Rhiannon

Lomond Hills Easter and Wester.
These isolated heights were called by the old Highlanders “Wallace’s Goals,” because the national hero was held to be capable of jumping from the one summit to the other.

Probably from J W Jack’s 1890s ‘Glenfarg and District’, but quoted in ‘Examples of Printed Folklore’ by E S John.

There’s lots of stone-related folklore up here and stoney things with strange names, such as the crags called the Devil’s Burdens and Wind and Weather. There’s the Bonnet Stone (Bunnet Stane) which from this photo looks totally mad. And there’s a story about Maiden Bore rock:

Directly below the steep verdant base of the highest peak or top of the hill, where it begins to subside into a plain, there is a cluster of free stone rocks which jut out from under the base of the hill close beside it, with a large perforation through the rock called the Maiden-bore, because maidens only were supposed capable of passing through it. The passage had been originally very small, yet it is now so enlarged, in consequence of so many people trying to pass, or rather to creep through it, that it will now admit the most bulky person.

Seems a bit of an odd explanation but whatever. This is from Small’s ‘Interesting Roman Antiquities’ (1823). The link above has folklore about ‘Maiden’s Bower’ which sounds a suspiciously similar noise, but the bower is a cave where she used to hang out.

At the back of the house [known as Ffynnon Beuno] ran a narrow valley which terminated in the Craig Fawr (Great Rock). [...] Tremeirchion, literally translated, means the Maiden’s Town, and was so named from a convent which stood in its vicinity, and was supposed to be the refuge chosen by St. Winifred, when she retired with a company of virgins after her revivification by good St. Beuno at Holywell. Compared with the famous spring of St. Winifred’s at Holywell, that of St. Beuno is a modest affair, and boasts of no virtues beyond purity and sweetness. The water is collected in a stone tank adjoining the house of Ffynnon Beuno, and is allowed to escape, for the benefit of the villagers, through the open mouth of a rude representation of a human head, which is affixed in the front wall.

From the Autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1909) – as in ‘Livingstone-I-presume’-Stanley, who as a boy spent some miserable time in the nearby workhouse at St Asaph. Ffynnon Bueno is ‘Beuno’s Spring’, whereas Cae Gwyn is ‘White Field’ (maybe even with a touch of white = pure and spiritual, who knows).

From Archaeologia Cambrensis (1858):

Martin Davy’s Stone, near Haverfordwest.--

About half-way between Haverfordwest and Little Haven, on the southern side of the road where it crosses a common, is a small upright stone, not larger than a mile-stone. Tradition calls it Martin Davy’s Stone, and says that a man of this name, who had stolen a sheep one night, and was carrying it on his head, with its four feet tied together, sat down in front of this stone to rest himself, and let the animal lie on the top. The sheep, however, gave a convulsive movement; its legs slipped down in front of the man’s throat, and its body slipped down behind the stone. The thief could not, of course, raise the body up sufficiently high, and he was found throttled, and dead, in this position.

The text with Ceridwen’s photo on Geograph has the idea that the stone’s properly prehistoric. Coflein isn’t so sure. It’s on a boundary, about a metre high, and has two crosses carved on it.

From Archaeologia Cambrensis (1858), in an article about the history of Radnorshire:

Near to the above-mentioned place, Cwystudwen [Gwastedyn, Nantmel], are two remarkable carns, named Carnwen, and Carnfach, that is, the white and the little carn, each being of an elliptical form, and having in the centre an erect stone of superior magnitude ...

On the eastern extremity of this hill, and on a farm named Gifron, is a place which the common people distinguish by the appellation Gwar-y-beddau, that is, the ridge of graves; it consists of three mounds, or elevations, in which tradition reports three brothers, who, returning from the wars, quarrelled, fought, and fell by each others’ swords, were interred.

In Coflein’s description, Carn Wen is described as a much robbed cairn with a bouldered kerb and a possible cist. ‘A battle-axe, a bracelet and some other relics’ were found in 1844. The three cairns in the folklore are said to be 20-110m to the north east. Coflein calls the other cairn ‘The Druid’s Circle’ – it might be a prehistoric enclosure with a roundhouse inside.

They are mentioned in Camden’s Britannia (originally published 1607, this from the 1722 edition):

On the top of a hill, call’d Gwastedin, near Rhaiadr Gwy, there are three large heaps of stones, of that kind which are common upon mountains in most (if not all) the Counties of Wales; call’d in South-Wales Karneu, and in North-Wales Karned-heu. They consist of such [?] stones from a pound weight to a hundred, &c. as the neighbouring places afford; and are confusedly pil’d up without any farther trouble than the bringing them thither, and the throwing them in heaps.

... Beith was the occasional residence of St Inan, a confessor of some celebrity, whose principal place of abode was at Irvine. He flourished about 839. On the Cuff Hill there is a cleft in the rock, which is still called St Inan’s Chair; and, at a short distance from it, a well of excellent water, called St Inan’s Well. From the Callendar of Scots Saints, we find that the festival of this saint was celebrated on the 18th of August; and to this day there is a fair at Beith, held on the corresponding day, old style. Tradition still bears that this fair used to be held on the Cuff Hill. It was removed to Beith after the town had increased in population, and become a more suitable place for a market. It is one of the principal fairs in the county. The fair is vulgarly pronounced Tenant’s Day; but this is evidently a corruption arising from the final letter of Saint, being sounded with the name Inan. Similar corruptions occur in Tantony, which is a corruption of St Antony; and Taudrey, which is a corruption of St Audrey. [...]

But the Cuff Hill has antiquities much earlier than the days of St Inan. On the north declivity of the hill, there is a rocking-stone of considerable size, which can be set in motion by the slightest touch. This stone is of common trap.

From the New Statistical Account for Ayr and Bute (1845).

