Latest Folklore

[Hilaire Belloc told the story] of how St Dunstan pulled the Devil’s nose with red-hot tongs at Mayfield, making this a sequel to the [Devil’s Dyke story below]. I have also recently heard a friend of mine associate the two tales, but in the reverse order; according to him, when the Devil felt the hot tongs at Mayfield, he leapt into the air and hurtled out to sea to cool his nose, kicking the Downs with his hoof as he passed overhead. The Dyke is the mark left by his kick. My informant thinks he learnt this unusual variant at Mayfield, not in the neighbourhood of the Dyke itself.

p210 of
Sussex Local Legends
Jacqueline Simpson
Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 3. (Autumn, 1973), pp. 206-223.

[The Devil’s Dyke] is a deep, narrow cleft in the north face of the Downs, beginning near Poynings and pointing southwest towards the sea. The hill above it is a famous beauty-spot with a superb view – and also with a cafe and souvenir shop which energetically exploit the legend. But in spite of this commercialisation, it is interesting to see what a number of variations exist in written and oral sources, and how many landscape features have been swept into the orbit of this ever-popular tale. It is far from being as stereotyped as I used to assume it was.

All but one of the versions I know agree that the Devil dug the Dyke because he was furious at the piety of villages to the north of the Downs, and wanted to let in the sea to drown them. He started near Poynings and dug vigorously, having sworn to finish the job in a single night, until something occurred to stop him -- but what? Here versions differ.

The most popular variant, which can be traced back as far as the late eighteenth century, says that during the night an old woman was woken by the noise, and guessed what the Devil was up to. So she lit a candle and put it in her window with a sieve in front of it, so that it made a dim globe of light. The Devil looked round, and thought this was the sun rising; he could hardly believe his eyes, but then he heard a cock crow -- for the old woman, just to make sure, knocked her cockerel off his perch. So off he flew, leaving the job half done.

This version still circulates orally, as well as in guidebooks, and is often enlivened by extra topographical details, as that the Devil as he dug sent huge clods of earth hurtling through the air, which became the Caburn, or Chanctonbury, or various other hills.

Some say that when he flew off he went out over the Channel where a lump of clay fell from his hoof and became the Isle of Wight; others, that he bounded northwards into Surrey, where the impact of his landing formed the Devil’s Punchbowl.

On the other hand, there are versions which ignore the old woman and say the Weald was saved by a saint, though they disagree on which one should have the credit: an unnamed hermit weilding a Cross, said the Penny Post in 1837; or St Cuthman, helped by a nun whose prayers gave the Devil cramp and whose blessed candle tricked him, said Harrison Ainsworth in Ovingdean Grange in 1879, followed by the official guide-book on sale at the Dyke; or St Dunstan, as Hillaire Belloc maintained in a lively retelling in The Four Men in 1912..

From p209/210 in
Sussex Local Legends
Jacqueline Simpson
Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 3. (Autumn, 1973), pp. 206-223.
Her sources in the latter part of the text were local people in the 1960s/70s.

Some will tell you this is a mediaeval fortification. But as a handy natural mound overlooking the stream below – well surely. Pastscape says a Lower Palaeolithic Handaxe was found here in the 1880s. I know, this doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But until the Magic pdf arrives to describe this Scheduled Monument, perhaps it’s enough.

One of our best [Sussex] fairy legends was published in 1854 from the narrative of a certain Will Fowlington, who had turned seventy at the time and had learnt it from a great-uncle; it is set at Burlow Castle..

“When I was a liddle boy and lived with my gurt uncle, old Jan Duly, dere was an old place dey used to call Burlow Castle. It warn’t much ov a castle -- onny a few walls like -- but it had been a famous place in de time when dere was a king in every county. Well, whatever it had been afore, at de time I speak on, it were de very hem ov a place for pharisees [fairies], and nobody didn’t like to go by it ahter dark for fear on um.
One dee as Chols Packham, uncle’s grandfather (I’ve heerd uncle tell de story a dunnamany times) was at plough up dere, just about cojer time, he heerd a queer sort of a noise right down under de ground’ dat frightened him uncommonly, sure-lie...”

