Rhiannon

Celts or stone implements.---These in the west of Ireland, but especially in the Aran Isles, Galway Bay, are looked on with great superstition. They are supposed to be fairy darts or arrows, and are called saighead [syed] anglice dart. They had been thrown by fairies, either in fights among themselves or at a mortal man or beast. The finder of one should carefully put it in a hole in a wall or ditch. It should not be brought into a house or given to anyone, yet the Aranites are very fond of making votive offerings of them at the holy wells on the mainland. They carry them to the different patrons and leave them there; the reason for this I could not make out; they do not seem to leave them at the holy wells on the islands. A person supposed to be fairy-struck is said to have been “struck with a dart.” Grown people who suddenly get fits are supposed to be struck with a saighead..

p112 in
Notes on Irish Folk-Lore
G. H. Kinahan
The Folk-Lore Record, Vol. 4. (1881), pp. 96-125.

Of the coming of the Danes the battle traditions have much to say, if nowadays they are growing misty. But here it must be noted that every tale of ancient warfare in the Quantock country, and probably in the rest of Somerset, is assigned to the time of the Danes in a way which is not wonderful when one considers that Athelney itself lies on the edge of the Quantock land, and that from 835 to 1010 the North Somerset coast was constantly ravaged by the Viking fleets. I have known even Sedgemoor fight ascribed to the Danes.

The first landing of these invaders, in A.D. 835, was at Parrett Mouth, but on the right bank of the river. The memory of that invasion is still so clear, however, that it should be recorded. The field of battle lies under Brent Knoll, and is known as ” Battle Borough.” The tradition is that the enemy was destroyed because a certain old woman dared, during the fight inland, to prevent their escape by cutting the cables of the ships, and so setting them adrift on the falling tide.

Battleborough is on the south flank of Brent Knoll. From p38 in
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.

One earth-castle, Hembury, near Buckfastleigh, has a legend that long ago when the defenders were likely to be overwhelmed, they retreated leaving their womenfolk to deal with the situation in the manner of the Danaides. The ladies welcomed the enemy, took them into their beds and stabbed them all in the night. We owe the discovery of this legend to Mrs Diana Woolner, F.S.A., who has found the same story attached to
Danebury in the Quantocks, Somerset, and also at Portland, Dorset.

p148 in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

Earth-Castles
Devon is dotted with hill-forts of many periods, constructed against invaders from east or west, or from the sea. Their exact purpose is being investigated, and indeed they are still being counted. Quite a lot have legends attached to them. Bradley, near Newton Abbot, has men in armour lying there on moonlight nights.

p 147 in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

.. the Callinish Stones .. by very long tradition are looked upon as ‘countless’ locally..

.. Mackenzie [in ‘History of the Outer Isles, 1903] mentions a very early tradition which associates the Callinish Stones with the tombs of warriors slain in battle.

You can’t help feeling wary of ‘very long traditions’ but that’s just how you relate folklore I suppose – you know, once upon a time. From the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section:
F. H. Amphlett Micklewright
Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 1. (1976), pp. 115-116.

It seems very likely to me that the following folklore relates to this impressive sounding stone (“a large monolith of sandstone, roughly quadrangular at base, tapering to a point at its upper extremity. It is 8’ 9” in height above the ground, 2’ 5” across the W face at base, and 1’ 10” across the N”, according to the RCAHMS record).

ST. GILBERT AND THE DRAGON.
There lived once upon a time, in Sutherland, a great dragon, very fierce and strong. It was this dragon who burnt all the fir-woods in Ross, Sutherland, and the Reay, of which the remains, charred, black and half decayed, may now be found in every moss. Magnificent forests they must have been, but the dragon set fire to them with his fiery breath, as he rolled over the whole land. Men fled from before his face, and women fainted when his shadow crossed the sky-line. He made the whole land a desert. And it came to pass, that this evil spirit, whom the people called “the Beast,” and Dhu guisch (of the black firs), came nigh to Dornoch, as near as to Lochfinn, from whence he could see the town, and the spire of St. Gilbert – his church.
“Pity of you, Dornoch!” roaredthe dragon.
“Pity of you, Dornoch!” said St. Gilbert and taking with him five long and sharp arrows, and a little lad to carry them, he went out to meet the “Beast.”
When he came over against it he said, “Pity of you!” and drew his bow. The first arrow shot the Beast through the heart.
He was buried by the townspeople. Men are alive now who reckoned distance by so or so far from “the stone of the Beast” on the moor between Skibo and Dornoch. The moor is now planted, and a wood called Caermore waves over the ashes of the fir-destroying dragon. – (From Alexander the Coppersmith.)

p157 in
The Folk-Lore of Sutherland-Shire
Miss Dempster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3. (1888), pp. 149-189.

There is a somewhat graceful creation of fancy associated with the Vow, or fuggo, at Pendeen, which is said to extend from the mansion to Pendeen Cove, and some say it has branches in other directions, which spread faraway from the principal cavern.

At dawn on Christmas Day the “Spirit of the Vow” has frequently been seen just within the entrance, near the Cove, in the form of a beautiful lady, dressed in white, with a red rose in her mouth. There were persons living, a few years since, who had seen this fair but not the less fearful vision; for disaster was sure to visit those who intruded on the spirit’s morning airings.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Proceedings of the London Antiquaries Society

Such caves, inasmuch as they are, almost invariably, found under hedges or large banks of earth, I shall venture to place in a separate class, and term ‘hedge caves.’ Two of the most remarkable of these may be noticed in passing – one, at Pendeen, in the parish of St. Just, which legend connects with an Irish lady, who, dressed in white and bearing a red rose in her mouth, is to be met with on Christmas morning at the cave’s mouth, where she confides to you tidings brought from her native land through the submarine recesses of that mysterious cavern...

