Latest Folklore

.. the Callinish Stones .. by very long tradition are looked upon as ‘countless’ locally..

.. Mackenzie [in ‘History of the Outer Isles, 1903] mentions a very early tradition which associates the Callinish Stones with the tombs of warriors slain in battle.

You can’t help feeling wary of ‘very long traditions’ but that’s just how you relate folklore I suppose – you know, once upon a time. From the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section:
F. H. Amphlett Micklewright
Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 1. (1976), pp. 115-116.

It seems very likely to me that the following folklore relates to this impressive sounding stone (“a large monolith of sandstone, roughly quadrangular at base, tapering to a point at its upper extremity. It is 8’ 9” in height above the ground, 2’ 5” across the W face at base, and 1’ 10” across the N”, according to the RCAHMS record).

ST. GILBERT AND THE DRAGON.
There lived once upon a time, in Sutherland, a great dragon, very fierce and strong. It was this dragon who burnt all the fir-woods in Ross, Sutherland, and the Reay, of which the remains, charred, black and half decayed, may now be found in every moss. Magnificent forests they must have been, but the dragon set fire to them with his fiery breath, as he rolled over the whole land. Men fled from before his face, and women fainted when his shadow crossed the sky-line. He made the whole land a desert. And it came to pass, that this evil spirit, whom the people called “the Beast,” and Dhu guisch (of the black firs), came nigh to Dornoch, as near as to Lochfinn, from whence he could see the town, and the spire of St. Gilbert – his church.
“Pity of you, Dornoch!” roaredthe dragon.
“Pity of you, Dornoch!” said St. Gilbert and taking with him five long and sharp arrows, and a little lad to carry them, he went out to meet the “Beast.”
When he came over against it he said, “Pity of you!” and drew his bow. The first arrow shot the Beast through the heart.
He was buried by the townspeople. Men are alive now who reckoned distance by so or so far from “the stone of the Beast” on the moor between Skibo and Dornoch. The moor is now planted, and a wood called Caermore waves over the ashes of the fir-destroying dragon. – (From Alexander the Coppersmith.)

p157 in
The Folk-Lore of Sutherland-Shire
Miss Dempster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3. (1888), pp. 149-189.

There is a somewhat graceful creation of fancy associated with the Vow, or fuggo, at Pendeen, which is said to extend from the mansion to Pendeen Cove, and some say it has branches in other directions, which spread faraway from the principal cavern.

At dawn on Christmas Day the “Spirit of the Vow” has frequently been seen just within the entrance, near the Cove, in the form of a beautiful lady, dressed in white, with a red rose in her mouth. There were persons living, a few years since, who had seen this fair but not the less fearful vision; for disaster was sure to visit those who intruded on the spirit’s morning airings.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Proceedings of the London Antiquaries Society

Such caves, inasmuch as they are, almost invariably, found under hedges or large banks of earth, I shall venture to place in a separate class, and term ‘hedge caves.’ Two of the most remarkable of these may be noticed in passing – one, at Pendeen, in the parish of St. Just, which legend connects with an Irish lady, who, dressed in white and bearing a red rose in her mouth, is to be met with on Christmas morning at the cave’s mouth, where she confides to you tidings brought from her native land through the submarine recesses of that mysterious cavern...

But why call them ‘hedge caves’ when fogou will do?!

According to ‘The Giants of Cornwall’ by B. C. Spooner, the stones of Mulfra are said to be quoits from a giant’s game.

Folklore, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Spring, 1965), pp. 16-32.

A species of divination is still practised at Arthurstone, by the neighbouring rustic maidens, who have little idea that they are perpetuating (perverted indeed in its object,) the rites of Druidism and the mysteries of Eleusis in their propitiatory offering. At midnight of the full moon, if a maiden deposit in the sacred well beneath, a cake of milk, honey, and barley meal, and then on hands and knees crawl three times round the cromlech, she will see, if “fancy free,” the vision of her future lord; if her affections are engaged, the form of the favoured youth will stand before her, fearfully bound to answer truly her questions as to his sincerity.

. An early version of the folklore mentioned below. It’s got to be worth a try.

p186 in
Tales of the Cymry: with notes illustrative and explanatory
By James Motley
1848

The Skyrrid, or Holy Mountain, is so called because it was divided at the Crucifixion. One part of it is in America. There has been no snail upon it ever since, or worm either: that is because it is sacred; they cannot go there. (Collected at Bromyard, 1909)
ELLA M. LEATHER.

Any religion that refuses entry to worms and snails is of no use to me. From p110 in
Welsh Folklore Items, I
E. J. Dunnill; Ella M. Leather
Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Mar., 1913), pp. 106-110.

