Latest Folklore

Camden points out [..] a confusion in the case of [..] a place in Sussex, ‘a military fort compass’d about with a bank rudely cast-up, where the inhabitants believe that Caesar intrench’d and fortify’d his Camp. But Cisbury, the name of the place, plainly shews it was the work of Cissa; who was the second King of this Kingdom, of the Saxon race, succeeding Aella his father.

Camden’s eighteenth century editor interpolates an account of another* Caesar tradition in Sussex: within a mile of Findon ‘is an ancient Camp, about two miles distant from the sea. It is call’d Caesar’s-hill, because the people imagine it was Caesar’s Camp; and they pretend to shew the place where Caesar’s tent was. Notwithstanding which, the form of it shows that opinion to be ill grounded; for, being roundish, it seems rather to have been a British work.‘

p224 in
Local Caesar Traditions in Britain
Homer Nearing, Jr.
Speculum, Vol. 24, No. 2. (Apr., 1949), pp. 218-227.

*surely the same – because Cissbury ring is very close to Findon.

Pant y Meddygon (the Dingle of the Physicians) features in the famous local legend of the Physicians of Myddfai (though curiously the stones aren’t mentioned. Perhaps the stones now represent the physicians?). The Otherworldly Lady of the Lake used to visit her sons here, showing them the plants and explaining their medicinal properties.

You can read the whole story at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf105.htm
where it is part of John Rhys’s ‘Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx’ (1901). He was quoting a writer from 1860 who had based his writing on local accounts.

Maeshowe, or the maiden’s mound, as it has been translated, was formerly known to the Orcadians by the euphonius name of “the abode of the Hog-boy.” Hog-boy, however, is simply a perversion of the Norse Haug-bui or mound dweller.

From p150 of
Orkneys and Shetland
Chas. Sprague Smith
Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, Vol. 23. (1891), pp. 131-155.

[In the photograph] are two “celts.” The lower one is nearly black (basalt?) the upper one is of a very light grey and in perfect condition. Both are of hard close-grained stone. The interest attaching to them is that they are “fairy arrows.” They were found at Mulindry Glen, near what appears in the maps as Dun Nosebridge, locally called Nosbreac, Islay. The original owner of them, when handing them to the lady from whom they were received, said “they were in the possession of her father and her grandfather and were always called saigheadan shith and were saigheadan shith.” In Eigg these seem to be called Ceapa-Sithein, as if they had been used for blocking something on, as a shoemaker’s last is used.

Charms, etc., Figured on Plate IX
R. C. MacLagan
Folklore, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1903), pp. 298-300.

A. L. Lewis quotes from a letter “from the Reverend Dr. James Garden, Professor of Theology in the King’s College of Aberdeen, to --- Aubrey, Esquire.”

Honoured Sir,
Yours dated at London, April 9th, 1692, came to my hands about ten days after..
What the Lord Yester and Sir Robert Morray told you long ago is true, viz., that in the north parts of this kingdom many monuments of the nature and fashion described by you are yet extant. They consist of tall, big, unpolished stones set upon end and placed circularly, not contiguous together but at some distances; the obscurer sort (which are the more numerous) have but one circle of stones standing at equal distances; others towards the south or south-east have a larger broad stone standing on edge, which fills up the whole space between two of those stones that stand on end, and is called by the vulgar the altar stone...

[..] Two of the largest and most remarkable of these monuments that ever I saw are yet to be seen at a place called Auchincorthie. [..] Being lately at Auchincorthie, I was told that a poor man who lives there having taken a stone away from one of the neighbouring monuments above described and put it into his hearth was, by his own relation, troubled with a deal of noise and din about his house in the night time until he carried back the stone unto the place where he found it.

[..] Some of them are called chapels... others are called temples... and those two [described] are called by the people that live near by ‘Law Stones,’ for what reason I know not, and ‘Temple Stones.’ They have a tradition that the pagan priests of old dwelt in that place, Auchincorthie, and there are yet to be seen at a little distance from one of the monuments standing there the foundations of an old house which is said to have been their Teind Barn; they report likewise that the priests caused earth to be brought from other adjacent places upon people’s backs to Auchincorthie for making the soil thereof deeper, which is given for the reason why this parcel of land, though surrounded with heath and moss on all sides is better and more fertile than other places thereabouts*..

