Latest Folklore

If you along the Rudgeway go,
About a mile for aught I know,
There Wayland’s cave then you may see,
Surrounded by a group of trees.

They say that in this cave did dwell
A smith that was invisible;
At last he was found out, they say,
He blew up the place and vlod away.

To Devonshire then he did go,
Full of sorrow, grief and woe,
Never to return again;
So here I’ll add the shepherd’s name -

Job Cork.

‘Job Cork’s poem also indicates the site had trees around it before those planted by Lord Craven in 1810.’ – Clive Alfred Spinnage

Epona

‘The Great Mare’, the goddess of a horse cult who is most likely to be identified with the Irish édáin echraidhe or macha and the welsh Rhiannon. As goddess of horses, she was of great importance within a horse-based culture such as that of the Celts. Her image appears on over 300 stones in Gaul, although rarely in Britain, and she is usually depicted riding side-saddle. In Romano-Celtic imagery she is constantly associated with corn, fruit and, strangely, serpents (my italics) – strangely because serpents are natural enemies of the horses. These associations led her also being considered a goddess of fertility and nourishment.

Extract from Celtic Myth and Legend by Mike-Dixon-Kennedy.

-

A nice connection between a horse and a serpent? the white horse and dragon hill?

WF

‘Famous among local relics is the Blowing Stone, moved from the Ridgeway to Kingstone Lisle and to be seen at a farm below Blowing Stone Hill. A mournful wail is achieved by blowing into a hole in this stone. Some say this was the stone used by King Alfred for summoning his troops, others that it is of Druidical origin, and a third opinion places it among many large stones found locally and believed to be survivals of the ice age.‘

The Berkshire Book
by the Berkshire Federation of Women’s Institutes

According to Rodney Legg’s excellent book “Mysterious Dorset” another golden coffin myth is told about this site.
“A golden coffin is said to be buried in one of the three prehistoric round barrows on the Cowleaze, a former pasture half a mile south-east of the village (Milbourne St Andrew O.S. ref. SY811967).
Thunder and lightning begins if anyone starts to dig for it, members of the Women’s institute were told when they recorded village folklore in the 1930s.
These barrows don’t appear on multimap at the co-ordinates given , however they do appear on magic in roughly the right place . I must go and have a look at them.

..on the north side of [Skipwith or Riccal] Common are many tumuli, known in the locality by the name of the Danes’ Hills. That the peasantry of the surrounding district know the mournful origin of these “soldiers’ sepulchres” is clear, from the fact of their readily telling you that “they say” pieces of red cloth have been foud in the neighbourhood of the tombs.

Tradition says also that at the time those graves were made, a swampy drain or bog, now called Riccal Towdyke, was choked up with slain. That tradition has evidently descended from the same source that the chroniclers obtained their information from, viz. the surviving spectators.

A Dr Burton opened some of the barrows and found, apparently, the bones of some young men with ‘very firm and fresh’ teeth(!), one with his head cut off and between his knees. “Ever since the aforesaid battle, it is by tradition to this day said, that the Danes were permitted to encamp here till they had buried their dead, and their ships at Riccal should be ready for their re-embarking for Norway.”

From p218 of August 1863’s edition of the Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review. Online at Google Books.

According to the record on Magic, these are actually Iron Age barrows, called Square Barrows.

In the park of Belmont, there is a tumulus called “Belliduff,” which tradition gives as the spot where McDuff slew Macbeth; and about a mile distant, stands a large whinstone nodule, or block of twenty tons weight, called Macbeth’s stone. In all probability there has been fighting near these apparently sepulchral monuments; but it is more probable that Macbeth was slain at Lumphanan in the Mearns.

From p234 of ‘The New Statistical Account of Scotland’ v10 (Perth) 1845.

extract from:

Exploring the Ridgeway by Alan Charles

‘... The cleaning of the horse (the scouring) was an important part of the open-air festivals that took place on the hill at intervals of seven years or so until 1857. These were great occasions for games, competitions, dancing, singing and drinking. It was reported that 30,000 people atened the festival in the year 1780. A local saying tells us that ‘while men sleep, the Horse climbs up the Hill’. This is not as outrageous as it sounds, for as the soil falls away from the upper edges and exposes more of the chalk, and the lower edges silt up and become colonized by grass, so the horse does indeed climb the hill!