..Wild Harris of Kenegie {a gentleman’s seat in the parish of Gulval, near Penzance} who was killed when hunting by a fall from his horse-- it was frightened by a white hare, the spirit of a deserted maiden, which crossed its path. His ghost, in his hunting-dress, appeared standing at the door of his house the night he was buried – the funeral, according to an old custom, had taken place at midnight. For years after he might be met in the vicinity of his home, and he and his boon companions were often heard carousing at nights in a summer-house on the bowling-green. Few then cared to pass Kenegie after dark, for his was said not to be the only spirit that haunted the place. Wild Harris’s ghost was finally laid to rest by a famous ghost-laying parson, and put as a task to count the blades of grass nine times in an enclosure on the top of Castle-an-Dinas, an old earth fortification near, where he is said to have met his death.

p 105 in
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part II [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1887), pp. 85-112.

More on the ‘key’ of the castle:

On an almost inaccessible granite peak seaward of the pile of rocks known as Castle Treryn (pronounced Treen), once the haunt and meeting-place of witches, on the summit of which is perched the far-famed Cornish logan-rock, is a sharp peak with a hole in it, large enough to insert a hand. At the bottom lay an egg-shaped stone, traditionally called the key of the castle, which, although easily shifted, had for ages defied all attempts at removal. It was said that should any one ever succeed in getting it out, Castle Treryn – in fact the whole cairn – would immediately disappear. It was unfortunately knocked out by the men who replaced the logan-rock, thrown down by Lieutenant Goldsmith. Its position was often altered by heavy seas, and from it the old folk formerly foretold the weather.

From p104 in
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part II [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1887), pp. 85-112.

Tradition assigns [King Arthur a] Cornish castle as a hunting seat, viz. the old earth-round of Castle-an-dinas, near St. Columb, from whence it is said he chased the wild deer on Tregoss Downs.

p87 in
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part II [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1887), pp. 85-112.

The Wheel of Fire. -- (Informant, W.). Near the bottom of Bridge St., Aberystwyth, stands a very old house, which was tenanted 150 years ago by a butcher and his son, who sometimes let rooms. Among their guests was a pedlar and Bible colporteur, who was reputed to carry his money with him. This man disappeared and his pack was afterwards found in the river. Suspicion attached to the butcher and his son, but nothing could be proved, nor could the pedlar be found, dead or alive.

One night, however, a wheel of fire was seen to appear at the top of Pendinas*, where the Waterloo monument now stands; it rolled down hill and paused by a large tree about half-way down. This was taken as a sign from heaven; digging operations were conducted near the tree, and the body of the pedlar was found; the butcher and his son were convicted and hanged.

*A steep, conical hill just outside Aberystwyth, to the south. It is crowned with an ancient earthwork, not yet properly explored. The hill, especially the earthwork, is reputed to be haunted by the Tylwyth Teg or fairies.

p 162 in
Scraps of Welsh Folklore, I. Cardiganshire; Pembrokeshire
L. Winstanley; H. J. Rose
Folklore, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1926), pp. 154-174.

The remains of the fort at Creag Garten are on an isolated rocky knoll in the forest, and have “extensive views to the North and South” according to the record via Pastmap. It seems in the right area to relate to the following story, collected in Strathspey.

About a hundred years ago, a farm labourer was walking through the woods at Garten Beg towards Carrbridge, on a very misty evening, when he heard the strains of the most wonderful music he had ever heard in his life. Walking towards the sounds, he could see nothing, and the music became fainter and fainter, gradually dying away entirely.

On reaching his home, he informed his old mother, who promptly said: “Oh, those were the fairies blowing their fog horn, while on the march from one place of abode to another.”

This is reputed to be perfectly true, and the music had been heard on many occasions. The wood is very rocky and abounds in huge boulders, and to this day a cave is pointed out as one of the resting places of those self same fairy folk.

(Told to Murdoch Maclennan of Dulnain Bridge, Speyside, Scotland, by the farm labourer’s grandson.)

p76 in
Folk Tales
E. J. Begg
Folklore, Vol. 50, No. 1. (Mar., 1939), pp. 75-81.

Sturminster Newton Castle is a medieval manor house that is said to have utilised the earthworks of an Iron Age hillfort.

There is a.. fascinating tale in Jeremy Harte’s Cuckoo Pounds and Singing Barrows (1986).. He writes that a tale of ‘a wild and savage Cat’, a ‘monster cat with eyes as big as tea-saucers’ which haunted the hill fort known as Sturminster Newton castle, was extant till the 1820s, for one resident recalled it as a story that terrified both children and adults into avoiding the place at night.

