Rhiannon

There is a fine menhir at Lizerea Farm, Burhos, Wendron, which had fallen down, and was re-erected some fifty years ago by the then tenants of the farm – the three Pearce brothers. They were enormously strong men – one of them being the redoubtable champion wrestler, John “the Samson of Wendron.” It is said that these young men performed this tremendous task in order to leave a lasting memorial of their herculean strength.

Folklore in action by the sound of it. From an article on ‘Antiquities of the Helston District’ by A.S. Oates, in the West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser on the 20th May 1948.

In a field, not far from Booker’s Cottages, there exists, or did so until a year or two ago, direct evidence of local archery in the shape of a large sandstone, almost five feet in height and eight feet in circumference, grooved and worn in an extraordinary manner, some of the grooves being eight inches deep and extending the entire length of the stone.

These dents or grooves were caused by the sharpening of arrows, the stone being fixed in the ground for that purpose. This was probably the site of the local butts, and the very worn condition of the stone indicates its use over a very long period or by a very large number of men.

In Henry the Eighth’s reign it was enacted that all male subjects, except judges and the clergy, were to practice archery, and butts were to be set up in every township. Similar to modern rifle butts, these old time butts were merely mounds of sod and earth, with targets affixed, the arrows being sharpened upon a fixed stone near at hand.

It may thus be safe to conjecture that the Allerton stone was used by Sir Richard Molyneux’s retainers before proceeding to Agincourt, where their skill and prowess gained the King’s favour for their master and the chief forestership of the Royal parks.

The stone is known as “Robin Hood’s Stone,” local tradition maintaining that the famous outlaw once sharpened his arrows here, but perhaps this is stretching credulity too far.

Hmm yes maybe. And how do you explain that the whole country isn’t full of these stones. Never mind. It’s a good story. Taken from the Liverpool Evening Express of 10th December 1930, in an article about the ‘Romance of Allerton and Calderstones’ by ‘Gradivus.‘

This features the stones as a place of ill reputation, the type of place you’d find a bad-tempered witch throwing about curses to do with big subjects like sex and death. You’d imagine the stones’ towering presence helped the curse on a bit too – it certainly required very elaborate countermeasures.

An old dame gave me the following as having occurred years ago at Kirby Hill, near Boroughbridge. A young couple, recently married, met the witch (Sally Carey) near the Devil’s Arrows. What they had done to gain Sally’s displeasure, legend does not say, but as they passed the old lady she shook her stick, and almost screamed, “Ya want a lad, bud Ah’ll mak it a lass”; and sure enough, when the baby arrived, it was a girl. They had hoped it would be a boy, for much future fortune depended upon their having a son and heir. Still they hoped, should they be blest with a further addition, that the next arrival would be a boy. Three or four months after the birth of their daughter, the husband was thrown off his horse and killed.

Some time after the sad event, and late in the evening, Sally knocked at the widow’s door, on its being opened, the old hag screamed, brandishing her stick in the widow’s face, “It shan’t be a lad this tahm, nowther.” So terrified was her victim that she fainted, and was found some time afterwards in a doubled-up position and unable to rise. By-and-by, when sufficiently recovered, her friends strongly urged her to pay a visit to the wise man of Aldborough.

At last she was prevailed upon to do so, when a supreme effort on his part was made to break the witch’s power. Much of what the wise man did, the old lady had forgotten. All she remembered was that at midnight, with closed doors and windows, a black cat and a black cock bird were roasted to a cinder, on a fire made from boughs of the rowan tree; a long incantation was also pronounced, of which she could not call to mind a single word, for as she put it, ‘wa war all ti freetened.’ The ‘all’ consisted of the widow, my informant – then a maiden – and a mother of seven sons, the trio being necessary for the working of the charm.

When the baby was born, it was a boy, but a cripple. Once again the wise man was visited. This time the almost heart-broken mother was assured that, if she remained unwedded for seven years, her son would outlive his weakness, his back would grow straight, and all would be well. This demand was readily complied with. “But,” added the old dame, “t’ au’d witch tried all maks an’ manders o’ waays ti git her ti wed. Ah nivver knaw’d a lass seea pesthered wi’ chaps for ti ‘tice her, bud sha kept single, and bested t’ au’d witch i’ t’ end, fer t’ bairn grew up ti be ez straight an’ strang a chap ez yan need wish ti clap yan’s e’es on. Ah mahnd him weel, an’ ther’s nowt aboot that.”

From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’ by Richard Blakeborough (1898).

One for folklore quibblers. All you have to do is Believe these stories, you don’t actually have to believe them.
The author is talking to an old lady of his acquaintance.

“Why,” said I, “when you were a girl there would be witches, or was that before your time?”
“No,” said she, “that it is not. There was one Dolly Makin; I once saw her myself, but she will be dead now, for she was over a hundred then; but my aunt once had a strange bout with her.”
“And where did Dolly live?” I asked, for I had years before heard of this same Dolly Makin.
“Nay, that’s mair ‘an Ah can tell ya,” said she.