But why call them ‘hedge caves’ when fogou will do?!

According to ‘The Giants of Cornwall’ by B. C. Spooner, the stones of Mulfra are said to be quoits from a giant’s game.

Folklore, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Spring, 1965), pp. 16-32.

A species of divination is still practised at Arthurstone, by the neighbouring rustic maidens, who have little idea that they are perpetuating (perverted indeed in its object,) the rites of Druidism and the mysteries of Eleusis in their propitiatory offering. At midnight of the full moon, if a maiden deposit in the sacred well beneath, a cake of milk, honey, and barley meal, and then on hands and knees crawl three times round the cromlech, she will see, if “fancy free,” the vision of her future lord; if her affections are engaged, the form of the favoured youth will stand before her, fearfully bound to answer truly her questions as to his sincerity.

. An early version of the folklore mentioned below. It’s got to be worth a try.

p186 in
Tales of the Cymry: with notes illustrative and explanatory
By James Motley
1848

The Skyrrid, or Holy Mountain, is so called because it was divided at the Crucifixion. One part of it is in America. There has been no snail upon it ever since, or worm either: that is because it is sacred; they cannot go there. (Collected at Bromyard, 1909)
ELLA M. LEATHER.

Any religion that refuses entry to worms and snails is of no use to me. From p110 in
Welsh Folklore Items, I
E. J. Dunnill; Ella M. Leather
Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Mar., 1913), pp. 106-110.

..Wild Harris of Kenegie {a gentleman’s seat in the parish of Gulval, near Penzance} who was killed when hunting by a fall from his horse-- it was frightened by a white hare, the spirit of a deserted maiden, which crossed its path. His ghost, in his hunting-dress, appeared standing at the door of his house the night he was buried – the funeral, according to an old custom, had taken place at midnight. For years after he might be met in the vicinity of his home, and he and his boon companions were often heard carousing at nights in a summer-house on the bowling-green. Few then cared to pass Kenegie after dark, for his was said not to be the only spirit that haunted the place. Wild Harris’s ghost was finally laid to rest by a famous ghost-laying parson, and put as a task to count the blades of grass nine times in an enclosure on the top of Castle-an-Dinas, an old earth fortification near, where he is said to have met his death.

p 105 in
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part II [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1887), pp. 85-112.

More on the ‘key’ of the castle:

On an almost inaccessible granite peak seaward of the pile of rocks known as Castle Treryn (pronounced Treen), once the haunt and meeting-place of witches, on the summit of which is perched the far-famed Cornish logan-rock, is a sharp peak with a hole in it, large enough to insert a hand. At the bottom lay an egg-shaped stone, traditionally called the key of the castle, which, although easily shifted, had for ages defied all attempts at removal. It was said that should any one ever succeed in getting it out, Castle Treryn – in fact the whole cairn – would immediately disappear. It was unfortunately knocked out by the men who replaced the logan-rock, thrown down by Lieutenant Goldsmith. Its position was often altered by heavy seas, and from it the old folk formerly foretold the weather.

From p104 in
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part II [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1887), pp. 85-112.

Tradition assigns [King Arthur a] Cornish castle as a hunting seat, viz. the old earth-round of Castle-an-dinas, near St. Columb, from whence it is said he chased the wild deer on Tregoss Downs.

p87 in
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part II [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1887), pp. 85-112.

The Wheel of Fire. -- (Informant, W.). Near the bottom of Bridge St., Aberystwyth, stands a very old house, which was tenanted 150 years ago by a butcher and his son, who sometimes let rooms. Among their guests was a pedlar and Bible colporteur, who was reputed to carry his money with him. This man disappeared and his pack was afterwards found in the river. Suspicion attached to the butcher and his son, but nothing could be proved, nor could the pedlar be found, dead or alive.

One night, however, a wheel of fire was seen to appear at the top of Pendinas*, where the Waterloo monument now stands; it rolled down hill and paused by a large tree about half-way down. This was taken as a sign from heaven; digging operations were conducted near the tree, and the body of the pedlar was found; the butcher and his son were convicted and hanged.

*A steep, conical hill just outside Aberystwyth, to the south. It is crowned with an ancient earthwork, not yet properly explored. The hill, especially the earthwork, is reputed to be haunted by the Tylwyth Teg or fairies.

p 162 in
Scraps of Welsh Folklore, I. Cardiganshire; Pembrokeshire
L. Winstanley; H. J. Rose
Folklore, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1926), pp. 154-174.

The remains of the fort at Creag Garten are on an isolated rocky knoll in the forest, and have “extensive views to the North and South” according to the record via Pastmap. It seems in the right area to relate to the following story, collected in Strathspey.

About a hundred years ago, a farm labourer was walking through the woods at Garten Beg towards Carrbridge, on a very misty evening, when he heard the strains of the most wonderful music he had ever heard in his life. Walking towards the sounds, he could see nothing, and the music became fainter and fainter, gradually dying away entirely.

On reaching his home, he informed his old mother, who promptly said: “Oh, those were the fairies blowing their fog horn, while on the march from one place of abode to another.”

This is reputed to be perfectly true, and the music had been heard on many occasions. The wood is very rocky and abounds in huge boulders, and to this day a cave is pointed out as one of the resting places of those self same fairy folk.