Harte quoted in
Alien Big Cat Sightings in Britain: A Possible Rumour Legend?
Michael Goss
Folklore, Vol. 103, No. 2. (1992), pp. 184-202.

The camp was more anciently called Roundway or Rundaway Castle, and its present name of Oliver’s Camp or Castle seems to have arisen out of a popular tradition that Oliver Cromwell occupied, if he did not actually build, the camp. The only foundation in fact for this tradition is that the battle of Roundway in 1643 was fought on the neighbouring Downs, when some of the combatants may have been posted close to, if not actually within, the boundary of the camp. Cromwell himself was not present on the occasion, but the fact that Cromwellian troops fought on the adjacent Downs was quite enought to give rise in the course of time to the popular association of the camp with the name of the great man himself. Cromwell has always loomed large in the imagination of the people, and it has been said that he has achieved an unenviable notoriety only second to the Devil himself.

Notes on Excavations at Oliver’s Camp Near Devizes, Wilts.
M. E. Cunnington
Man, Vol. 8. (1908), pp. 7-13.

The Parliamentary Western Army were pretty much demolished by the Royalists at the Down. Their cavalry were forced over the steep escarpment just north of Oliver’s Castle, and “in fact” (i.e. allegedly) more men died of their falls than did in the battle. It’s said that 800 of them still lie where they fell*, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this place has a strange reputation. It’s immensely steep – unless you see some people at the base of the hill it’s actually quite difficult to appreciate how far up you are and how steep it is.

*I think this little factoid might be in Katy Jordan’s ‘Haunted Landscape’.

In the Domesday book, this hill was part of the manor of Dimelihoc. Although there’s been lots of confusion and argument, Ditmas (in the article below) decides that this is in fact the ‘right’ Dimilioc for an Arthurian location in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century ‘History of the Kings of Britain’.

You see, there was Duke Gorlois, and he had a wife, Igerna, and she was “the greatest beauty in all Britain”. Gorlois had Uther Pendragon round for tea, but it turned out Uther totally fancied his wife, which Gorlois was rather angry about. So they found a lame excuse for a war (when really they were fighting over a woman), and Gorlois went to the castle of Dimilioc, and installed Igerna at Tintagel, “to prevent their being both at once involved in the same danger, if any should happen.” The obsessed Uther felt that he would “neither have ease of mind, nor health of body” till he “obtained” Igerna. In fact, “the inward torments” would kill him if he couldn’t get his end away. Yeah whatever. So Merlin disguised him as Gorlois and they went to Tintagel.. and the rest is history (or legend).

A Reappraisal of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Allusions to Cornwall
E. M. R. Ditmas
Speculum, Vol. 48, No. 3. (Jul., 1973), pp. 510-524.

also see the translation of Geoffrey’s book at
lib.rochester.edu/CAMELOT/geofhkb.htm

In the parish of St. Dennis the church is dedicated to that saint. And when St. Dennis had his head cut off at Paris, blood, a legend says, fell on the stones of this churchyard; a similar occurrence often afterwards foretold other calamities.

From p31 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal > Vol. 5, No. 1 (1887), pp. 14-61

Saint Dennis, what with getting his head cut off, and then having the unusual ability to walk off somewhere carrying it, sounds very much a Celtic type of saint.

The wikipedia says that Denis was beheaded on the highest hill in Paris, which became known as Montmartre – the mountain of the martyr. The spot where he finished his headless wandering (whilst preaching a sermon) became the site of his shrine, and the eventual burial place of the kings of France.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis

There is, just outside Peel Castle a mound about 90 feet long known traditionally as the Giant’s Grave [..] It may be of interest to note that the traditional giant of this grave is said to be the original of the three-legged Manxman, a legend which is suggestive of the many bodies found in these chambered tumuli, of which the legs are often found entire.

I do think Miss Buckland gets a bit carried away at times (but her urge to rationalise folklore is not unusual is it). From p350 in
The Monument Known as “King Orry’s Grave”, Compared with Tumuli in Gloucestershire
A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 18. (1889), pp. 346-353.

I think this must be the monument connected with this folklore:

Cumming says “In Douglas Road, about one mile from Laxey, there is on the southern side of a little ravine, a small circle of twelve stones, one of which, six feet high, is remarkable as being cloven from top to bottom. The tradition is, that a Welsh Prince was here slain in an invasion of the island, and that these stones mark the place of his interment.
Mr Feltham mentions the discovery in the centre of the circle, of a stone sepulchral chest or kistvaen, and in the view which he has given of it as existing at the time of his visit, there is a clear indication of a coved roof of stones, forming an arched vault in the centre of the mound.”

p350 in
The Monument Known as “King Orry’s Grave”, Compared with Tumuli in Gloucestershire
A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 18. (1889), pp. 346-353.