“And what did she do to your aunt?” I inquired.
“Nothing; she only tried to. It was like this. There was one Tom Pickles wanted to keep company with my aunt, but he found out that she had a liking for one William Purkis. It was always thought, that when Tommy found this out, that he went to the witch and gave her something to work a spell on my aunt. Anyhow, one night when she had just finished milking, a fortune-teller came up and took hold of her hand, and told her a long story about the carryings-on of William Purkis and another lass, and she advised my aunt to take up with Tommy, telling her that things looked very black for her if she did anything else.

“But my aunt said that she would wed who she liked, and it would not be Tommy. At that the fortune-teller struck the cow with her stick; the cow lashed out and knocked the milk-pail over; my aunt flung the milk-stool at the fortune-teller’s head, but she ducked, and it missed her, and next moment they were one grappling with the other like all that. My aunt, however, was a well-built, strong lass, and after they had fought for a long time, neither gaining an advantage, the fortune-teller screamed out that my aunt had something about her that belonged to the unburied dead, or otherwise she would have mastered her, and had her in her power for ever. ‘But,’ said she, as she walked away, ‘I have not done with you yet;’ and then my aunt saw it was the old witch.

“My aunt did not know what the witch meant by saying she had something about her that belonged to the unburied dead; but news came next morning that her uncle had died the day before, and it happened that a brooch she was wearing had a bit of his hair in it. It was that which had saved her.

“It would have been useless trying to overtake the witch when she left her, even on horseback, for she once went from the top of Ingleborough to the top of Whernside at one stride.”

“But,” I ventured to say, “it is a long way, that.” I was not quite sure of the distance, but I knew I was within bounds when I added, “It will be quite nine miles.”

For a moment the old lady hesitated; even to her, after making all allowance for the witch’s marvellous power, it did seem a prodigious stride. “Well,” she said, with a sigh of relief, as an idea struck her, “maybe I am wrong; it would be a leap;” (or, as she put it, ‘mebbe Ah’s wrang; sha wad loup it.’) Again I pointed out that it was an enormous leap. “Deean’t ya want her ti ‘a’e deean’t?” (i.e. ‘Don’t you want her to have done it?’) she questioned, losing her temper. And then I had to smooth her ruffled feelings.

From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’, by Richard Blakeborough (1898).

Flint arrow-heads were for ages looked upon as elf-stones, and are to-day worn as charms against unseen evils. They also possess healing power in certain diseases. So, too, do the belemnites – a fossilized portion of an extinct cuttle-fish. These, in the hand of a skilled person, work wonders in the case of sore eyes and ringworm. Unfortunately, though belemnites are common enough, the skilled hands are rare, and so their virtue in thousands of instances lie dormant. The belemnites are supposed to fall from the clouds during a thunderstorm; the same is said of rounded pieces of quartz or flints, one and all being called thunder-bolts, or ‘thunner-steeans.‘

When I was a boy, I was an ardent archaeologist. I remember on one occasion having been told that chipped flints were to be found in a field near Blois Hall. Hurrying thither the first whole holiday, I was fortunate enough on that occasion to find a flint arrow-head – the only one I ever did find.

This I showed to an old fellow who was hedging; without hesitation he pronounced it to be an elf-stone, declaring that the elves were evil spirits, who in days past used to throw them at the kie – I had up to that time always been told they were shot at cattle – but my informant stuck to throwing.

I well remember that he also said the elves got them out of whirlpools, where they were originally made by the water spirits, but he could not say what the water spirits used them for, though he knew of several instances in which both cattle and horses had been injured by the elves throwing their elf-stones at them. He further informed me that when the elves got them from the whirlpools, they had much longer shanks than was on the one I had found: this was so that better aim might be taken with them.

‘But,’ said he, ‘tha’re nivver fund wi’ lang shanks on, acoz t’fairies awlus brak ‘em off, seea ez t’elves wadn’t be yabble ti potch ‘em at t’beasts neea mair;’ and he had been told that fairies often wore them as ornaments. Sore eyes could be cured by the touch from an elf-stone, if a fairy had ever worn it, and they were also a potent love-charm if worn so that they rested near the heart.

From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’ by Richard Blakeborough (1898). I’m not really moaning but it is quite laborious typing out (let alone reading) the ‘humorous’ renditions of common folk’s accents from these books :)

This isn’t so much a folklore post as proof that cutting remarks have not been invented by the users of social media. Or at least that’s the way I’m interpreting it (I think you can’t help but hear it read in a pompous voice, and I think things like ‘to whom we are, no doubt, indebted’ and ‘expressly stated’ are not kindly phrases. And I think confounding placenames in Wales is probably quite easy especially if you aren’t Welsh):

I am indebted to Professor J.E. Lloyd for most kindly furnishing me with the following note with reference to the name of the camp:-

“It was Pennant who first, in his Tour of North Wales in 1773, took note of the remarkable hill-fort above Llanbedr-y-Cennin. He understood it to be known in the district as ‘Pen Caer Helen,’ and scaled the height in the hope of finding some traces of the Roman road style ‘Sarn Helen’. In this respect he was disappointed, though the discovery of the fort was ample compensation.