“*This tradition, which seems rather absurd at first sight, may have arisen from the custom which we know to have prevailed of bringing earth and stones from a distance to form special parts of tumuli and circles. -- A.L.L.”

From p 49-51 of
Stone Circles Near Aberdeen
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 17. (1888), pp. 44-57.

In a Welsh manuscript from 1600* there is a list of giants and their abodes. It includes

“Clidda Gawr in the parish of Bettws Newydd, and his abode in the place called Cloddeu Caer Clidda, and that land to­day is called Tir Clidda in the parish of Llanarth.”

Coed y Bwnydd is near/on Clytha Hill, so it seems Coed y Bwnydd may well be Clidda’s castle. It’s now a wooded nature reserve looked after by Monmouthshire council. (There is a Clytha Castle to the north, but that’s far too new for a giant).

*Owen, H., ‘Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837’ Y Cymmrodor, XXVII, (1917) pp.115-52. Text and translation.
cited here on the Arthurian Gwent page.

The Trioedd Ynys Prydain (“The Triads of the Island of Britain”) were compiled in the 13th century*. Triad 5126 describes Vortigern, who was not a very nice man. But he came to a sticky end:

“[He] first gave land to the Saxons in this Island, and was the first to enter into an alliance with them. He caused the death of Custennin the Younger, son of Custennin the Blessed, by his treachery, and exiled the two brothers Emrys Wledig and Uthur Penndragon from this Island to Armorica, and deceitfully took the crown and the kingdom into his own possession. And in the end Uthur and Emrys burned Gwrtheyrn in Castell Gwerthynyawn beside the Wye, in a single conflagration to avenge their brother.”

The triads had been influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work, the ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ (c1138). (a translation of which is online at yorku.ca/inpar/geoffrey_thompson.pdf )
and this similarly describes Arthur going to
“.. the town of Genoreu, whither Vortigern had fled for refuge. That town was in the country of Hergin, upon the river Gania, in the mountain called Cloarius.”

(bear with me here)

People (eg John Edward Lloyd in
The English Historical Review, Vol. 57, 1942) have suggested that Genoreu is ‘Ganarew’, which is today the name of the settlement below Little Doward hillfort. So this could be the intended scene of this story. For another Arthurian link, there is a cave on the hillside called “King Arthur’s Cave“.

*but you have to bear in mind that Iolo Williams had an overactive imagination too.

This mound is called a round barrow in the scheduled monument record (though maybe there’s some doubt about its origins).

To quote the Furness Family History Society: “In a field called Ellabarrow is an oval tumulus crowned with trees, and in the next field is a pit from which its earth is thought to have come, it is said that in the barrow the mythical Lord Ella is said to be buried along side his golden sword.”

furnessfhs.co.uk/pennington_church_01.htm

These earthworks (probably an Iron Age hillfort reused in medieval times) – are where the giant threw the Tibblestone from.

I haven’t found an older reference for this, but Danny Sullivan claims the giant was aiming at Tewkesbury:
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.rtf.
whilst Celia Haddon says he was aiming at the boats on the Severn:
celiahaddon.co.uk/standing%20stones/gloucestershire.html
That’s really the wrong direction! but then, it is said that he slipped mid-throw.
The ‘Tibblestone’ page quotes ‘The Old Straight Track’: “A long time ago, a giant lived in these parts, and he went up the hill to fetch a large stone to destroy his enemy’s house. When he was carrying it down, his foot slipped, and his heel made a great furrow in the hillside, and you can see it to this day, and he had to drop the stone just where you see it. It is quite true because you can see for yourself the holes where the giant’s fingers had hold of it.”
tibblestone.users.btopenworld.com/tibblestone.htm

This is a slightly different version of the tale below (which is also in the article). It was told by Mr. Howel Walters of Ystradgynlais, who assured the writer it was firmly believed in that parish. It’s quite long, but then it has to be to accommodate the traditional ‘three repeats’.

There was a conjurer living at Ystradgylais at the beginning of the present century, who had an iron hand; and there is an old tradition that a treasure is hidden at the Garngoch, the highest point of the Drim mountain. The “Iron-hand” conjurer made the acquaintance of one John Gething, a farmer’s son, who lived at Werngynlais farm, and gave him some books to study, with a view of teaching him the black art. John is reported to have made great progress in a short time; and, being a very courageous man, his teacher was able to perform in his presence many things which few mortals can withstand.