So sue me. I admit it, this is Roman. But it’s so rare to find a Roman round barrow. And the record on Magic says “It has been suggested that they are the graves of native British aristocrats who chose to perpetuate aspects of Iron Age burial practice.” This one (being in East Anglia) might be as early as the first decades of the Roman occupation. It’s like an example of ‘when in Rome’ behaviour (or old habits die hard, if you want another phrase).

The following is from the Gentleman’s Magazine for June 1840, p114.

In reading an account of Essex, I find the following: “The Borough, or rather Barrow Hills, on the north side of the Black Water Bay, were considerable in number. These tumuli are supposed to have been raised indiscriminately over the bodies of the Danes and Saxons that fell in the battles occasioned by the frequent landing of the former in this part of the coast*. The lands on which the Barrow hills stood were completely inclosed from the sea in 1807, and the whole are now levelled, ONE EXCEPTED.”

This Barrow I heard was going to be cleared away for manure. I made a point of visiting it under an idea that it might be proved a Roman one; ==when I arrived at the spot, I found it to be a bowl barrow, about fourteen yards diameter, and about six or seven feet high, and rather more than half of it cut away, and what surprises me, not a single urn, bone, or ashes, nor any mark to be found; -- perhaps the barrows being mostly under water during the tide may account for the disappearance of bones, &c. if there were any placed; = or rather that the Danes and Saxons were not so careful as the Romans in preserving the remains of their friends.

I met one of the old inhabitants who lived in the parish more than forty years; he remembered the number of barrows being destroyed, and said, not a single bone or urn was ever found in them.

J. A. Repton reports.

Perhaps this barrow isn’t the exact one mentioned (can the sea have come in this far? I suppose it’s more than possible). But it’s certainly one of those being talked of in this area.

*this sounds like a local explanation? and one so convincing that Mr Repton seems to abandon his own theory about the barrows being Roman.

Could ‘Scratchbury’ come from ‘Old Scratch’ – the Devil? I mean he was about the area, having made Cley Hill, so it’s not inconceivable he might have sat here.

The Oxford English Dictionary has an example of this euphemism’s use from 1740 – but its older forerunner ‘scrat’ and other similar words mean all kinds of gobliny devilish things in Old Norse and German.

A curious legend connects the Five Saints with a large block of sandstone at Cynwyl Gaio called Carreg Pumpsaint. It stands upright at the foot of the hill below the Ogofau, the old Roman gold mines, and is shaped like a basalt column, with large artificial oval basin-shape hollows on its sides. It is three and a half feet high and a little over two feet in width.

The legend says that, time out of mind, there lived in the neighbourhood five saints who had a wide reputation for sanctity, and were objects of ill-will to a wicked magician who dwelt in caverns near. He had in vain tried to bring them into his power, until one day they happened to be crossing the Ogofau, and he, by his wicked enchantments, raised a terrific storm of thunder, lightning and hail, which beat upon and bruised the saints, and they laid their heads against a large boulder standing near for shelter. So great was the force of the hail that the impression of their heads can be seen to this day upon the four sides of the stone.

The enchanter transported the saints into his caverns (the Ogofau) where they sleep. Tradition says they will awake, and come back to the light of day, when King Arthur returns, or when the Diocese is blessed with a truly pious and apostolic prelate!

According to another version they were five young pilgrims on their way to the shrine of S. David, who, exhausted with fatique, reposed on this pillow their weary heads which a violent storm of rain and hailstones affixed to the stone. A malignant sorcerer appeared and carried them off to his cavern, where they are destined to remain asleep until the happy day mentioned.

The block, supposed to have on it the impression of the five heads on each of its four sides, has been extracted from the mine, and was originally horizontal. The hollows are actually mortars in which the quartz was crushed for gold.

This excerpt is from p226 from ‘The Lives of the British Saints’ by Sabine Baring-Gould (I think he got these stories from Arch Camb 1878 pp322-3).

So maybe it’s not even a legit subject for TMA. But it’s got some familiar themes that are attached to older stones. And it even seems to have its own new explanation (can the ‘gold mortar’ thing really be true?)

According to ‘The Old Stones of the Cotswolds and the Forest of Dean’ by Danny Sullivan (1999), the Twizzle Stone is at this grid reference. It’s ages since I’ve seen the book so can’t describe it further – the stone is not on Magic and (seemingly mistakenly) I always assumed this and the Tingle Stone were one and the same – similar names I guess.

Mr Grinsell is describing stone that turn round, when he says “We may perhaps also compare the Twizzle Stone in the Cotswolds, which, I would suggest, may have twizzled round when it heard the cock crow.” Ah the world of speculative folklore, I love it.