Gruagach, a supernatural female who presided over cattle and took a kindly interest in all that pertained to them. In return a libation of milk was made to her when the women milked the cows in the evening. If the oblation were neglected, the cattle, notwithstanding all precautions, were found broken loose and in the corn; and if still omitted, the best cow in the fold was found dead in the morning. The offering was poured on ‘clach na gruagaich,’ the ‘gruagach’ stone. There is hardly a district in the Highlands which does not possess a ‘leac gruagaich’ – a ‘gruagach’ flagstone [...]

The following account was given to me by a woman at West Bennan in Arran in August 1895:

The ‘gruagach’ lived at East Bennan in a cave which is still called ‘uamh na gruagaich’ – cave of the ‘gruagach’, and ‘uamh na beiste’ – cave of the monster. She herded the cattle of the townland of Bennan, and no spring-loss, no death-loss, no mishap, no murrain, ever befell them, while they throve and fattened and multiplied right well.

The ‘gruagach’ would come forth with the radiant sun, her golden hair streaming on the morning breeze, and her rich voice filling the air with melody. She would wait on a grassy hillock afar off till the people would bring out their ‘creatairean,’ creatures, crooning a lullaby the while, and striding to and fro [...*]

The people of Bennan were so pleased with the tender care the ‘gruagach’ took of their corn and cattle that they resolved to give her a linen garment to clothe her body and down sandals to cover her feet. They placed these on a knoll near the ‘gruagach’ and watched from afar. But instead of being grateful she was offended, and resented their intrusion so much that she determined to leave the district. She placed her left foot on Ben Bhuidhe in Arran and her right foot on ‘Allasan,’ Ailsa Craig, making this her stepping-stone to cross to the mainland of Scotland or to Ireland. While the ‘gruagach’ was in the act of moving her left foot, a three-masted ship passed beneath, the mainmast of which struck her in the thigh and overturned her into the sea. The people of Bennan mourned the ‘gruagach’ long and loudly, and bewailed their own officiousness.

*There’s a song here. But as it’s long and Mr Carmichael was allegedly quite Creative when it came to Tradition, I’m leaving it out. You can see it on google books though in v1/2 of ‘Carmina Gadelica’ by Alexander Carmichael (1900). The huffy behaviour after being given clothing as a present sounds reminiscent of the behaviour of a Hob-Thrush.

The fort on Rubers Law is actually R*man it seems. But there have been plenty of finds of stone arrowheads and so on up here, according to the RCAHMS database.

It’s a very prominent isolated hill and has lots of Named Features, like Peden’s Pulpit:

We have said that Ruberslaw is memorable in Scottish story. It is so in one of its bloodiest and saddest pages. Its hollow dells and rocky recesses were the ‘hiding-places’ of the persecuted Covenanters; and upon its weird summit tradition still points out the stone upon which the martyr-preacher, Alexander Peden, laid his Bible when he poured forth his dauntless and fiery ‘message’ to our eager-listening and right-hearted forefathers.

The same article (in July 1853’s ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’) describes how the ‘stormy Ruberslaw’ assumes a grand and starling appearance when its top pokes through the rolling sheets of fog that hide its lower slopes. The weather is also mentioned in local rhyme, as recorded by William and Robert Chambers in their Edinburgh Journal v3, in 1835:

When Ruberslaw puts on his cowl,
The Dunion on his hude,
Then a’ the wives o’ Teviotside
Ken there will be a flude.

There’s also a “cavity cut in an earthfast block of freestone on the east side of Ruberslaw, vulgarly called ‘Simmie’s pottie’ but whether this would be used as a baptismal font or a knocking trough [for removing barley husks] is uncertain” (as you’ll see here ). It also has a holy well of St Mary’s.

It remains to tell of my latest visit to the “The Stones” [as the temple is called by the natives]. I had resolved to go once in my life with the current or crowd to see the sun rise on the morning of the longest day at that place. This custom or fashion is a declining one: ten or twelve years ago, as many as one or two thousand persons would assemble during the night to wait the great event, but the watchers have now diminished to a few hundreds, and on some years to a few scores. The fashion, no doubt, had its origin when Sir Norman Lockyer’s theories, about Stonehenge as a Sun Temple placed so that the first rays of sun on the longest day of the year should fall on the centre of the so-called altar or sacrificial stone placed in the middle of the circle, began to be noised about the country, and accepted by every one as the true reading of an ancient riddle. But I gather from natives in the district that it is an old custom for people to go and watch for sunrise on the morning of June 21. A dozen or a score of natives, mostly old shepherds and labourers who lived near, would go and sit there for a few hours and after sunrise would trudge home, but whether or not there is any tradition or belief associated with the custom I have not ascertained. “How long has the custom existed?” I asked a field labourer. “From the time of the old people – the Druids,” he answered, and I gave it up.

At about 2am he goes to find a few hundred people already waiting, and the road to Amesbury looking like a ‘ribbon of fire’ from all the cyclists pedalling in.

Altogether about five to six hundred persons gathered at “The Stones,” mostly young men on bicycles who came from all the Wiltshire towns within easy distance, from Salisbury to Bath. I had a few good minutes at the ancient temple when the sight of the rude upright stones looking black against the moonlit and star-sprinkled sky produced an unexpected feeling in me: but the mood could not last; the crowd was too big and noisy, and the noises they made too suggestive of a Bank Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace.

A foolish rabbit makes an appearance and hundreds of people shriek and run to catch it. Then lots of people start packing onto the fallen stones ‘like guillemots on a rock’ and start messing about. Nearer the sunrise some posh people in motorcars turn up and are all greeted with whoops and silly remarks until they hurry to hide themselves in the crowd. It all sounds very raucous.

He returns another time at 3am and sits there alone musing on time and the mystery of it all, and wishes somebody could psychically tune in and see something from the past. ‘In the last few years’ various stories had been circulating about a child from the London slums who’d had a vision there of ‘a great gathering of people’ but he reveals this to be untrue and traceable back to a local boy with a creative imagination. Perhaps it says something about the Edwardian interest in the paranormal?

from ‘Afoot in England’ by William Henry Hudson (1909).

