Latest Folklore

One stormy night St Patrick was said to have been ship wrecked on the island of middle mouse below Dinas Gynfor. Being a very strong swimmer (!) he swam across strong currents to a cave beneath the present church of Llanbadrig (Badrig=patrick) finding refuge there and fresh water. He stayed and set up a Llan-thus bringing Christianity to these shores.

The church does date from the 6th century and there is a cave just below the graveyard with a spring running through it, so you never know this tale may have some truth in it.

A midwife of Flodigarry was attending a confinement, when, one day, a message came for her to go some distance away. She [agreed to] the summons and found herself inside a fairy mound. She begged to be allowed to go, but the fairies refused to let her till she had performed two tasks. She was provided with a spindle, some wool, and some meal in a girnal. When the wool was all spun, and the meal made into bread, she might go. She toiled very assiduously to get all finished up, but it was of no avail. The wool and the meal remained undiminished. Despairing of ever seeing her home again, she begged of a fairy who was alone with her to tell her what to do. The fairy was moved by her prayers and told her to spin the wool as the sheep eats grass.

[Here the writer says This instruction has no meaning, so I suspect there has been some mistranslation from the Gaelic, which is of course, the language in which all these stories were originally told. Thus she misses the point entirely, because it’s
surely a riddle the midwife has to solve? She continues..]

At all events the midwife understood, and soon finished that task. As to the meal, the fairy told her that she must take some of the dough and form a cake with it. This cake she must bake in front of (before?) the others, and eat it entirely herself. [Again some critical point has been missed, as she says:] In this way the task was done.

The fairies saw she must have had help from one of their own number, but she stoutly refused to tell. They were therefore forced to allow her to go. Joyfully she sped back to her “case,” and on arriving at her patient’s house she found it full of music and merrymaking. Astonished, she asked a bystander what it all meant. “A wedding,” was the surprised answer.
“Whose wedding will it be?” she queried impatiently. What was her surprise to find it was the wedding of the very child she had helped to bring into the world, for she had been absent more than twenty years.

p207-208 in
Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye
Mary Julia MacCulloch
Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1922), pp. 201-214.

An old man in Borve was very much later than his neighbours in cutting his corn. One day he was standing looking at it, and he said aloud, “This corn is ready to be cut.” Waking next morning this easy-going old gentleman saw, to his amazement, his corn cut and put up in stooks.

The next morning he was met by a man about four feet high and dressed in blue clothes. (This probably meant for green, as my informant, Donald Murchison, while working in the garden always called grass “that blue sing.“) The old man asked the stranger where he had come from. “From Dun Borve,” answered the little man, “and want pay for cutting the corn.”
“What pay?” queried the old crofter.
“A few potatoes and a little pot,” was the reply.
This seems a floating reminiscence of the demands of the much-dreaded tinkers, for, of course, potatoes were entirely unknown in the days when this story was first told. However that may be, the demands in this case were acceded to, and now hardly a day passed without the little man or his still less wife appearing with new requests.

The nuisance became quite intolerable, and the old man beat his brains for a means whereby he might put a stop to it. He at last hit on a plan. One day, when his troublesome visitors were as usual asking for something, he suddenly called out, “Dun Borve is on fire with all in it, dog or man.” Instantly the fairy disappeared and from that time troubled the ingenious old man no more.

But at Portree Market he once more saw the little man. Unwisely, he spoke to him, and the fairy said, “How will you be seeing me?”
“With this eye,” said the old man.
Instantly the fairy put spittle in the eye indicated, and, though the old man retained the normal use of it, the supernormal power disappeared.

p205-6 in
Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye
Mary Julia MacCulloch
Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1922), pp. 201-214.

This dun would be the natural choice for the location of this story:

A man in Raasay, going to a black still at Suishnish for whiskey, and coming back with a skin bottleful on his back, saw a hill, which he had to pass, open before him, and looking in he saw tables laid. This was too good an opportunity to be missed, and he went in to join the feast, which was being celebrated with all manner of splendour: linene of the finest, massive silver plate, and gaily dressed servants waiting.