‘Pen Caer Helen’, we are assured in the Gossiping Guide to Wales was a mispronunciation of the actual name, ‘Pen Caer Llin’; Mr Egerton Phillimore, to whom we are, no doubt, indebted for the correction (Y Cymmrodor, xi, 54) does not mention his authority.

The ordinary form is the shortened one – ‘Pen y Gaer’ – under which the place appears in the old one-inch Ordnance Survy Map of the district (engraved in 1841).

In the notes to Lady Charlotte Guest’s edition of the Mabinogion, Pen y Gaer is identified with the ‘Kaer Dathal (or Dathyl)’ of theRed Book text. In order to dispose of this conjecture, it is enough to point out, as Mr Phillimore has done, that Caer Dathal is expressly stated to be in Arfon (Rhys and Evans’s text), while Pen y Gaer is in Arllechwedd Isaf – two districts which a mediaeval writer was not in the least likely to confound.

Moreover, Caer Dathal was near the sea, and not far from Aber Menai, Dinas Dinlle and Caer Arianrhod, as may be seen from the references to it in the Mabinogion.”

From ‘The Exploration of Pen-y-Gaer above Llanbedr-y-Cenin’ by Harold Hughes, in the 1906 volume of Archaeologia Cambrensis.

Should you wish to know who ‘Ronald’ is (although he’s a bit of a latecomer in TMA terms:

The next important personage to appear in Galloway history is Ronald the Dane, titular King of Northumbria, styled also Duke of the Glaswegians, in right of the ancient superiority of the Saxon kings over the Picts.
With Olaf of the Brogues (Anlaf Cuaran), grandson of Olaf the White, as his lieutenant, he drove the Saxons before him as far south as Tamworth. This was in 937, but in 944 the tide of victory rolled north again. King Eadmund drove Ronald out of Northumbria to take refuge in Galloway. Of this province he and his sons continued rulers till the close of the tenth century.

‘A History of Dumfries and Galloway’ by Herbert Maxwell (1896).

Also I noticed that the cairn is on the side of ‘Crotteagh Hill’ – this could come from ‘cruiteach’, meaning lumpy and uneven (spotted in ‘Studies in the topography of Galloway’, also by Sir Maxwell, 1887).

An interesting standing stone is to be seen on the southern slope of the Chevin above the town of Guiseley in the valley of the Aire (...). This stone is well-known to the small number of people who live near at hand. A similar stone is said to have stood at the head of Occupation Lane on the western end of the Chevin, and to have been broken up when the cottage was erected at that place. It is always called the “Bull Stone” and is said to be “lucky.”

Editorial Notes in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 34 (1938).

Also, I read in ‘The English Dialect Dictionary’ (Joseph Wright, 1898) that a bullstone is a West Yorkshire word for a whetstone – which makes sense maybe as an explanation for (or even genuine use of) the grooves?

Another gravestone of interest [in the churchyard at Llansantffraid-Yn-Mechain] is the one on moulded pillars at the east end of the church, and was pointed out to us as being the stone marking the resting-place of the body of “David Maurice, the Suicide.” Tradition is a little at fault, as this is not the grave; but, for all that, Maurice or Morris may have been buried here in preference (under the circumstance) to the family vault at Llansilin. (...) The story touching David Maurice’s grave is that the entombed committed suicide in the river Tannatt, near to his father’s house, Penybont or Glan Cynlleth. The pool till lately was called “Llyn Dafydd Morris.”

Tradition asserts that D. Maurice, of Penybont, caused the “Carreg y big,” or “stone of contention,” to be removed from the centre of Llanrhaiadr village, in consequence of the great fighting caused by the assumption of the prize-fighter of the neighbourhood of the title of “Captain,” by leaping on the stone and proclaiming himself “Captain Carreg y big.” This was carried to such a pitch that the vicar of Llanrhaiadr begged David Maurice to remove the stone, which he did with a team of oxen, and placed it in his farm-yard; when, lo! and behold! the cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs, like maddened creatures, danced and pranced about the stone, and ending their joust with horning, biting, and eventually killing each other at the shrine of the “stone of contention.”

David Maurice, thinking the place haunted because of the stone, caused it to be rolled into the river near at hand, thinking the “charm would be thereby broken,” but, sad to relate, one morning he himself was found drowned in the pool which was called until lately “Llyn Dafydd Morris.”

The country people look at the death of David Maurice as a just retribution because he had removed the “Carreg y big,” which was said to be a boundary stone, and should not have been disturbed. This story received general credence.

In ‘A History of the Parish of Llansantffraid-Yn-Mechain’ by Thomas Griffiths Jones, in ‘Collections, historical and archaeological, relating to Montgomeryshire’ (1868).