It may perhaps be thought slightly suggestive of a tradition of public ceremonies having been performed at this place that, when a wedding occurs in the neighbourhood, the miners repair to these stones, and, having drilled a hole or holes, load them with powder, and fire them instead of cannons. Accidents frequently happen on these occasions, but it is satisfactory to know that the miners suffer from them more than the stones do; the latter are, however, full of the holes made in this manner, which must not be mistaken for ancient markings or wedge holes.

page 3 in
Notes on Two Stone Circles in Shropshire.
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 11. (1882), pp. 3-7.

[A village charmer or ‘pellar’ from a Cornish town] can only pass his charm onto a member of the alternate sex, and once passed, [it] cannot be recalled. The “alternate sex” belief is of course a widespread one: for instance, at the Men-an-Tol in Cornwall, where children are passed through the hole as a cure for certain ailments, a boy must be passed by a woman to a man, and a girl by a man to a woman.

Present-Day Charmers in Cornwall
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 1. (Mar., 1953), pp. 304-305.

Passing now to the curious and enigmatical holed-stones so numerous in Cornwall, thirteen being enumerated by a local antiquary, Mr. Millett, of Bosavern, to whom I am much indebted, as known to him within the district already alluded to west of Penzance.

Both holes and stones differ greatly in shape and size, the holes varying from one not larger than a half-crown to the Men-an-tol, the dimensions of which are given by Borlase as 1 foot 2 inches in diameter, and the size of which will be better understood if I say that I crept through it with ease. Local superstition still ascribes a curative property to this stone through which people creep for rheumatism.

Another ailment for Men-An-Tol to fix – it’s quite the panacea. From p 154 in
Notes on Some Cornish and Irish Pre-Historic Monuments.
Miss A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9. (1880), pp. 146-166.

Although in most cases the gigantic standing stones wherever found, mark the site of graves, this is not invariably the case, for of “the Pipers,” two huge Cornish monoliths, Mr Borlase says he could find no trace of a sepulchral origin after careful examination. These “Pipers,” which measure 15 feet and 13 feet 6 inches in height, stand 85 yards apart, pointing north-east and south-west, and about 260 yards in the latter direction lies the circle called the Nine Maidens, or popularly the Dance (Dawns) Maidens, with which they are traditionally associated, since the legend says the DAnce Maidens were girls turned into stone for dancing on Sunday, the “Pipers” having been the musicians on that memorable occasion.

Another tradition makes these stones to mark the position occupied by the Kings Howel and Athelstane who here fought a great battle.

p 148 in
Notes on Some Cornish and Irish Pre-Historic Monuments.
A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9. (1880), pp. 146-166.

The Mystory Mag. Tells us that This is a six ft long conglomerate boulder weighing in at over a ton.Tradition has it that the stione actually fell out of the Devil’s pocket as he fell from Heaven to Hell.They also mention the turning of the stone every 5th of November to ward off His Satanic Majesty’s wrath for another year.

According to ‘Household Tales with other traditional remains’ by Sidney Oldhall Addy (1895), the Eagle Stone turns around when the cock crows (p56).

The book may be seen online here.

Stubob’s ‘Aigle Stone’ idea maybe comes from here
https://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924028029035#page/n349/mode/2up/search/eagle
but Jennings imagined it a Saxon god. It’s interesting that the folklore is repeated in loads of places on the internet, but these days it’s more likely to be a Celtic god. That’s fashion for you? As a wildlife watcher, I’d rather prefer the easier explanation, that eagles like(d) to sit on the stone.

In addition to stubob’s post:

Many persons in Castleton are said to believe, that the Sun appears to dance up and down at its rising on Easter Sunday Morning, when viewed from the top of the Castle Hill adjacent; and that numbers repair thither, almost annually, in expectation of seeing it! By others, the Sun is said to illuminate more of the surface of that deep valley, in the shortest days, than it did some years previously!

p627 in ‘A General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire’ by John Farey (1817) – on Google Books.

Various huntsmen ignored the holy day. One hunted on Dartmoor all Saturday till night fell. On and on he went round and round the hillside till it was midnight – and Sunday. Instantly he and his hounds were turned to stone, and on rough nights at Hound Tor they can be heard moaning and baying.

From ‘Some examples of post-reformation folklore in Devon’ by Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 72, No. 2. (Jun., 1961), pp. 388-399.