The story is too long to quote, but it develops into a fine version of ML 5080, ‘Food from the Fairies’, with the motif of the broken peel.

How cruel to leave us hanging like that. The original, if you can find it, is in M.A. Lower’s ‘Contributions to Literature’ 1854, p158-61. The above is a quote from p208 of Sussex Local Legends
Jacqueline Simpson
Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 3. (Autumn, 1973), pp. 206-223.

I think a long paper could be written on the silly way people used to write down dialects.

***

Some more of the story:

Collected pre-1852 (pre-1840?) by Mark Anthony Lower from Will Fowington, a 70-year old South Downsman who had heard the story from his uncle, Jan Duly. Earthwork (medieval?). Charles Packham, the narrator’s great great uncle was ploughing at Burlow Castle, a noted ‘Pharisee’ haunt. About ‘cojer’ time (11.00 A.M.), he was frightened by a voice coming from a crack in the ground, calling for help. Harry, his mate, denied the existence of fairies, but hearing the voice again, Charles inquired what was the problem and was told ‘I’ve been a bakin’, ... and have broken my peel ... and I dunnow what upon de airth to do.’ ‘Under the earth,’ silently thought the ploughman, but he said to put the peel up, and he would try to mend it. Although it was no larger than a ‘bren-cheese knife... not big enough to hold a gingey-bread nut hardly,’ Charles refrained from laughing in order not to run the risk of offending the fairies. He took out some tin tacks, and, using his knife as a hammer, mended and returned the peel. Harry was unbelieving when informed of this, but the next day, at the same time, Charles was rewarded with a bowl of beer-sops. He hoped to keep the bowl as proof, but it slipped from his hand and dashed itself to pieces. Harry again was unbelieving, but the fairies punished him for his comments. (He fell sick and died a year to the hour that he had first insulted them.)

From A Cake in the Furrow
S. P. Menefee
Folklore, Vol. 91, No. 2 (1980), pp. 173-192

In Jacqueline Simpson’s “Sussex Local Legends”
(Folklore, Vol. 84, 1973) she mentions in a footnote on p207 that:

“I have come upon a cutting from the Worthing Gazette of 16 Oct, 1935 referring to Aaron’s Calf being buried on Highdown Hill – yet another site with a hill-fort.”

The Aaron’s Calf story is better known from The Trundle.

St. Just, from the Land’s End district, once paid a visit to St. Keverne, who entertained him for several days to the best of his power. After his departure his host missed some valuable relics, and determined to go in pursuit of his late guest, and try, if possible, to get them from him.

As he was passing over Crousa-down, about two miles from St. Keverne church, he pocketed three large stones, each weighing about a-quarter of a ton, to use if St. Just should offer any resistance. He overtook him at a short distance from Breage and taxed him with the theft, which was indignantly denied.

From words the saints came to blows, and St. Keverne flung his stones with such effect that St. Just ran off, throwing down the relics as he ran. The stones still lie where they fell, about four hundred yards from Pengersick Lane.

Violence and theft? From Saints? And they say things are worse these days.
p22 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1. (1887), pp. 14-61.

Precautions have to be taken against changelings, and at Chudleigh mothers used to tie their babies to them in bed at night for fear of the pixies..

A keeper and his wife used to live at Chudleigh, near the rocks, whose holes the pixies “bide” in. This couple had two children, and one morning when the wife had dressed the eldest she let her run away while she dressed the baby. Presently her husband came and asked her “where the little maid was to?” For she was gone and was not to be found. They searched high and low for days; the neighbours came to help, and at last bloodhounds were to be sent for. But one morning some young men thought they would go and help themselves to some nuts from a clump of nut-trees not far from the keeper’s house, and at the farther side they came suddenly on the child, undressed, but well and happy, and not at all starved, playing with her toes, or toads; I do not know which. The pixies were supposed to have stolen the child, and are still firmly believed to have been responsible for her disappearance.

Bad parenting blamed on the pixies. At least they looked after her, and they didn’t even swap her. This story on p213 of
Devonshire Folklore
Lady Rosalind Northcote
Folklore, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Jun., 1900), pp. 212-217.