The Foel Camp is situated on the summit of a commanding eminence, of a conoid form, close in the rear of the village. The internal area covers nearly two acres; its shape following, as most ancient camps do, the conformation of the ground. It has all the marks of a British post. The lines of defence around it partake more of the character of terraces than ditches, (but there are traces in two places of parts having been sunken), and make up one spiral road of access to the great arena.

The sides of the hill, excepting one, are very steep, and this steepness would be a great defence. The entrance is at the east end, where the sides are more approachable. There are no historical records concerning this, but tradition relates that there have been terrible combats about the foot of the mountain.

The spot on top of the Foel is called by the people “Soldiers’ Mount,” and it is said that the soldiers shot at each other from the Ffridd, (an opposite hill to the west), to the Foel, and from the Foel to the Ffridd, with bows and arrows.

It is of a spiral form, and has three ditches winding spirally one above the other. Some say that it was Caradog (Caractacus) ab Bran Fendigaid who encamped his left wing here while defending his country against the invasion of the Romans under Publius Ostorius, about the year of our Lord 51, his centre being on the Brewer. But all is conjectural.

Sul y Pys, or Pea Sunday (the Fourth* Sunday in Lent).

A custom prevailed among the old inhabitants of this parish of roasting peas or wheat grains, and then taking them to the top of the Foel, there to be eaten with very great ceremony, and drinking water out of the well on the Foel. This was done near the spot where the church was to have been built.

It is probable also that our forefathers sent presents to each other on this day, for it was an old saying with our mothers when asked for a gift, “You shall have it on Pea Sunday.”

The custom of eating peas was part of the Lent fasting, and the old people believed that they would be choked if they ate peas before Lent!

*Actually the fifth Sunday? This pea-eating event is known as Carlin Sunday in the north of England.

The Church stands on a piece of ground above the village, from which a fine view may be had of the vale below. Our ancestors delighted in building their temples on slightly elevated ground, that they might worship their God according to the fashion of their forefathers, the Druids, “in the face of the sun and the eye of light,” and this feeling was so strong in them that they had determined (so tradition relates), to build their temple on the Foel, on the opposite side of the hill facing the village; but neither peace nor prosperity attended the work, for all done during the day was removed in the night to the spot where the church now stands; therefore the church was built on its present site, because it was believed to be the spot where God desired to be worshipped.

Formerly the rejected site on the Foel was distinguished by a yew tree which grew there. This yew tree was accidentally burnt at the roasting of a kid on celebrating the jubilee of George the Third’s accession, and it is worth mentioning that the kid was taken out of a herd of goats that were depasturing on the side of the Ffridd.

In ‘A History of the Parish of Llansantffraid-Yn-Mechain’ by Thomas Griffiths Jones, in ‘Collections, historical and archaeological, relating to Montgomeryshire’ (1868).

The Dog.

Mrs Pembro, of Bridgnorth, remembers her mother telling her a story about Titterstone Clee. Her mother was born on Titterstone Clee and one day, when she was a child of about eight or nine, she was walking, with her sister, to her uncle’s house, which was about five or six miles from her home. On their journey back home it was dark. They met a huge black dog. The thing they most remembered about it was the beautiful red and green collar with jewels on it which it was wearing. They thought about approaching the dog but it would not let them go near it. Then, suddenly, it disappeared.

They mentioned the dog to their family but nothing else was said about the incident until the children were grown up. Their father then revealed that someone had been murdered at that spot and other people had seen the dog.

I do like a nice Black Dog (one of our great spooky animals). This one’s mentioned in ‘Some Ghostly Tales of Shropshire’ by Christine McCarthy (1988).

An alternative explanation of the grooves...

So far as I can make out, for I have been unable to refer to the original, Hollinshed in his Chronicle came to the conclusion that these stones were erected as memorials to the Scots who fell in a skirmish with the two Percies and their followers at Grindonmarsh in the year 1558; and this rather strange opinion has been copied from one book to another, down almost to the present time; though how those useful persons who compile county histories, and so forth, have been able to reconcile the deep weathering to which these stones have been subjected with so comparatively recent a date as 1558 (to say nothing of the further anomaly of funeral monoliths in Tudor times) it is difficulty to see. The probability is, however, that these good people have never seen the stones in question, for even Kelly’s Directory of Northumberland for 1902 seems to be unaware of the existence of the fifth stone in this group.

Tradition, however, gives an even more interesting origin for the Duddo cromlech. Among the field workers on the neighbouring farm of Grindon it is, or used recently to be, told that these stones are five men who not so very long ago – for tradition pays no regard to such trifles as a matter of centuries, and, as Chesterton says, it is the essence of a legend to be vague – brought down divine vengeance on themselves by godless behaviour which had culminated one day in going out into the fields and singling, or thinning out, a crop of turnips on the Sabbath.

Not merely were they turned into stones as they stood together on the top of the little eminence in the field where they were working, becoming a memorial for all time, somewhat after the manner of Lot’s wife, but the ringleader in this desecration was knocked flat on his back, where he lies to the present day. And if you don’t believe it, go and look for yourself and you’ll see the cording of their trousers running in stripes down the stones!

