cloude, which of the inhabitants is taken a sure signe of rain to follow shortly; whereof grewe this proverbe, ”When Percelly weareth a hat, all Penbrokeshire shall weete of that.”

Astonishing weather forecasting from ‘A History of Pembrokeshire’ by George Owen, 1603.

(Partly reprinted in the ‘Cambrian Register’ for the year 1796. p120 – this is where I read it at Google Books.)

When you’re at the stones, you’re on the slope of Bernard’s Well Mountain. The actual ‘Bernard’s Well’ is on the opposite side of road to the Dyffryn Stones.

It’s Saint Bernard to you, and no, he wasn’t a dog. A little tale concerning his spring is mentioned in Giraldus Cambrensis’ Itinary through Wales (chapter 2):

..during the reign of king Henry I., a rich man, who had a residence on the northern side of the Preseleu mountain, was warned for three successive nights, by dreams, that if he put his hand under a stone which hung over the spring of a neighbouring well, called the fountain of St. Bernacus, he would find there a golden torques [sic]. Obeying the admonition on the third day, he received, from a viper, a deadly wound in his finger;

but as it appears that many treasures have been discovered through dreams, it seem to me probable that, with respect to rumours, in the same manner as to dreams, some ought, and some ought not, to be believed.

What’s this saying – that rich people shouldn’t be greedy? If so it was a bit unfair taunting him with the dream in the first place.

Coflein says on the well: “A possibly natural water-filled hollow, protected by a modern masonary hood. Close by are traces of a medieval chapel dedicated to the saint,” and then tantalisingly: “a possible inscribed monolith was formerly noted.”

An alternative name is ‘St Brynach’s Well’, which does seem a bit more persuasive, given his connections with local spots like Carn Ingli.

The stone here represented, known in Welsh as, Y Maen Chwyf, (the Rocking Stone) is situated on the western brink of a ill, called Coed-pen-maen, in the parish of Eglwysilan, Glamorganshire, above the turnpike-road from Merthyr to Cardiff, and nearly equidistant from both towns. From this spot may be seen the celebrated onne-arched bridge over the Taff, near Newbridge, and fine views of several ramifications of the neighbouring hills and valleys. [..] The name of the hill, Coed-pen-maen, (viz. the Wood of the Stone Summit) is doubtless, derived from this stone [..]

A moderate application of strength will give it considerable motion, which may be easily continued with one hand. The under-side slopes around towards the centre, or pivot, and it stands nearly in equilibrium on a rock beneath, the circumstance which imparts to it its facility of motion.

The prevalent opinion of the surrounding inhabitants respecting this ancient stone is, that the Druids imposed on the credulity of the country by pretending to work miracles from it, and that they offered human sacrifices thereon; vulgar errors that are not sustained by the most distant allusion of the primitive British bards and historians.

p24 in ‘The Saturday Magazine’ for Jan.17th, 1835 (online at Google Books).
books.google.co.uk/books?id=m95PAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA23

.. a Druidical circle called the Nine Stones, 28 ft. in diameter. It stands on a bare spot, which, in the belief of the country people, is likely to continue in the same condition, as there is a popular notion that trees will not grow within the circle.

The stones are of a cherty conglomerate, and 8 in number, and one only appears to be wanting.

p118 in ‘Handbook for travellers in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire’ by John Murray (1859) – on Google Books.

The RCAHMS website says that “An inclined standing stone was recorded at this location through fieldwalking in areas of the eastern side of the island of Coll.” – this was in 2003.

I wonder if it was the stone mentioned here in the ‘Life of Johnson’ by James Boswell ( it is on the way to Breacacha castle):

We set out after dinner for Breacacha, the family seat of the Laird of Col, accompanied by the young laird [..] We passed by a place where there is a very large stone, I may call it a rock; ‘a vast weight for Ajax’. The tradition is, that a giant threw such another stone at his mistress, up to the top of a hill, at a small distance; and that she in return, threw this mass down to him. It was all in sport.

Sheer speculation I admit. It could probably be any number of stones on Col. Found in vol V – ‘journal of a tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson’ 1773. Online at Google Books. Supposing you know the true stone this relates to – please leave a comment.

Later on they went to see the other ‘great stone’ in the story. I’m afraid to report that it “did not repay [their] trouble in getting to it.”