Latest Folklore

A fine assortment of early opinions on [the henge] is fortunately available. Thomas Pennant, journeying north, wrote of it in 1769, “Some suppose this to have been designed for tilting matches, and that the champions entered at each opening. Perhaps that might have been the purpose of it: for size forbids one to suppose it to be an encampment.” Four years later, however, he visited the Thornbrough henges (all three are very similar) and changed his mind, deciding that they at any rate, were designed for holm-ganga, or single combat in the Norse style, with the contestants entering at either side and spectators thronging the bank. He cites Saxo Grammaticus to illustrate this, and he adds, “I daresay the ring near Penrith, in Cumberland” (i.e. King Arthur’s Round Table) “was formed for the same purpose.”

Hutchinson, who had also visited the Round Table by 1773, noted: “We were induced to believe this was an antient tilting ground, where justings had been held: the approaches seemed to answer for the career, and the circle appears sufficient for the champions to shew their dexterity in the use of the lance and horsemanship: the whole circus being capable of receiving a thousand spectators on the outer side of the ditch.”
Pennant was not the first to record the tradition of “tilting” at the Round Table. Bishop Gibson, a century before, had suggested “Tis possible enough that it might be a Justing-place...

Folklore from a Northern Henge Monument
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 3. (Sep., 1953), pp. 427-429.

During the late summer of 1952 the writer was of a team of archaeologists [excavating Thornborough Central henge].. Curious villagers often visited the “dig”, and from the gossip of one, a fairly intelligent quarry foreman of about 50, the following beliefs emerged. The henge was supposed to have “treasure in’t middle”. It was known as “the charging-ground” and had been used as such by either the Romans or the Saxons (a previous local find of a Roman bath lent favour to the former alternative). The protagonists, mounted on horseback either for tilting or for single combat, had entered at the two opposing entrances, and had hurtled to their mutual encounter at the centre. Cheering spectators had thronged the banks, isolated from the combatants by the inner ditch, which was filled with water.

[..] this local aetiology is of some interest, because it has a parallel in another henge, King Arthur’s Round Table, Penrith, Cumberland.

Folklore from a Northern Henge Monument
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 3. (Sep., 1953), pp. 427-429.

[The fairies] were also associated with caves. One lived in Thor’s Cave, and a whole clan were to be found in the cavern beneath Ludchurch.

St. Mary’s, Leek, Staffs.
W.P. WITCUTT

Notes on Staffordshire Folklore
W. P. Witcutt
Folklore, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Jun., 1942), pp. 126-127.

The Fiddling Hobthurse of Thor’s Cave in the Manifold Valley, whose “fiddling” or screeching filled the cavern, was however something more than a harmless sprite. One cannot go far wrong in taking him to be the god to whom sacrifice was offered on the altar in the cave. Thor’s Cave, as a matter of fact, has nothing to do with Thor. Its old name is Thursehole, the cave of the thurse or fairy..

Notes on Staffordshire Folklore
W. P. Witcutt
Folklore, Vol. 52, No. 3. (Sep., 1941), pp. 236-237.

Hinckley Point [sic], on the Severn Coast, where an Atomic Power Station has been built within the last few years, was considered for centuries to be fairy-haunted land. The neighbourhood is full of pixy tales and beliefs, and the Quantock people are quite outspoken in their expectation of disaster for the intruding Power Station. It has had, and is still having, a more than reasonable number of setbacks. There have been some bad accidents which are freely ascribed in the countryside to its being built where it is. Usually, West Somerset people will not discuss their still-remembered fairy-beliefs, but in this case their speech is suggestive and indicates a full knowledge of the tradition.
[..]The elderly, and not so elderly, find a ghoulish pleasure in recounting the accidents and dangers attendant on its building. One or two grim watchers have tallied up deaths and near-deaths at one a year since the beginning of the desecration. Of these they say, ‘Ah! they won’t stop till there’s seven.’ Are these victims to placate the River Severn or the vengeful pixy-people? An answer to modern boasting abou the triumphs of science is: ‘You and I won’t be here come a hundred years time. But They’ll have ‘en! Hundred years be nothing to They. They can bide.‘

Watching Folklore Grow
R. L. Tongue
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 2. (Summer, 1964), pp. 110-112.

