In 1881 an Iron Age smith’s hoard was found within the earthworks of this fort, and Edward Cunnington investigated the discovery. He found the old woman and the conversation went much as in Rhiannon’s post, however he went to the sons house and found the animal nailed above the front door. The “little dog” was in fact a bull, one of two now to be found in Dorset County Museum.
According to the information on Magic, this roughly circular univallate hillfort overlooks Poole harbour (though how the coastline differed in prehistory I can’t say). One end of it is now built on with farm buildings.
From Dorset Folk-Lore, by J. J. Foster, in The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 115-119.:
Some years a go several metal objects were found in a Keltic earthwork. Among them was a curious little grotesque bull, with a quaint tail curled up, which makes it somewhat like a dog. My friend heard that these things were in the hands of a certain old woman, and offered to buy them. “Han’t got ‘em – used to’t – but there, ‘twere loike this yer. My poor buoy, he wer terble bad, and he pined like a’ter they wold things. And ther – I thought myself how thick brass dog a noul’d ouver door’d do en a power o’ good.” And ‘noul’d ouver door’ it was found.
This remarkable find.. is fully described in Archaeologia v48, where the objects are figured... it’s use as recently as 1881 as a prophylactic is surely an interesting fact to students of folk-lore.
Ah yes those Victorians middleclass intellectuals loved to imitate a quaint rural accent.
This is now a golf course, which doesn’t seem to have any public access.I know some strange people who play golf, and have been here, and I’m told there isn’t much to see. Apparently there is part of a single rampart with a curve, the rest appears to have been ploughed out long ago.