Tom Graves has a more concrete story. He is talking about different bands of alternately ‘charged’ areas on certain standing stones and other sites.

The [bands from the fourth up] connect up with other energies, or networks of energies, above ground; and in the case of the fifth and seventh bands, this connection, as far as many dowsers are concerned, produces some interesting side-effects.

The effect of the fifth band on the dowser may have given a standing stone in Gloucestershire its name: the Twizzle Stone. When a dowser leans against the level of the fifth band on a stone or buttress, the band somehow affects the dowser’s balance, producing an effect which feels like a slow and gentle push to one side or the other.

According to the skill of the dowser (and, it must be admitted, more subjective factors like a sense of showmanship), this sense of ‘being pushed’ can be increased until it looks as if the dowser has been thrown to one side by the stone.

Well if you can find it maybe you can check for me.

Tom Graves describes a modern day ‘retribution’ story:

.. in the case of some barrows a thunderstorm followed within hours or minutes of the opening of the barrow. The same coicidence still occurs from time to time, as happened when a barrow on Parliament Hill in north London was opened recently; and I’ve heard that it is apparently a respectable piece of professional lore amongst present-day archaeologists. What is not respectable is to suggest that there might be a causal link between the breaching of the barrow and the thunderstorm that followed.

He goes on to suggest that the effect could be ‘exactly like short-circuiting some kind of ‘thunderstorm capacitor’. From p86 of his book on dowsing, ‘Needles of Stone Revisited’ (1986), which is actually free to download here:
tomgraves.eu/needles

The beginning of this story is apparently much sillier than the version already posted would hint at. Monty Python style silly. Unfortunately after that it just gets nasty.

A sanguinary encounter once took place between the Maclaurins of Auchleskin and the Buchanans of Leny, arising out of the following circumstance:

At the fair of St. Kessaig held in Kilmahog, in the parish of Callander, one of the Buchanans struck a Maclaurin of weak intellect, on the cheek, with a salmon which he was carrying, and knocked off his bonnet. The latter said he would not dare to repeat the blow at next St. George’s fair at Balquhidder.

To that fair the Buchanans went in a strong body, and on their appearance the half witted Maclaurin.. told of what had occurred.. The warning cross was immediately sent through the clan, and every man able to bear arms hastened to the muster.

In their impatience the Maclaurins began the battle before all their force had collected, and were driven from the field, but one of them, seeing his son cut down, turned furiously upon the Buchanans, shouting the war-cry of his tribe (“Craig Tuirc*,” the rock of the boar), and his clansmen rallying, became fired with the miri-cath, or madness of battle, rushed after him, fighting desperately.

The Buchanans were slain in great numbers.. [the story carries on as below..]

From p36 of The Scottish Nation, By William Anderson (1863).

*actually says Craig Tuire. But they mean Craig Tuirc.

extract from ‘Berkshire’ by Ian Yarrow

‘There are various ways of spelling this name, of which Cwichelmeslaew, the burial-place of Cwichelm, is the most difficult to spell and pronounce. Scutchamer is believed by some to be a corruption of Scotchman’s Knob, while others see in it a reference to Captain Scutchamer, a gentlemen killed in the Civil Wars. The “Knob” in its grove may have been a barrow, but nothing has been found inside it that will settle the matter, though some Iron Age pottery discovered in the surrounding ditch may indicate its age. Birinus, the missionary, preached from here in the seventh century, and shire moots sat on it.‘

with the original name of the site being ‘Cuckhamsley’ (deriving from Cwichelmshlaew), where does the ‘Scutch’ come from? To Scutch is to separate fibres (i.e. flax) and I assume the same is true of wool. The Berkshire Downs were reknowned for sheep and sheep fairs (east ilsley), and I have read (but can’t find it among the library – argh!) a reference to Scutchamers Knob being used as a meeting place for a sheep fair.

Given the distance from ‘the Knob’ to East Ilsley sheep fair, maybe it was a place the shepherds and flocks stayed at, the night before arrival at the fair?

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A ‘scotch’ can be a tool for ‘scutching’, although the fact that the site is sometimes referred to as Scotsmans Knob (that’s quite an unplesant thought if you’re a sassenach) may also be because one of the tracks just before the knob goes north! (i.e. to Scotland).

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Thats quite enough about knobs, i’m off to look at knockers (...no you idiot, there’s somebody at the door)

Be careful about the amount of cash you leave: “The popular belief still retains memory of this wild legend.. It was believed that Wayland Smith’s fee was sixpence, and that, unlike other workmen, he was offended if more was offered.”

