Latest Folklore

In his 1829 work entitled ‘The History of Initiation 3 courses of lectures’, the masonic writer, George Oliver described Mayburgh and Arthur’s Round Table. He then goes on to quote an anecdote related to him by the late Mr Briggs of Kendal.

Not many years since, an old man in the neighbourhood told me, there were four stones at the entrance, and he had heard the old folks say that there had been four stones in the centre, but he could not recollect them. Those at the entrance he remembered well, and they were destroyed by the landlord of the public house by the side of Arthur’s Round Table, and his servant man. But, added he, I think they did wrong to meddle with these ancient things, for one of the men soon hanged himself, and the other lost his reason. What must have been the veneration for this place in the days of its greatest glory, when such a striking relic of superstitious respect is still fostered among the peasantry of the neighbourhood!

An inhabitant of the parish in which I reside--South Brent--has told me that he very well remembers how, in his youth, the people used to believe implicitly in the pixy riders, or, at all events, some of the people did. Farmers’ horses which were kept on Aish Ridge, a common adjoining the moor, were frequently found in the morning in a very exhausted condition, having, apparently, been ridden hard during the night. This was set down as the work of the pixies, and it was, of course, very easy for those who desired that such a belief should be accepted to go so far as to actually aver that they had seen the little goblins riding them. And that there were those who had such a desire is true enough.

It appears that some of the more adventurous spirits in the neighbourhood were, at this time, engaged in the not unprofitable practice of smuggling, and on the expected arrival of a cargo of contraband goods on the coast--generally somewhere about Tor Cross--would make their way across country through the night, in order to assist at the landing, and afterwards to bear away the kegs of cognac. Now, the horses employed upon these midnight journeys were borrowed (without going through the form of making an application for them to their owners) from those kept on Aish Ridge, and were duly returned before daybreak.

Such good people as were totally oblivious of the fact that there were men engaged in “deeds of daring” living in their midst, saw the condition of the animals, and not being able to account for their tired and jaded appearance in any other way, straightway supposed that they had been ridden by the pixies. Though their surmises were incorrect, it is still true enough that the steeds would never have been found in such a state, were it not for the spirits.

Boom-boom *tish*.
It’s nice to know there have always been lovers of terrible jokes.

From
Tales of the Dartmoor Pixies
by William Crossing
[1890]

online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/tdp/tdp09.htm

Bedd yr Afanc, ‘the Afanc’s Grave, [is] the name of some sort of a tumulus, I am told, on a knoll near the Pembrokeshire stream of the Nevern.

Mr. J. Thomas, of Bancau Bryn Berian close by, has communicated to me certain echoes of a story how an afanc was caught in a pool near the bridge of Bryn Berian, and how it was taken up to be interred in what is now regarded as its grave.

A complete list of the afanc place-names in the Principality might possibly prove instructive. As to the word afanc, what seems to have happened is this: (1) from meaning simply a dwarf it came to be associated with water dwarfs; (2) the meaning being forgotten, the word was applied to any water monster; and (3) where afanc occurs in place-names the Hu story has been introduced to explain it, whether it fitted or not. This I should fancy to be the case with the Bryn Berian barrow, and it would be satisfactory to know whether it contains the remains of an ordinary dwarf.

Peredur’s lake afanc may have been a dwarf; but whether that was so or not, it is remarkable that the weapon which the afanc handled was a ffechwaew or flake-spear, that is, a missile tipped with stone.

Aw just give over, let it be a water monster, that’s much more interesting. The grave is long and the monster is long.

From Rhys’s 1901 ‘Celtic Folklore Welsh and Manx’, online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf207.htm

also see this page for more details (about the Peredur story, for instance):
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf201.htm

Ah, the Hill of Health. You can just imagine sitting on this barrow, breathing in the fresh air. Or is that really what it means? T C Lethbridge, in his 1956 article “The Wandlebury Giants”, suggests that the name actually comes from ‘Hill of Helith’ – Helith being another name for Baal / Gog, and relating to sun worship – and maybe he was right.

But you’d imagine there must be some local folklore to explain such a name? The ‘Hidden East Anglia’ website says the sometime owners of the house in whose garden the mound stands said ‘Saxons were buried there’, and also that Lethbridge heard a local legend about a Dane skinning a shepherd boy there. Neither of which sound very healthy.