The fuggo at Bodinnar, called the Giant’s Holt, was a few years ago much dreaded, as it was thought to be the abode of ugly spriggans that kept watch and guard over treasures which still remain buried in that ancient hiding-place.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Sacred Texts Archive website.

About a furlong south-west of Trove, but on a tenement of Boleigh, is the Fuggo. It consists of a cave about six feet high, five feet wide and near forty long, faced on each side with rough stones, across which long stone posts are laid. On its north-west side a narrow passage leads into another cave of similar construction and unknown extent; as it has long been blocked up by a portion of the roof having fallen in. One may be pretty sure, however, that much of the stories about its great length are fabulous. They say that it extends from its entrance, at the foot of Boleigh hill, to the old mansion at Trove; in proof of this the old one has often been heard piping under a parlour of the house. It is supposed he meets the witches down there, who have entered by the Fuggo to dance to his music. Hares are often seen to enter the Fuggo which are never known to come out the same way; they are said to be witches going to meet their master, who provides them with some other shape to return in.

There are also traditions of this cavern having served as a place of refuge to some of the Levelis in troublesome times; and of its having frequently been used by our fair-traders, as it afforded them a secure hold for storing their goods, and to have a carouse therein.

[...] A short time ago an old inhabitant of Boleigh informed us that many persons in that neighbourhood are afraid to enter the Fuggo, even by day, as they believe that bad spirits still frequent this place. Women of villages near often threaten their crying babies that they will carry them down to the Fuggo, and leave them there for the Bucca-boo if they don’t stop their squalling. there are traditions that almost all these caves were haunted by beings of a fearful nature, whose path it was dangerous to cross.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Sacred Texts Archive website.

Once when William Ellis, of the Gilwern, was fishing on the bank of Cwm Silin Lake on a dark misty day, he had seen no living Christian from the time when he left Nantlle. But as he was in a happy mood, throwing his line, he beheld over against him in a clump of rushes a large crowd of people, or things in the shape of people about a foot in stature: they were engaged in leaping and dancing. He looked on for hours, and he never heard, as he said, such music in his life before. But William went too near them, when they threw a kind of dust into his eyes, and, while he was wiping it away, the little family took the opportunity of betaking themselves somewhere out of his sight, so that he neither saw nor heard anything more of them.

This is in ‘Cymru Fu’, edited by Isaac Foulkes (1862), which is in Welsh, but I have taken it from John Rhys who considerately translated it in his ‘Celtic Folklore’ of 1901.

Not a terribly cheerful story, actually it’s quite ghastly. I imagine the giants used to live in the hillfort at Aberystwyth? And Penparcau is just outside the ramparts. Perhaps you know the location of the other places mentioned in the tale??

(p47) Some fifty years ago, a headless dog was said to be seen near Pen Parcau, Aberystwyth. A MS. collection of giant stories made in the sixteenth century tells how a giant, going to his father’s rescue, rode at such a rate that his dog could not keep up with him and its head came off in the leash, at a spot between the two places where the headless dog was visible fifty years ago.

(p78) Maelor, [a] Cardiganshire giant, with his three sons, Cornipyn, Grugyn and Bwba, lived near Aberystwyth. One day, Maelor was caught by his enemies at Kyfeliog, some twelve miles from his stronghold. Being over-come, his request to be allowed to blow his horn thrice before being put to death was granted him. The first time he blew until his hair and his beard fell off, the second until the nails fell off his fingers and toes, and the third until the horn was shattered. Cornipyn, hearing the sound of the horn, understood what was happening, and sorrow for his father came upon him at a place still known as Cefn Hiraethog (hiraeth, longing). As he rode to the rescue, his dog failed to keep pace with him, and its head came off in the leash, at Bwlch Safn y Ci, ‘the Pas of the Hound’s Mouth.’ Cornipyn made his horse leap the valley, landing at a spot named Ol Carn y March, ‘the Steed’s Hoofmark.’ Coming to his father, he was also killed. The two other brothers were afterwards killed though cunning.

From ‘Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom’ by T. Gwynn Jones (1930).

There’s a bit of a military theme with this spot. Maybe that’s no surprise if it’s on a road following the Annan valley, heading north-south? An RCAHMS report from 1920 says the “stone is said to have been erected to mark the spot where Prince Charlies’ troops bivouacked on their march into England in the ‘45.” That’s the 1745 uprising led by ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ ‘f course. Though confusingly, this book thinks that it was actually another Charles, the English Charles the second, who stopped here for breakfast with his army, in 1651. And according to another contemporary story* “there is a house called Powdine..; that house hath been haunted these fifty or sixty years.. I spoke with the [owner].. He told me many extraordinary relations consisting in his own knowledge; and I carried him to my master, to whom he made the same relations – noises and apparitions, drums and trumpets heard before the last war; yea, he said, some English soldiers quartered in his house were soundly beaten by that irresistible inhabitant..” And Not that I’m saying the stone is related to this folklore (although the house is just across the road) but it’s got a similar theme?

*From ‘Laws’ Memorials’, quoted in ‘Witchcraft and superstitious record in the south-western district of Scotland’ by JM Wood (1911).

The earthworks on Dechmont Law are very slight now, but the Canmore record concedes they’re probably the remains of a hill fort.

The woods around the base of the hill were the setting for one of the UK’s weirder ufo-ish experiences. You can read all about it at the ‘UFO Evidence‘ website.

Dechmont Hill, situated in the parish of Cambuslang, was a place where our forefathers lighted the Beltane [fire]. In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1848) it is stated that a thick stratum of charcoal was discovered underneath a structure of fine loam on the summit of the hill. When the country people saw it they expressed no surprise, as the tradition was familiar to them that it was here where the former inhabitants of the country had been in the habit of lighting their Beltane.