Dancing followed, and for a while he joined in; but, becoming sated with gaiety, he thought of returning home. He would have a fine story to tell, but who would believe him? He must have some evidence to show, so he snatched away a tablecloth. The hue and cry was up at once, and he was closely pursued. But he reached home safely with his prize, which he showed to all comers.

Macgilliechallum, the chief of the Macleods of Raasay, asked for the cloth, and asking, in the case of a chief, being then much the same as taking, it was given up to him. It was long in the possession of the MacLeods of Raasay.

p205 in Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye
Mary Julia MacCulloch
Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1922), pp. 201-214.

And the Dun is surely the location for this story too. And if it isn’t it should be.

A well-to-do couple in the neighbourhood of Edinbane had but one lack in their prosperity – they had no child. But, at length, to their pride and joy, the wished-for child arrived. A bountiful harvest demanded all hands at work, and the mother carried her infant out, and left it comfortable and apparently safe inthe charge of a young girl. But the latter was heedless and false to her trust, and she left the sleeping infant to the many dangers which menace infant life.

During her absence the fairies, attracted by the beauty of the human child, stole it, leaving in its place a peculiarly unattractive infant of their own species. From that time the healthy child “dwined,” always wailing and refusing to eat. After all ordinary means had been tried and had failed the mother consulted a “wise man.” This person bade the mother listen if she could hear the crying of her own child, which she soon perceived to be coming from a little hill.

By the advice of the wise man the mother took the fairy child near this hill and slapped it hard. Immediately a voice was heard exclaiming in anger, “Throw her out her own ugly brat,” and the fairy child disappeared, leaving, at her feet, her own comely infant.

p204-205 in
Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye
Mary Julia MacCulloch
Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1922), pp. 201-214.

This just has to be the location of the following story.

Two hunchbacks lived at Edinbane, about fourteen miles from Portree. One of these fell ill, and asked his comrade in misfortune to go and feed his herd of cattle, the beautiful shaggy creatures one still sees in the Highlands. As the neighbour, a kindly, merry man, proceeded on his mission, he heard sounds coming from a small hill, and, listening, he heard a voice chanting continuously, “Monday, Tuesday.”
With a sudden impulse he joined in, “Wednesday, Thursday.”
A voice inquired, “Who will be adding nice verses to my song?”
“A hunchback bodach,” the man replied.
“Come in to my house,” said the voice, and the hunchback obeyed.
An old fairy man greeted him, and in gratitude for the addition to his song he took off the disfiguring hump.

We can picture the neighbour’s astonishment when the transformed hunchback returned home. Jealousy consumed him, and the next day he hurried to the same place and heard the same song, which now included the nice new verses. Jealous of his neighbour’s good fortune, for he was a sullen, discontented man, he joined in, “Friday, Saturday.”

But this did not have the desired effect, for a wrathful voice demanded, “Who will be spoiling my nice song?” and the fairy man emerged and dragged him inside. With somewhat arbitrary cruelty he added the neighbours hump to that already on his back and drove him out.

p203-4 in
Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye
Mary Julia MacCulloch
Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1922), pp. 201-214.

A relative of Donald Murchison, who was employed as a herd boy on the farm of Scorybreck, fell asleep on a hill known as Dun Torvaig. Awaking from a heavy sleep, he found himself surrounded by fairies, and was a delighted spectator of their feasting and dancing. Meanwhile, in his home, he was mourned for as dead, and sad funeral feasts and loud wailing (and the latter is most heartrending) filled the house. What was the astonishment of the mourners when he arrived home, safe and well. Three weeks had elapsed, but he refused to believe it, and said, “It was the fine long sleep I had, but who would be sleeping the three weeks? It was but half a day I was after sleeping.” He was safe and well certainly but never again the same lad, for he was ever distraught in manner, and ever sighing for the joys of the fairy-haunted Dun.

p203 in
Folk-Lore of the Isle of Skye
Mary Julia MacCulloch
Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1922), pp. 201-214.