Above Porlock Hill, imbedded in the heather, to the left of the road, are two large stones called the Whitstones. Mentioned in Guide Books of the district, they are traditionally said to have been thrown by St. Dubricius and the Devil, from Hurlstone Point, during a hurling contest.
Mr. H. of Porlock, giving a variation of this legend, said they were thrown by “Dr. Foster” and the Devil. He said many attempts had been made to remove the stones from their horizontal position to upright, but that no one could move them an inch.
Between sixty to seventy years ago a Mr. M., steward to the Squire of Porlock Manor, made an attempt without any success.
Another informant, old Tommy S-- of Porlock, said the stones were thrown by an Angel and the Devil, and a third informant, an old inhabitant of the nearby village of Horner, again said they were thrown by Dr. Foster and the Devil. No information about the legendary person, Dr. Foster, could be obtained.

Scraps of Folk-Lore from Somerset
E. O. Begg
Folklore, Vol. 56, No. 3. (Sep., 1945), pp. 293-295.

A writer on Somerset superstition in Cassell’s Family Magazine for November, 1890, says: “The prophecies of Mother Shipton are nowhere more widely believed in than in the county of Somerset. Not long ago a report was in circulation that a great catastrophe had been predicted by this old sage. She had prophesied that Ham Hill, one of the great stone quarries of Somerset, would be swallowed up on Good Friday. This catastrophe was to be the consequence of a tremendous earthquake, which would be felt all over the county. Some of the inhabitants left the neighbourhood to escape the impending evil; others removed their crockery and breakable possessions to prevent their being thrown to the ground; others, again, ceased cultivating their gardens. Great alarm was felt, and Good Friday was looked forward to with universal anxiety. And yet when the day came and went without any disaster at all, even that did little to dispel the faith in Mother Shipton; the calculator had made a blunder about the date, and it was not her fault; and many Somersetshire folk are still waiting, expecting to suffer from the prophesied catastrophe.

The Folk-Lore of Somerset
Edward Vivian; F. W. Mathews
Folklore, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1920), pp. 239-249.

On Palm Sunday there were gatherings on Longbridge Deverill Cow-down to play “trap,” going up by “Jacob’s ladder.” The young men, with the elders to watch them, would “beat the ball” up Cow-down and then play trap.
And on Palm Sunday the women and children would go out into the fields “to tread the wheat.” (1897)

Folklore Notes from South-West Wilts
John U. Powell
Folklore, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Mar., 1901), pp. 71-83.

Phantom Coaches
Bill Elliot said that, when a boy, he used to leave Upwood at 2a.m. to take the wheat into Salisbury. One morning, by first light of dawn, he saw near Handley Cross a coach drawn by a pair of headless horses plunge across Oakley Down from the direction of Cranbourne and disappear near the Yew-Tree Garage on the main Blandford-Salisbury road. He told me several other people had seen this apparition.

From:The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.

I have not recorded in the body of the text the story that the Rev. A.R.T. Bruce was chased off Oakley Down by a ghostly warrior because, when I asked him if this adventure had indeed occurred, he denied it, albeit regretfully.

I have also omitted the tradition, told me by several people, that Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, fought a battle at Handley Cross, because all historical evidence is against the possibility of this event. The story probably originated because of the large numbers of barrows in the area, which tradition claims to be the war cemetery for the dead from the battle.

I think he’s slightly missing the point. Whoever said folklore had to be factual?!
From: The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.

Another version of the story:

Kit’s Grave. A copse on the county border is said by some to be named Kit’s Grave after a highwayman, Kit, who was hung and buried there. However, Herb Lucas, the chauffeur at Upwood, said that Kit was an old woman, possibly a Romany, who lived a nomadic life between the parishes of Bowerchalke and Ebbesbourne Wake, and died on the boundary. No one knew her well. Those who found the body approached the authorities of both parishes, but neither would meet the funeral expenses or claim the body. Kit was therefore buried where she was found, and the copse was named after her.

The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.

.

Bottlebush Down. I was told that one evening a man lay down to rest on top of one of the barrows on Bottlebush Down, and was astonished to see a crowd of little people in leather jerkins, who came and danced round him. Since hearing ths tale, I have been told that the man was the late curate of Handley, the Rev. A.R.T. Bruce, but unfortunately he died before I could confirm this.

The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.

Can you doubt the testimony of a man of the cloth? Did his fatigue / relaxation predispose him to dreaming, hallucinations or Actually Seeing Something? Or did it happen at all – this isn’t a first hand story after all.

A forester accounted for the tumuli on Beaulieu Heath in this fashion:-- “We calls ut Saltpetre Bank. All these here mounds was throwd up by Uliver Crummle when he tuk the Farest; he and the Danes beat the English the fust time they ever was beat, and he druv the English into Wales.”