From ‘Old Scottish Customs’ by E J Guthrie (1885). I can’t see the story in the Statistical Account, though I could be looking in the wrong place.

(Yep – here
books.google.co.uk/books?id=o5DVAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA83)

Somewhere in the vicinity of St Serf’s Water, a barrow was opened prior to 1800, and two urns containing bluish 4” polished axes were found. St Serf’s Well was here too, but ‘Canmore’ says that it’s been lost since the Water level rose.

Nigh to this place is St Serf’s Well, and the moor whereon St Serf’s market is held. He was the tutelary saint of the parish of Monivaird. This well is a plentiful spring of water. About sixty years ago, our people were wont, on Lammas day, to go and drink it, leaving white stones, spoons, or rags, which they brought with them; but nothing except the white stones now appear, this superstitious practice being quite in oblivion. It has been useful in a strangury, as any other very cold water would be; for a patient, taking a tub full of it immediately from the well, plunging his arms into it, which were bare to the elbows, was cured. St Serf’s fair is still kept on the 11th of July, where HIghland horses, linen cloth, &c. both from the south and north, are sold.

‘Extracts from a History of the Parishes of Monivaird and Strowan’, by Mr Porteous, in vol.2 (1822) of Archaeologia Scotica.

At Blidworth in a hollow to the west of the village are some masses of Bunter conglomerate, which stand out above the level of the fields. They remind us of the Hemlock Stone, and like it, are connected by tradition with the pre-Roman past, under the name of Druid Stones. The largest of them rests upon a knob of rock which juts a little above the soil; it has been hollowed from the western side for a distance of about six feet into the interior of the mass. The hollow is pierced through the back in such a way that, it is said, the aperture exactly faces the sun on the morning of Midsummer Day. Thus we are again pointed, as in the Beltane usage on Stapleford Hill*, to rites in which reverence for the sun played a leading part.

*ie the location of the Hemlock Stone.

From ‘The Victoria History of the County of Nottingham’ v1 (1906), edited by William Page.

The cairn on top of Carn Mor is modern, but it’s thought to hide the remains of a prehistoric version. There are a few boulders around the edges which could have been kerb stones.

Grimm refers to a remarkable instance of this superstition, which occurred in the island of Mull as recently as 1767, which vividly illustrates the “toughness” of tradition, as Dasent expresses it. He says:- “In consequence of a disease amongst the black cattle, the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and nine spindles, long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect.

They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants, they contrived to have them extinguished, and on that morning raised their fire.

They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the pile, and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came as the master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the spell, he said the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again.”

I don’t know where he’s quoting this Grimm from, but this is collected in Hardwick’s “Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore” (1872).

As I have previously observed, striated boulders, brought from a great distane by what geologists term the “glacial drift,” are especially regarded as debris resulting from giant warfare or amusement. Many rocks of this class lying to the south of Pendle Hill, near Great Harwood, I am informed, are still looked upon by the vulgar as stones which have been hurled by giants from the surrounding hills.

From ‘Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore (chiefly Lancashire and the north of England)’, by Charles Hardwick (1872).

This hill is next to Croxton Abbey, whose Abbot looked after King John when he died in Newark in 1216. Apparently he got to take the king’s entrails / his heart back (whilst the rest of the body went to Worcester). That’s fairly gruesome an idea. You’d think the guts would have been put in the abbey, but the Remember Waltham On the Wolds website has the nice local twist that they ended up in this barrow (there’s also a photo. Of the barrow, not the entrails.)

If you look at the scheduled monument information for the site, it says it’s the remains of a medieval post mill. But it concedes it ‘is thought likely to have utilised a well preserved Bronze Age burial mound.’ Because the mound of a post mill wouldn’t really be a suitable resting place for a kings innards would it. And the idea of reusing a prehistoric mound for burying people in later times is common enough.

A more modern update on giant-related folklore, and why not:

I followed, and found myself in the famous subterranean passage known as Chapel Uny Cave, walled and roofed with flat stones of granite. It is thirty-five feet long, and leads to a circular domed chamber twelve feet in diameter, now open to the sky.

I remarked upon the size of the slabs of granite that form the roof, and asked the farmer how these heavy weights, that a football team could hardly lift, were placed in position.

“The giants put them there,” he answered. I pricked my ears. Was I, on my last day, to stand face to face with a man who believed in the giants? Alas no! He did not refer to the fabulous Bolster, nor to the giants of Trencrom and St. Michael’s Mount, who played at bob-button, but to mortals, Cornishmen of vast strength and stature, like Anthony Payne, who seem at one time to have been common in Cornwall.

He spoke of John and Richard Row, brothers, who could lift enormous stones with the greatest ease. Once the wheel of a heavily laden waggon came off. John raised the waggon with his mighty shoulder, while Richard replaced the wheel.

From ‘Days in Cornwall’ by Charles Hind (1909).

Pendene vowe, a holl or deepe vaute in the grounde, wherinto the sea floweth at high water, very farr under the earth: Manie have attempted, but none effected, the search of the depth of it.

From John Norden’s “Speculi Britanniæ pars: a topographical and historical description of Cornwall”, written in the beginning of the 17th century. (I have transcribed this from the scan on Google Books.) I take it he didn’t go in. But then I’m a coward as well.

Borlase (in 1769) didn’t think much of his story – “but the sea is in truth more than a quarter of a mile from any part of it. The common people also thereabout tell many idle stories of like kind, not worth the reader’s notice, neglecting the structure, which is really commodious, and well executed.”

I think he rather liked the place, saying “Of all the artificial Caves I have seen in Cornwall, that called Pendeen Vau (by the Welsh pronounced Fau) is the most entire, and curious”, and “You see nothing of this Cave, either in the field or garden, ‘till you come to the mouth of it, as much privacy as possible being consulted.”