(Told to Murdoch Maclennan of Dulnain Bridge, Speyside, Scotland, by the farm labourer’s grandson.)

p76 in
Folk Tales
E. J. Begg
Folklore, Vol. 50, No. 1. (Mar., 1939), pp. 75-81.

Sturminster Newton Castle is a medieval manor house that is said to have utilised the earthworks of an Iron Age hillfort.

There is a.. fascinating tale in Jeremy Harte’s Cuckoo Pounds and Singing Barrows (1986).. He writes that a tale of ‘a wild and savage Cat’, a ‘monster cat with eyes as big as tea-saucers’ which haunted the hill fort known as Sturminster Newton castle, was extant till the 1820s, for one resident recalled it as a story that terrified both children and adults into avoiding the place at night.

Harte quoted in
Alien Big Cat Sightings in Britain: A Possible Rumour Legend?
Michael Goss
Folklore, Vol. 103, No. 2. (1992), pp. 184-202.

The camp was more anciently called Roundway or Rundaway Castle, and its present name of Oliver’s Camp or Castle seems to have arisen out of a popular tradition that Oliver Cromwell occupied, if he did not actually build, the camp. The only foundation in fact for this tradition is that the battle of Roundway in 1643 was fought on the neighbouring Downs, when some of the combatants may have been posted close to, if not actually within, the boundary of the camp. Cromwell himself was not present on the occasion, but the fact that Cromwellian troops fought on the adjacent Downs was quite enought to give rise in the course of time to the popular association of the camp with the name of the great man himself. Cromwell has always loomed large in the imagination of the people, and it has been said that he has achieved an unenviable notoriety only second to the Devil himself.

Notes on Excavations at Oliver’s Camp Near Devizes, Wilts.
M. E. Cunnington
Man, Vol. 8. (1908), pp. 7-13.

The Parliamentary Western Army were pretty much demolished by the Royalists at the Down. Their cavalry were forced over the steep escarpment just north of Oliver’s Castle, and “in fact” (i.e. allegedly) more men died of their falls than did in the battle. It’s said that 800 of them still lie where they fell*, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this place has a strange reputation. It’s immensely steep – unless you see some people at the base of the hill it’s actually quite difficult to appreciate how far up you are and how steep it is.

*I think this little factoid might be in Katy Jordan’s ‘Haunted Landscape’.

In the Domesday book, this hill was part of the manor of Dimelihoc. Although there’s been lots of confusion and argument, Ditmas (in the article below) decides that this is in fact the ‘right’ Dimilioc for an Arthurian location in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century ‘History of the Kings of Britain’.

You see, there was Duke Gorlois, and he had a wife, Igerna, and she was “the greatest beauty in all Britain”. Gorlois had Uther Pendragon round for tea, but it turned out Uther totally fancied his wife, which Gorlois was rather angry about. So they found a lame excuse for a war (when really they were fighting over a woman), and Gorlois went to the castle of Dimilioc, and installed Igerna at Tintagel, “to prevent their being both at once involved in the same danger, if any should happen.” The obsessed Uther felt that he would “neither have ease of mind, nor health of body” till he “obtained” Igerna. In fact, “the inward torments” would kill him if he couldn’t get his end away. Yeah whatever. So Merlin disguised him as Gorlois and they went to Tintagel.. and the rest is history (or legend).

A Reappraisal of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Allusions to Cornwall
E. M. R. Ditmas
Speculum, Vol. 48, No. 3. (Jul., 1973), pp. 510-524.

also see the translation of Geoffrey’s book at
lib.rochester.edu/CAMELOT/geofhkb.htm

In the parish of St. Dennis the church is dedicated to that saint. And when St. Dennis had his head cut off at Paris, blood, a legend says, fell on the stones of this churchyard; a similar occurrence often afterwards foretold other calamities.

From p31 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal > Vol. 5, No. 1 (1887), pp. 14-61

Saint Dennis, what with getting his head cut off, and then having the unusual ability to walk off somewhere carrying it, sounds very much a Celtic type of saint.

The wikipedia says that Denis was beheaded on the highest hill in Paris, which became known as Montmartre – the mountain of the martyr. The spot where he finished his headless wandering (whilst preaching a sermon) became the site of his shrine, and the eventual burial place of the kings of France.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis

There is, just outside Peel Castle a mound about 90 feet long known traditionally as the Giant’s Grave [..] It may be of interest to note that the traditional giant of this grave is said to be the original of the three-legged Manxman, a legend which is suggestive of the many bodies found in these chambered tumuli, of which the legs are often found entire.

I do think Miss Buckland gets a bit carried away at times (but her urge to rationalise folklore is not unusual is it). From p350 in
The Monument Known as “King Orry’s Grave”, Compared with Tumuli in Gloucestershire
A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 18. (1889), pp. 346-353.

I think this must be the monument connected with this folklore:

Cumming says “In Douglas Road, about one mile from Laxey, there is on the southern side of a little ravine, a small circle of twelve stones, one of which, six feet high, is remarkable as being cloven from top to bottom. The tradition is, that a Welsh Prince was here slain in an invasion of the island, and that these stones mark the place of his interment.
Mr Feltham mentions the discovery in the centre of the circle, of a stone sepulchral chest or kistvaen, and in the view which he has given of it as existing at the time of his visit, there is a clear indication of a coved roof of stones, forming an arched vault in the centre of the mound.”

p350 in
The Monument Known as “King Orry’s Grave”, Compared with Tumuli in Gloucestershire
A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 18. (1889), pp. 346-353.

