”The Long Stone, East Worlington: dropped by the Devil when he heard the bells of East Worlington church. (Hill, H. A., 1910: Quotidian Quotations: the East Worlington Kalendar for 1910).”
from
Notes on the Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 90, No. 1. (1979), pp. 66-70.
“It is believed that the almost total absence of coins from the recent excavations (1962-3) was largely due to the long-standing custom for the local children to search there for any coins which Wayland might have overlooked. (Disbury, D. 1968. History of Ashbury, II).”
From
Notes on the Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 90, No. 1. (1979), pp. 66-70.
Would excavators really have been expecting to find many coins anyway?!
“A poem completed by John Ruskin when he was 12 describes this site as a Druidical temple and invents the following ‘fakelore’:
Although very fine things,
I think some great giant was playing at ninepins,---
And leaving the place, ere his ball he could swing,
Has left all his ninepins stuck up in a ring!
Ruskin 1832
The site is still known under the alternative name of the Druid Circle and is so described in much of the earlier literature.”
Notes on the Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 90, No. 1. (1979), pp. 66-70.
Leslie Grinsell reported from Hogg’s 1975 ‘Hillforts of Britain’, that:
“Within the Early Iron Age defences are the foundations of an early medieval castle which could well have belonged to Macbeth.”
‘Could well have belonged’ eh.
Notes on the Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 90, No. 1. (1979), pp. 66-70.
Mynydd Bychan is a little Iron Age (and Roman) settlement. It’s right next to Pwllywrach, which is mentioned in the following story from Marie Trevelyan:
In a story formerly attached to Pwllywrach, Glamorgan, it is asserted that one of the huntsmen was approaching the kennels one evening, when he heard the wild barking of dogs in the air immediately above his head. It was twilight, and no animals were at hand. The hounds in the kennels were silent. Presently the unseen dogs barked again, and somebody called out “Tally-ho-ho!” It was more like a wail than a cry. When the sound was repeated the huntsman responded with a wailing “Tally-ho-ho-ho!” The next moment all the pack of hounds in the kennels broke loose, surrounded the huntsman, and tore him to pieces, so that nothing but bones remained. People said it was the revenge of the Cwn Wybyr, whose cry the unfortunate man had imitated. In after-years the peasantry declared that often in the night-time the cries of the huntsman and the baying of hounds could be heard distinctly. It was stated that the huntsman had forgotten to feed the hounds, and they fell upon him and killed him. The kennels were pulled down because of this calamity. The spot is still called “the old kennels.” [J. R.]
From ‘Folk-lore and Folk-stories from Wales’ (1909).
Well, this story is about a man who was travelling from St Buryan to the farm of Burnewhall, when he got rather lost. When you look at the map you’ll see this standing stone is right next to the path he might have chosen. The story is possibly from Bottrell’s ‘Fairy Dwellings on Selena Moor’ (book 2, p94-102), of which (I think) a version is below. I’m sorry it’s so long, but I think the old-fashioned language is always nice:
In the Land’s End,about a mile south of St.Buryan,the coast road passes by two farms,Selena and Burnewhall,or Baranhual as it used to be.They lie between the road and the cliffs,in a part of Cornwall which once upon a time was a desolate place of marsh and wild undergrowth,of quaking bog and granite outcrops.In this wilderness,one dark night about two centuries ago,William Noy of Buryan became lost when on his way to Baranhual farm.After three days and nights of fruitless search by his friends,his horse was found and shortly afterwards,William himself.
He lay fast asleep in the shelter of a tumbledown building buried beneath a massive and almost impenetrable thicket of thorns.Awakened,he showed no sense of time or place,although recognising his rescuers and asking plenty of questions as to the whys and wherefores of his plight.Dazed,and as stiff as a stake,he was lifted to his horse and taken home,where,in the passage of time,he was able to reconstruct the strange events of the night he left Buryan for Baranhaul.His great mistake,he then saw,was to have forced his unwilling horse to take a short cut across Selena Moor for,very soon,although he decided to give the animal its head,both he and his mount were quite lost.Undoubtedly they were piskey-led,as William later came to realise.By and by they found themselves in a forest,apparently dark and deserted,and quite unknown to them.Quite suddenly William became aware of a myriad candles glimmering through the trees and the sound of music.At this,the horse showed every sign of terror and,being anxious to go on to ask for help,he was obliged to tether the animal and proceed alone.