Fowre Burrows, fowre litle hills raysed upon the vaste Downes nere the north sea; they stande together, and are the burialls of slayne men in the feylde. In those partes are manie like borrowes, as in manie partes ells of Englande, upon the spatious playnes wher, in the Saxon and Danish Broyles, battells have bene fowghte.

From John Norden’s “Speculi Britanniæ pars: a topographical and historical description of Cornwall”, written in the beginning of the 17th century. (I have transcribed this from the scan on Google Books.)

Major Mercer was further informed of the site of a monolith called in the district “The Sack Stone,” which he at once went to see. From his notes I gather that this is a great smoothed boulder, having one side flat and the other rounded, both with deep longitudinal glacial grooves. It stands about 9 feet 6 inches in height, is 6 feet in breadth and about 3 feet thick near the base, from which it increases to about 4 feet near the upper part.

Its position, as far as could be ascertained from the map, is about three-quarters of a mile N.E. of Creag na Criche, near the 1000-foot contour-line, and on the north side of the burn that divides Tullybeagles from Tullybelton, on the slope of the hill near the latter place. Anderson, the old keeper, said that the current tradition – doubtless, to account for the name – was that some one had brought this Sack Stone in a bag and left it there! If this is a residue of some early legend telling of the Stone being “dropped out of the apron of a witch,” it is still one more instance of the folk-lore of Standing Stones.

From ‘Report on Stone Circles in Perthshire’ by Fred Coles, in PSAS v45 (1910-11).

In the memory of men still living, two well-known weavers, named James Livingstone and James McLaren, lived in Barnkettick, at the west end of the town. Livingstone was a through wag, and McLaren was somewhat of a simpleton. Livingstone was in the habit of telling his neighbour all sorts of extravagant stories about ghosts and witches. The facility with which the latter fraternity could turn themselves into hares and scamper about was an accepted fact, which McLaren as truly believed as his Bible.

The Rocking or Cradle Stone on the brow of the Knock, behind the town, was supposed to be of Drudical [sic] origin, and for ages drew forth the fear and wonder of the natives. A belief prevailed that something valuable was buried in its foundation, and worth lifting, if it could only be got at.

The story’s told at great length. Basically, Livingstone gets a few of his mates involved, and they turn up early with snares and ‘squibs’. When the two friends start digging, “a strange unearthly sound came up the hill, and on looking round, a ball of fire was seen careering through the underwood. McLaren felt queerish and almost speechless.” But Livingstone said they were only bits of falling stars. McLaren thought otherwise, that it was something to do with the Monzie witches. When Livingstone yelled that he smelt brimstone, McLaren rushed terrified down the hillside, scaring rabbits and hares that then got caught screaming in the snares. He makes it home but Livingstone clearly doesn’t know when to stop and ties a live hare to the bed, which McLaren of course interprets as a witch.

The RCAHMS record says the Cradle Stone is a huge boulder that’s been split in two. Surely it’s called the Cradle Stone because it rocks / rocked at some point? but in a mention in PSAS (v45/1910) it says “the local story is that the Cradle Stone is where the babies came from!” Maybe that’s a kind of back-explanation with a fertility related twist?

This camp is known as Whitefield-camp, Soldier’s-fauld (now its recognized name), and Witches-neuk, said to be derived from the legend that ‘Meg o’ Meldon’ in one of her midnight flights on broom shank, or a piece of ragwort, rested on the rocks that form its northern defence.

There seems to be some confusion over the names up here. But the folklore goes with the name regardless I guess. Found in volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1902), p50.

.. “Pepper Hill” at Weeting is said to be so called because from its poplar-crowned summit “Oliver Cromwell peppered Weeting Castle.”

From ‘Norfolk and Suffolk’ by W G Clarke (1921).

However, in a letter to the Thetford and Watton Times on 20th October 1894, it’s mentioned “I have frequently heard children say that Pepper Hill was so called because of the pepper found there.” (Perhaps some peppery plant like sorrel? I think they’d be lucky to find some actual pepper :)

Though there are surprisingly few traditions concerning the barrows, yet the curiosity they aroused in the minds of dwellers in the neighbourhood is shown by the fact that so many of them have names. That it was “a very mysterious mound” was all that I could glean from a shepherd concerning a barrow at Croxton, but he was able to inform me that it was called “Mickle Hill” (a name hitherto unrecorded)...

From ‘Norfolk and Suffolk’ by W G Clarke (1921).

You’ve got to feel sorry for this rock. It’s got no space. And yet, legend has it that it turns round nine times when it hears the clock strike twelve. It used to sit proudly by the road on Northgate, and Willy Bulmer used to read out the London news whilst standing on it. But Health and Safety deemed it in the way, so in the 1920s it was moved behind railings at Central House to be safely out the way.

It’s also supposed to have railway folklore links. In the 1820s Edward Pease had a horse-drawn railway that took coal to the Tees at Stockton. George Stephenson is supposed to have walked from Stockton to speak to him, to persuade him to use his new fangled steam engine. Stephenson sat on the stone to re-tie his boots, apparently.

(This information collected in a document about Northgate conservation area by Darlington Borough Council.)

It gets a mention in the Denham Tracts:

Rhyme on Bulmer Stone, Darlington.

In Darnton towne ther is a stane,
And most strange is yt to tell,
That yt turnes nine times round aboute
When yt hears ye clock strike twell.

This truly wonderful revolving stone, though by-the-by it is not singular in this property, stands in the front of some low cottages constituting Northgate House, in the street bearing the same name. It is a water-worn boulder-stone of Shap (Westmorland) granite.

The rhyme must be pretty old, as it’s from a book given to the Durham cathedral library in 1662, and it previously belonged to the church of Hutton Rudby, Yorkshire, so the Tracts tell us.

Abermarlais.

At the entrance gate of Abermarlais Park there is an interesting stone, near which, according to a tradition related to me by Mrs. De Rutzen, the Welsh Princes held a council or* war. I was also informed by people in the neighbourhood that the spot was once haunted by the ghost of a lady in white.