From p219 of ‘Introductions and notes and illustrations to the novels..’ by Walter Scott. Vol 2, 1833.

This sounds reminiscent of hobs and fairies, who are also unimpressed by the wrong type of payment, and will stop being helpful after such mannerless behaviour.

A slightly different version of the ‘cup’ tale, and a few new points:

The legend [as told by William of Newburgh] existed early in the twelfth century, or more than seven hundred years ago. I learnt, during my visit to the spot, that it still exists, though in a debased form.

The peasantry now tell us that, one winter’s night, a farmer returning from market heard, much to his astonishment, sounds of mirth and revelry proceed from Willey-hou, whereupon he rode up to the hill to ascertain the cause of this extraordinary occurence. As he approached, a little dapper man presented himself, with a cup of welcome.

The farmer, supposing it to be silver, drank the contents, and setting spurs to his horse rode off with the treasure; but on his arrival at home, to his great disappointment, he found that it was nothing but base metal.

[he then describes the ‘treasure’ story below, with the rhyme being
“Hep Joan! prow Mark!
Whether God will or no,
We’ll have this ark.“]

.. The peasantry assure you further, that if any one run nine times round the tumulus without stopping, and then put his ear against it, he will distinctly hear the fairies dancing and singing in the interior.

The old superstitious feeling relating to the spot seems, indeed, to exist almost as strong amongst the peasantry of the present day as it did ages ago; our proceedings [they were digging the barrow, but got distracted by some more exciting stuff that was going on in Scarborough, so abandoned the project] excited general alarm among the lower classes, who expected to see some manifestation of vengeance on the part of the beings believed to hold the guard of the tumuls; and few would have ventured out in its neighbourhood after dark.

From ‘On some ancient barrows or tumuli recently opened in East Yorkshire’ – chapter 2 in ‘Essays on Archaeological Subjects’ by Thomas Wright, v1, 1861.

[There is] a well dedicated to St. Euinus, about sixty yards from the church of Redruth, at the foot of Carn Brea hill; and within the recollection of persons now living a stone cross stood near it. The peculiar virtue ascribed to this well was that whoever should be baptized by its water would be preserved from being ignominiously hanged.

p74 in Ancient Crosses, and Other Antiquities in the East of Cornwall By John Thomas Blight (1858). (readable online at Google Books). This is also known as St Euny’s Well, and is at SW690413.

In Willingham field, on the edge of the fen, about half of a circular entrenchment remains, which, when entire, contained about six acres; it consists of a high vallum and a ditch, and is situated near the end of Aldreth causeway, leading across the fens towards Ely: this entrenchment s known by the name of Belsar’s hills, and is supposed to have been thrown up by William the Conqueror, when he beseiged the isle of Ely; it seems, nevertheless, more probable, from the resemblance it bears to the two works already noticed, of Vandlebury and Arbury, that it was originally a British work, afterwards occupied by the Conqueror, who probably threw up some additional works: it must at all times have been a very important station, as commanding the pass into the isle of Ely.

This source’s phrasing seems to suggest a local story, rather than just an academic theory? From p74 of Magna Brittanica, by David Lysons, 1808 (vol2, pt1, Cambridgeshire). Online at Google Books.

The story of the seige is dramatised in Kingsley’s 1865 ‘Hereward the Wake’, as it was Hereward (and others) that resisted the Normans’ move into Ely. Belasius, one of William’s knights, is able to capture the city by bribing some of the monks to show him a safe route across the marshes. Hereward escapes to fight another day.

It appears.. from the ancient and authentic records, that during the time St. Elwitus led the life of a hermit at Llanhamelach, the mare that used to carry his provisions to him was covered by a stag, and produced an animal of wonderful speed, resembling a horse before and a stag behind.

Was this a deliberate intervention by St Illtyd, who felt his groceries weren’t getting delivered fast enough? This is from the Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, by Giraldus Cambrensis, which was written after their journey in 1188.

It’s in chapter 2 and you can read it online at V Wales
vwales.co.uk/ebooks/itinerary.htm

Almedha the martyr, twenty-third daughter of Brychan Brecheiniog, unfortunately

“suffered martyrdom upon a hill near Brecon, called Pen-ginger. This hill is now generally known by the name of Slwch, though part of it still retains its old appelation. Pen-ginger is a corruption of Pen cefn y Gaer, i.e., the summit of the ridge of the fortification, from an old British camp, the remains of which are still visible.