The barrow is immediately east of a track that the Magic SMR record describes as a route of the Icknield Way. Although it has a dent in where antiquarians dug into it long ago, it is still quite intact and stands 2.7m high.

The Wandlebury Giants
T. C. Lethbridge
Folklore, Vol. 67, No. 4. (Dec., 1956), pp. 193-203.

hiddenea.com/suffolkc.htm

Towards the east end of the camp is a place called Pitscandlie, Mr Pennant conjectures concerning this name, that it is equivalent to Picts Cairn. But this seems merely fanciful. Near the house, indeed, which bears this name, there is a very large cairn. Part of it has been removed, to give place to a corn-yard. Two very large rude stones, without any sculpture, are still standing, which point out the limits of the cairn,—one at the north, the other at the south end of it. The largest of these stones is 10 feet above ground, and 18 feet in circumference.

About a furlong west from this cairn is another on the side of the high-way, which is also very large. The great body of Picts slain in battle were most probably buried in these cairns. A little to the south of Restennet, about a mile distant from the Picts’ cairns, in a muir which has been lately planted, are to be seen a number of smaller cairns, and one of an uncommon size. Here, we apprehend, the Scots slain in this battle were interred. The loss of Alpin was very great, said to be one-third of his army, which may account for the number of little cairns, besides the great one.

This really is an extremely elaborate and imaginative explanation. So for the Reverend to mock Mr Pennant for being fanciful seems rather unfair.

From the Rev Dr Jamieson’s “An Account of some Remains of Antiquity in Forfarshire.” p14-30 in Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 2 (1822)
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/ARCHway/toc.cfm?rcn=2917&vol=2

Directly west of Mortonhall, and overtopping the house and plantations, is Galach-law. From thence is a very extensive prospect, and for this reason affords a most noble situation for a Belvidere. Here, as the name imports, were held, of-old, Courts of Justice. In 1650 before the battle of Dunbar, Galach-law became famous for the encampment of Oliver Cromwell’s army, which consisted, as Mr Hume relates, of no less than 16,000 men [..]

Galach, in Gaelic, fignifies valour, fortitude. Probably Galach-law had its appellation in the days of the Romans.

The writer also mentions the ‘Elf Loch’ just to the north:

On the south side of the hills of Braid, which exhibits a most picturesque view, a variety of wild scenery, and many agreeable walks, is a hollow called Elve’s or Elf’s Kirk, denoting the place where the fairies assembled. The fairies were considered to be the same as the nymphs of the groves and hills, celebrated so much of old by the poets. It was a prevailing opinion among our ancestors, in the days of Paganism, that fairy women, or beautiful girls of a diminutive size clothed in green, with loose dishevelled hair, frequented certain sequestrated places, and at certain times conversed with men.

Yeah in your dreams, you old perv.

From Rev Mr Thomas Whyte’s “An Account of the Parish of Liberton in Mid Lothian, or County of Edinburgh.” p292-388 in
Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 1 (1792)
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/arch_scot_vol_001/01_292_366.pdf

What was the original use of the cell, or by whom it was made, is unknown. There is, however, in Orkney, a tradition, that a monk from the Western Isles came to Hoy, where he led a recluse life ; and it may be supposed he is the person who hewed this stone into the form of a cell.

Remarks made in a Journey to the Orkney Islands. By Principal Gordon of the Scots College in Paris. p256-268 in Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume 1 (1792).

ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogu[...]ch_scot_vol_001/01_256_268.pdf

Is Saxons’ Lowe – or should that be Saxon’s Lowe – a prehistoric round barrow? Or maybe it’s the grave of a Saxon King from the nearby Bury Bank? Or is it just a natural bump (mind you, it is scheduled as an ancient monument, according to the Magic map).
(suggestion ‘borrowed’ from Brian Billington’s orienteering webpage here:
sisyphus.demon.co.uk/POTOC/png/2000-03.potter.TC.html )

The ‘Alternative Approaches to Folklore’ bibliography by Jeremy Harte has a reference for another story:
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.rtf.
Chris Fletcher, in a letter to Mercian Mysteries 17: 37 (1993) described how the barrow called Saxons Lowe on Tittensor Chase was visited by a will o’ the wisp.

