Latest Folklore

The armies of the Saxon King Edmond and the Scottish King Malcolm joined forces to fight Dunmail, the King of Cumberland in AD 945, and won. It is said that Edmond himself killed Dunmail at the place where the cairn now stands.
He ordered his prisoners to collect rocks to pile on Dunmail’s body, thus forming the cairn.
As Dunmail lay dying he shouted, “My crown – bear it away; never let the Saxon flaunt it.”
A few of his warriors fought their way through the Saxons and bore his crown up the fell to Grisedale Tarn, where they threw it into the depths. They said, “Till Dunmail come again to lead us.”
Every year the warriors return to the tarn, retrieve the crown, and carry it down to the cairn on Dunmail Raise.
They hit their spears on the top of the cairn, and a voice issues from inside, saying “Not yet, not yet; wait awhile my warriors.”
The other legend of the cairn is that when two armies were about to join in battle each soldier from both sides placed a stone on the spot. Those who survived returned and removed a stone.
And I thought it was Bronze Age.

I had been wondering if “Hare” and “Harrow” had the same etymology and looked up Harrow in John Field’s book ‘Place Names of Great Britain and Ireland’. The entry for Harrow-on-the-Hill says it means “Heathen Shrine on the Hill”.

When this stone circle was being excavated by archaeologists an old woman in the area who was renowned for psychic powers happened to be on her way home from Limerick. She stopped at the site and immediately fell into a trance. In her trance she saw men sacrificing a woman at an altar. She awoke from her trance before they actually cut the woman.
No evidence has ever been found for sacrifice at this site so maybe she was just telling people what she thought they wanted to hear.

Lough Gur is packed full of folklore. Plus check out those fadas!

Taken from Sacred Ireland

“It is said that Lough Gur was formed by the goddess Áine who appears here in different forms as mermaid, young woman and hag. As mermaid she rises from her traditional home beneath the sacred waters of the lake, as maiden she empowers the land’s human custodians, and as hag she defends her realm.
There was a stone bridge called Cloghaunainey on the Camoge river north of the lake, said to have been demolished in 1930. A story is told of her meeting by this bridge with the 1st Earl of Desmond, the local landowner. Traditionally, it was required of the tribal chief at his inauguration that he seek acceptance of the goddess of the landscape. This was ritualised in a ceremony in Celtic society called a ‘feis’ which literally means ‘to spend the night’. A ‘geasa’ is a magical prohibition or taboo. When someone is put under a geasa, the penalty for breaking it is usually death.
The story goes like this: the Earl found Áine by the water combing her hair. He crept up on her and took her cloak which immediately put her in his power. She agreed to bear him a son who was be called Géaroid , but warned him that he must never be surprised by anything the son did. (’Iarla’ means ‘Earl’ but ‘iarlais’ means ‘changeling’)
The child was born and given to the Earl and grew up excelling in everything. One evening there was a big gathering at the Earl’s castle in Knockainy village. A very accomplished young woman appeared out of nowhere and engaged his son in a contest. She leapt right over the guests and the tables and called him to do the same. He hesitated, but his father, wanting him to be bested by a woman, persuaded him to show what he could do. However, he went even further than his father had expected and astonished everyone by jumping into a bottle and out again. His father was so surprised that he broke the geasa put on him before his son’s birth. “Now you have forced me to leave you"said the son. And with that he disappeared into the fairy realm.
It is said that he lies sleeping beneath Knockadoon with his knights waiting for a time when they will ride forth and gain freedom for all Ireland. But for the moment he must content himself with riding across the surface of the lake on a milk white horse with silver shoes. According to legend, he must do this once every seven years till the silver shoes are worn away.
Another legend holds that once every seven years the enchanted lake dries up and then the sacred tree at the bottom of the lake can be seen covered with a green cloth. An old woman of the lake can be seen covered with a green cloth. An old woman (Áine as hag) keeps watch from beneath the cloth. She is knitting, recreating the fabric of life. One time a man came riding by just as the lake had disappeared. He snatched the cloth from the tree and rode away. The woman called out and the waters rose, pulling back the cloth and half the horse with it. So Áine continues to protect her realm helped by the waters of the lake.”

Taken from Sacred Ireland
“It is said that when archaeologists removed the bones from this site, every banshee in Ireland could be heard wailing.”

An old woman is said to have lived in this wedge-tomb which is also referred to at the site. However this wedge tomb faces west and so the old woman could be the goddess in her hag form as the setting son. As far as I can recall Michael Dames refers to this idea in Mythic Ireland.