Not far from the camp stood the monastic house, which Giraldus Cambrensis calls a stately edifice, where Almedha is supposed to have officiated as principle, or lady abbess. It is now completely ruinated, and can only be traced by tradition to a spot where a heap of stones and an aged yew tree, with a wall at its root, marks its site.

.. [according to a Dr. Owen Pughe,] “The day of her solemnity is celebrated every year on the first day of August.“* He then proceeds to record the miracles of the saint, and the faith and religious frenzy of her votaries; upon which his annotator is a little waggish, and hints that they might now and then have taken a cup too much.

p21-22 of ‘The Heroines of Welsh History’ by Thomas Jeffery Llewelyn Prichard (1854), now online at Google Books.

*eagle eyes will notice this is Lughnasadh or Lammas.

This are Giraldus Cambrensis’s words, from his Itinerary:

There are many churches in Wales distinguished by their names [the names of St Breinioch’s children], one of which, situated on the summit of a hill, near Brecheinoc, and not far from the castle of Aberhodni, is called the church of St. Almedda, after the name of the holy virgin, who, refusing there the hand of an earthly spouse, married the Eternal King, and triumphed in a happy martyrdom; to whose honour a solemn feast is annually held in the beginning of August, and attended by a large concourse of people from a considerable distance, when those persons who labour under various diseases, through the merits of the Blessed Virgin, received their wished-for health.

The circumstances which occur at every anniversary appear to me remarkable. You may see men or girls, now in the church, now in the churchyard, now in the dance, which is led round the churchyard with a song, on a sudden falling on the ground as in a trance, then jumping up as in a frenzy, and representing with their hands and feet, before the people, whatever work they have unlawfully done on feast days; you may see one man put his hand to the plough, and another, as it were, goad on the oxen, mitigating their sense of labour, by the usual rude song: one man imitating the profession of a shoemaker; another, that of a tanner. Now you may see a girl with a distaff, drawing out the thread, and winding it again on the spindle; another walking, and arranging the threads for the web; another, as it were, throwing the shuttle, and seeming to weave.

On being brought into the church, and led up to the altar with their oblations, you will be astonished to see them suddenly awakened, and coming to themselves. Thus, by the divine mercy, which rejoices in the conversion, not in the death, of sinners, many persons from the conviction of their senses, are on these feast days corrected and mended.

Online at the excellent ‘Vision of Britain’ website. Giraldus wrote this after his tour through Wales in 1188.

visionofbritain.org.uk/text/chap_page.jsp?t_id=Cambrensis_Tour&c_id=4

Francis Grose’s 1787 book “The Antiquities of England and Wales” mentions that “near Denchworth is Cherbury castle, a fortress of Canute.”

I found that this story is connected with the Pusey Horn, an object which is now in the Victoria and Albert museum. collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O132646/the-pusey-horn-oil-painting-unknown/

The Danish Canute was King of England about a thousand years ago. He and his army were camping near to Pusey, at Cherbury. The Saxon army was not far away, and a local man ran to warn Canute. For the tip-off he was given this horn, and all the land that it could be heard from – it paid off because Canute’s army won the ensuing battle.

This stone, which utter’d many a blast,
In silence lay for ages past,
By man unheard, by man unseen.
Tradition said it once had been,
And that for miles its loud alarms
Were heard, when Alfred blew to arms;
And this tradition had it still
The stone was on the White Horse Hill.
From sire to son the Blow Stone tale
Thus circles round the White Horse Vale.

In recent times this stone was found,
Imbedded near the battle ground.
The wandering shepherds first saw there
And Atkins has preserved with care
This mystic remnant of the day
When Alfred ruled with regal sway;
And when the wise decrees of fate
Made friend and foe confess him great,
This trumpet loudly did proclaim
His wars, his wisdom, and his fame.

- from a poem entitled A Day on the Downs, 1855

“...Then let my tale be told,
While yet my stones stand firm on English mould,
To those among ye who yet love our tongue,
How Wayland the Smith forged here of old.”

K M Buck, The Song of Wayland

This book, ‘Crop Circles, signs of contact‘ wants us to believe that Golden Ball Hill is so called because of the strange glowing globes seen there, which are connected with the crop circles of the area. Well, it could be true, though you’d think someone would have mentioned these globes before. But whatever, I guess it is an interesting and fitting contemporary example of place name derivation, in the lore-rich landscape around Avebury.