It may perhaps be thought slightly suggestive of a tradition of public ceremonies having been performed at this place that, when a wedding occurs in the neighbourhood, the miners repair to these stones, and, having drilled a hole or holes, load them with powder, and fire them instead of cannons. Accidents frequently happen on these occasions, but it is satisfactory to know that the miners suffer from them more than the stones do; the latter are, however, full of the holes made in this manner, which must not be mistaken for ancient markings or wedge holes.

page 3 in
Notes on Two Stone Circles in Shropshire.
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 11. (1882), pp. 3-7.

[A village charmer or ‘pellar’ from a Cornish town] can only pass his charm onto a member of the alternate sex, and once passed, [it] cannot be recalled. The “alternate sex” belief is of course a widespread one: for instance, at the Men-an-Tol in Cornwall, where children are passed through the hole as a cure for certain ailments, a boy must be passed by a woman to a man, and a girl by a man to a woman.

Present-Day Charmers in Cornwall
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 1. (Mar., 1953), pp. 304-305.

Passing now to the curious and enigmatical holed-stones so numerous in Cornwall, thirteen being enumerated by a local antiquary, Mr. Millett, of Bosavern, to whom I am much indebted, as known to him within the district already alluded to west of Penzance.

Both holes and stones differ greatly in shape and size, the holes varying from one not larger than a half-crown to the Men-an-tol, the dimensions of which are given by Borlase as 1 foot 2 inches in diameter, and the size of which will be better understood if I say that I crept through it with ease. Local superstition still ascribes a curative property to this stone through which people creep for rheumatism.

Another ailment for Men-An-Tol to fix – it’s quite the panacea. From p 154 in
Notes on Some Cornish and Irish Pre-Historic Monuments.
Miss A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9. (1880), pp. 146-166.

Although in most cases the gigantic standing stones wherever found, mark the site of graves, this is not invariably the case, for of “the Pipers,” two huge Cornish monoliths, Mr Borlase says he could find no trace of a sepulchral origin after careful examination. These “Pipers,” which measure 15 feet and 13 feet 6 inches in height, stand 85 yards apart, pointing north-east and south-west, and about 260 yards in the latter direction lies the circle called the Nine Maidens, or popularly the Dance (Dawns) Maidens, with which they are traditionally associated, since the legend says the DAnce Maidens were girls turned into stone for dancing on Sunday, the “Pipers” having been the musicians on that memorable occasion.

Another tradition makes these stones to mark the position occupied by the Kings Howel and Athelstane who here fought a great battle.

p 148 in
Notes on Some Cornish and Irish Pre-Historic Monuments.
A. W. Buckland
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9. (1880), pp. 146-166.

According to ‘Household Tales with other traditional remains’ by Sidney Oldhall Addy (1895), the Eagle Stone turns around when the cock crows (p56).

The book may be seen online here.

Stubob’s ‘Aigle Stone’ idea maybe comes from here
https://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924028029035#page/n349/mode/2up/search/eagle
but Jennings imagined it a Saxon god. It’s interesting that the folklore is repeated in loads of places on the internet, but these days it’s more likely to be a Celtic god. That’s fashion for you? As a wildlife watcher, I’d rather prefer the easier explanation, that eagles like(d) to sit on the stone.

In addition to stubob’s post:

Many persons in Castleton are said to believe, that the Sun appears to dance up and down at its rising on Easter Sunday Morning, when viewed from the top of the Castle Hill adjacent; and that numbers repair thither, almost annually, in expectation of seeing it! By others, the Sun is said to illuminate more of the surface of that deep valley, in the shortest days, than it did some years previously!

p627 in ‘A General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire’ by John Farey (1817) – on Google Books.

Various huntsmen ignored the holy day. One hunted on Dartmoor all Saturday till night fell. On and on he went round and round the hillside till it was midnight – and Sunday. Instantly he and his hounds were turned to stone, and on rough nights at Hound Tor they can be heard moaning and baying.

From ‘Some examples of post-reformation folklore in Devon’ by Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 72, No. 2. (Jun., 1961), pp. 388-399.

An inhabitant of the parish in which I reside--South Brent--has told me that he very well remembers how, in his youth, the people used to believe implicitly in the pixy riders, or, at all events, some of the people did. Farmers’ horses which were kept on Aish Ridge, a common adjoining the moor, were frequently found in the morning in a very exhausted condition, having, apparently, been ridden hard during the night. This was set down as the work of the pixies, and it was, of course, very easy for those who desired that such a belief should be accepted to go so far as to actually aver that they had seen the little goblins riding them. And that there were those who had such a desire is true enough.

It appears that some of the more adventurous spirits in the neighbourhood were, at this time, engaged in the not unprofitable practice of smuggling, and on the expected arrival of a cargo of contraband goods on the coast--generally somewhere about Tor Cross--would make their way across country through the night, in order to assist at the landing, and afterwards to bear away the kegs of cognac. Now, the horses employed upon these midnight journeys were borrowed (without going through the form of making an application for them to their owners) from those kept on Aish Ridge, and were duly returned before daybreak.

Such good people as were totally oblivious of the fact that there were men engaged in “deeds of daring” living in their midst, saw the condition of the animals, and not being able to account for their tired and jaded appearance in any other way, straightway supposed that they had been ridden by the pixies. Though their surmises were incorrect, it is still true enough that the steeds would never have been found in such a state, were it not for the spirits.