Contrary to IronMan’s pessimism, some reports suggest the golden coffin is still buried in the long barrow.. well at least, they don’t say it’s gone. (try Archaeologia 86, 1937, p121-2)

Nope I’ve no proof this holy well has genuine prehistoric connections. But it is on the Wrekin (a hill you can hardly fail to notice) and would surely have been a useful water source for people living in / using the hillfort in prehistoric times?

We complete the holy wells of the Wrekin District with St Hawthorn’s Well on the Wrekin itself. (There is also the Raven’s Bowl, alias Cuckoo’s Cup, near the top of the Wrekin, which suggests a more frankly pagan origin; a natural waterbowl that is still very much to be seen).

None of the authorities locate St Hawthorn’s Well’s exact site on the Wrekin, either because none knew, or when they wrote its position was so well-known that it seemed unnecessary. Like all other hard rock hills the Wrekin has a large number of streams originating from small springs, carrying water down the hill on all sides, so there are many candidates. However, where one stream emerges onto the road (NGR 624 069) the place is known as The Spout, and this may possibly commemorate St Hawthorn’s Well.

The well was known for scorbutic therapeutical properties, and the fact that one unfortunate’s unrewarded visit is commonly recorded suggests it was generally held to be efficacious. Burne holds St Hawthorn(e) to be a corruption of St Alkmund, to whom a nearby monastery was dedicated; but other authorities (and for once Mrs Burne’s view seems unlikely) suggest that there was a tree there that was venerated and the spring was close by.

Borrowed from ‘Notes Towards a Survey of Shropshire Holy Wells – 1’ by Laurens Otter, online at the Living Spring Journal archive:
people.bath.ac.uk/liskmj/living-spring/sourcearchive/fs3/fs3lo1.htm

“Mrs Burne” refers to Charlotte Burne’s ‘Shropshire Folk Lore’. Volume 3 says:

On the summit of the Wrekin there is the Raven’s Bowl, or Cuckoo’s Cup, as it is variously called; a small hollow in the rock, which is always full of water though no spring is there, and is popularly believed to be a drinking-place purposely, and as it were miraculously, formed for the use of the birds after which it is named. It is proper to taste the water in this hollow when visiting the Wrekin. I do not know, but feel no doubt nevertheless, that this was a ceremony pertaining to the ancient Wrekin Wake.

Philpots Camp is a triangular promotory fort that uses the natural cliffs to the south west and south east for defence. On the north east side there’s a bank and ditch to cut the fort off on its sandstone spur of the High Weald. But possibly more excitingly, the overhanging rocks of the cliffs were used much earlier, as rock shelters in Mesolithic times. A lot of flint knapping evidently went on here, and many pieces of flint were found at a large rock called variously ‘Great upon Little’ and ‘Big upon Little’. Geology and weather have created that ‘precarious undermined boulder’ look – hence the name. According to this page at ‘Sussex Archaeology and Folklore‘
sussexarch.org.uk/saaf/philhill.html :

“The stone was a great attraction for tourists at some point and there are initials carved wherever a hand could reach, dating anywhere from the 17th century, with initials being carved over others and the effects of the weather leaving the possibility of earlier dates, indeed Thomas Pownall in 1778 tell us that the stone “was covered with multitudes of names and initials of all dates”. The top of the rock next to it is easily accessible allowing the brave to jump across to the top of Big-Upon-Little. The author of this page found copper coins left there like some sort of votive offering.”

I also found this, which mentions the stone.

A man of 84 years of age told me that he had seen a book which told all about the rock called Great-upon-Little, but that it did not mention what he had heard people say, that the rock had formerly been an object of worship, and to touch it was death. (1905.)

p 163 in
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

Were local people such as the man above responding to speculation they’d heard from people who’d found flints, etc, or local antiquarian’s ideas? Or were they responding directly to the strangeness of the geology – something akin to Julian Cope’s and some modern archaeologists’ ideas of ‘proto temples’ and ‘sacred landscapes’?

