New Stone Age: Discovery of massive island ritual site
The spectacular feature in the landscape is likely to have drawn people from all over a Scottish island around 5,000 years ago for ritual and ceremony.
Cremated bones of Bronze Age tumour sufferer found hanging from Scottish cliff
A cist burial spotted hanging from a cliff on the edge of Scotland came from the ceremony of a Bronze Age adult cremated swiftly after their death, say archaeologists investigating the bones of a body whose skull carried a tumour... continues...
In Arran, the belief in fairies still lingers in the minds of the older inhabitants, and many curious stories are told of the pilfering habits and cunning tricks of the wee-folks, who held their midnight meetings within the stone circles and old forts of the Island.
Many of the minor relics of the stone period have been found beneath the moss and heath of the Arran glens and hills, but few of them have been deemed worthy of preservation. Arrow-heads of stone and flint are frequently picked up by the natives whilst digging peat in the moors [..] They are called elf-shots by the Islanders, and are supposed to have been used by the fairies long ago.
[..] As we find the little flint arrow-head associated with Scottish folk-lore as the elfin's-bolt, so the stone hammer of the same period was adapted to the creed of the Middle Ages. The name by which it was popularly known in Scotland, almost to the close of the last century, was that of the Purgatory Hammer [.. so the inhabitant of the burial cist could] with it thunder at the gates of purgatory..
McArthur also talks of the highly polished stone balls found in cists and the "Baul Muluy" (the stone globe of Saint Monlingus): a goose-egg sized stone of jasper, which could cure diseases. People swore solemn oaths on it, and "even during the present generation it has been consulted by the credulous Islanders". Curiously it could remove 'stitches from the sides of sick persons' and if it didn't cure you and you died, "it moved out of bed of its own accord."
St Molingus was said to have been chaplain to the McDonalds, and they carried the ball with them into battle for good luck. It was next held by the MacIntosh family as a hereditary privelege, but "this curious relic was lost a few years ago by a gentleman to whom it was entrusted, who partook too much of the scepticism of the present age to appreciate its value."
A final bit of related folklore: "The perforated pebbles of the British barrows [..] are still known in the Scottish Highlands by the name of Clach Bhuai , or the powerful stones, on account of the inherent virtues they are believed to possess."
From p68-71 of 'The antiquities of Arran' by John McArthur (1861).
The traditions.. which float around this class of the Arran grave mounds [chambered cairns] are associated with the fierce raids and clanish feuds of early times; and it is said that the ghosts of the buried dead were wont to rise from their graves and renew the combat in the shadowy folds of the evening mists.
From p22 of 'The Antiquities of Arran' by John McArthur (1861).
The Book of Arran by J A Balfour (1910). Contains lots of diagrams and photos of sites and finds from the island - chambers, stones, cup and rings, urns, allsorts. The back page is a rather interesting map with all the locations marked.
A single Druidical stone is visible in front of the farm house of Sannox, in the middle of the green field. Many remains of a similar kind are still extant in the mosses and glens of the island. Of late much has been done to solve the enigma of those monoliths.
A pretty tradition has been handed down of a daughter of Fingal going out to meet her lover in the woods, having disguised herself by dressing in man's clothes; her lover, deceived by the circumstance, espied her amid the thick wooding, and, supposing her a foe, took his bow and drew an arrow from his quiver, and unfortunately killed his love. On the ground where she fell, he raised the tall monolith to commemorate the sad event, and had a second placed for himself not far from it - committing self-immolation. Her remains were buried entire, but his received all a chieftain's honours and druidical rites, placed in an urn, inside a stone chest, alongside of his love.
Such is the tradition as handed down. There is still a love of the superstitious and the marvellous amongst the islanders. Yet, strange it is, in the very centre and civilization here are as great attempts to revive that ancient spirit of magic, hence those seances and impositions. There seems little doubt now regarding one use of those stones, that they were raised to mark the last resting place of the ashes of the great. This seems quite established.
In the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 9th August 1862.
Taking in the natural surroundings of these Stones, birds chirping, sheep bleating and long grass rustling in the wind as I began to walk pass the fenced off cairn and various other stone circulars of various shapes and sizes before approaching the main attraction of the three tall sandstones standing stones with a fourth stone to similar description located on a side path where two archeologists where using some equipment.
Archaeologists search for 'enormous' ancient ritual site on Scottish island
An excavation is now underway at Drumadoon on the Isle of Arran after the site of a possible Neolithic cursus monument was earlier detected by an aerial laser scan.
Cursus monuments were typically formed of a long avenue, formed by two parallel mounds of earth – or wooden posts in the earliest cases – which stretch for some 800 metres at Drumadoon.