Donald was one of Mary’s informants – he did her garden for her and was the local postie. He had “the magnificent salary of four shillings a week [and] could read English and was fond of reading.” When she went round his house for tea (she was “served with a courtesy worthy of a ducal palace”) she couldn’t help noting that his hearth was in the centre of the room and the cows were eating just through a door in the kitchen. I kind of feel she mentions these things to prove he’s ‘one of the folk’ to her readers, rather than marvelling at the quaint way he lives.

A Wishing Cell. -- At St. Govain in Pembrokeshire there is a “wishing cell” in the rock. It is said that any one who turns round inside wishing for the same thing all the time, will get it before the end of the year. The place is still visited by young people who are in love.

p157 in
Notes on Welsh Folklore
Jonathan Ceredig Davies
Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1919), pp. 156-157.

Two pieces of stoney folklore from the vicinity. I doubt they’re connected to the rock art (they rarely are) but there various natural rocks and even a ruined chambered tomb in the Brahan Woods.

[..]Mr. W. Mackenzie, Procurator Fiscal of Cromarty, writes me from Dingwall (10th September, 1917) as follows:

“We are not without some traces and traditions of phallic worship here. There is a stone in the Brahan Wood which is said to be a ‘knocking stone.’ Barren women sat in close contact upon it for the purpose of becoming fertile. It serves the purpose of the mandrake in the East. I have seen the stone. It lies in the Brahan Wood about three miles from Dingwall.”

J.G. Frazer.

‘In close contact’ – what a polite way of putting it.
And another, also fowarded by Sir James Frazer:

In the Brahan Wood there are a number of conglomerate boulders, some of considerable size. Two of these boulders lean against each other, meeting near the top. A few years ago an old woman aged 84 died near this town. When she was a child she had a fit – perhaps a convulsion – which her parents supposed to be epileptic. They lighted a fire at the top of the leaning stones, and passed the child through the opening below. This reminds one of the Biblical account of passing through the fire to Moloch.”
W Mackenzie, Dingwall.

From:
Women Fertilized by Stones
J. G. Frazer
Folklore, Vol. 29, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1918), p. 254.
and
Scotch Cures for Epilepsy
W. MacKenzie
Folklore, Vol. 29, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1918), p. 86.

This mound of earth is generally called the Castle by the peasantry, among whom some singular tales are current respecting the cause of its formation.

One of these is a vague story of a certain Queen, who having made a wager with the King, that she could encamp a large army of men within a bull’s hide, ordered the bull’s hide to be cut into strings, and the greatest possible circle to be encompassed therewith: this was done accordingly, and the encampment made upon this spot.

From p29 of ‘The Beauties of England and Wales’ by John Britton, and others (1801).

[Quoting Dr Stukeley:]“A high prominence of the Chiltern overlooks all, called the Five Knolls, from that number of barrows, or Celtic tumuli, which are round, pretty large, and ditched about, upon the very apex of the hill.

Close by is a round cavity, as often observed in Wiltshire [ie a dry valley in the chalk hill]. This, we are informed, is called Pascomb Pit, and is a great hollow in the downs.”

Tradition, that unwearying journalist of marvellous tales, reports that a church was intended to have been erected on this spot, but that the materials were removed invisibly as fast as brought together.

From p29 of ‘The Beauties of England and Wales’ by John Britton, and others (1801). Yeah, John Britton sounds like a pseudonym for such a book title, but he was an antiquary. Online at Google Books.

More on the ‘Pascombe Pit’, where there was the tradition of rolling oranges on Good Friday. The writer connects this with the removal of the stone from in front of Jesus’s tomb. But really that wasn’t orange and didn’t roll down a hill.

The tradition of orange rolling is believed to have started in the mid to late eighteenth century and involved hundreds of people. The juiciest oranges were reserved for pelting one another and knocking off the top hats of those foolish enough to wear them at such a spectacle. Additional entertainment was provided by a local band which was later joined by several fairground attractions including a merry-go-round, a coconut shy and a shooting gallery. They positioned themselves at the foot of the hill.