At Grievestead farm, alongside Grindon, this tale is told too; but there they were sheep shearers who were turned into stone for working Sunday.

In ‘A Border Myth – the standing stones at Duddo’ by Captain W.J. Rutherfurd, in the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club vol. XXIV (1919) p.98.

Pembrokeshire – in common with several other districts in Great Britain and Ireland – possesses a good phantom coach legend, localised in the southern part of the county, at a place where four roads meet, called Sampson Cross.

In old days, the belated farmer, driving home in his gig from market, was apt to cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as his pony slowly climbed the last steep pitch leading up to the Cross. For he remembered the story connected with that dark bit of road, that told how every night a certain Lady Z. (who lived in the seventeenth century, and whose monument is in the church close by) drives over from Tenby, ten miles distant, in a coach drawn by headless horses, guided by a headless coachman. She also has no head; and arriving by midnight at Sampson Cross, the whole equipage is said to disappear in a flame of fire, with a loud noise of explosion.

A clergyman living in the immediate neighbourhood, who told me the story, said that some people believed the ghostly traveller had been safely “laid” many years ago, in the waters of a lake not far distant. He added, however that might be, it was an odd fact that his sedate and elderly cob, when driven past the Cross after nightfall, would invariably start as if frightened there, a thing which never happened by daylight.

I think all that universal headlessness happening every night is a mite ostentatious. But you can’t be too careful at prehistoric stones especially at liminal places like crossroads. So be careful.
From ‘Stranger than fiction, being tales from the byways of ghosts and folk-lore’ by Mary Lewes, 1911 (p.24).

There is one institution connected with Dartmoor that must not be passed over – Bellever Day. When hare-hunting is over in the low country, then, some week or two after Easter, the packs that surround Dartmoor assemble on it, and a week is given up to hare-hunting. On the last day, Friday, there is a grand gathering on Bellever Tor.

All the towns and villages neighbouring on Dartmoor send out carriages, traps, carts, riders; the roads are full of men and women, ay, and children hurrying to Bellever.

Little girls with their baskets stuffed with saffron cake for lunch desert school and trudge to the tor. Ladies go out with champagne luncheons ready. Whether a hare be found and coursed that day matters little. It is given up to merriment in the fresh air and sparkling sun.

And the roads that lead from Bellever in the afternon are careered over by riders, whose horses are so exhilerated that they race, and the riders have a difficulty in keeping their seats. Their faces are red, not those of the horses, but their riders – from the sun and air – and they are so averse to leave the moor, that they sometimes desert their saddles to roll on the soft and springy turf.

‘A Book of the West’ by Sabine Baring-Gould (1899).

... Craigshowe cave was at length reached. Some recent visitors assured us that the cave had no end, and that they had been told that it took a turn and came out at Loch Lundy on the other side of the hill.

Going in as far as we could without stooping, the rock dipped downward, and there seemed nothing but black darkness beyond; and over us came a creepy feeling lest we should be disturbing some sleeping goblin or fairy within its depths. However, doubling ourselves until our heads and knees almost met, a few yards’ crawling enabled us to pass the turn and stand once more, while behind us was the light trying to pierce the gloom. A matchbox proved a handy companion, but, do what we could, the matches would not burn, but flickered and died out almost immediately, and even the attempts to obtain light by igniting the matchbox failed, so damp was the atmosphere. We managed, however, to see that we were at the end of the cave, and that the water was trickling very slowly from the rocky ceiling.

Returning to the beach, we inspected the well at the mouth of the cave, into which the water is said to fall at the rate of one drop a minute. This well is also stated to possess virtues which are said to have been proved by visitors who suffer from deafness, and instances are given where the observance of the rites have resulted in an absolute relief to the victims of this most trying complaint. One must visit the well at midnight; and, having secured a mussel shell, hold it to the drop until it has been filled, thereafter pouring it into the ear, and – well, faith does the rest.

A few paces from the cave there stands the Wishing Tree, a very flourishing and luxuriant rose tree bristling with thorns. Each visitor to this shrine of hope and fear, if desirous of obtaining some good or ill omen, ties a rag upon one of its branches, and the wish is said to be thereupon granted. It is indeed a curious sight to see the many coloured ribbons fluttering in the breeze, some of them having maybe stood the storm and sunshine more bravely than has done the faint heart that fluttered like a frightened bird as the trembling hands tied firmly to the thorny tree the little bit of gay ribbon that a minute before may have adorned the hair of a fair vision, and who may have come there to charm away the evil spirits, because -’My fause lover pa’d the rose; And, ah, he’s left the thorn wi’ me.‘

Then, if it is felt that the tree has not yielded the desired fruit, there remaineth the wishing well, just behind, in a recess of the rock, into which one must drop a penny in order to tempt the fairies to give the donors what they sigh for. Someone must reap the benefit of this simple faith, as the clear depths of the well did not show that even the latest copper had been allowed to rust in fairyland.