One day John Gething was working at the hay on his father’s farm, when two men appeared before him. John said to them, “Hei!” And one of the men said to him: “Well, is it for thee that thou hast spoken! Thou must come with us to the Garngoch to seek the hidden treasure.”

John went, and on the way he found out that he who spoke to him was his old teacher: but the other being disappeared, and John never saw him again. On arriving at Garngoch the conjurer told John that he was not, on the peril of his life, to divulge anything that he would see or hear that night on the top of Garngoch.

When night came on the conjurer opened his books, lit a candle, and began to read, with strict injunctions to John not to be afraid of anything he saw. While the conjuror read spirits appeared and surrounded them with great noise; and then great light shone on Garngoch, and John saw three pots full of gold. Nothing more happened that night; but the conjurer gave John strict instructions to meet him there another night which he named.

When the appointed night came John met him to time. The first thing done by the conjurer this night, after giving John the same instructions as on the previous night, and that he was not to be frightened, was to make two rings joined like the figure 8. John stood in one ring and the conjurer in the other, and neither of them was to step out of the ring, or fear, at the risk of losing their lives or being carried away by the devil! The conjurer lit his candle and began to read his books; and the spirits appeared with great noise. Then came a fiery bull, and ran at John Gething; but John stood in the ring fearlessly, and the bull and all the evil spirits vanished. The conjurer was very pleased with John Gething’s courage, and told him one night more would be sufficient for them to fight against the spirits to secure all the hidden treasure and gold he had seen on the first night. The conjurer, before leaving, told John on what night he was to meet him again.

On the third night the conjurer had brought more books, and told John before he opened them that it was a matter of life or death to im how he acted that night, that terrible things would appear, but there would be no harm if he stood fearlessly, and did not move out of the ring; but first he must have a drop of John’s blood to give to the devil to satisfy him before the spirits appeared, and John gave a drop of his blood to the conjurer to give to the devil.

The conjurer then made to rings as before, lit his candle, and began to read his books. The spirits came with greater noise than before, and surrounded them, and a large wheel of fire came towards the ring in which John Gethin stood, and John was so frightened that he stepped out of the ring.

The devil immediately took hold of him, and was going to carry him away in such a terrible storm and heavy rains as no one before witnessed in the district, but the conjurer implored him not to kill John, as he had displayed such courage before; and there was a hard fight between the devil and the conjurer for John’s life, and the devil at last gave in, and permitted John to live as long as the candle lasted which the conjurer had to read his books, and the devil told them that neither of them should ever have the hidden treasure, but a virgin not yet born would some day own the same.

The conjuror gave John Gething the candle, and told him not to light it, but to keep it in a cool place. John did so, but the cndle wasted, though it was never lighted, and John Gething from that night became ill, and worse and worse, until he died. The candle also was found to have wasted completely at the time of his death.

During John’s illness several doctors attended upon him, but no one understood the cause of his sufferings or death, except a few persons to whom he divulged what had transpired on the Garngoch. John was buried at Ystradgynlais church.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

The Treasure on the Drim
E. Sidney Hartland
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 125-128.

The Witch-Elder still watches over the victims of her magic. As to the exact position of the tree, however, the tradition is shifting. According to some accounts it used to stand in the field not far from the dolmen called the “Whispering Knights.” Some say it was near the circle, but was blown down not many years ago. Others say that it is to be found in the hedge by the road not far from the King-stone, or further in the field beyond the mound where an elder-bush that stood by a large stone was some years since pointed out to a friend as “the Witch.”

[..]

The proof that the elder is a witch is that it bleeds when it is cut. And with regard to this I came upon a remarkable tradition, which an old woman, the wife of a man of eighty, told me she had heard many years ago from her husband’s mother.

On Midsummer Eve, when the “eldern-tree” was in blossom, it was a custom for people to come up to the King-stone and stand in a circle. Then the “eldern” was cut, and as it bled “the King moved his head.”

It is to be observed that this breaking of the spell by blood-letting itself fits on to a very widespread superstition regarding witches, of which I found many surviving expressions in the neighbouring village of Long Compton. They say there that if you only draw her blood, “be it but a pin’s prick,” the witch loses all power for the time.

For the “eldern-tree” to bleed it must be in blossom. The more sceptical spirits amongst the country people explain the matter by the catch, “If you cut the elder with your hand on it it will bleed,” but among the children at least the more literal belief in the bleeding elder has not died out.