William made his way wonderingly through an orchard and came upon a meadow in a clearing in the forest,where there was also an old house.Upon the mounting block before the door stood a girl dressed in white,playing a fiddle.But it was not she who claimed his attention.Upon the forest green hundreds of small people whirled and gyrated at giddy speed to the music she made,while as many more sat at rows of miniature tables,feasting and drinking.So inviting was the scene that William made a move to join the dancers but at once the girl in white threw him a warning glance and,finding another to play the music,drew him quickly into the moonlit orchard.He and she were almost of a height and at once he saw that the girl who looked at him directly was none other than his sweetheart Grace Hutchens of Selena,who had died three years ago.Overjoyed,he made a move to kiss her.
“No,no!My dearest William,you must not touch me,nor the fruit in this orchard,nor any flower or blade of grass,for all this is enchanted. A plum from one of these trees was my own undoing three years ago....This is how it came about.I was looking for one of our goats lost upon Selena Moor at the edge of dusk.Hearing your voice call to the dogs not far away,I struck over the moor to reach you,my beloved William,but I became confused and lost,buried in bracken that was head high,and surrounded by bogs and streams.At last,very tired,I came upon this orchard.Beyond lay a garden filled with roses and the sound of music,surrounded by trees.I know now that I was piskey-led,for once in the garden I could find no way out.”
Grace went on to explain how she had eaten a plum,the sweetness of which turned bitter in her mouth and she swooned.On awakening,she found herself surrounded by hundreds of Small People,rejoicing that they now had someone to care for them,as well as to tend their numerous changelings. “In fact”,added Grace,“that is what I am,in a way, because during my trance they stole me – as you see me now – leaving behind a changeling body which you and my friends saw buried in Buryan churchyard.The baby changelings are reared on milk from nanny goats lured into the garden by Small People disguised as billy goats.Their own children are very few and much treasured because the Small People are themselves very old,thousands of years old.And of course they are not Christians,because when they were in human form it was long before the days of Christ.Instead they worship the stars.”
William suddenly felt he wanted to get away from this rather frightening spot and take Grace with him. He remembered that a garment turned inside out would break a spell of this kind so,quick as a flash,he did exactly that with his glove and flung it into the crowd of Small People.At once everything changed,the house becoming a ruin,the garden a wilderness of moor-withey and water,the orchard a bramble thicket.The Small People vanished from sight and with them his beloved Grace. Felled by a mysterious blow,William fell asleep on the very spot where he was found by his rescuers.From that day on,he pined slowly away,searching upon the moor ceaselessly for Grace until at last he,too,died and was buried alongside her in Buryan churchyard.That is,unless he also had entered faeryland as a changeling.
Online at Cornish Connexions. Who take pains to point out that the stories “are only stuff of myth and legend and do not reflect the views of modern society or those of Connexions.” Ok.
The Farmer of Houghton was very friendly with the pixies. He used to leave a floorful of corn when he was shorthanded, and the pixies would thresh it for him. They did an immense amount of work until one night the farmer’s wife peeped through the key-hole and saw them hard at it, and thought it a crying shame that they should go naked and cold. So she made some clothes for them and left them on the threshing floor, and after that there was no more help from the pixies. They did not forget the farmer however, for one day, soon after Withypool Church bells were hung, the pixy father met him on an upland field.
‘Wilt give us a lend of thy plough and tackle?’ (pack horses and their crooks).
‘What do ‘ee want un vor?’ the farmer asked.
‘I do want to take my goodwife and littlings out of the noise of they ding dongs.‘
The farmer trusted the pixies and lent them his horses, and they moved, lock, stock and barrel, to Winsford Hill. And presently the old pack-horses trotted back looking like beautiful two-year-olds.
Some Late Accounts of the Fairies
K. M. Briggs
Folklore, Vol. 72, No. 3. (Sep., 1961), pp. 509-519.
The capstone of Lesquite is supposed to have been thrown here by the Devil in a game of quoits (so says B C Spooner, in The Giants of Cornwall, in Folklore, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Spring, 1965).
Barnatt (Prehistoric Cornwall, the Ceremonial Monuments, 1982) says that the quoit was thrown from nearby Helman Tor. Apparently there are natural features of a ‘similar form’ at Helman Tor, about a mile away, that can be seen from the quoit.
Fear of meeting the Wild Hunt prevents most villagers from using the footpath across the fields under the camp after dark yet. It is told that one man who dared to cross it about midnight heard the sounds of a pack of hounds in full cry, and for a time wondered what fetched “the old squire” out hunting at that time of night. However, as there was evidently a good run going on, he hastened to open the field gate toward which the pack was coming, and stood by to watch. And when the dogs came through, they were not the squire’s, but terrible great black dogs, with fiery red tongues lolling out, and the gentleman with them was riding a great black horse without a head.