Then beside the well there is a large stone, on which are distinctly marked red spots, which are said to be the indelible traces of the blood of a child that was cruelly murdered by its mother.

From ‘Highland Superstitions (From a Correspondent)’ in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, 12th September 1895.

Below Craid Phadrie is the detached hill called Tomnahurich, or the Watchman’s Hill, some of the fields adjoining being called Balliefearie, or the Watchman’s Town, and which, besides being thus a “ward hill,” was also celebrated in the olden time, according to local belief, as the favourite and chief resort in the north of the tiny race of fairies, and was further used by grosser mortals as a great moat, or gathering hill, on various occasions of public importance. The magistrates of Inverness used also in ancient times to patronise horse-races run round its base.

Page 13 in volume 14 of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland (1845).

With Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, the period of abstinence and self-denial is brought to an end. The interrupted pleasures of life are taken up once more, this time in the pleasant setting of spring. On Easter Day itself, the celebrations of the ordinary people began at (or before) sunrise, when in many districts crowds climbed to the summit of a nearby mountain to see the sun ‘dancing’ in honour of the Resurrection of Christ.

The Rev. John Williams, Glanmor (1811-91) remembered the inhabitants of Llangollen, Denbighshire, ascending Dinas Bran on Easter Day to greet the rising sun with three somersaults, a peculiar variation on this custom {From Bye-gones, 11th December 1895}. In other districts it was usual to take a basin of water in order to see the reflection of the sun dancing on the horizon. It is almost certain that behind this observance was the widespread belief that Christ rose from the dead at dawn on Easter Day; while, further removed from medieval practice, there lurks the hint of an earlier, pagan rite. The custom is also recorded in many English counties and in the Isle of Man and Ireland.

p84 in ‘Welsh Folk Customs’ by T.M. Owen (1959).

It is unclear why the two cairns were built together, but local folklore provides its own interpretations. One tale is that one of the mounds is the burial place of a great chief who owned the surrounding land. Each summer he went on a raiding mission with his men, bringing back gold, cattle and slaves. One summer he did not return when expected, but in the autumn the ships sailed slowly into the bay. The body of the chief was carried ashore on his men’s shields to be buried in a huge grave, while in the bay below, his galley was ritually set alight.

Another legend holds that the mounds are built on the site of the last battle between the MacDonalds and the MacLeods, two rival clans in Skye. A thick mist descended during the fighting, resulting in carnage so complete that only women and old men were left to bury the dead. All that could be done was to make two piles of bodies, one for each clan, and cover them with stones.

In ‘Prehistoric Scotland’ by Ann MacSween and Mick Sharp (1989).

The Cradle Stone.

Serving as a link with the distant past, and once known to every boy and girl in Crieff, the Cradle Stone lies on the south-east shoulder of the Knock. This massive stone, believed to be of Druidical origin, at one time weighed 30 tons and had a circumference of 80 feet, but it has been suggested that during a thunderstorm it was struck by lightning and split in two.

IN days gone by the Cradle Stone was regarded with suspicion by the natives, and it was even suggested that a treasure of great value lay hidden underneath. The story is told how a simple-minded youth named James McLaren, who lived at Barnkittock, was convinced by a few wags of the immense wealth the Stone concealed. One night they persuaded him to excavate beneath the boulder, and while thus engaged the miscreants, who were secretly assembled nearby, set off a number of fireworks bursting around him. Trembling like a leaf and paralysed with fear, the demented youth jumped from the trench he had dug, dashed down the hill and never stopped running until he reached his home at Barnkittock.

A story once told to the children of Crieff by their parents was that they all originated from the interior of the Cradle Stone. (This, perhaps is the reason it acquired such a fascinating name!) Such an enchanting fairy-tale, however, has long since been refuted and it would be a very talented person indeed who could convince the modern child that he or she came from the inner recesses of the Cradle Stone. In fact, I wonder how many children today know where to find it?

Viewed from the Indicator, one of the most magnificent panoramas in the country lies open to the visitor. Extending from the Sidlaw Hills in the east, it includes the full range of the Ochils in the south, and away to the west can be seen Ben Ledi and Ben Voirlich and beyond the twin peaks of Ben More and Stobinian. And to complete this comprehensive picture, the first range of the Grampians outline the northern horizon. On a plateau at the end of the road leading to the “View of Monzie,” once stood the “Wishing Tree.” Very little is known of this legendary tree, which stood in absolute isolation at one of the highest points of the Knock. In days not so very long ago it became the object of veneration by the maidens of Crieff imbued with the spirit of romance, who would secretly reveal their innermost thoughts in the ardent hope that their longed-for “wish” would be speedily granted.

From ‘The Knock of Crieff and its Environs’ by J.B. Paterson, in the Strathearn Herald, 7th August 1965.

Local gardener finds ancient landmark.