This hill fort was inhabited from about 200BC to after the Romans arrived, though it seems that it’s known locally to be a ‘Roman Camp’.

On the NE side of the hill is a spring with certain magical powers, dedicated to St Ann. As usual it’s especially good for the eyes – but you had to collect the first bucket of water at the stroke of midnight on twelfth night, to ensure the best efficacy.

(Folklore of the Welsh Border, J Simpson 1976)

***

Caer Rhain is another name for Aconbury.

Baring-Gould suggests the Rhain of the name was Rhain Dremrudd, King of Brycheiniog. He translates ‘Dremrudd’ as red-eyed, but could it be more subtle than this? Trem is (I believe) Welsh for sight or gaze; could it not imply he got the red mist sometimes, rather than conjunctivitus. I dunno. Perhaps he should have visited the well (see above). All this etymology. It’s a minefield.

(Baring-Gould, ‘Lives of the British Saints’ v4, p 108. 1913)

The Silvermines

The Twelve Mountains of Ebhlenn (Evelyn)

Dha Sliabh Deag Ebhlinne

Taken from Sacred Ireland by Cary Meehan

“Ebhleen was a mythological figure, married to a king of Cashel. She fell in love with her stepson and eloped with him.
Right in the heart of these mountains is a small peak called Mathair Shliabh or Mother Mountain which has a cairn of stones on top called ‘the Terrot’. Those climbing the mountain would carry a stone from the bottom to add to this cairn. The cairn was said to cover the grave of a young man who refused to go to mass one Sunday and went hunting instead. Although it was June – June 29th to be exact – he was caught in a snow-storm and his body later found at the spot now marked by the Terrot.
There was a traditional outing up the mountain here until the 1920s. It involved the usual Lughnasa activities of berry-picking, singing and dancing, though the date was 29th June. The monks of Kilcommon were to have started it but it is more likely that they changed the date from Lughnasa to the earlier date which is the Feast of SS Peter and Paul (The Festival of Lughnasa)”

Cnoc Aine

Taken from Sacred Ireland by Cary Meehan

“According to Celtic tradition, this is the sacred hill of the goddess Aine and her place of power. To some people the hill itself is shaped something like a female form with three rings or barrows in her belly. The barrows represent the dwellings of the ancestors of the munster tribe, the Eoghanachta: Fer I, Eoghabhal and Eogan. In this particular context Aine is their daughter. To the Celts the cairn on the summit was her palace and the entrance to the Otherworld.
However, the cairn is Neolithic and the barrows probably Bronze Age, so this would have been a ceremonial site long before Celtic times. Aine’s presence here is most likely a continuation of a much earlier sun deity tradition. By making her their daughter, and the barrows the dwelling places of their ancestors, the Eoghanachta tribe were creating a divine lineage for themselves. At certain times in the Celtic year, usually the night before the major festivals, the entrance to this Otherworld would open and human lives could be touched for good or ill by spirits or Faerie beings. This could, of course, happen at any time but the eve of
A festival such as midsummer was a particularly potent time.
As the inauguration site of the Eoghanacht kings, it was here that they came to be united with the spirit of their kingdom, Aine. While the king lived in harmony with the Otherworld, the kingdom was blessed, but when customs or taboos were broken, everyone suffered.
The following story explains how the king Ailill came to be called ‘Ailill O-lom’ or Ailill One Ear’. It has echoes of the inauguration rite described in the story from Lough Gur. Once again the rules are broken by human failing and not without repercussions.
The king was having a problem as, every night when he went to sleep, the grass would disappear. His Druidess, Ferchess, advised him to visit Knockainy the next Samhain Eve. He did as she suggested but fell asleep, lulled by the drowsy sound of the cows grazing on the hillside. Walking disoriented in the middle of the night, he saw a beautiful maiden coming from the cairn with her father, Eoghabhal. Forgetting all about why he had come, and overcome with lust, he raped her. She, in her outraged anger, bit off his ear and in doing so, maimed him. This meant that he could no longer, by Celtic tradition, be King (The Festival of Lughnasa)
While the king had an obligation to maintain harmony with the Otherworld, the people had responsibilities as well. Until 1879 men used to bring flaming bunches of hay or straw on poles to the summit of Knockainy on Midsummer’s Eve. They would carry them clockwise round the three barrows which they called ‘the Hills of the Three Ancestors’. Then they would take the brands and run around the cultivated fields and pastures in the area to bring good luck to the animals and crops. It was believed that they were emulating the fairies who also performed this rite under the direction of Aine as she impregnated the land with her solar energy once the humans had gone.
Sometimes people reported seeing her leading the human procession. She was seen on the hill as the ‘cailleach’ or wise woman and there are many stories of her taking human form. Those who treated her with kindness prospered.”