The webpage above has a photo of Great upon Little, and pf another stone with carvings and folklore – the ominously named ‘Executioner’s Rock’.

“I was.. told that the giant on Firle Beacon threw his hammer at the Wilmington giant and killed him, and that the figure on the hillside marks the place where his body fell.”
p162 of
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

Seaford Head is an Iron Age hillfort, but it actually contains an older, early Bronze Age round barrow. Folklore seems to connect it with both the fairy folk and the Romans:

An almost unapproachable cave in the face of the cliff at Seaford Head is called (says M. A. Lower) Puck Church Parlour, and is the scene of an ancient superstition. A shepherd on the cliff top told me (1875) that it was called Buck Church; his boy had been in it, but he couldn’t get down the face of the cliff. (1875.)

p162 in: Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

A short distance from the haven [Cuckmere Haven] a steep gulley leads to the beach with a convenient chain and rope to prevent too sudden a descent. It has been suggested that through this gap the Romans passed from their moored fleets to the fortified settlements above. It was at one time possible to descend by another opening higher up the cliff to a ledge called “Puck Church Parlour.” This is now inaccessible except to seabirds.

From chapter 2 of ‘Seaward Sussex’, by Edric Holmes (1920).

Fires were anciently lighted on the top of Firle Beacon, Mount Caburn and other eminences of the South Downs. They were last lighted on the day of the Queen’s Jubilee, June 21st, 1887. On the top of Firle Beacon is a “round”; the woman who told me this did not seem to be certain what this “round” was, and was inclined to think that it might have been a haunt or habitation of the giant of Firle Beacon. (noted 1891)

from p164 of
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

More from ‘Local Traditions of the Quantocks’ by C. W. Whistler
(in Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.), which I seem to have overlooked. Must have been the Pixy Effect.

The Pixy legends of the district are of no unusual type. Belief in “Pixy leading” is general, and only a few years since a woman, lost in a sudden evening mist within a few minutes walk across the fields from her house, and unable to regain the pathway or find the stile, became actually demented from terror, firmly believing that she was “Pixy led.” The legends have one special centre round a large mound on the Wick “moor”, exploration of which has this year yielded some very remarkable results. The mound is about ninety feet across by eleven feet high, mainly composed of stones, and it was said to move bodily about the field in whose centre it stands.

Barrows moving about? How very unusual. But I do refer you to Grinsell’s cautious remarks below.

On [one] side of Dorchester, on a steep bank overlooking the river Frome, is a single entrenchment called Poundbury (locally, “Pumbury”); it is an irregular quadrangle the longest side of which runs nearly parallel with the river and is more than 400 yards long, – the extreme width is about 150 yards. This is attributed by some to the Danes, and by others to the Romans, who are thought, with much probability, to have erected it when attacking or “observing” Maiden Castle..

Local folklore or just antiquarian speculation? hmm.

Remarks on Some Archaic Structures in Somersetshire and Dorsetshire.
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 11. (1882), pp. 117-122.

The Stones are but a tiny hop from the Winterbourne spring. Is it too imaginative to think the two might be connected? Ok possibly.

“Folks say that no man ever saw a ‘winter-borne break. It is dry one day and running the next, but its first downpour was never beheld. Many years ago watch was kept day and night for a fortnight for the breaking of the Winterborne Abbas stream. One night the watchman on duty found that his pipe had gone out. ‘Bridehead-lodge – he bean’t ‘bove hundred or two yard – can’t do any harm to get light there.’ But in those three minutes the winter-borne broke unseen.”

Some might also be keen to read meaning into the nearby house being ‘Bride-head lodge’.
p117 in
Dorset Folk-Lore
J. J. Foster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 115-119.

Dolmens.-- These were supposed to be giant’s graves, and, if called “altars,” the word was understood in a Christian sense, with a belief that they had been used for the mass during the prevalence of the cruel penal laws.

For example, Altoir Ultach was said to be named from an Ulster priest who served the mass there in the eighteenth century because the nearest magistrates were more tolerant than those of the north.

