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Spy Knowe

Cairn(s)

Nearest Town:Girvan (6km W)
OS Ref (GB):   NX254973 / Sheet: 76
Latitude:55° 14' 19.62" N
Longitude:   4° 44' 47.16" W

Added by Rhiannon


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Folklore

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This bump in the landscape seems to consist of Spy Knowe (crowned by a cairn) and the slightly higher top of Green Hill. This area's landscape features in the Ayrshire ballad 'The Laird o' Changue', which is reproduced here in the Scottish Journal (issue 3, 1847). The notes explain some folklore associated with the top of (what I infer to be) this hill. I am resisting any unwarranted comparisons with the shape of cup and ring marks.
On the conical top of the green hill of Craganrarie, where the indomitable Changue took up his position, are two foot-prints, which tradition asserts to be his, indented deeply in the surface, and around which, at about a sword's length from the centre, are the "two rings" or circles which he drew around him, also strongly marked in the sward. Neither on them, nor on the foot-prints, does the grass ever grow, although it thrives luxuriantly around the very edges of the mysterious markings.
Canmore's record notes that a Langdale/Scafell greenstone axe was found close by the hill in the 1920s.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
14th May 2013ce