Boom-boom *tish*.
It’s nice to know there have always been lovers of terrible jokes.

From
Tales of the Dartmoor Pixies
by William Crossing
[1890]

online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/tdp/tdp09.htm

Bedd yr Afanc, ‘the Afanc’s Grave, [is] the name of some sort of a tumulus, I am told, on a knoll near the Pembrokeshire stream of the Nevern.

Mr. J. Thomas, of Bancau Bryn Berian close by, has communicated to me certain echoes of a story how an afanc was caught in a pool near the bridge of Bryn Berian, and how it was taken up to be interred in what is now regarded as its grave.

A complete list of the afanc place-names in the Principality might possibly prove instructive. As to the word afanc, what seems to have happened is this: (1) from meaning simply a dwarf it came to be associated with water dwarfs; (2) the meaning being forgotten, the word was applied to any water monster; and (3) where afanc occurs in place-names the Hu story has been introduced to explain it, whether it fitted or not. This I should fancy to be the case with the Bryn Berian barrow, and it would be satisfactory to know whether it contains the remains of an ordinary dwarf.

Peredur’s lake afanc may have been a dwarf; but whether that was so or not, it is remarkable that the weapon which the afanc handled was a ffechwaew or flake-spear, that is, a missile tipped with stone.

Aw just give over, let it be a water monster, that’s much more interesting. The grave is long and the monster is long.

From Rhys’s 1901 ‘Celtic Folklore Welsh and Manx’, online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf207.htm

also see this page for more details (about the Peredur story, for instance):
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf201.htm

Ah, the Hill of Health. You can just imagine sitting on this barrow, breathing in the fresh air. Or is that really what it means? T C Lethbridge, in his 1956 article “The Wandlebury Giants”, suggests that the name actually comes from ‘Hill of Helith’ – Helith being another name for Baal / Gog, and relating to sun worship – and maybe he was right.

But you’d imagine there must be some local folklore to explain such a name? The ‘Hidden East Anglia’ website says the sometime owners of the house in whose garden the mound stands said ‘Saxons were buried there’, and also that Lethbridge heard a local legend about a Dane skinning a shepherd boy there. Neither of which sound very healthy.

The barrow is immediately east of a track that the Magic SMR record describes as a route of the Icknield Way. Although it has a dent in where antiquarians dug into it long ago, it is still quite intact and stands 2.7m high.

The Wandlebury Giants
T. C. Lethbridge
Folklore, Vol. 67, No. 4. (Dec., 1956), pp. 193-203.

hiddenea.com/suffolkc.htm

Towards the east end of the camp is a place called Pitscandlie, Mr Pennant conjectures concerning this name, that it is equivalent to Picts Cairn. But this seems merely fanciful. Near the house, indeed, which bears this name, there is a very large cairn. Part of it has been removed, to give place to a corn-yard. Two very large rude stones, without any sculpture, are still standing, which point out the limits of the cairn,—one at the north, the other at the south end of it. The largest of these stones is 10 feet above ground, and 18 feet in circumference.

About a furlong west from this cairn is another on the side of the high-way, which is also very large. The great body of Picts slain in battle were most probably buried in these cairns. A little to the south of Restennet, about a mile distant from the Picts’ cairns, in a muir which has been lately planted, are to be seen a number of smaller cairns, and one of an uncommon size. Here, we apprehend, the Scots slain in this battle were interred. The loss of Alpin was very great, said to be one-third of his army, which may account for the number of little cairns, besides the great one.

This really is an extremely elaborate and imaginative explanation. So for the Reverend to mock Mr Pennant for being fanciful seems rather unfair.

From the Rev Dr Jamieson’s “An Account of some Remains of Antiquity in Forfarshire.” p14-30 in Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 2 (1822)
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/ARCHway/toc.cfm?rcn=2917&vol=2

Directly west of Mortonhall, and overtopping the house and plantations, is Galach-law. From thence is a very extensive prospect, and for this reason affords a most noble situation for a Belvidere. Here, as the name imports, were held, of-old, Courts of Justice. In 1650 before the battle of Dunbar, Galach-law became famous for the encampment of Oliver Cromwell’s army, which consisted, as Mr Hume relates, of no less than 16,000 men [..]

Galach, in Gaelic, fignifies valour, fortitude. Probably Galach-law had its appellation in the days of the Romans.

The writer also mentions the ‘Elf Loch’ just to the north:

On the south side of the hills of Braid, which exhibits a most picturesque view, a variety of wild scenery, and many agreeable walks, is a hollow called Elve’s or Elf’s Kirk, denoting the place where the fairies assembled. The fairies were considered to be the same as the nymphs of the groves and hills, celebrated so much of old by the poets. It was a prevailing opinion among our ancestors, in the days of Paganism, that fairy women, or beautiful girls of a diminutive size clothed in green, with loose dishevelled hair, frequented certain sequestrated places, and at certain times conversed with men.

Yeah in your dreams, you old perv.

From Rev Mr Thomas Whyte’s “An Account of the Parish of Liberton in Mid Lothian, or County of Edinburgh.” p292-388 in
Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 1 (1792)
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/arch_scot_vol_001/01_292_366.pdf

What was the original use of the cell, or by whom it was made, is unknown. There is, however, in Orkney, a tradition, that a monk from the Western Isles came to Hoy, where he led a recluse life ; and it may be supposed he is the person who hewed this stone into the form of a cell.

