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Hwylfa'r Ceirw

Stone Row / Alignment

Folklore

In the same neighbourhood [as a hut circle] are the remnants of two singular avenues of upright stones, placed diagonally to each other, forming, between two rows of stones, a walk in the shape of the letter L, one of the avenues descending towards the sea, the other parallel with it.

Many of these upright stones have been unfortunately removed of late years, but a sufficient number of the smaller ones remain to enable the directions of the avenues to be traced. No plausible explanation of the character of these remains has been given; but avenues of stones have been found at Avebury, and in other places, leading to what are called Druidical circles.

The Welsh call them Hwylfar Ceirw, the high road of the deer, the tradition being that these stones formed a path by which those animals, formerly numerous in this county, descended to a meadow below.

[.. of the miscellaneous antiquities of the Great Orme] Hwylfar Ceirw is the most curious, and pity it is that it should have been so materially injured by the removal of the largest stones. It is to be hoped that what still remains of it will be carefully preserved.
p76 of 'Notes of Family Excursions in North Wales', by J. O. Halliwell, 1860. Online at Google Books

This page at the 'Great Orme Expedition Society'
http://www.goes.org.uk/html/1880letter.html
has a letter from 1880 which explains the name as follows:
A few paces westward of Dolfechan we find some divination stones, though the place is generally called at present "Hwylfa Ceirw" because the hunters used to drive the stags between those rows of stones in order to catch and spear them, when the whole mountain was a deer park; but the more ancient name "Cerrig Coch" ie Divination stones still cling to them.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
23rd July 2007ce
Edited 23rd July 2007ce

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