An old man of Little Rollright told me that some years ago he was up by the stones and a ploughboy asked him whether it was really true that the elder-tree bled if it was cut. “Lend me your knife,” said the old man, and forthwith stuck it into the bark. “Won’t you pull it out?” siad the boy. “Pull it out yourself!” was the reply, but the boy was too scared to do so. It was only at last, as they were about to go home for the night, that the boy, fearful that he would lose his knife altogether, approached the tree “tottering with fright and all of a tremble,” and, snatching it out, rushed away without waiting to see whether the tree bled or not.

From p20/21 in
The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore
Arthur J. Evans
Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), pp. 6-53.

[This] was told me in the summer of 1894: I was in Meath and went to see the remarkable chambered cairns on the hill known as Sliabh na Caillighe, ‘the Hag’s Mountain,’ near Oldcastle and Lough Crew. I had as my guide a young shepherd whom I picked up on the way. He knew all about the hag after whom the hill was called except her name: she was, he said, a giantess, and so she brought there, in three apronfuls, the stones forming the three principal cairns. As to the cairn on the hill point known as Belrath, that is called the Chair Cairn from a big stone placed there by the hag to serve as her seat when she wished to have a quiet look on the country round. But usually she was to be seen riding on a wonderful pony she had: that creature was so nimble and strong that it used to take the hag at a leap from one hill-top to another. However, the end of it all was that the hag rode so hard that the pony fell down, and that both horse and rider were killed.

From Celtic Folklore
Welsh And Manx
by John Rhys
[1901]

online at sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf200.htm

..the Cailleach Bheara is most closely associated with the great cairns at Loughcrew, about two miles south-east of Oldcastle, Co. Meath. The Hill called Sliabh-na-Caillighe is 904 feet high and a prominent feature in the landscape. It has three main peaks, two of which are covered with tumuli and cairns while the third had large tumulus on it which was broken up by the landowner to make walls round his property.

[..]

The legend, which was commonly related in the neighbourhood up to fifty years ago, was that a famous old hag of antiquity called Cailleach Bheara came one day from the North to perform a magical feat, by which she was to obtain great power if she succeeded. She took an apron full of stones and dropped a cairn on Carnbane; from this she jumped to the summit of Sliabh-na-Caillighe, a mile distant, and dropped a second cairn there; then she made a third jump and dropped a cairn on another hill about a mile distant. If she could make a fourth leap and drop a fourth cairn, the feat would have been accomplished; but, in making the jump, she slipped and fell in the townland of Patrickstown in the parish of Diamor, where the poor old hag broke her neck. Here she was buried, and her grave was to be seen in a field called Cul a’mhota, “Back of the Mote”, about 200 perches east from the mote in that townland, but it is now destroyed.

p246 of “Legends and Traditions of the Cailleach Bheara or Old Woman (Hag) of Beare” by Eleanor Hull, in
Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1927), pp. 225-254.

She refers to Conwell and O’Donovan in Proc. R.I. Acad., vol ix, pp42, 356

If you make seven circles of Mount Caburn the Devil will jump out at you – according to a local chap this tale was seriously believed c.1914 when he was a boy.

Apparently cited in a letter to? Jacqueline Simpson in 1973, and mentioned in a footnote in
Circling as an Entrance to the Otherworld
Samuel Pyeatt Menefee
Folklore, Vol. 96, No. 1. (1985), pp. 3-20.

Taken from the Irish Folklore Commission 1937/1938 Tipperary Reel 4 pg 207:

The cairn about 400 yards away is called The Krall. It is about 7 feet high and about 30yards in diameter. The stones are similar to the ones in the Labba although they seem to have been brought from outside the area. The owner of the field would not let anyone take these stones.

A ring of stones can be viewed from the Krall in the townland of Reardnogymore. They were found when the bog was being cut away. The stones are standing on edge about 2 yards apart and the ring is 30 yards in diameter.

The North Tipp Inventory states that this stone-circle is no longer here.

At the other end of the Krall is an “old Quick or white-thorn bush and from this bush a path can be seen ran from that bush to the Maher-Clay moutain a distance of about an Irish mile”

This sounds like it links the Baurnadomeeny complex to the Mahurslieve. Its also interesting the direct quote is “Maher-clay Moutain”.