Remarks made in a Journey to the Orkney Islands. By Principal Gordon of the Scots College in Paris. p256-268 in Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume 1 (1792).

ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogu[...]ch_scot_vol_001/01_256_268.pdf

Is Saxons’ Lowe – or should that be Saxon’s Lowe – a prehistoric round barrow? Or maybe it’s the grave of a Saxon King from the nearby Bury Bank? Or is it just a natural bump (mind you, it is scheduled as an ancient monument, according to the Magic map).
(suggestion ‘borrowed’ from Brian Billington’s orienteering webpage here:
sisyphus.demon.co.uk/POTOC/png/2000-03.potter.TC.html )

The ‘Alternative Approaches to Folklore’ bibliography by Jeremy Harte has a reference for another story:
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.rtf.
Chris Fletcher, in a letter to Mercian Mysteries 17: 37 (1993) described how the barrow called Saxons Lowe on Tittensor Chase was visited by a will o’ the wisp.

This webpage by Brian Billington
sisyphus.demon.co.uk/POTOC/png/2000-03.potter.TC.html
says that an 1899 map calls the fort ‘Wulferecester’ – Wulfere’s town. There’s a mound inside the southern part of the enclosure, which is said to be the site of the palace of Wulfere, the Saxon King of Mercia.

The poet Gwilym Tew.. presided at a Gorsedd in Glamorgan in 1460, about which time he wrote a complimentary poem in praise of Sir John Morgan of Tredegar, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, whom in the title he styles Syr Sion ap Morgan o Dre-Degyr, and again in the poem itself he writes the name Tre-Degyr [..] the capital D indicating a proper name. In a MS. of the seventeenth century, in the possession of Mr S.R. Bosanquet, is this statement, “The house of Tref-ddigr, holden by inheritance of blood from time to time, is the most ancient in all Wales.” “Teigr ap Tegonwy was an ancient prince in King Arthur’s time” [..] though Teigr may be as mythical a personage as King Arthur, this is strong presumptive evidence that there was such a traditionary personage connected with this place...
Octavius Morgan, The Friars, Newport, Mon.
Notes and Queries, Volume s6-IV, Number 96, 1881

Octavius, like me, tries to squeeze a bit of folklore out of the Tre (or homestead) of Teigr.

Between Garbert and Shader, on a rifing ground, there are the remains of a very extenfive double circle. Some of the ftones about the inner circle, which are pretty large, appear to have been thrown down by violence. It is not unlikely, that at the introduction of Chriftianity, the votaries of a new religion would find fome merit in deftroying every memorial of the antient fuperftition : The violence with which this zeal raged, at a more enlightened period, muft be always regretted by every admirer of Scottish antiquities. I muft not omit, that thefe ftones, whole fize certainly required fome machinery to rear them up, are entirely rude; have no marks of the chiflel; and at a diftance make a very grotefque appearance ; that at Calernifh is called by the country people, na Fhirr Chrace, who, they fay, were thus metamorphofed into ftones while dancing.

Colin McKenzie, An Account of some Remains of Antiquity in the Island of Lewis, one of the Hebrides. In Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 1 (1792), online (complete with f shaped s’s) at
ads.ahds.ac.uk/cfm/archway/toc.cfm?rcn=2917&vol=1

The Devil was angry at the conversion of Sussex, one of the last counties to be converted from Paganism, and especially at the way churches were being built in every Sussex village. So he decided to dig right through the South Downs, a range of hills along the south of Britain. He swore that he would dig all the way through the hills to let the sea flood Sussex in a single night and drown the new Christians. He started inland near the village of Poynings and dug furiously sending huge clods of earth everywhere. One became Chanctonbury hill, another Cissbury hill, another Rackham Hill and yet another Mount Caburn.

Towards midnight, the noise he was making disturbed an old woman, who looked out to see what was happening. When she realized what the Devil was doing, she lit a candle and set it on her windowsill, holding up a metal sieve in front of it to create a dimly glowing globe. The Devil could barely believe that the sun had already risen, but the old woman had woken her rooster who let out a loud crowing and Satan fled believing that the morning had already come. Some say, that as he fled out over the English Channel, a great lump of earth fell from his cloven hoof, and that became the Isle of Wight; others say that he bounded northwards into Surrey, where his heavy landing formed the hollow called the Devil’s Punch Bowl.

Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Sussex (1973). Quote ‘borrowed’ from Encyclopedia Mythica (who may have swapped the word ‘cock’ for rooster).
pantheon.org/areas/folklore/folktales/articles/devilsdyke.html

It is popularly said that Lord Soulis, “the evil hero of Hermitage,” in an unguarded moment made a compact with the devil, who appeared to him in the shape of a spirit wearing a red cap, which gained its hue from the blood of human victims in which it was steeped. Lord Soulis sold himself to the demon, and in return he was permitted to summon his familiar, whenever he was desirous of doing so, by rapping thrice on an iron chest, the condition being that he never looked in the direction of the spirit. But one day, whether wittingly or not has never been ascertained, he failed to comply with this stipulation, and his doom was sealed. But even then the foul fiend kept the letter of the compact. Lord Soulis was protected by an unholy charm against any injury from rope or steel; hence cords could not bind him, and steel could not slay him. But when at last he was delivered over to his enemies, it was found necessary to adopt the ingenious and effective expedient of rolling him up in a sheet of lead, and boiling him to death, and so:

On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot
And the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
They rolled him up in a sheet of lead--
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him into the cauldron red
And melted him, body, lead, bones and all.