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

Headless Ghost.--On Roundway Down a headless ghost is said to walk. Some years ago a shepherd declared that he met it, that it walked some distance by his side, and then vanished. The gentleman to whom he told the story asked why he did not speak to the ghost. “I was afraid,” he replied, “for if I hadn’t spoken proper to him he’d a tore ‘un to pieces.” A barrow is near the place, which was excavated some time ago, when a skeleton (not headless) was found. Since the barrow was opened the ghost has ceased to walk.

Death and Burial Customs in Wiltshire
L. A. Law; W. Crooke
Folklore, Vol. 11, No. 3. (Sep., 1900), pp. 344-347.

I don’t know how well this equates to the source of the following:

We have been reading the story of the man who carried his head under his arm and disappeared by a barrow on Roundway Hill, near Devizes, but has not been seen since the opening of the barrow and the finding therein of a skeleton lying on its left side in a doubled-up position.*

*Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, May 16, 1895.

Wiltshire Notes and Queries , June 1895, p482.

Silbury Hill. ---“Silbury Hill is to this day thronged every Palm Sunday afternoon by hundreds from Avebury, Kennet, Overton, and the adjoining villages.*”

*Wilts Archaeological Magazine, December, 1861, p181.

Quoted in Wiltshire Folklore
T B Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 211-212.

Hill Sliding. ---Martinsell Hill, on the top of which is an ancient encampment, formerly used to be the scene of a great fair on Palm Sunday. Boys used to slide down the hill on the jawbones of horses; men from the neighbouring villages used to settle their disputes on this day by fighting; oranges were thrown down the slope and lads used to rush headlong after them. At the present day only a few children stroll about the hill on Palm Sunday

Wiltshire Folklore
T B Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 211-212.

In addition to Fitz’s information:

On Kirkby Moor.. is a low ringwork of loose earth and stones. “It goes by the name of ‘The Kirk,’ and a ‘venerable inhabitant’ (Archaeologia, liii.) could recollect that it had once borne a peristalith. The natives assert that the spot was traditionally ‘a place where their fathers worshipped’, and, as a matter of fact, games used, until recent times, to be held on the spot by the Lord of the Manor at Eastertide” (Allcroft, Earthworks of England, 1908, p139).

Lancashire Folklore
T B Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 211

“’They’ say that a king is buried on Denbury, and among several couplets one goes:
‘Whoever delves in Denbury Down
Is sure to find a golden crown’.”

This comes from Tristram Risdon’s ‘Chorographical Description.. Devon,’ written in the early 17th century, and quoted in ‘The Folklore of Devon’ by Theo Brown, in Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

The story of a bull’s hide filled with gold is connected with many stones. At its simplest it is found at the Binghill stone circle on Deeside, at Lulach’s Stone near Kildrummy, at a standing-stone at Glenkindie close by a branch road to Towie, and at the Muckle Stane o’ Clochforbie, near the steading of the farm of that name. The last may be a broken recumbent stone, but there is nowadays no standing-stone near it. In this case also an attempt was once made to remove the treasure, but the great efforts made to shift the stone proved fruitless, and a warning voice having been heard from beneath the depths of the stone to command ” Let be!” the advice was taken and the stone has remained undisturbed ever since.

From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313. )

The RCHAMS database says “A large block of whinstone 2.59m in circumference; believed locally to mark the spot of a battle. There is one single cup mark in the centre on the W side.” but then goes on to discount the cup mark as a natural feature of ‘nil antiquity’. There is a photo of the stone here:
rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.newcandig_p_coll_details?p_arcnumlink=681538

I imagine this folklore also refers to the stone: “At Sinnahard, Towie, there is a standing-stone near which a pot of gold is said to be buried. On one of my visits a good many years ago, the farmer announced that he had no faith in the tale: the only gold he hoped to gain from the place was that of the golden grain then ripening for the harvest.” (from Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313. )

The notion that ill-luck attends the destruction of the circles is not yet altogether dead, as is apparent from an incident which occurred in recent times at Corrydoun. Some alterations were being made on the farm buildings, and the mason employed to do the work reckoned that he could make good use in his building operations of the stones in the stone circle. So he set to work to trim one of them, but, finding the stone harder than he had supposed, made little progress. At the dinner-hour he returned to the farm, where it was noticed that he had damaged one of his fingers badly, an injury of which he was not conscious. Someone suggested that it was unlucky to interfere with the stones, and the workman, agreeing, made no further attempt to use them; but his tool-marks still remain.

From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.

“The devastation of his cattle herd by disease fell ..upon the farmer
of-Cairnfauld, in Durris parish, following upon his removal of some of
the stones of the circle near-by.”

In: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.

