Highlighting the restricted nature of the entrance. Boyd Dawkins discovered a crude ‘chamber’ here containing 14 Neolithic human skeletons and associated grave goods... a natural chambered tomb, no less.
Highlighting the restricted nature of the entrance. Boyd Dawkins discovered a crude ‘chamber’ here containing 14 Neolithic human skeletons and associated grave goods... a natural chambered tomb, no less.
The inner recesses... again, 30 second exposure. It is somewhat darker in reality, albeit not prohibitively so.
The first of a series of 30 second exposures to show some detail without the dreaded flash...
This looks like a magical spot so if it has attendant fairies (rather than children run off from picnics) then that would be nice.
Sir, – [...] I have long wished to relate to Border folk a queer experience that happened to me at Routin Linn, near Ford. My mother was a native of that place and I spent a few years of the first part of my life in that delightful place. I went back when I was grown up and married. It had been said to me: “You must see the Routin Linn.” I did so, and this is what happened: –
When I got there and looked up at the waterfall I was amazed to see a beautiful little child looking down at me and smiling; she could not have been more than three or four years old. Much wondering how she could have got there, for she was close beside the running water, I climbed up the rocks, but there was nothing but the bare plain and the trees. I went down again, but when I looked up there she was, still smiling. I climbed up again and it was the same: there was not a vestige of any living soul. I gave it up after that.
This happened a good many years ago, but I still see that lovely child looking down at me from the top of the Linn. A short time ago I told a Quaker friend the story and he said I should take it further. After a long life of reading and study I have come to the conclusion that the Routin Linn is haunted, and I must have been in sympathy with the atmosphere at the time. If any of your readers know of any tales or legends connected with the Linn I shall be pleased to know them.
Yours etc.,
Ada Jennings.
From the Berwick Advertiser, 18th March 1943.
This comes from the Alnwick Mercury of 1st of November 1861. Which suggests that Hob is right (well that is to say he was right nearly 20 years ago) to attribute the story to the Alnwick area.
In the fields between Lilburn and Middleton, rests a stone, which in the suggestions of the “Religio loci” is not to be removed, while the present system of things maintains its stability.
Two hinds, with more than the intrepidity of their class, resolved to explore the mystery that it shrouded, and enrich themselves by one energetic stroke. Accordingly, when the shades of night had fallen, and nature had sunk to repose, having provided themselves with mattocks and spades, they, without informing anyone, and without waiting for customary warnings, repaired to the scene of enterprise, and commenced their daring operations.
They had already penetrated to a considerable depth, without any manifestations of danger, each fresh spadeful of earth communicating invigorated energy to their arms, and re-inspiring them with hope; and they had begun to flatter themselves, that the oft-repeated tale of demoniac watchers over the treasures that slumbered was a vain chimera, which ignorance had conjured up; when all at once, one of them heard a low fluttering as of something struggling to get free, come from beneath the stone. He communicated his impressions to his coadjutor, but as the sound had not reached him, he received but a rude banter to re-assure him.
He again resumed the work, when suddenly a repeated movement from below, shot a pang of terror to the heart of both. One of them still persisted in disturbing the precincts of the fated stone; but scarcely had he removed the unhallowed soil, when the stone commenced moving up and down violently; – and out there issued from under it – and the earth quaked to let it forth – a creature all in white – in figure like a swan: – that “flaffered and flew,” and made such strange and hideous outcry; that the delinquents, casting down their implements, hurried off, each in the direction his terrors prompted him, would farthest carry him from the grasp of the evil thing, which his unhallowed doings had evoked from the recesses of the earth, and whose rage no human power might avail to appease.
The sanctuary of the stone was ever afterwards inviolate. Fixed in its pristine position, it still draws the dread and reverence of all the swains in its vicinity, who have not yet learned to undervalue the opinions and belief of their simple progenitors.
Christened on the hill top.
Strange scene in Derbyshire.Harborough Hill, in the West of Derbyshire, which is said to have been the haunt of Druids, has recently been the scene of a strange christening. At the summit of this lofty ridge a large block of limestone has been carved into a capacious chair, another rock, with a flat top, appears to have been used as an altar, and an adjacent monolith, in which a semi-circular bowl has been schooped out, looks like a rude font. It was with water from this ancient rock bowl that the child – the daughter of a farmer in the district – was lately christened. The little girl, three months old, was carried up to this wild, bleak spot, and there, with the wind howling among the crags, baptism was administered by a lay reader. There is no record of any similar rite having been celebrated on Harborough Hill, and the conditions of this picturesque baptism appear to be quite unique.
From the Manchester Times, 25th August 1906.