There is no evidence of any general popular belief that they were pagan altars, such an idea, where it existed, being derived from the “learned ignorance” of local gentry.

p91 in
A Folklore Survey of County Clare (Continued)
Thos. J. Westropp
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Mar., 1912), pp. 88-94.

The highest point of Slievenaglasha, --rising 700 feet above the sea, which is visible far to the west, --has fourteen cairns and overlooks a long shallow valley, with strange brown patches here and there and another strong ring wall over a little cave. The patches are the labbas or beds of the Glas and her calf, the waterfall sprang from the abundant milk of the cow, and the fort is Mohernagartan (“the smiths’s fort”), the residence of Lon the Smith. The footprints of the wonderful animal and of Lon’s seven sons are visible on every crag, and the cave with strange cinder-like debris is the reputed forge of the “dark brown Luno” of (Macpherson’s) Ossian.

p89 in
A Folklore Survey of County Clare (Continued)
Thos. J. Westropp
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Mar., 1912), pp. 88-94.

The tale of the Glasgeivnagh, or Grey-green Cow, on Slievenaglasha [..] runs as follows:- Lon mac Liomhtha (Loon mac Leefa), of the Tuatha De Danann, was the first smith to make an edged weapon in Ireland. He had only one leg, with which he could spring over hills and valleys, but as compensation he had a third arm and hand growing out of his chest, with which he held the iron on the anvil while forging it with the huge hammer held by his other hands.

He had stolen a wonderful grey-green cow from Spain, and lived on its unlimited milk. After long seeking he found a “desert” sufficiently fruitful to support her in Teeskagh. Many tried to steal her, but failed, because her hoofs grew backwards and she could not be tracked.

One of Lon’s seven sons took charge of her on each day of the week, holding her tail while she grazed. When she reached the edge of the plateau, he pulled her round by the tail, and let her graze back to Lon’s fort, Mohernagartan (“the smith’s fort”). She drank of the seven streams of Teeskagh, and the rocks were marked in every direction with her hoof prints.

At last the fame of Finn mac Cumhail reached Lon, and he, unlike the rest of his race, (who sulked in the fairy hills after their defeat by the Milesians), determined to recognise the chief hero of the new race and to make for him a wondrous sword. Lon set off to make himself known, and springing over the intervening plains and hills reached Ben Edair, the Hill of Howth on the east coast. Finn and his warriors were holding a court when the strange being dropped into their midst, and Finn demanded the name and errand of the intruder.

“I am Lon, skilled in the smith’s craft, a servant to the King of Lochlan,” the visitor replied. “I lay on ye a geis (obligation) to overtake me ere I reach my home,” and off he sprung.

The Fianna were soon outdistanced, except Caeilte “of the slender, hard legs,” who came up with Lon hard by his forge, a cave with heaps of slaggy material in a nook still called Garraidh na gceardchan.

Caeilte slapped Lon on the shoulder with the words, “Stay, smith. Enter not they cave.”
“Success and welcome, true man of the Fianna,” replied Lon, in delight. “Not for witchcraft did I visit thee, but to lead thee to my forge and make thee a fame-giving weapon.”

The two had already wrought in the forge for two days when Finn and his followers arrived, and Lon sold them eight swords. He resumed work aided by Goll and Conan, sons of Morna, but their mighty blows split the anvil and ended the work.*

*Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. ii., p, 71; taken down in 1839 from Shane Reagh O’Cahane, an old tailor and shanachy (story-teller) in Corofin, by O’Donovan and E. O’Curry.

.. The tale was minutely localised on Glasgeivnagh Hill and Slievenaglasha before 1839. At first our enquiries seemed to show that the story had died out, but after a couple of years Dr. MacNamara found it still subsisting amongst a few old folk and herdsmen neer Teeskagh. As neither of us referred to the 1839 story, we were much struck by the perfect agreement after the lapse of two generations. I took down one recension at Tullycommaun in 1896, from John Finn. The main story is identical with that given above, and it ends as follows:-

“At Slievenaglasha were the Glas cow’s beds. No grass ever grows on them. She used to feed near the herd’s house [at the dolmen of Slievenaglasha] and over Cahill’s mountain, where she could get plenty of water out of Teeskagh. And she went away, and how do I know where? And there were no tidings.”