A .. story is told of the Drumel Stone on the farm of Old Noth, near Gartly. The stone was taken to the farm to make a lintel over a doorway in the steading, but thereafter the steading door was so often found open, and the interned animals wandering about the countryside, that at last it was decided to put the stone back again. When this was done the trouble ceased.

From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.

The barrows in the group [on Snail Down] (there are at least thirty) are locally explained as the burial places of “the people killed in the battle of Sidbury Hill.” The latter is crowned by an Iron Age hill fort which looms over the downs...
This hill, like many other natural eminences, owes its position traditionally to Satanic action. “It happened this way,” Mr. M--- told the writer. “The Devil was carrying it from Bristol to London, and he got tired and dropped it on the way.” The same story is told of Silbury Hill, a vast artificial mound.. which actually does stand on the Bristol-London road.. the writer is inclined to regard this tale as having been transferred in comparatively recent times from the former to the latter, doubtless through confusion of the somewhat similar place-names.

A much more fascinating story connects Sidbury Hill with the village, a distance of some two miles. According to Mr. M---, “There is a well in Everleigh village, opposite the two cottages up by the racing stables. I was born in one of those cottages, and they were burnt down in 1884. Down the well, there is an opening in the side, and a tunnel leads from there to Sidbury Hill. They say there is a golden chair in the tunnel.”

.. “Place-Names of Wiltshire”, records the following forms of the name; Shidbury, Chydebur’ (1325), Shudburie, Shudburrowe Hill (1591) and Chidbury (1812).

.. a story of certain caves in the chalk, behind a farm near Ludgershall (five miles east of Everleigh). These were believed to run for miles underground, to go beneath Sidbury Hill, and to come out near Pewsey.

.. “There is an old castle at the foot of Sidbury Hill”, Mr. M--- told the writer, “with a wall around it. The castle has gone now, but the wall is still there, and the Forestry Commission raise young trees inside it. This castle belonged to King Ina.“.. Mr. M---’s story confirms a version of the same tradition recorded in 1812. Sir Richard Colt Hoare published in that year the first volume of his Ancient History of Wiltshire; at p181 he states of the linear earthwork running from Sidbury Hill,
“It terminates in a valley, and immediately at a spot where there are several irregularities and excavations in the soil. With all the ardour and fancy of a zealous antiquary, I once fondly thought that here I might discover the traces of King Ina’s palace, who according to tradition, had a country seat at Everley.”

Folklore from a Wiltshire Village
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 65, No. 3/4. (Dec., 1954), pp. 165-168.

The writer was.. fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a Mr. M---, who was born in Everleigh about 1880. Mr. M---, a gardener, knew a number of legends and traditions which, he said, “were handed down to me from my grandfather.” Many of his points were corroborated by other villagers of his generation.

Very little information could be obtained about local reaction to the [1950s] excavation, but the general feeling seemed to be that it was regarded as faintly improper – an act of disturbing the dead.. The local aetiology of the place-name Snail Down .. was given thus; “Snail Down is called that because of the number of snails you find on it.” In actual fact the area is unusually poor in mollusc life.. Mr L. V. Grinsell.. suggests that a double bell-barrow amongst the Snail Down group, when viewed from a certain angle, has the appearance of a giant snail in motion, and this may well be the true explanation.

The barrows in the group (there are at least thirty) are locally explained as the burial places of “the people killed in the battle of Sidbury Hill.” The latter is crowned by an Iron Age hill fort which looms over the downs..

...A remarkable and genuine example of folk-memory occurred during the [Snail Down] excavation. It was known that Sir Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington of Devizes had already dug the two barrows which were being examined.. It was the practice of this cautious and enlightened antiquary [WC] to place a small bronze disc, bearing his name and the date, in the sites which he dug and filled in, and one such, with the inscription “William Cunnington – 1805”, was discovered, together with the actual mark in the chalk made by the workman’s spade at the time.
An old shepherd who frequented the downs, and who gave his age as 77, volunteered the information that he, as a boy, had spoken to an old man (who died at the age of 93), and that this old man could remember people digging up the barrows on Snail Down, an act for which, it was alleged, they had been put in prison! If the old man had died about 1880-1885, he would have been between 13 and 18 when Cunnington excavated: since the shepherd was born in 1876, he could have been a boy of nine or ten when the old man quitted this life. Links of two generations spanning 150 years are, according to The Sunday Times, not uncommon, but it is still satisfactory to find such an interesting and unusual one. The gloss of the “imprisonment”, it is suggested, may reflect local opinion of Cunnington’s desecration of the dead.

Folklore from a Wiltshire Village
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 65, No. 3/4. (Dec., 1954), pp. 165-168.