Mystified by the appearance of a stone pillar protruding slightly through the earth as he was preparing a new layout for the lawn in front of the premises, Mr C.J. H. Lucy, of Teddington Cross Hands Garage, consulted an old ordnance map and realised he had made a discovery. When the earth around the column was removed to a depth of six feet – as yet it is not known how far the pillar is still further embedded – it was seen that the stone was 56 inches in circumference at the top and 70 inches lower down, and was deeply pitted with holes indicating that it may have borne projecting signs at an earlier date.

According to the map, it is named “Tibble Stone,” and Mr D.W. Herdman, curator of the Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery, who has made a careful examination, states that local folklore records that a giant at the back of Dixton Hill is said to have thrown this huge stone towards the Severn at Tewkesbury. His foot slipped, says the legend, and the mark remains on the side of Dixton Hill, the stone falling at Teddington Cross Hands.

Mr Herdman told the “Chronicle”: “Mr Lucy is very anxious that the discovery should be dealt with sympathetically and I have suggested to him that the stone should be kept exactly in situ and raised so that it may stand prominently in the centre of what is to become the lawn in front of his garage.”

[...] On reference to Bryant’s Map of Gloucestershire, published in 1824, the theory [of the stone as boundary-stone] is confirmed as the stone is at the boundary of Tibaldstone Hundred.

From the Cheltenham Chronicle, 17th April 1948.

Why does this look much bigger than the existing stone (if it does?)?

About one mile south of the town of Barrhead is Duncarnock Hill which was once the site of an Iron Age fort. The hill, which is nearly 700 feet high and precipitous on three sides, is shrouded in legend. According to local folk-lore, it and the nearby Neilston Pad were formed when two prehistoric giants scooped up huge handfuls of earth and threw them at each other. The Craigie, as the mighty mound is sometimes known, is also reputed to have been the site of human sacrifices offered by the Druid priests of the Iron Age Celts to their nature gods.

In an article about the Glanderston Dam disaster in 1842 in the Paisley Daily Express, 11th December 1989.

How Thetford Got Its Hill.

It requires no inventive novelist to provide Thetford and its neighbourhood with ghostly company. According to legend indeed, this spot early made its acquaintance with beings of the other world, for local folk-lore (a field amazingly neglected by many investigators), has it that the Devil presented us with Castle Hill, cleaning his spade at Thetford after digging Fendyke, near Weeting.

The writer of this article was one day amazed to be accosted in King Street by an old countryman who, without a smile, asked to be directed to “where the Devil scraped his spade!” A blank look of interrogation brought forth the fact that the Castle Hill was the object of the old fellow’s search, and he was sent happily on his way to gaze upon what he firmly believed to be literally a diabolical addition to local scenery.

Another legend attaching to the hill, and associating it with the devil, is that his Most Satanic Majesty at midnight on All Hallow E’en (the eve of All Saints Day), is wont to ride furiously round the hill twelve times on a white horse. Many motorists have thought that one-way gyratory traffic was the invention of the devil!

In the Bury Free Press, 11th June 1932.

A comeback to ward off the gremlins.

(Story: Neil Churchman)

Superstitious managers at Hinkley Point Nuclear power station are hoping a 2 1/2 foot pixie will stamp out gremlins at the plant. Problems have plagued Hinkley Point for some time and last month the station was put out of action by floods. Part of the station was once a Bronze Age burial site and a mysterious mound, known as Pixie Mount has been left there overgrown and untouched.

A model pixie handed over when the plant was opened in 1966 was removed when Prince Charles toured the station 18 months ago. But now officials have decided the pixie should be brought back – just in case he was responsible for the floods on December 13. “Pixies don’t like to be moved,” said station manager Mr John Outram. “I don’t think we will be moving him again.”

From the Western Daily Press, 6th January 1982.

Babcary Tout or Wimble Toot.

A question with regard to the traditional battle of Babcary was asked [in this newspaper] in February 1934 by a reader, who said it was believed that a battle was fought in the valley around Babcary where the trenches and a burial mound are still to be seen.

Nothing definite with regard to any such battle appears to be known, but one reader replied that “two fields at Foddington are called ‘Peace’ for there the peace was signed.

“The burial mound, 45 yards by 25 by 3 yards high, has fourteen large trees on it. One has fallen, but the wood is not alllowed to be used by order of the Graves Commission. Within the memory of residents there was an iron fence and gate, but they have been somehow mislaid. This big mound... has the name of ‘Wimbletout.’ ”

[...] the word ‘piece’ frequently enters into field names. Is it not more than possible that the name of the fields at Foddington is ‘Piece’ and that this has become confused with ‘Peace’ and so given rise to the tradition mentioned by the correspondent quoted above? – M.

In the Taunton Courier, 30th October 1937.