Taken from the Irish Folklore Commission 1937/1938 Tipperary Reel 4 pg 207:

The longstone according to this was originally part of a pair. It relates to the Diarmuid and Grainne story. Diarmuid carried this one on his back (The longstone) and Grainne carried a smaller one. Which is now gone.
Seemingly there is the print of a chain at the bottom of the remaining longstone. This was where Diarmuid used a chain to strap it on his back while carrying it.

Taken from the Irish Folklore Commission 1937/1938 Tipperary Reel 4 pg 207:

The Labba was made up of 3 “apartments”. One room was 15ft long and 5ft wide and 4ft high. The mound around was 20 yds in diameter.

“The church of Brent Tor is dedicated to St Michael. And there is a tradition among the vulgar that its foundation was originally laid at the foot of the hill ; but that the enemy of all angels, the Prince of Darkness, removed the stones by night from the base to the summit,--probably to he nearer his own dominion, the air,--but that, immediately on the church’s being dedicated to St Michael, the patron of the edifice hurled upon the devil such an enormous mass of rock that he never afterwards ventured to approach it. Others tell us that it was erected by a wealthy merchant, who vowed, in the midst of a tremendous storm at sea (possibly addressing him. self to his patron, St Michael, that if he escaped, he would built a church on the first land he descried. If this was the case, he seems to have performed his vow with more worldly prudence than gratitude; as it is one of the smallest churches any where to be met with. Indeed it frequently, and not inappropriately, has been compared to a cradle.

p252 of A Description of the Part of Devonshire bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy, by Mrs Bray. v1 (1836).

The beacon at Veryan stands on the highest ground in Roseland, at a short distance from the cliff which overlooks Pendower and Gerrans Bay. Dr Whitaker, in his ‘Cathedral of Cornwall,’ states it to be one of the largest tumuli in the kingdom. Its present height above the level of the field in which it stands is about twenty-eight feet, and its circumference at the base three hundred and fifty feet; but it must have been originally much larger, as a considerable portion on one side has been removed, its summit being now about’ eighty feet from the base on the south side, and only fifty feet on the north, whilst the top of the cairn which was discovered in it, and which ‘was, no doubt, placed exactly in the original centre of the mound, is at least ten feet still farther north than the present summit.

“A tradition has been preserved in the neighbourhood, that Gerennius, an old Cornish saint and king, whose palace stood on the other side of Gerrans Bay, between Trewithian and the sea, was buried in this mound many centuries ago, and that a golden boat with silver oars were used in conveying his corpse across the hay, and were interred with him. Part of this tradition receives confirmation from an account incidentally given of King Gerennius, in an old book called the ‘Register of Llandaff.‘

It is there stated that, A.D. 588, Teliau, bishop of Llandaff, with some of his suffragan bishops, and many of his followers, fled from Wales, to escape an epidemic called the yellow plague, and migrated to Dole in Brittany, to visit Sampson, the archbishop of that place, who was a countryman and friend of Teliau’s. ‘On his way thither,’ says the old record, ‘he came first to the region of Cornwall, and was well received by Gerennius, the king of that country, who treated him and his people with all honour. From thence he proceeded to Armories, and remained there seven years and seven months; when, hearing that the plague had ceased in Britain, he collected his followers, -caused a large bark to be prepared, and returned to Wales.’ ‘In this,’ the record proceeds, ‘they all arrived at the port called Din.Gerein, king Gerennius lying in the last extreme of life, who when he had received the body of the Lord from the hand of St Teliau, departed in joy to the Lord.‘

‘Probably,’ says Whitaker, in his remarks on this quotation, ‘the royal remains were brought in great pomp by water from Din-Gerein, on the western shore of the port, to Came, about two miles off on the northern; the barge with the royal body was plated, perhaps, with gold in places; perhaps, too, rowed with oars having equally plates of silver upon them; and the pomp of the procession has mixed confusedly with the interment of the body in the memory of tradition.’ ”

From Popular Romances of the West of England
collected and edited by Robert Hunt
[1903, 3rd edition]

online at the Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm

Celts or stone implements.---These in the west of Ireland, but especially in the Aran Isles, Galway Bay, are looked on with great superstition. They are supposed to be fairy darts or arrows, and are called saighead [syed] anglice dart. They had been thrown by fairies, either in fights among themselves or at a mortal man or beast. The finder of one should carefully put it in a hole in a wall or ditch. It should not be brought into a house or given to anyone, yet the Aranites are very fond of making votive offerings of them at the holy wells on the mainland. They carry them to the different patrons and leave them there; the reason for this I could not make out; they do not seem to leave them at the holy wells on the islands. A person supposed to be fairy-struck is said to have been “struck with a dart.” Grown people who suddenly get fits are supposed to be struck with a saighead..

p112 in
Notes on Irish Folk-Lore
G. H. Kinahan
The Folk-Lore Record, Vol. 4. (1881), pp. 96-125.