Local lore adds more about Merlin. He stayed on for a while after Vortigern left. When he left himself he filled a golden cauldron with treasure and hid it in a cave, blocking the entrance with a stone and a heap of earth. The treasure is intended for one particular person, a youth with blue eyes and yellow hair. When he approaches, a bell will ring and the cave will unblock itself. Other treasure seekers have been repulsed by storms and sinister omens.

p89 in Geoffrey Ashe’s ‘The Landscape of King Arthur’ (1987).

According to legend the ghosts of Arthur and his knights make a periodic nocturnal ride over the hilltop and down to Sutton Montis below, where their horses drink at a spring. This is reputed to happen on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Night, or Christmas Eve, or every seventh year, so the ghosts may be difficult to catch riding.

I have kept the vigil twice without seeing them, but perhaps I chose the wrong night; and I do recall walking along the uppermost rampart in pitch darkness, and hearing, far below in the woods, the sound of a flute.

p45 in ‘The Landscape of King Arthur’ by Geoffrey Ashe (1987). Hmm. A flute – or maybe pan pipes?? Spooky.

The name of the highest part of the plateau can be traced to at least the same kind of time (1586): ‘Arthur’s Palace’. Curiously, (although no trace was known before excavation) there actually was a timber hall on that spot in the 5th century – the era that an ‘Arthur’ would have lived. There was also a gatehouse (in the gap in the top rampart to the SW) and the whole perimeter was protected by a 16ft thick fortification made of stone and wood. Such a type and size of structure is apparently very unusual for this period – so ‘Camelot’ is actually quite credible as the headquarters of a king or regional chief, according to Ashe’s book.

To this day you can hear local tales of a chamber below the summit, or a well sinking far into the depths, or a tunnel running all the way to the Abbey, a distance of more than half a mile. Rash explorers are supposed to have found a way in and to have come out insane.

From ‘The Landscape of King Arthur’ by Geoffrey Ashe (1987).

This small circle of 6 stones could be (according to the RCAHMS record) the remains of a chambered cairn, from which the small stones have been robbed. There are a number of similar monuments in this area, overlooked by Bheinn Tangabhal – so you can bet one of them is the setting for the following story:

THE TULMAN.

There was a woman in Baile Thangusdail*, and she was out seeking a couple of calves; and the night and lateness caught her, and there came rain and tempest, and she was seeking shelter. She went to a knoll with the couple of calves, and she was striking a tether-peg into it. The knoll opened. She heard a gleegashing as if a pot-hook were clashing beside a pot. She took wonder, and she stopped striking the tether-pig. A woman put out her head and all above her middle, and she said, “What business hast thou to be troubling this tulman in which I make my dwelling?” “I am taking care of this couple of calves, and I am but weak. Where shall I go with them?” “Thou shalt go with them to that breast down yonder. Thou wilt see a tuft of grass. If thy couple of calves eat that tuft of grass, thou wilt not be a day without a milk cow as long as thou art alive, because thou hast taken my counsel.”

As she said, she never was without a milk cow after that, and she was alive fourscore and fifteen years after the night she was there.

* Now ‘Tangasdal’, I assume. ‘Tulman’ sounds suspiciously like ‘dolmen’, or perhaps that’s coincidence? Perhaps someone local knows of this term. The story goes to show that you should be polite to people who live in grassy mounds – the woman lived to a great age in addition to her luck with livestock.

From “Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales” by Sir George Douglas [1901]. Online version at the excellent ‘Sacred Texts Archive’:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sfft/sfft33.htm

The following is an account of a fairy frolic said to have happened late in the last century:--The victim of elfin sport was a poor man, who, being employed in pulling heather upon Peatlaw, a hill in Selkirkshire, had tired of his labour, and laid him down to sleep upon a fairy ring. When he awakened, he was amazed to find himself in the midst of a populous city, to which, as well as to the means of his transportation, he was an utter stranger. His coat was left upon the Peatlaw; and his bonnet, which had fallen off in the course of his aerial journey, was afterwards found hanging upon the steeple of the church of Lanark. The distress of the poor man was, in some degree, relieved by meeting a carrier, whom he had formerly known, and who conducted him back to Selkirk, by a slower conveyance than had whirled him to Glasgow.