Another tale, extant and in 1839, tells that the cow could fill any vessel with milk, until an ill-conditioned woman bought a sieve; the mill ran through and became the Seven Streams; and the cow, mortified at being unable to fill the sieve, ran away and (or, in one version) died. With reference to another appendix to the tale,-- “an Ulsterman took the cow,“...

County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths, I
Thos. J. Westropp
Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Mar., 1913), pp. 96-106.

The record on Coflein says this 1.8m high mound is now part of ‘domestic garden’.

[I examined] a large cairn on the opposite side of the River Ogwen, about a mile south of the village of Llandegai and close to the back of the keeper’s house at Llys-y-gwynt. It was called “Carnedd Howel” from the popular belief that it was the resting place of a prince of that name: but it is hardly necessary to say that these associations of prehistoric burial-places with historical personages are generally mythical; they date probably from a comparatively recent period, when history itself had become somewhat legendary, and when past events had become jumbled together in the traditions of the people.

..An old man of 80, named Robert Roberts, told me that, as a boy, he was much afraid of passing here by night, as he had often seen lights dancing about on the Carnedd.

From p309 of
On the Opening of Two Cairns Near Bangor, North Wales
A. Lane Fox
The Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1869-1870), Vol. 2, No. 3. (1870), pp. 306-324.

Hearing from my friend Sheriff Mackenzie, of Dornoch, of the existence of an ancient fort, with dome-roofed chamber attached, and surrounded by earth-works and a ditch, on the farm of Kintradwell, near Bror, I resolved to take an early opportunity of inspecting it ..

Leaving further excavations at this locality to a more favourable opportunity.. we next morning held council over the mouth of an underground passage opening in the hill side, about a mile off, and averred by the majority of our men to have been traced to Dunrobin Castle, seven miles away, whilst the utmost concession to our most delicately expressed doubts on the subject, could go no further than to reduce its length to four hundred yards, throughout every inch of which it had positively been followed by the uncle’s wife’s father of one of our party, accompanied by his collie and carrying a candle...

p.lxv in Some Further Notes upon Pre-Historic Hut-Circles
George E. Roberts
Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 3. (1865), pp. lx-lxv.

Numerous hut-circles also occur near Clun Castle [sic], Cornwall, of a rude circular form, varying from eight to forty feet in diameter; the “walls” or hedges composed of unhewn stones placed without cement.
The hearth-stone was met with beneath the centre of one circle covered up with about twelve inches of mould. These are locally known as the “huts of the old people.” They have been briefly described by Miss Millett in the Report of the Penzance Nat. Hist. and Antiquarian Society for 1849..

p lxii in:
Some Further Notes upon Pre-Historic Hut-Circles
George E. Roberts
Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 3. (1865), pp. lx-lxv.

Grinsell mentions the story of the broken peel (see below) in his ‘Archaeology of Exmoor’ (1970). He says that similar stories have been recorded in England – at Beedon Barrow for example, but that it has ‘a Scandinavian flavour’. “Miss R.L. Tongue has mentioned another Scandinavian motif (the theft of a gold cup from the fairies) from the Quantock Hills, although apparently not connected with any barrow.”

One final point needs to be added. The Wick Barrow tradition seems to have been first recorded for that site by Rev C. W. Whistler, Rector of Stockland Bristol from 1895 to 1909; he was also an energetic member of the Viking Society of Great Britain and Ireland, for which he was secretary for the Bridgwater area. Because of this the present writer just wonders how vivid his imagination was.

He thought Miss Tongue was quite imaginative too, I believe.

Oh how I would have loved to meet Mr Grinsell. He collects all this folklore but he is such a cynic. I’d like to think we would have got on well.

Okay. So this story isn’t precisely about the Woodbarrow. But I’m inclined to think that Westcote’s vagueness about its location is all part of his storytelling style.