*sic. From ‘Folk-lore of west and mid-Wales’ by J C Davies (1911).

This message board for Llangadog
llangadog.com/messageboard1.html
has a photo of the stone and describes how it is also known as the ‘Bosworth Stone’, having been allegedly brought home from Bosworth Field by Sir Rhys Ap Thomas, as a souvenir of his side’s victory (Abermarlais was one of his homes).

Edmund Bogg says on ‘Almes Cliff’:

On the surface of the main group of rock are several basins or depressions, no doubt formed principally by Nature, as we have seen many similar amongst the rocks of Upper Wharfedale. ... An old custom of the country people was the dropping of a pin into these basins, they believing that good luck would follow this action. One of the basins is known as the Wart Well; anyone troubled with warts came here and pricked them until the blood flowed freely into the basin, and finished by dipping the hands into the water. If their faith was great enough, the warts were seen no more.

In the year 1776, a young woman of Rigton, having been disappointed by her lover, determined to commit suicide by leaping from the summit of the rocks, a distance of nearly fifty feet. A strong wind blowing from the west inflated her dress, and in her perilous descent she received very little harm. She never repeated the experiment, and lived many years after.

The scene from the top of this rock is magnificent, the silver windings of the old Wharfe passing town, village, meadow, and woodland, whilst far beyond the dale the country in many places can be seen for fifty miles around.

Sounds like a suitable tale for ‘Mythbusters’ if you ask me. Page 77 in ‘From Edenvale to the plains of York’ (1894).

The whole is left intact by the nature of its surroundings. The interior of the chamber is filled with small field stones, and no means are left to examine it; but I understand that tradition tells of ”curious things” being got in the inside at one time.

The writer simultaneously is pleased by the protection three walls meeting at the tomb have provided, yet is desperate to have all the stones removed so its “goodly appearance” can once more be seen. It’s obviously all tidied up now though. Over tidied one suspects? From a piece by Thomas Hall (with pre-tidied photos) in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th series, v24, no.1 (1904).

Ken’s magical photos of this site must, I assume, show the renowned Holy Mountain of Croagh Patrick in the background. Apparently there’s not just a stone row here, but a stone pair, three isolated stones, a possible stone circle, some mounds and an enclosure – quite a lot going on. There’s an article about it in the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society for 1998 (v50), by Christiaan Corlett.

[A] local story suggests that the standing stones at Killadangan are “a pagan cemetery, and that the ashes of Firbolg chiefs lie in urns beneath the boulders” (Quinn’s ‘History of Mayo, v2’, 1993). The legend appears to represent local explanations for the monuments at the site.

Perhaps the most intriguing folk-tale about the site is recorded by a local story teller, James Berry, who relates a story in which the king of Killadangan was the brother of Queen Maeve’s first husband (Horgan, ed. ‘Tales of the West of Ireland’, 1988). The name of this “great pagan king” seems to have disappeared from local tradition, whereas the name of his lazy servant, Thulera, remains in folk memory. In this story the king makes a vain attempt to force the sea and tide under his obedience. As the king awaits the incoming tide, his servant falls asleep, and the monarch is forced to fight a single-handed battle wielding his sword against the encroaching sea. Both the king and Thulera are drowned for their efforts. This story appears to explain the encroachment of the sea into the area around the standing stone monuments.

The article also suggests there is a winter solstice alignment between the stone row and the mountain, and that the axis of some of the standing stones could also be related to the mountain.

At Cryhelp, three miles on the east side of Dunlavin, is a granite rectangular stone 6 feet high. It is 1 foot wide at its base and 9 inches near the top; 1 foot 9 inches from the apex the stone is pierced through by a rectangular hole 9 inches by 4 1/4 inches and facing east and west.

[...] Locally the stone is believed to mark the grave of Prince Aralt (Harold) one of the Danish Chieftains killed in the Battle of Glenmama. If we are to take it that the valley near this district was not the site of the Glenmama Battle, then one must conclude that this stone does not mark Prince Harold’s grave. Local tradition holds that the corner where this stone stands was formerly a cemetery covered with trees and that this stone once occupied another place in the corner in the field, being removed to its present site to mark the grave of Prince Harold. Many residents state that the cemetery was known as “Crushlow Churchyard.”
The stone has certainly a tradition and, on account of the hole in it, it is of interest, but, beyond the fact that marriages were once celebrated at it, there exists no account relative to any curative or other properties being associated with this monument.

(N.B. In the adjacent field on the north side is a nettle-covered hollow. This has been opened and a passage was discovered underneath leading in a northerly direction. It is said that the passage communicates with what is apparently a destroyed mound in the northern corner of the field on the opposite side of the road. In some parts one can stand erect within it. Those who have been in the tunnel state that their clothes were covered with a fine flour like mould on exit).

So much folklore for a stone that looks essentially like a gatepost. But what do I know. Let me know if it’s not really old.

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

The Kilgowan Long Stone

[...] The residents in the district regard this stone with awe and believe it to mark the grave of a “great man who lived long ago.” One old resident stated that the stone goes to the local stream to drink at night.

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

Twenty-one yards north-west of the “piper” (the outer stone of the circle) are two smaller stones 10 yards apart; they seem to be the end stones of an avenue leading to the circle.

The only explanation of this remarkable monument which I could obtain in the neighbourhood was that “bag-pipe” music played by the good people or fairies was to be heard occasionally at the spot.

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

On the summit of Brewel Hill, 2 1/2 miles S.W. of Dunlavin, encircled by a wide double entrenchment now much levelled, is a group of four large boulders of which two are granite, another is of white quartz while the fourth is of red “pudding stone.” Locally they are known as the “Piper’s Stones,” the quartz one being called the “Piper’s Chair,” from the resemblance its form bears to that of a chair.