This was the terrible end of the body of Lord Soulis, but his spirit is supposed to still linger on the scene. And once every seven years he keeps tryst with Red Cap on the scene of his former devilries.

And still when seven years are o’er
Is heard the jarring sound
When hollow opes the charmèd door
Of chamber underground.

Strange Pages from Family Papers, by T. F. Thiselton Dyer (1895).
Online at Project Gutenberg
gutenberg.org/etext/17050

This is apparently about the same stone:

Numbers of people would formerly visit a remarkable Logan stone, near Nancledrea, which had been, by supernatural power, impressed with some peculiar sense at midnight. Although it was quite impossible to move this stone during daylight, or indeed by human power at any other time, it would rock like a cradle exactly at midnight. Many a child has been cured of rickets by being placed naked at this hour on the twelve-o’clock stone. If, however, the child was “misbegotten,” or, if it was the offspring of dissolute parents, the stone would not move, and consequently no cure was effected.

On the Cuckoo Hill, eastward of Nancledrea, there stood, but a few years since, two piles of rock about eight feet apart, and these were united by a large flat stone carefully placed upon them,--thus forming a doorway which was, as my informant told me, “large and high enough to drive a horse and cart through.” It was formerly the custom to march in procession through this “doorway” in going to the twelve-o’clock stone.

The stone-mason has, however, been busy hereabout; and every mass of granite, whether rendered notorious by the Giants or holy by the Druids, if found to be of the size required, has been removed.

From: Popular Romances of the West of England
collected and edited by Robert Hunt
[1903, 3rd edition]
Online at the excellent Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm

The OS map shows a ‘tumulus’ on Trink Hill (though it is not marked as scheduled on the Magic map) and close by, the Twelve O’clock Stone.

The sun strikes the flank of the Trink Hill “Twelve o’clock” stone, for example, using it as a dial; hence its name. When the stone “hears” cock-crow it turns itself; and would turn just as well as do others, in response to church bells or a striking clock, if it were within “hearing” of them. It is this stony “hearing” that has become a joke.

Oh do lighten up. It’s only a story. From
The Stone Circles of Cornwall
B. C. Spooner
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 4. (Dec., 1953), pp. 484-487.

A party were hunting the wild boar in Trewartha Marsh. Whenever a hunter came near the Cheesewring a prophet – by whom an Archdruid is meant – who lived there received him, seated in the stone chair, and offered him to drink out of his golden goblet, and if there were as many as fifty hunters approach, each drank, and the goblet was not emptied. Now on this day of the boar hunt one of those hunting vowed that he would drink the cup dry. So he rode up to the rocks, and there saw the grey Druid holding out his cup. The hunter took the goblet and drank till he could drink no more, and he was so incensed at his failure that he dashed what remained of the wine in the Druid’s face, and spurred his horse to ride away with the cup. But the steed plunged over the rocks and fell with his rider, who broke his neck, and as he still clutched the cup he was buried with it.

The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, ‘Book of Cornwall’ (1899) p107-8.

You will note that the golden cup itself was unearthed much earlier. So any romantic notions that the story preceded the cup’s discovery are unfortunately on shaky ground. There are variations of the story from other British sites, and it is also common in Scandinavia. Mr Grinsell notes that B-G’s “story seems unsupported by any other published source prior to his own. One suspects that he was unable to resist the chance for a good story offered by the find of the gold cup [a Bronze Age cup was found at the barrow in 1837], combined with his own immense erudition.” (see Grinsell’s ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’ (1976)).

There seem to be two dates quoted everywhere for the discovery of the cup – 1818 and 1837. But it definitely seems to be 1837.

“There is an ancient Cromlech, called The Old Church; and which, according to tradition, was anciently the place of Worship belonging to the Village..”

From: A Topographical Dictionary of The Dominion of Wales by Nicholas Carlisle, 1811.

The OS map shows ‘Cae’r Eglwys’, and this webpage on Glamorgan Walks
glamorganwalks.com/localfeatures6.htm
says that the remains of this ‘cromlech’ are actually of a long cairn, and can be seen in the Nash Point car park. Coflein complicates things by saying that the cairn could be associated with an old church that’s since dropped into the sea. Ooh it’s all very confused.

The promontory fort itself is called Nash Point, and the earthworks follow the cwm of Marcross/Marcroes brook back inland.

Local folklore or Victorian gentlemen’s theory? Ten feet high is a bit of an exaggeration. And there’s a burial chamber just across the fields? Not that that looks much like a cromlech any more. Who knows.

“To the west of the church, and about a mile distant from it, are three upright stones, ten feet in height, disposed in the form of a triangle, twelve feet distant from each other, and supposed to be the remaining supporters of an ancient cromlech, which must, from the elevation of the stones, have been one of the loftiest monuments of that kind in the island ; the table stone, if ever there was one, has disappeared ; but the farm on which the upright stones are found still retains the name of the “Cromlech.” ”

A Topographical Dictionary of Wales
Samuel Lewis, 1833
online at Genuki
genuki.org.uk/big/wal/AGY/Llanfechell/Gaz1868.html

In the Hampshire Highlands is Inkpen Beacon, and on the summit rises an old Double Gibbet. As may be expected, either age or weather in time forces this wooden structure to fall to the ground. When this does happen, whoever re-erects it first holds the right of feeding his sheep on the hill-side. It was carefully pointed out that the present gallows are leaning at a perilous angle, and eager expectations are arising.
M. GILLETT.

