The Path rejoins the Dyke south of Orsedd Wen. The next section of the earthwork is once again particularly fine. Just after it passes through a little wood, a footpath heads off eastwards and will take us to the second Bronze Age treat of the day, which can be seen from the Dyke.
Standing 2m tall, Carreg-y-Big is probably Shropshire’s tallest standing stone, just topping the large pillar at Mitchell’s Fold to the south. The name looks like it should mean “The Big Stone”*. Damn accurate with their names, these Welsh folk (I know, it’s not in Wales). I was mainly aware of this one from Postie’s lovely snow-bound pictures from a year and a bit earlier, but it looks equally impressive in watery Spring sunlight.
I’m particularly taken with the quartz vein running through the stone, being a sucker for a bit of quartz. There is also evidence of packing at the stone’s base. The positioning is slightly obscured from the east due to a hedge, but otherwise the stone would be prominent and just the kind of thing that could be used as a way marker, perhaps pointing the way to nearby Selattyn Hill ring cairn. Cynynion, a further, very similar, stone lies a mile and a half SSW.
I'm sure it doesn't mean the Big Stone you wretch. It's surely Big because Ps mutate to Bs, so it's Pig meaning peaky and pointy. It is peaky and pointy, do you think?
However, my pathetic amount of Welsh has lapsed. So I won't go on about mutations and suchlike and how big= Mawr because I've forgotten how it all works and I'll get it all wrong and get told off myself.
Don't let stones hear you or they may fall on you :)
Tee-hee. Yes, you're probably right, I was being lazy. Actually none of my dictionaries translate "Big", so all I have is the Nuttalls translation of Fan-y-Big as "Beak Beacon".