This webpage by Brian Billington
sisyphus.demon.co.uk/POTOC/png/2000-03.potter.TC.html
says that an 1899 map calls the fort ‘Wulferecester’ – Wulfere’s town. There’s a mound inside the southern part of the enclosure, which is said to be the site of the palace of Wulfere, the Saxon King of Mercia.

Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
And liv’d upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf
And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
Her currants pods o’ broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
Her Sisters larchen trees--
Alone with her great family
She liv’d as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
No dinner many a noon,
And ‘stead of supper she would stare
Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
She plaited Mats o’ Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere--
She died full long agone!

John Keats

The poet Gwilym Tew.. presided at a Gorsedd in Glamorgan in 1460, about which time he wrote a complimentary poem in praise of Sir John Morgan of Tredegar, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, whom in the title he styles Syr Sion ap Morgan o Dre-Degyr, and again in the poem itself he writes the name Tre-Degyr [..] the capital D indicating a proper name. In a MS. of the seventeenth century, in the possession of Mr S.R. Bosanquet, is this statement, “The house of Tref-ddigr, holden by inheritance of blood from time to time, is the most ancient in all Wales.” “Teigr ap Tegonwy was an ancient prince in King Arthur’s time” [..] though Teigr may be as mythical a personage as King Arthur, this is strong presumptive evidence that there was such a traditionary personage connected with this place...
Octavius Morgan, The Friars, Newport, Mon.
Notes and Queries, Volume s6-IV, Number 96, 1881

Octavius, like me, tries to squeeze a bit of folklore out of the Tre (or homestead) of Teigr.

Between Garbert and Shader, on a rifing ground, there are the remains of a very extenfive double circle. Some of the ftones about the inner circle, which are pretty large, appear to have been thrown down by violence. It is not unlikely, that at the introduction of Chriftianity, the votaries of a new religion would find fome merit in deftroying every memorial of the antient fuperftition : The violence with which this zeal raged, at a more enlightened period, muft be always regretted by every admirer of Scottish antiquities. I muft not omit, that thefe ftones, whole fize certainly required fome machinery to rear them up, are entirely rude; have no marks of the chiflel; and at a diftance make a very grotefque appearance ; that at Calernifh is called by the country people, na Fhirr Chrace, who, they fay, were thus metamorphofed into ftones while dancing.

Colin McKenzie, An Account of some Remains of Antiquity in the Island of Lewis, one of the Hebrides. In Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 1 (1792), online (complete with f shaped s’s) at
ads.ahds.ac.uk/cfm/archway/toc.cfm?rcn=2917&vol=1

The Devil was angry at the conversion of Sussex, one of the last counties to be converted from Paganism, and especially at the way churches were being built in every Sussex village. So he decided to dig right through the South Downs, a range of hills along the south of Britain. He swore that he would dig all the way through the hills to let the sea flood Sussex in a single night and drown the new Christians. He started inland near the village of Poynings and dug furiously sending huge clods of earth everywhere. One became Chanctonbury hill, another Cissbury hill, another Rackham Hill and yet another Mount Caburn.

Towards midnight, the noise he was making disturbed an old woman, who looked out to see what was happening. When she realized what the Devil was doing, she lit a candle and set it on her windowsill, holding up a metal sieve in front of it to create a dimly glowing globe. The Devil could barely believe that the sun had already risen, but the old woman had woken her rooster who let out a loud crowing and Satan fled believing that the morning had already come. Some say, that as he fled out over the English Channel, a great lump of earth fell from his cloven hoof, and that became the Isle of Wight; others say that he bounded northwards into Surrey, where his heavy landing formed the hollow called the Devil’s Punch Bowl.

Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Sussex (1973). Quote ‘borrowed’ from Encyclopedia Mythica (who may have swapped the word ‘cock’ for rooster).
pantheon.org/areas/folklore/folktales/articles/devilsdyke.html

It is popularly said that Lord Soulis, “the evil hero of Hermitage,” in an unguarded moment made a compact with the devil, who appeared to him in the shape of a spirit wearing a red cap, which gained its hue from the blood of human victims in which it was steeped. Lord Soulis sold himself to the demon, and in return he was permitted to summon his familiar, whenever he was desirous of doing so, by rapping thrice on an iron chest, the condition being that he never looked in the direction of the spirit. But one day, whether wittingly or not has never been ascertained, he failed to comply with this stipulation, and his doom was sealed. But even then the foul fiend kept the letter of the compact. Lord Soulis was protected by an unholy charm against any injury from rope or steel; hence cords could not bind him, and steel could not slay him. But when at last he was delivered over to his enemies, it was found necessary to adopt the ingenious and effective expedient of rolling him up in a sheet of lead, and boiling him to death, and so:

On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot
And the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
They rolled him up in a sheet of lead--
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him into the cauldron red
And melted him, body, lead, bones and all.

This was the terrible end of the body of Lord Soulis, but his spirit is supposed to still linger on the scene. And once every seven years he keeps tryst with Red Cap on the scene of his former devilries.

And still when seven years are o’er
Is heard the jarring sound
When hollow opes the charmèd door
Of chamber underground.

Strange Pages from Family Papers, by T. F. Thiselton Dyer (1895).
Online at Project Gutenberg
gutenberg.org/etext/17050

This is apparently about the same stone:

Numbers of people would formerly visit a remarkable Logan stone, near Nancledrea, which had been, by supernatural power, impressed with some peculiar sense at midnight. Although it was quite impossible to move this stone during daylight, or indeed by human power at any other time, it would rock like a cradle exactly at midnight. Many a child has been cured of rickets by being placed naked at this hour on the twelve-o’clock stone. If, however, the child was “misbegotten,” or, if it was the offspring of dissolute parents, the stone would not move, and consequently no cure was effected.

On the Cuckoo Hill, eastward of Nancledrea, there stood, but a few years since, two piles of rock about eight feet apart, and these were united by a large flat stone carefully placed upon them,--thus forming a doorway which was, as my informant told me, “large and high enough to drive a horse and cart through.” It was formerly the custom to march in procession through this “doorway” in going to the twelve-o’clock stone.

The stone-mason has, however, been busy hereabout; and every mass of granite, whether rendered notorious by the Giants or holy by the Druids, if found to be of the size required, has been removed.

From: Popular Romances of the West of England
collected and edited by Robert Hunt
[1903, 3rd edition]
Online at the excellent Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm

The OS map shows a ‘tumulus’ on Trink Hill (though it is not marked as scheduled on the Magic map) and close by, the Twelve O’clock Stone.

The sun strikes the flank of the Trink Hill “Twelve o’clock” stone, for example, using it as a dial; hence its name. When the stone “hears” cock-crow it turns itself; and would turn just as well as do others, in response to church bells or a striking clock, if it were within “hearing” of them. It is this stony “hearing” that has become a joke.

Oh do lighten up. It’s only a story. From
The Stone Circles of Cornwall
B. C. Spooner
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 4. (Dec., 1953), pp. 484-487.

A party were hunting the wild boar in Trewartha Marsh. Whenever a hunter came near the Cheesewring a prophet – by whom an Archdruid is meant – who lived there received him, seated in the stone chair, and offered him to drink out of his golden goblet, and if there were as many as fifty hunters approach, each drank, and the goblet was not emptied. Now on this day of the boar hunt one of those hunting vowed that he would drink the cup dry. So he rode up to the rocks, and there saw the grey Druid holding out his cup. The hunter took the goblet and drank till he could drink no more, and he was so incensed at his failure that he dashed what remained of the wine in the Druid’s face, and spurred his horse to ride away with the cup. But the steed plunged over the rocks and fell with his rider, who broke his neck, and as he still clutched the cup he was buried with it.

The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, ‘Book of Cornwall’ (1899) p107-8.

You will note that the golden cup itself was unearthed much earlier. So any romantic notions that the story preceded the cup’s discovery are unfortunately on shaky ground. There are variations of the story from other British sites, and it is also common in Scandinavia. Mr Grinsell notes that B-G’s “story seems unsupported by any other published source prior to his own. One suspects that he was unable to resist the chance for a good story offered by the find of the gold cup [a Bronze Age cup was found at the barrow in 1837], combined with his own immense erudition.” (see Grinsell’s ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’ (1976)).