The name of this other burrow I remember not, but it is near another that I cannot forget, Wood-burrow, of which a gentleman worthy credit, both for honesty and wealth (as the proverb saith worth a 1000£), told me this relation.--

Two good fellows, not inhabiting far from this burrow, were informed by one who took on him the skill of a conjuror, that in that hillock there was a great brass pan, and therin much treasure both silver and gold, which if they would mine for, he promised (by his metaphysical skill) to secure them from all danger, so he might have his share with them. They with little persuasions assented, and in love made a fourth man acquainted therewith, whom they knew to be no dastard, but hardy in deed; but he better qualified than to take such courses to purchase wealth, absolutely refused to partake therein, but promised secrecy.

The other two, with their protector the mystical sciencer, proceed, come to the place, go to their work, and apply it so earnestly that long it was not ere they found the pan covered with a large stone; with a sight whereof and their assister’s encouragement they follow their labour with the utmost ability, for he always told them if they fainted when it was in sight it would be soon gone and taken from them, and their whole labour lost.

Now the cover was to be opened, and the fellow at work; but he was suddenly taken with such a faintness that he could neither work nor scarce stand, and therefore called to the other to supply his place, which he presently did. Lifting up the cover he was instantly surprised with the like faintness; which continued not long with either; but their defender told them the birds were flown away and the nest only left, which they found true; for recovering their strength they lift away the stone and take out the pan, wherein was nothing at all but the bottom thereof, where the treasure should seem to have been, very bright and clean, the rest all eaten with cankered rust.

The relator protested that he saw the pan, and they two that laboured told him severally all these circumstances, and avowed them.

Quoted by Grinsell from Westcote’s ‘View of Devon in 1630’, in
The Archaeology of Exmoor
L V Grinsell
1970
(p157)

Thomas Westcote’s story of the barrow:

A daily labouring man by the work of his hand and sweat of his brow having gotten a little money, was desirous to have a place to rest himself in old age, and therefore bestowed it on some acres of waste land, and began to build a house thereon near, or not far from, one of these burrows, named Broaken-Burrow, whence he fetched stones and earth to further his work;

and having pierced into the bowels of the hillock he found therein a little place, as it had been a large oven, fairly, strongly, and closely walled up; which comforted him much, hoping that some great good would befall him, and that there might be some treasure there hidden to maintain him more liberally and with less labour in his old years:

wherewith encouraged, he plies his work earnestly until he had broken a hole through this wall, in the cavity whereof he espied an earthen pot, which caused him to multiply his strokes until he might make the orifice thereof large enough to take out the pot, which his earnest desire made not long a doing; but as he thrust his arm and fastened his hand therin he suddenly heard, or seemed to hear, the noise of the trampling or treading of horses coming, as he thought, towards him, which caused him to forbear and arise from the place, fearing the comers would take his purchase from him; (for he assured himself it was treasure); but looking about every way to see what company this was, he saw neither horse nor man in view.

To the pot again he goes, and had the like success a second time; and yet, looking all about, could ken nothing. At the third time he brings it away, and therein only a few ashes and bones, as if they had been of children, or the like. But the man, whether by the fear, which yet he denied, or other cause, which I cannot comprehend, in very short time after lost senses of both sight and hearing, and in less than three months consuming died. He was in all his lifetime accounted an honest man; and he constantly reported this, divers times, to men of good quality; with protestations to the truth thereof, even to his death. It is your choice to believe these stories or no; what truth soever there is in them, they are not unfit tales for winter nights when you roast crabs by the fire.

From Westcote’s ‘View of Devon in 1630’.

Killuken, county Roscommon.
In a field on the roadside from Carrick to Croghan, on the left hand, is a long stone set up obliquely. The common people call this Cloghcom, i.e., the crooked stone, and say that it was thrown there from the top of Skimore, in the county of Leitrim (a distance of about seven miles), by the Giant Fin mac-Coole, the print of whose five fingers they say is to be seen in it.

Taken from ‘A statistical account or parochial survey of Ireland, drawn from the communications of the clergy, by William Shaw Mason. 1814-1819.
Quoted on p333 of
Irish Folk-Lore. [Continued]
William Shaw Mason
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 4. (1887), pp. 331-335.

Kindly identified by Ryaner – many thanks.