Attendance grew each year with people travelling from as far away as London by train, bus and eventually by motor car.

Sadly lack of oranges in the war led to the activity’s suspension. And a revival later was ‘squashed’ by local traders in the sixties. Bring back the orange rolling!!

see Rita Swift’s article here, at the Collections Picture Library.

From White Horse Hill and Surrounding Country by L V Grinsell.

‘There is another Hangmanstone, 4+1/2 feet high, south of the Lambourn Seven Barrows, and many others exist in southern England, some being connected with a legend of a man whoe stole sheep and rested at the stone with the sheep tied by a cord; but in its efforts to get away the sheep twisted the cord round the man’s neck and strangled him. This legend has not, however, been recorded of the Berkshire stones, so far as I know.‘

Compare with som text from; Memories of Old Berkshire, by Jane M Taylor O.B.E.

‘By the side of a lonely road near where we lived is a very large, rather flat stone, known locally as ‘Hangman Stone’. The story is that a man stole a sheep, tied it by the legs and hung it around his neck to carry it home. He grew tired, and sat down on the stone to rest. The sheep struggled and the cord hanged the man; and to this day that road is called Hangman Stone Lane, and it is still haunted by the ghost of the sheep stealer.‘

The devil threw a stone from here to Cleeve Hill Tumulus, as you may read about on that page.

But due to my impressionable childhood mind voraciously devouring the Reader’s Digest ‘Strange Stories, Amazing Facts’, Meon Hill always reminds me of the story of the witchcraft-related? murder of Charles Walton.

You can read all about it in Adrian Pengelly’s White Dragon article here:
whitedragon.org.uk/articles/charles.htm
(amongst countless other internet sites).

The article also teasingly mentions in passing that “there had long been stories of a ghostly black dog on Meon hill that heralded death to those it appeared to”. The detective investigating the case is said to also have seen a black dog on the hill..

There are two barrows marked here on the summit on the OS map, although Magic doesn’t actually list them as scheduled monuments. I read this about the Down in ‘Folklore’*: “.. in Hampshire “stones grow.” If you doubt this, you only have to gather the flints off a field and see if a double crop will not face you shortly! Besides, has not Shanklin Down increased one hundred feet in height?”

Well how bizarre. I found a bit more here. I guess it must have been local drollery in the C19th Isle of Wight. Unless of course, the hill really has been on the move.

“That high peak that we see is St. Katherine’s, the highest point of the island, is it not?”
“Yes,” he replied, “St. Katherine’s is at present the highest point of the island.”
”Is at present! Why, you do not mean to say that there ever was a time when its elevation was different?”
“That I know nothing about,” he replied; “but it appears very probable that Shanklin Down will soon overtake it in height.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say that Shanklin Down is growing higher?”
“That, indeed, appears to be the case, or, at any rate, relatively to other heights in the island. The inhabitants of Chale will tell you that formerly Shanklin Down, from the interference of Week Down, could only be seen from the top of St. Katherine’s, whereas it is now visible from Chale Down, which is much lower consequently, unless Week Down has sunk lower than it was, Shanklin Down must have risen considerably. Now, if Week Down is sinking, it is very probable that St. Katherine’s is slipping down too; so that, whether Shanklin Down is growing higher or not, it seems very probable that it will in the course of time overlook all the rest of the Isle of Wight.”
“Very curious,” said [another], with a kind of supercilious air. “I suppose the two hills playing at see-saw.--Now we go up, up, up; and now we go down, down, down. Very curious, -- very,” picking his teeth incredulously between the two last words.

“There is no animal,” thought I to myself, “so jealous of another of the same species, as your regular story-teller.”

From ‘Tales and Legends of the Isle of Wight – with the adventures of the author in search of them.’ by Abraham Elder, Esq.
p535 in Bentley’s Miscellany, vol 5 (1839). Apparently it’s mentioned in Worsley’s 1781 History of the Isle of Wight, if you can find it.

*Hampshire Folklore
D. H. Moutray Read
Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1911), pp. 292-329.