[...] According to legend, three giants – pipers by profession – had a dispute as to which of them could throw a stone the farthest. They decided to put their strength to the test and chose Knuckadow, a tall hill about a mile and a half south of Brewel, as the position from which the “cast” was to be thrown. The stones landed on the top of Brewel hill where they remain to this day. The fourth, and smallest boulder, was thrown by a young ambitious piper who was spectator of the contest and desired to emulate his older brethren.

Legend, also relates that one of these giants had a famous greyhound which, two days after the contest, leaped from Knuckadow to Brewel, and, landing on the stones, left the imprint of its toe nails on each boulder.

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

Broomfield Dolmen.
[...] The cover stone and supporting pillars are all of granite and are of massive proportions. It is still an imposing spectacle and must have appeared much more so when each stone held its proper position. Mrs. O’Reilly, whose father died some two years ago at a very advanced age, told me that she often heard him relate how three strong men from the old mill (near Donard) pushed the cover stone off its supports for a wager.

[...] Locally this monument is known as a “Druid’s altar,” though some believe it to be a sepulchral monument. (The belief that it was a Druid’s altar is supported by a remark made to me by a Donard resident, when I was speaking to him about this monument. The late Colonel Heighington told him that a story was once current in Donard that a religious fanatic, who had a strong antipathy to Pagan antiquities, got the cover stone thrown off its supports, thus accomplishing his one great desire, the destruction of existing remnants of pre-Christian religion.)

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

In Kilbaylet Upper on the boundary of the Blackmoor townland, are three raths which are regarded with some superstition in the neighbourhood. (It is said that an old woman resident near the raths wandered out one night and lost her way. When found she stated that she had been to the raths and had seen people dance from one rath to the other. She gave the names of a number, all of whom were deceased at the time.)

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

This two-tiered kerbed cairn (which could well be a passage tomb in disguise) must be feeling a bit miffed: someone’s surrounded it with conifers and blocked its one-time super and doubtless significant view – and the view up to it.

Conversations with local people have confirmed that up to 50 years ago the cairn was visited by a great many people on Crom Dubh’s Sunday or Lughnasa, the last Sunday in July. The people approached the cairn from the south-west, and after visiting the cairn, where dancing and celebrations took place, walked down the mountain to the west, following a trail that led to a standing stone. This traditional route up the mountain to the cairn was lost when the forestry plantation commenced. The location of the standing stone [...] was ascertained by the author, with the help of local youths, some 200m to the west of the cairn [...] The stone, 3.6m in height, was damaged some time ago and has broken in two.

[...] Fieldwork carried out has confirmed that a clear view of Mullyash mountain may be had from the majority of megalithic monuments in east Monaghan, and the mountain is clearly visible from Slieve Gullion in County Armagh, itself the location of a passage tomb.

[...] the Folklore Commission records that local lore connected the cairn with the burial of a nobleman’s daughter in an urn on the top of the mountain. Her father killed her after she eloped with a young prince of whom he did not approve. Ordinary mortals are able to see the gold treasure buried with her if they eat certain foods. There are also connections with Fionn MacCumhaill, who is said to have thrown a stone onto the top of Mullyash mountain from Slieve Gullion. Local legend states that the standing stone is this very stone.

From ‘A Tomb with a View’ by Sylvia Desmond, in Archaeology Ireland vol. 14 (Spring 2000).

The most important remains of prehistoric religion found in Leicestershire are probably the two monoliths known as the St. John’s Stone, or Little John’s Stone, and the Hostone, or Hellstone. The former was a pillar of sandstone, originally embedded in sand, which stood in a field near Leicester Abbey, called Johnstone Close.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was about 7 feet high, but by the year 1835 it had become reduced to about 3 feet. In 1874, according to the British Association’s Report, it was about 2 feet high, and it has now completely disappeared.* A drawing of the stone, made by Mr. J. Flowers in 1815, has been reproduced in Kelly’s Royal Progresses and Visits to Leicester.

A custom existed from time immemorial until last century of paying an annual visit to the St. John’s Stone on St. John’s Day, the 24th of June, when “a festival was formerly held there, a vestige of old fire or sun-worship.“** Children who played about it were careful to leave before dark, for then, it was said, the fairies came to dance there. This superstition attests the religious significance of the monolith, for fairies, all the world over, continue in popular imagination to haunt ground which has once been sacred.

*British Association Report, 1874, p. 197. Mr. Warner, who lived at Leicester Abbey, said, however, that the stone had quite disappeared by the year 1840.
**British Association Report, 1878, p. 190.

From ‘Memorials of Old Leicestershire’ by Alice Dryden, 1911.

About sixty years ago a respectable man declared that he was cutting a hedge between Trefas and Pant y Groes when a grey-headed old man came to him and told him that there was an underground way from Caerau to Pentre-Evan ; and that if he excavated a certain place he would find two hundred ” murk ” (? marks).

That’s quite a long tunnel but who cares.

From ‘The History of St Dogmael’s Abbey’ by Emily Pritchard (1907), who was actually quoting the Rev. Henry Vincent in Archaeologia Cambrensis, Oct. 1864.

... I am told that the Scar Races were held here in early summer. There is a stretch of ground more than a mile long and several yards wide which has at some period been cleared and roughly levelled like a terrace, and this is known as “the race-course.”

From an article by Miss Noble: “The Stone Circle on Knipe Scar”, in the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (v 7, 1907).

Llan Fernach, in the Cwmwd of Uwch Nefer, Cantref of Cemaes, Co. of Pembroke, South Wales. ... It is 13m. N.N.E. from Narberth. ...

Tradition says, that a very bloody battle was fought on the Common above the Church, when two Princes or Generals were slain, and buried near four large stones now standing, and which are visible at a great distance.

From ‘A topographical dictionary of the Dominion of Wales’ by Nicholas Carlisle (1811).