Folklore, Vol. 34, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1923), pp. 160-161.

THE GULE.—Some years ago there was a discussion in a provincial paper in the north of Scotland upon the origin and meaning of the following popular rhyme:—

“The gule of the Garioch,
And the Bowman of Mar,—
They met on Bennachie;
The gule wan the war.”

[..] The gule is a weed (wild mustard) too well known in many parts of the country, although, perhaps, it is more generally known by other names. It is also pronounced gwele, and is derived from the same root as gold, gild, gelt, i.e. from the root of yellow, and signifies the yellow plant—a name to which it is well entitled, for it too often covers the green corn-field with a blaze of gold. Another rhyme of the ” north countrie ” also mentions it, characterizing it as one of the pests of an agricultural country:—

“The gule, the Gordon, and the hoodie-craw
Are the three worst enemies Moray ever saw.”

Bowman is an old Scotch word for farmer, from boo, boll, or bow, a farm-house (originally of a dairy or pasture farm), derived probably from Gael. ‘bo’ – cows, cattle. This root occurs very frequently in place-names in the north, as in Eastern and Western Bo, Lingambo, Delnabo, Lochnabo.[..]

Mar and the Garioch (pronounced Gary) are two districts of Aberdeenshire, separated from each other in part by the hill range of Bennachie, with its lofty and picturesque pinnacles of rock. I would, therefore, interpret the rhyme as follows:— There was a time when the gule was prevalent in the Garioch, but had not yet spread into Mar. The agricultural mind of the latter district was alive to the fact and the danger, and used every means to prevent its encroaching. The representative bowman, armed, with full powers, stood, as it were, on Bennachie, on the march of his own territory, to meet and drive back the insidious attacks of the enemy, but in vain,—the gule won the war.
X. X.

Notes and Queries X. X. s4-XII (298): 206. (1873).

Maybe this is pertinent as it is to do with boundaries and agriculture. Or maybe not.

196 1/2 feet and 8 degrees west of north from the nearest stone of the circle is a stone 5 feet 4 inches high, with a hole 5 1/4 inches in diameter through the upper part of it; this stone is now used as a gate-post and may perhaps not now occupy its original position..

An old stonebreaker, who told me in 1898 that he had been in the place for seventy years.. said with regard to the holed stone, that it had been moved from its original position, where it had stood in connection with another holed stone, and that when the sun shone through the holes in some particular way “they called it Midsummer”; this may be only a repetition of something said by modern visitors, but it may, on the other hand, be an echo of an old tradition, so it is perhaps worth recording.

Prehistoric Remains in Cornwall
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 35. (Jul. – Dec., 1905), pp. 427-434.

The whole top of Cooper’s Hill and High Brotheridge is marked on the ‘Magic’ map as a camp (though no other information is given). G. W. B. Huntingford in ‘The Scouring of the White Horse’ (The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 87, No. 1. (Jan. – Jun., 1957), pp. 105-114.) tries to make comparisons with the annual goings on at Uffington.. steep slopes, cheese, springs, earthworks.. hmm.. no horse though.

“..every year on the afternoon of Whit Monday a cheese is rolled down a steep slope, steeper if anything than the Manger. This custom is known as the Cooper’s Hill Wake, and it has taken place for a long time, though it does not seem to be known how far back it goes. The site is a flat area at about 800 feet above mean sea level, and the cheeses are rolled down the slope which faces north; at its foot, just above -the 600-foot contour, there are some springs. Much of the hill-top is covered with beech trees, but the slope itself is bare, and at the top stands a maypole, which remains from year to year.. In addition to cheese rolling, there are races for children, tug of war, and sack races.”

On Whitmonday, 27th May, 1912, the custom of “Cheese-bowling” was, as usual, carried out at the Wake held on Cooper’s Hill, not far from the city of Gloucester. The custome, it is said, must be performed annually in order to preserve to the people the rights of common. According to the Gloucestershire Echo of May 28th, the master of the cermonies, Mr W Brookes, who has officiated in this capacity for thirty years, appeared wearing, as usual, a brown top-hat which his parents won in a dancing contest many years ago, and with a chemise over his coat.
He stood by the maypole and repeatedly called to the crowd to form “the alley” down the slope. “The course being clear, the Vicar opened the ball by sending the first ‘cheese’ (a disc of wood wrapped in pink paper) rolling down the hill. Helter-skelter ran nine young men after it, and most of them pitch-poled. The first to secure the disc, stopped at the bottom by a hedge, had to trudge uphill again, and there exchange it for the prize cheese... The ‘Cheese-bowling’ was varied by some rural sports on a stretch of flat ground near the maypole. These included running, jumping in sacks, and a tug of war, in which the lady contestants once more pulled stronger than the mere men.”
W CROOKE.

Scraps of English Folk-Lore, VI
A. Lukyn Williams; D. H. Moutray Read; W. Crooke; Ella M. Leather; F. Weeks; E. M. Cobham; Estella Canziani; E. B. Pitman; E. L. Allhusen; E. Wright
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 349-357.

“There seem to be few genuine traditions attached to the Horse, for its ‘traditional’ attribution to King Alfred is almost certainly due to Francis Wise in 1738 and is not mentioned by Baskerville or Defoe. But it is believed that if you make a wish standing on the Horse’s eye and turning round three times, your wish will come true. I was told of this by local inhabitants forty years ago.”

The Scouring of the White Horse
G. W. B. Huntingford
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 87, No. 1. (Jan. – Jun., 1957), pp. 105-114.