That he had been carried off by the fairies was implicitly believed by all who did not reflect that a man may have private reasons for leaving his own country, and for disguising his having intentionally done so.

From Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales
by Sir George Douglas
[1901] – his source supposedly being Sir Walter Scott’s “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”.

What sort of cynic would doubt such a story (especially as his hat was found on the steeple). But if you are ever tempted to ‘do a bunk’ and start a new life somewhere – perhaps it’s not that advisable these days to profess you were kidnapped by the fairies. Call it aliens or something (more fashionable).

A similar story to the one below (this time involving a brother kidnapped by the fairies of the Burnswark, with the sister left behind) is ‘Elphin Irving – The Fairies’ Cupbearer’. You can read a long version (including song) in ‘Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales’ by Sir George Douglas [1901] – an online version available courtesy of the magnanimous people at the Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sfft/sfft81.htm

The tradition that the Mount was formerly called in old Cornish, Careg-luz en kuz*, and that it rose from the midst of an extensive forest, is very prevalent. “A forest is supposed to have extended along the coast to St Michael’s Mount, which was described as a ‘hoare rock in a wood,’ and stood five or six miles from the sea. The bay was said to have been a plain of five or six miles in extent, formed into parishes, each having its church, and laid out in meadows, corn-fields, and woods.”

*or Careg cowse in clowse--i.e., the hoary rock in the wood.

This and much other folklore connected with the island at the online version of Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’, at the sacred texts archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe088.htm

Hunt also said:

Merlyn is said to have pronounced the following prophecy, standing near St German’s Grotto on the shores of Whitsand Bay:--

“When the Rame Head and Dodman meet,
Man and woman will have cause to greet.”

Rame Head is near Plymouth, so I reckon it won’t be any time soon. The old misery.

Quote from the online version at the Sacred Text Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe076.htm

This Iron Age cliff fort has been reused for defensive purposes over the centuries, during the Napoleonic and First World wars. But the IA earthworks (presumably referred to in the folklore below) aren’t the first signs of the place’s significance – there are also Bronze Age barrows which survive.

In the parish of Goran is an intrenchment running from cliff to cliff, and cutting off about a hundred acres of coarse ground. This is about twenty feet broad, and twenty-four feet high in most places.

Marvellous as it may appear, tradition assures us that this was the work of a giant, and that he performed the task in a single night. This fortification has long been known as Thica Vosa, and the Hack and Cast.

The giant, who lived on the promontory, was the terror of the neighbourhood, and great were the rejoicings in Goran when his death was accomplished through a stratagem by a neighbouring doctor.

The giant fell ill through eating some food--children or otherwise--to satisfy his voracity, which had disturbed his stomach. His roars and groans were heard for miles, and great was the terror throughout the neighbourhood. A messenger, however, soon arrived at the residence of the doctor of the parish, and he bravely resolved to obey the summons of the giant, and visit him. He found the giant rolling on the ground with pain, and he at once determined to rid the world, if possible, of the monster.

He told him that he must be bled. The giant submitted, and the doctor moreover said that, to insure relief, a large hole in the cliff must be filled with the blood. The giant lay on the ground, his arm extended over the hole, and the blood flowing a torrent into it. Relieved by the loss of blood, he permitted the stream to flow on, until he at last became so weak, that the doctor kicked him over the cliff, and killed him. The well-known promontory of The Dead Man, or Dodman, is so called from the dead giant. The spot on which he fell is the “Giant’s House,” and the hole has ever since been most favourable to the growth of ivy.

From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (3rd ed. 1903), online at the Sacred Texts Archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe020.htm

Do giants always have to reach a sticky end?

The giant on the Mount and the giant on Trecrobben Hill were very friendly. They had only one cobbling-hammer between them, which they would throw from one to the other, as either required it. One day the giant on the Mount wanted the hammer in a great hurry, so he shouted, ” Holloa, up there! Trecrobben, throw us down the hammer, woost a’?”

“To be sure,” sings out Trecrobben; “here! look out, and catch ‘m.”

Now, nothing would do but the giant’s wife, who was very nearsighted, must run out of her cave to see Trecrobben throw the hammer. She had no hat on; and coming at once out into the light, she could not distinguish objects. Consequently, she did not see the hammer coming through the air, and received it between her eyes. The force with which it was flung was so great that the massive bone of the forehead of the giantess was crushed, and she fell dead at the giant’s feet. You may be sure there was a great to-do between the two giants. They sat wailing over the dead body, and with their sighs they produced a tempest. These were unavailing to restore the old lady, and all they had to do was to bury her. Some say they lifted the Chapel Rock and put her under it, others, that she is buried beneath the castle court, while some--no doubt the giants’ detractors--declare that they rolled the body down into the sea, and took no more heed of it.