A large swamp called Leachfield, situate about a mile from Baslow, on the road from that village which leads to Sheffield, is said to be the site of a buried village. Some people say that this buried village once belonged to one man who saw it all go down into the swamp one day as he stood on a hill. I am told that near this fen or swamp are two stone circles and two rows of unmistakeable stone-built barrows.

In Glover’s Derbyshire (vol. ii. p. 86.) the following lines occur about this place:

When Leach-field was a market town,
Chesterfield was gorse and broom;
Now Chesterfield’s a market town,
Leach-field a marsh is grown.

I have heard the last two lines repeated thus:
Now Leach-field it is sunken down
And Chesterfield’s a market town.

From ‘Household tales with other traditional remains’ by S O Addy (1895).

Just beyond West Kennet we enter the precincts of the great temple of Avebury – if temple it be; for on the left hand stand the remains of what was once a grand avenue of huge stones that led to the Great Circle. The land surrounding these stones being now under cultivation, it is not always possible to follow the line of the avenue to its goal, but at certain times it can be done, and then the visitor, before reaching the outer stone circle, passes through the vallum which encircles it.

Many of the Avebury villagers hold to the not uncommon belief that stones grow. To prove that this is so they point out some in this avenue which they say are eighteen inches higher now than when as boys they first observed them.

‘A history of the borough and town of Calne’ by A E W Marsh (1904).

This could be nearby?? Although as no-one has mentioned it, perhaps it isn’t any more.

No tradition exists regarding the history of this fragment [a sculptured stone that was in the church], nor of a boulder which is built into a cottage to the west of the parish kirk. The latter is covered with a number of cup-markings, which are locally called “the Devil’s Tackets.”

The OED says tackets are the hob-nails on the soles of boots. I don’t know where the kirk is / was though, still less the cottage.

(Quote from the Proceedings article linked to via Rockartuk’s link below).

The standing stone at Yevering in Glendale is a large column of prophyry planted upright in a field at the northern base of the hill called Yevering Bell. It is usually spoken of as indicating a battle, but is in reality prehistoric, there being another, now prostrate, among the old forts and tumuli on the eastern end of the lower slope of that hill. By the common people it is called the “Druid’s Lapfu’.” A female Druid’s apron string broke there, and the stone dropped out and remained in its present position. Another account is that one of the Druids, who are represented like the Pechs or Picts to have had very long arms, pitched it from the top of the Bell, and it sunk into the soil where it fell.

From the second volume of Denham Tracts printed by the Folklore Society in 1895.

Perhaps this doesn’t exist any more, or maybe there were never any cup marks in the first place. But it would be nice if a holy well with a waterfall had some rock art complete with folklore. Mm just imagine it.

{The elder Celtic race responsible for the carvings at Pitland Hills} perhaps worshipped around the “Devil’s Stone,” by the Birtley Holy Well, on which great isolated rock appear several “cups,” three of them being in a straight line, which can scarcely all have been formed by natural sub-aerial forces as geological ‘pot-holes’.

A very curious legend associates the worn cups and hollows upon the weathered and channelled summit of this great detached rock with the footprints of a Satanic personage, who is said to have leapt towards the further bank of the North Tyne river, about a mile distant, above Lee Hall. Miscalculating the distance, it is averred that in his descent he touched the projecting rocks in the river-bed, which bear much larger hollows upon them in the form of indubitable water-worn ‘pot-holes’, about 2 feet in depth by 1 foot in diameter, and then fell into the deepest abyss, according to popular belief, in the whole course of the North Tyne, where he was drowned! Hence the name by which it is still called – “The Leap-Crag Pool.”

From Archaeologia Aeliana v12 (1887).
archive.org/stream/archaeologiaaeli12sociuoft#page/n349

Here’s some folklorey information scattered through an article called ‘On the Duns of the Outer Hebrides’ by, curiously, ‘the late Captain F W L Thomas’, in Archaeologica Scotica volume 5 (1890).

Dun Charlobhaidh (pronounced Doon Karlovay), Uig, Lewis.”

... In Lewis they have a tradition that when these towers were being built a row of men reached from the dun to the shore, from whence the stones were passed from hand to hand; and that the towers being conical, they were built to such a height that only a single stone or flag was required to close the top.

... Donald Cam Macaulay and a famous blacksmith called the Gow Ban (Gobha Ban = Fair Smith) went to the Flannan Isles in summer; when the Morrisons of Ness, hearing they were away, came and seized all their cows that were on the Uig moor. None dare offer resistance to the Morrisons, but on the return of the Macaulays their wives met them on the beach to tell them of the foray. The Macaulays at once crossed Loch Roag in pursuit, and on nearing Dun Carloway they saw their cattle grazing there, and guessed from that the Morrisons were in the castle. The Macaulays rested that night on a hill close by, and early next morning Donald Cam and the Smith went out to reconnoitre.

Not far from the dun was a fire, over which rested a large kettle, wherein was a whole carcase of one of the cows plundered by the Morrisons; and the cook was asleep near it. Donald Cam told the Smith to hold the man till he took the meat out of the kettle, which he did. As soon as the beef was out of the kettle the Smith threw the cook into it. The beef was put into the Smith’s plaid, and carried to the Macaulays for their breakfast.

Donald Cam then stalks the sentry at the door of the dun and kills him. The Smith is directed to prevent escape by the door, while Donal Cam climbs up the walls by means of two dirks or daggers, using them as steps, changing them by turns until he got to the top of the uncouth edifice. This dun, upon a superstructure at the top, is closed by a large flag(?). When Donald Cam got to the top he told his men to pull heather and make it into large bundles; these he threw into the area of the dun, and, calling for fire, he sets light to the heather, and smothers and burns all the inmates.

Donald Cam then demolished Dun Carloway; – that old fabric, built in the fourth century by a giant, called Dearg Mac Nuaran. There are two similar duns in the parish of Uig, built and inhabited by two brothers of Dearg, named Kuoch Mac Nuaran and Tidd Mac Nuaran.