“Bervie Brow,” so called, is a promontory on the north side of the Bervie stream, and its very existence seems to bar any extension of the railway to the north. Another name of the “Brow” is “Craig Davie,” based on the tradition that King David II landed here from France under shipwreck. This King turned the hamlet into a Royal Burgh in virtue of a charter granted in 1362, which charter again was renewed by James VI in 1595. In connection with the King David Charter a rather curious story may be related. The Royal patronage, it is said, was given on account of the kindness the inhabitants extended to the ruling monarch when his vessel struck the rocks referred to above. The tradition is that the King on reaching “terra firma” met a party of fishermen, who were cooking fish on the beach. On soliciting a share of their repast, one of the fishermen gutted a couple of fishes and put these on the fire. Another fisherman shouted out “Gut three.” The King noticing this generosity addressed the former speaker in doggerel rhyme thus:
“Then Gut-three
Your name shall be.”
And henceforth, it is said, the man was known as “Guthrie”, a surnamme now quite common all over N.E. Scotland.

From the Montrose Standard, 22nd April 1921.

Replies To Queries. 496 – The Golden Valley.

The origin of this name goes right back to the days of the Druids – indeed, farther than that. At Upton Cheyney in the Golden Valley may be seen some stones called Druidical stones. Their tops are lichen-covered and the weather of centuries has smoothed their surface here and there, and stunted them, leaving them inviolate and deserted, sole survivors of a pagan temple.

There is a tradition that somewhere near them lies buried a golden calf. Here then is a remnant of the rite of Mithras. My father came from this district and he has told me of several attempts made to discover this golden calf.

I believe the Bath Archaeological Society found some remains here many years ago. The valley where the golden calf was worshipped many centuries ago thus keeps its name in the present name of “The Golden Valley.” – S.W. Hayward, Westmead, N.S.W.

Bath Weekly Chronicle and Herald, 13th February 1937.

The field on which the [annual ploughing match of the Moulin Agricultural Association] took place was a nice slope below Baledmund House, on Pitfourie Farm, kindly granted for the occasion by Mr Charles McLauchlan, tenant of the farm. At the south end of the field stands an old monolith which has long been an object of historic interest and conjecture. This large upright block is believed to be a very old Druidical stone, which probably marked the burial ground of some ancient Pictish chief.

The ground in the neighbourhood of the stone was at one time the site of Moulin Market, which lasted for a week, and this stone was known in Gaelic as “The stone of the bargains,” as when a bargain was concluded it was usual to shake hands across the stone, no doubt following some custom that has been lost in the mists of antiquity.

A little to the west of the stone is a knoll on which a few larch trees are growing, and which is known in Gaelic as “The knoll of the cattle,” where the cattle were herded on the occasion of a market. An examination of this knoll, however, a few years ago showed that it was chiefly artificial, and that it had formed the site of an old fortified dwelling. The artificial mound is about ten feet high, having a breadth of about forty feet, and the top had at one time been surrounded by a palisade.

The ‘Carn a’ Mheanbh-Cruidh’ is marked on Canmore’s map, though there’s no recent investigation of it to fix a date to it. I’d like to think the origin of the name is a bit more ancient and romantic than just sticking cows on it on market day (surely a trickier plan than popping them in a pen on flat ground). Mentioned in the Perthshire Advertiser, March 4th 1914.

From all I have seen myself of that kind, or read, or heard of, I know not a more singular [Rocking Stone] than that which I am describing. It stands at Castle Treryn, a promontory, consisting of three distinct piles of rocks, near the southermost part of the Land’s End. On the western side of the middle pile, in a very elevated situation, lies this immense stone, so evenly poised, that a hand, nay a finger, may move it.

And what is still more singular, not any force, however applied in any mechanical way, can remove it from its present situation. It was on a holiday, not long ago, that a vast number of miners and peasants assembled together, for the purpose of hurling this prodigious rock into the sea. Every effort was exerted, and all their force applied to no purpose. The vast orb moved as if to mock their toil, but still retained its equilibrium. The people beheld it with astonishment: they concluded it was retained by superanatural agency, and returned venerating the stone.

Those who are hereafter to visit this place, and have not yet beheld this almost miraculous spectacle, will rejoice that it still keeps its centre, and resists every effort to move it. Yet if it was to fall, I much wish to be a witness of its overthrow. So huge a mass precipitated, like the stone of Sisyphus, and rolling with prodigious ruin from precipice to precipice, over rocks into the sea, must afford a very striking spectacle.

As my favourite podcaster says, “Be careful what you wish for.” I’m glad they put it back up though; I think very fondly of my visit to see it and would recommend it to anyone. From E.D. Clarke’s ‘Tour through England and Wales in 1791.‘

Near Steeple Barton is another ruined cromlech, also called the “Hoar Stone,” which is now only a confused heap of small stones, having been broken up by an ignorant farmer. Some fifty years ago it was much more perfect, and two of the side stones were standing about four feet out of the ground.

“They used to say that whenever they tried to drag them two pebbles away with horses, they would roll back of their own accord. Them two pebbles growed out of little uns; at least that’s my way of thinking.”

- From George Nevill, of Yarnton, aged 74, March 1901.

Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore by Percy Manning, in Folklore v13 (September 1902).