There seem to be two dates quoted everywhere for the discovery of the cup – 1818 and 1837. But it definitely seems to be 1837.

“There is an ancient Cromlech, called The Old Church; and which, according to tradition, was anciently the place of Worship belonging to the Village..”

From: A Topographical Dictionary of The Dominion of Wales by Nicholas Carlisle, 1811.

The OS map shows ‘Cae’r Eglwys’, and this webpage on Glamorgan Walks
glamorganwalks.com/localfeatures6.htm
says that the remains of this ‘cromlech’ are actually of a long cairn, and can be seen in the Nash Point car park. Coflein complicates things by saying that the cairn could be associated with an old church that’s since dropped into the sea. Ooh it’s all very confused.

The promontory fort itself is called Nash Point, and the earthworks follow the cwm of Marcross/Marcroes brook back inland.

Local folklore or Victorian gentlemen’s theory? Ten feet high is a bit of an exaggeration. And there’s a burial chamber just across the fields? Not that that looks much like a cromlech any more. Who knows.

“To the west of the church, and about a mile distant from it, are three upright stones, ten feet in height, disposed in the form of a triangle, twelve feet distant from each other, and supposed to be the remaining supporters of an ancient cromlech, which must, from the elevation of the stones, have been one of the loftiest monuments of that kind in the island ; the table stone, if ever there was one, has disappeared ; but the farm on which the upright stones are found still retains the name of the “Cromlech.” ”

A Topographical Dictionary of Wales
Samuel Lewis, 1833
online at Genuki
genuki.org.uk/big/wal/AGY/Llanfechell/Gaz1868.html

In the Hampshire Highlands is Inkpen Beacon, and on the summit rises an old Double Gibbet. As may be expected, either age or weather in time forces this wooden structure to fall to the ground. When this does happen, whoever re-erects it first holds the right of feeding his sheep on the hill-side. It was carefully pointed out that the present gallows are leaning at a perilous angle, and eager expectations are arising.
M. GILLETT.

Folklore, Vol. 34, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1923), pp. 160-161.

Some excerpts from the information board:

Labbacalle translates as “hags bed” and local folklore abounds with deeds of the old hag and her powerful husband the druid Mogh Ruith.

One story tells of a large boulder in the nearby river being thrown by the hag at her fleeing husband pinning him in the river.

A story related to the chamber is that four men went looking for gold in it. After they started to dig a strange cat appeared with fire coming out of its tale. Dazzled by the light they ran off and fell into the River Funshion. One man died in the river but they other three lived to tell the cautionary tale.

THE GULE.—Some years ago there was a discussion in a provincial paper in the north of Scotland upon the origin and meaning of the following popular rhyme:—

“The gule of the Garioch,
And the Bowman of Mar,—
They met on Bennachie;
The gule wan the war.”

[..] The gule is a weed (wild mustard) too well known in many parts of the country, although, perhaps, it is more generally known by other names. It is also pronounced gwele, and is derived from the same root as gold, gild, gelt, i.e. from the root of yellow, and signifies the yellow plant—a name to which it is well entitled, for it too often covers the green corn-field with a blaze of gold. Another rhyme of the ” north countrie ” also mentions it, characterizing it as one of the pests of an agricultural country:—

“The gule, the Gordon, and the hoodie-craw
Are the three worst enemies Moray ever saw.”

Bowman is an old Scotch word for farmer, from boo, boll, or bow, a farm-house (originally of a dairy or pasture farm), derived probably from Gael. ‘bo’ – cows, cattle. This root occurs very frequently in place-names in the north, as in Eastern and Western Bo, Lingambo, Delnabo, Lochnabo.[..]

Mar and the Garioch (pronounced Gary) are two districts of Aberdeenshire, separated from each other in part by the hill range of Bennachie, with its lofty and picturesque pinnacles of rock. I would, therefore, interpret the rhyme as follows:— There was a time when the gule was prevalent in the Garioch, but had not yet spread into Mar. The agricultural mind of the latter district was alive to the fact and the danger, and used every means to prevent its encroaching. The representative bowman, armed, with full powers, stood, as it were, on Bennachie, on the march of his own territory, to meet and drive back the insidious attacks of the enemy, but in vain,—the gule won the war.
X. X.