Although probably placed there in the neolithic or bronze age period, this stone ‘is said to be the burial place of Godred, King of Man, who died in 1095’ (Caldwell, p.109).

Godred Crovan was the ‘Norse-Gael ruler of Dublin, the Isle of Man and the Hebrides in the second half of the 11th century. Godred’s epithet Crovan means white hand (Middle Irish: crobh bhan)’ (Wikipedia). He fought with the Vikings at the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, where they were defeated by the English and their leader, Harald Hardradi, killed. He is said to have died on Islay in 1095 “of pestilence” according the Irish chronicles ‘Annals of the Four Masters’.

Source of quotes: David H. Caldwell, Islay, Jura and Colonsay: a historical guide (2001); Wikipedia article on Godred Crovan.

“The hardships suffered by some people in Kildalton Parish were, if oral tradition is to be believed, brought to an end by an outbreak of “The Plague”, which is said to have wiped out the entire population of a settlement of some nine houses still known as “The Plague Village”. The ruins of the village can still be seen near St. Michael’s well, some 2 kilometres northwest of Ardbeg. According to local tradition, a young man from the village, who had travelled the world, came back to Ardbeg as a crew member of a ship. On a brief visit to his native village he fell ill and died of the plague. The villagers immediately put themselves into quarantine. people from the surrounding area brought food each day to a rock near the infected village. When the food was no longer taken away, they knew that the last of the villagers had died. In due course the houses were burned, leaving only the stone walls and a corn kiln to mark the spot where the village had stood. The story, which is referred to in a guide to Islay published by the Isle of Islay Federation, Scottish Women’s Rural Institutes in 1968, has such a ring of truth about it that it deserves a place in history.”

(Source: Clifford N. Jupp “The History of Islay, 1994, p. 214)

This clearly relates to this site – the well is the requisite distance north west of Ardbeg, and the name St Michael’s Well makes sense in view of its proximity to Druim Claiggean Mhicheil – “ridge of Michael’s good field”. There are ruins of the deserted habitation of Solon immediately to the north east of the well – whether the plague story is true is unknown. I believe that Solon itself was lived in within living memory. There is also a nearby hut circle marked on the map.

Of the coming of the Danes the battle traditions have much to say, if nowadays they are growing misty. But here it must be noted that every tale of ancient warfare in the Quantock country, and probably in the rest of Somerset, is assigned to the time of the Danes in a way which is not wonderful when one considers that Athelney itself lies on the edge of the Quantock land, and that from 835 to 1010 the North Somerset coast was constantly ravaged by the Viking fleets. I have known even Sedgemoor fight ascribed to the Danes.

The first landing of these invaders, in A.D. 835, was at Parrett Mouth, but on the right bank of the river. The memory of that invasion is still so clear, however, that it should be recorded. The field of battle lies under Brent Knoll, and is known as ” Battle Borough.” The tradition is that the enemy was destroyed because a certain old woman dared, during the fight inland, to prevent their escape by cutting the cables of the ships, and so setting them adrift on the falling tide.

Battleborough is on the south flank of Brent Knoll. From p38 in
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.

One earth-castle, Hembury, near Buckfastleigh, has a legend that long ago when the defenders were likely to be overwhelmed, they retreated leaving their womenfolk to deal with the situation in the manner of the Danaides. The ladies welcomed the enemy, took them into their beds and stabbed them all in the night. We owe the discovery of this legend to Mrs Diana Woolner, F.S.A., who has found the same story attached to
Danebury in the Quantocks, Somerset, and also at Portland, Dorset.

p148 in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

Earth-Castles
Devon is dotted with hill-forts of many periods, constructed against invaders from east or west, or from the sea. Their exact purpose is being investigated, and indeed they are still being counted. Quite a lot have legends attached to them. Bradley, near Newton Abbot, has men in armour lying there on moonlight nights.

p 147 in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.