Charm-Stones.

The two holed-stones exhibited are from the collection of Sir F. Tress Barry, and were dug out of brochs, popularly called “Picts’ houses,” in the neighbourhood of Keiss Castle, Caithness.

They measure on and three-sixteenths and one and seven-sixteenths of an inch respectively in diameter. The smallest is from one-eighth to a quarter of an inch in thickness, whilst the larger and less perfect specimen has a thickness of three-eighths of an inch on one side, but on the opposite is chipped away to little more than one-sixteenth of an inch. The perforation of the first is a clean cut circle not quite a quarter of an inch in diameter. The hole of the larger stone is rougher, and has a diameter of three-eighths of an inch. Sometimes these stones are found decorated with small patterns of scratched lines. They are, in fact, ancient spindle whorls.

A few people in Caithness still attribute some superstitious power to these stones, and on the first night of the “quarter” they tie one of them between the horns of each of their cows and oxen, to frighten away the fairies and ill-luck. There is a tradition that the magic stones were made by seven vipers, who worked them into shape with their teeth, and that as they were finished the king of the vipers carried them off up on his tail ! *

When cattle sickened it used to be the custom in the old days – and, indeed, until quite recently – to call in a man with “charm stones” to conjure out the evil spirit. The grandfather of a middle-aged man now living in Caithness was celebrated for his wonderful cures, and declared that he had often seen the “fairy darts” sticking in the sick oxen when called in to doctor them.

He had to be left quite alone when practising his magic arts, but one day a neighbour – being very curious to see what he did – hid in a stable where he had shut himself up, and saw him rub the sick animal with the charm-stones, while at intervals he turned the stones over in the basket he had brought them in, saying “Swate ye! Swate ye!” He then administered a “drink of silver” (a bucket of water with a piece of silver money in it), and the animal was cured. The “silver drink” is still believed to be very effective in many parts of Caithness, and certainly it is a simple remedy, not likely to do any mischief.
F.BARRY.

*In the Hebrides these stone whorls are known as adder-stones.

Veterinary Leechcraft
Edward Lovett; F. Barry; J. G. Frazer; F. N. Webb
Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1905), pp. 334-337.

This must link to the idea that Harold fought a battle here (and hence erected the memorial stones):

We have many place-names, whose folk-etymology recalls the long-past border wars and commemorates real or imaginary battles. [..] At Trelleck (Mon.) is the Bloody Field, on which no crops will grow, nothing but gorse. “Eh, but it have been ploughed again and again, but ‘tis no use; because of the blood spilt there, ‘tis no use.”

[..]

Legend said [the stones Jacky Kent threw] could never be moved, but alas! gunpowder has accounted for one at least on the English side of the Wye.

p163 in Folk-Lore of the Wye Valley
Margaret Eyre
Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 2. (Jun. 24, 1905), pp. 162-179.

This story is known in similar forms around Britain, for example Llanymynech Hill and Fiddler’s Hill. It seems odd that although this one’s based in Trelleck, the stones themselves aren’t mentioned. Unless of course it was obvious to the teller and implied, but not known to the recorder.

There was a tradition at Trelleck, [so says Mrs Perrett or Bevan at Tregagle], of a fiddler having been lost in a cave; he was heard playing underground for years afterwards. Another story of the same sort, or possibly an explanation of the above, is that some people passing through a certain meadow used to hear lovely music. Several times they heard it, and at least they collected some folk together to investigate it. They traced the music to a certain spot, and there they dug in the ground, disclosing at last an underground cave wherein were two old men, hermit-like, playing, one a violin, the other a harp. They had been there many years, and used to take it in turns to go out at night and fetch food. Very old and decrepit they were, and soon after they were taken from underground they died.

p64 in Miscellaneous Notes from Monmouthshire
Beatrix A. Wherry
Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Mar. 25, 1905), pp. 63-67.

Wandering a little further to the north-east, you reach the top of Cairnpapple with its round Pictish fort – the place, as a not very intelligent workman whom we met on the hill told us, “where they aye met to burn witches.”