From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (1903 – 3rd ed) – online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe014.htm

More about the giant who lived on Carn Galva:

Holiburn, according to tradition, was a very amiable and somewhat sociable gentleman; but, like his brethren, he loved to dwell amongst the rocks of Cairn Galva. He made his home in this remote region, and relied for his support on the gifts of sheep and oxen from the farmers around--he, in return, protecting them from the predatory incursions of the less conscientious giants of Trecrobben. It is said that he fought many a battle in the defence of his friends[...] I once heard that Holiburn had married a farmer’s daughter, and that a very fine race, still bearing a name not very dissimilar, was the result of this union.

So if you meet any exceptionally tall people in the locality, perhaps they could be a relation. From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (1903, 3rd ed), online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe010.htm

Hunt also heard from a man named Halliwell that “"Somewhere amongst the rocks in this cairn is the Giant’s Cave” where the giant lived.

Trencrom Hill was also used as a spot from which to throw stones at St Michael’s Mount:

In several parts of Cornwall there are evidences that these Titans were a sportive race. Huge rocks are preserved to show where they played at trap-ball, at hurling, and other athletic games. The giants of Trecrobben and St Michael’s Mount often met for a game at bob-buttons. The Mount was the “bob,” on which flat masses of granite were placed to serve as buttons, and Trecrobben Hill was the “mit,” or the spot from which the throw was made. This order was sometimes reversed. On the outside of St Michael’s Mount, many a granite slab which had been knocked off the “bob” is yet to be ‘found; and numerous piles of rough cubical masses of the same rock, said to be the granite of Trecrobben Hill, [a] show how eagerly the game was played.

Also from Hunt’s book, online at the sacred texts archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe009.htm

Hunt mentions that “Trecrobben Hill still exhibits the bowl in which the giants of the west used to wash.” – so you may wish to keep your eyes open for this if you visit. This is presumably ‘The Bowl Rock’, on the stream to the NE, judging from the OS map.

On the summit of this hill, which is only surpassed in savage grandeur by Cam Brea, the giants built a castle--the four entrances to which still remain in Cyclopean massiveness to attest the Herculean powers by which such mighty blocks were piled upon each other. There the giant chieftains dwelt in awful state. Along the serpentine road, passing up the hill to the principal gateway, they dragged their captives, and on the great flat rocks within the castle they sacrificed them. Almost every rock still bears some name connected with the giants--“a race may perish, but the name endures.” The treasures of the giants who dwelt here are said to have been buried in the days of their troubles, when they were perishing before the conquerors of their land. Their gold and jewels were hidden deep in the granite caves of this hill, and secured by spells as potent as those which Merlin placed upon his “hoarded treasures.” They are securely preserved, even to the present day, and carefully guarded from man by the Spriggans, or Trolls, of whom we have to speak in another page.

From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (3rd ed 1903). He mentions that Trencrom was also known as Trecrobben Hill.
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe008.htm

The vulgar belief is that the Red Lady was entombed in the cave by a storm while seeking treasure there – a legend the truth of which no one can dispute with authority, since the bones are certainly of a period contemporary with the Roman rule in this island.

From ‘British Goblins’ by Wirt Sikes (p387) 1880.

A large amount of space is given over to this “destroyed” monument in “The Romance of the Stones”. In the Broderick Index, which is kept at Plymouth Local History library there is a account from a Mr West (born about 1900) who remembers his mother telling him about how she walked under a large stone supported by three others that leaned inwards. She went on to say that her father later pulled the stones down to make a haedge and covered the site with soil.
The CAU looked into this story in 1978 and confirmed this site after looking at aerial photos and the old tithe map which quoted a Borrow park at this point. A distinct circle, about 25 mters accross could be seen on the photos.

According to C. Grooms (The Giants of Wales. Cewri Cymru Welsh Studies Vol. 10 (Lampeter, 1993)) this stone was one of three quoits thrown by Arthur from the top of Moelfre, and is said to have his fingermarks upon it.

see
arthuriana.co.uk/concepts/folkgazt.htm

According to C. Grooms (The Giants of Wales. Cewri Cymru Welsh Studies Vol. 10 (Lampeter, 1993)) this stone was one of three thrown by Arthur from the top of Moelfre.

see
arthuriana.co.uk/concepts/folkgazt.htm