Hare Law Cairn

Nearest town:
Biggar (12km SE)
OS reference:
NT006499
OS sheet:
72
Latitude:
55° 43' 55.81 N
Longitude:
3° 34' 59.05 W
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Articles

Hare Law Cairn

Martin
Martin Aug 18, 2004

NT00644990
And only 200 metres from Wester Yardhouses cairn on a small hillock rising from the moor is this denuded cairn. A modern cairn has been built on top of the remains of the original cairn. Although this hillock is only 295 m high it still commands a great 360 degrees view from Tinto, Lanarkshire and the Pentlands. The cairn itself is about 20 m in diameter by around 1 m high (the modern cairn rises from this to a height of 1.2 m). On the S and E edge there are still some kerb stones in place- up to 75 cm to 1 m long by around 40 cm wide. Just 1 m N of the modern cairn there are two pits and also around the N edge many small stones protrude through the grass.

Folklore

Hare Law Cairn
Cairn(s)
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Apr 8, 2008

There are some districts where the number and size of the erratics have given rise to the wildest legends of warlocks and elfins. Such a locality occurs between Carnwath and the river Clyde. Here, before farming operations were carried to the extent to which they have now arrived, large boulders, now mostly removed, were scattered so abundantly over the mossy tract between the river and the Yelping Craig, about two miles to the east, that one place was known familiarly as “Hell-stanes Gate” [road], and another “Hell-stanes Loan.” The traditional story ran that the stones had been brought by supernatural agency from the Yelping Craigs. Michael Scott and the devil, it appears, had entered into a compact with a band of witches to dam the Clde. It was one of the conditions of the agreement that the name of the Supreme Being should never on any account be mentioned. All went well for a while, some of the stronger spirits having brought their burden of boulders to within a few yards from the river, when one of the younger members of the company, staggering under the weight of a huge block of greenstone, exclaimed, “O Lord, but I’m tired.” Instantly every boulder tumbled to the ground, nor could witch, warlock, or devil move a single stone one yard further. And there the blocks lay for many a long century, until the rapacious farmers quarried them away for dykes and road-metal.

(The crags at Hare Law are called ‘Yelping Craigs’ on the modern OS map).

From Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow, v 1 pt2 (1863).

Miscellaneous

Hare Law Cairn
Cairn(s)
Martin
Martin Aug 18, 2004

The Ordnance Survey Name Book records that human bones “of unusual size” were found in it about 1830, but nothing more is known about this discovery.

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