By the oh so intelligent and conveniently anonymous contributor to p266 of ‘Things New And Old in Religion, Science and Literature’ (1857). Online at Google Books.

Craig y Llyn towers above the lake, and it..

..had a green lady in the seventeenth century. Every seven years she came and sat on one of the rocks, making chains and necklaces of wild berries. The rowan or mountain-ash was her favourite tree, and she could be seen wandering about gathering an apronful of the bright red berries, which she conveyed to her favourite rock. Once when a man wished to follow her, but stood irresolute, she beckoned to him and smiled. He went towards her, and she gave him a handful of red rowan-berries.

He thanked her, and put them in his pocket. Then there came a crash, and the lady disappeared. She wore a green robe and green jewels. The berries changed to gold coins.

From chapter 15 of Mary Trevelyan’s ‘Folk lore and folk stories of Wales’ (1909). Online at V-Wales:
vwales.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/welshfolklore/chapt15.htm

There are two walled enclosures on the summits of Moel Offrwm, and the traces of many small round structures (surely roundhouses, though Coflein does not commit the site to any particular period).

It’s not connected with the forts*, but is a very local story: There was an oak just beneath the mountain on the west side, known as Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll, ‘the goblin’s hollow tree’. It must have been quite crowded in there as it was also supposed to have been haunted by a compatriot of Owain Glyndwr, Howel Sele. The two men had been enemies but had allegedly made up, and were hunting deer together. Sele took a crafty shot at Glyndwr, but was rather surprised when his arrow bounced off the armour he was cunningly wearing underneath his vest. Gyndwr was understandably angry. Years later a skeleton ‘resembling Howel Sele in stature’ was discovered in the hollow tree. The tree met a natural fate in the early 1800s.

From: ‘Llanvachreth – Llanvagdalen’, A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1849), pp. 111-15.
british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47858

*unless you’d like to think that Sele had his stronghold in one of the forts.

“An old story about a witch living near the Ogmore River, in Glamorgan, describes a man listening to the muttering of a woman, and instantly giving her chase, with the result that in the “twinkling of an eye” he found himself on the top of the Garth Mountain, near Whitchurch.”

from chapter 16 of Marie Trevelyan’s “Folk-lore and folk-stories of Wales”, published in 1909. Online at V-Wales:
vwales.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/welshfolklore/chapt16.htm

When Eston nabbe puts on a cloake,
And Roysberrye a cappe,
Then all the folks on Clevelands clay
Ken there will be a clappe.---Yorkshire.

on p130 of
Weather Proverbs and Sayings Not Contained in Inwards’ or Swainson’s Books
C. W. Empson
The Folk-Lore Record, Vol. 4. (1881), pp. 126-132.
Apparently also in the Denham Tracts from 1850.

In 1890 this hilllock was supposed the final resting place of a woman from about 150 years previous, who spent her years looking for the husband lost in a fight between Orcadians and Danes

Local legend has it that Cromwell’s Parliamentarian troops set up a cannon on the barrow and fired on the town of Ashbourne a little more than a mile away.
Several of the cannon balls are displayed at St Oswald’s church in the town.

This is a summary of an article printed in Archaeologia volume 9.

Mr. Rooke is the author of the next article, which informs us of druidical remains on Harborough Rocks, Derbyshire; viz. circles, caves, basons, &c. The most remarkable is a rock cut in the shape of a great chair, near another stone having a bason at the top. One of these huge rock-chairs is situated at the side of a small plain opposite to a rock-idol. They are supposed to have been the occasional seats of the officiating druids; who, being near the rock bason, might conveniently consult the pure water, or snow, collected in it.

From p9 of the Monthly Review v2, 1790 (which is online at Google Books). Pretty much says what Stubob says! but 200 years before.

In the 1920s at least, the cave on the south west face was “known locally as the Giant’s Cave”.

so says p204 of ‘Exploration of Harborough Cave, Brassington.‘
A. Leslie Armstrong
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 53. (Jul. – Dec., 1923), pp. 402-413.