Notes and Queries X. X. s4-XII (298): 206. (1873).

Maybe this is pertinent as it is to do with boundaries and agriculture. Or maybe not.

As posted above, my Granfather was brought up in this area. He always told us that Lud’s Church was used as a refuge for the Luddite movement (1811-1816). Protesters who smashed factory machinery in protest of lowering wages, due to increased mechanisation.

‘Workers, upset by wage reductions and the use of unapprenticed workmen, began to break into factories at night to destroy the new machines that the employers were using‘
spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRluddites.htm

Maybe the name of the church and the Luddite movement were so similar that people locally associated the gully with the movement, so I can’ t say that this is fact. Just another, more recent, addition to the folklore of Lud’s church.

Although, the luddites were operating in this area at the time and were wanted criminals who, when caught, were often hanged....Luds church would have made a great refuge.......

196 1/2 feet and 8 degrees west of north from the nearest stone of the circle is a stone 5 feet 4 inches high, with a hole 5 1/4 inches in diameter through the upper part of it; this stone is now used as a gate-post and may perhaps not now occupy its original position..

An old stonebreaker, who told me in 1898 that he had been in the place for seventy years.. said with regard to the holed stone, that it had been moved from its original position, where it had stood in connection with another holed stone, and that when the sun shone through the holes in some particular way “they called it Midsummer”; this may be only a repetition of something said by modern visitors, but it may, on the other hand, be an echo of an old tradition, so it is perhaps worth recording.

Prehistoric Remains in Cornwall
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 35. (Jul. – Dec., 1905), pp. 427-434.

The whole top of Cooper’s Hill and High Brotheridge is marked on the ‘Magic’ map as a camp (though no other information is given). G. W. B. Huntingford in ‘The Scouring of the White Horse’ (The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 87, No. 1. (Jan. – Jun., 1957), pp. 105-114.) tries to make comparisons with the annual goings on at Uffington.. steep slopes, cheese, springs, earthworks.. hmm.. no horse though.

“..every year on the afternoon of Whit Monday a cheese is rolled down a steep slope, steeper if anything than the Manger. This custom is known as the Cooper’s Hill Wake, and it has taken place for a long time, though it does not seem to be known how far back it goes. The site is a flat area at about 800 feet above mean sea level, and the cheeses are rolled down the slope which faces north; at its foot, just above -the 600-foot contour, there are some springs. Much of the hill-top is covered with beech trees, but the slope itself is bare, and at the top stands a maypole, which remains from year to year.. In addition to cheese rolling, there are races for children, tug of war, and sack races.”

On Whitmonday, 27th May, 1912, the custom of “Cheese-bowling” was, as usual, carried out at the Wake held on Cooper’s Hill, not far from the city of Gloucester. The custome, it is said, must be performed annually in order to preserve to the people the rights of common. According to the Gloucestershire Echo of May 28th, the master of the cermonies, Mr W Brookes, who has officiated in this capacity for thirty years, appeared wearing, as usual, a brown top-hat which his parents won in a dancing contest many years ago, and with a chemise over his coat.
He stood by the maypole and repeatedly called to the crowd to form “the alley” down the slope. “The course being clear, the Vicar opened the ball by sending the first ‘cheese’ (a disc of wood wrapped in pink paper) rolling down the hill. Helter-skelter ran nine young men after it, and most of them pitch-poled. The first to secure the disc, stopped at the bottom by a hedge, had to trudge uphill again, and there exchange it for the prize cheese... The ‘Cheese-bowling’ was varied by some rural sports on a stretch of flat ground near the maypole. These included running, jumping in sacks, and a tug of war, in which the lady contestants once more pulled stronger than the mere men.”
W CROOKE.

Scraps of English Folk-Lore, VI
A. Lukyn Williams; D. H. Moutray Read; W. Crooke; Ella M. Leather; F. Weeks; E. M. Cobham; Estella Canziani; E. B. Pitman; E. L. Allhusen; E. Wright
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 349-357.