No harm came to the man in this case. But only the quick wit of another man saved him. He also dared to cross the path in the dark, and was overtaken by the Wild Hunt as it passed overhead. And when he looked up, there was the devil himself following the hounds and riding on a great pig. What was worse, the devil pulled up and spoke to him.
“Good fellow,” he called, “how ambles my sow?”
The man was “most terrible feared,” but he knew that he must make some answer, so he replied:
“Eh, by the Lord, her ambles well enow!”
And that saved him, for the devil could not abide the Name of the Lord, so he and his dogs vanished in a flash of fire!
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.
..The riders of the Wild Hunt are specially localised at the riverward end of the trackway [from Dowsborough], where the hill fort of Combwich has a most uncanny reputation. The hill itself is a bold, rounded mass of the mountain limestone of the Mendip formation, cropping out through the red sandstone, and is said to have been brought from the Mendips by the devil when he dug out Cheddar gorge, which is plainly visible from any point of the distric commanding an eastward view across the Parrett. After throwing some material into the sea, thereby forming Flatholme and Steepholme islands, the next spadeful made the Knoll at Brent, falling short of the water, and the labourer decided to carry the next load westward. He filled a basket accordingly, and with it on his back leapt over the Parrett, landing so heavily that the load was jerked from the basket to form the hill, at whose foot one may still see, deeply impressed in the rock, the mark of his hoof. This is a very definite imprint, but the corresponding impression of his hand – for the devil came down on all fours as he lighted from the leap – on the opposite side of the hill, I have not been able to locate, though it is said to be there.
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.
Local memory has it that “men from Dowsborough beat down men from Stowey Castle, and the men from Stowey beat down Stogursey Castle”.
[..]
..The great hill-camp of Danesborough is practically the central point of our district, and it is a usual saying with us that a Quantock man never cares to be out of sight of “Dowsboro’ pole.” [..] I have already mentioned the tradition that at Danesborough there was a massacre of “the Danes,” and though it is not likely that those marauders ever reached the camp, no doubt some such slaughter did take place there, possibly in the invasion of Kentwine. But it is said that the old warriors are still living within the hill, and that at midnight their songs and merriment as they feast may be heard.
[..]
From Danesborough runs eastward the ancient trackway to the Cannington, or Combwich, fort and the tidal ford. And along this route the “Wild Hunt” still passes overhead, coming from the river to the hills. The belief of the hunt is strong with us, but I have never heard that its passing is held to portend anything special, as in the north.
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.
There are a number of round cairns up here on Wills Neck – there doesn’t seem to be a ‘camp’ though, as the following author suggests, but the folklore does relate to the fields below:
[A camp], unnamed, lying in Aisholt parish, on the eastern slopes, and guarding a pass over the highest ridge of the hills, “Will’s Neck,” seems to be associated with a more definite battle-tradition yet. The field below the spur of the hill where the camp lies, in which the fight took place, is still pointed out as that where “the worst battle ever fought in these parts was fought. The dead men were heaped all so high as the top of the gates, and the blood ran out so deep as the second thill,” (i.e. gate bar). The folk can tell you no more, but will repeat the detail, only adding that it is not so long ago that the graves of the dead men could be seen in the field, and that swords and spears had been dug up often. Nothing is visible now to break the surface, and it is not known what became of the weapons. This statement is probably traditional, and may date back indefinitely.
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.
Turning the Devil’s Boulder. Primitive Rite in Village of Shebbear, North Devon.
The Times of November 4, 1952, in announcing a “traditional survival” in “an isolated upland village” said “The pride of the village is the brown monolith – an arenaceous conglomerate stone – that reposes beneath an oak-tree outside the Norman church. On the evening of November 5 the bell-ringers unfailingly assemble in the belfry with a designedly clamorous and discordant peal, which is looked upon as a challenge to evil spirits. Accompanied by the Vicar the ringers then leave the church, arm themselves with crowbars, and surround the boulder. Shouting excitedly, as though to encourage one another, they then turn over the boulder.
The oldest inhabitant, a blacksmith 87 years of age, has given his boyhood memories of the custom. He told me that in his time the custom took place later in the evening and torches and lanterns were used.
The turning of the boulder is regarded in a most serious light by the older villagers. Any neglect of this parochial function would, they say, lead to evil consequences for the crops.
E.F. COOTE LAKE
Folk Life and Traditions
E. F. Coote Lake
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 1. (Mar., 1953), pp. 301-302.
Apparently an unusual ball-game was played here on Palm Sunday: the details are given at Martinsell where a similar thing was also played: Cley Hill is another site.
A festival used to be held on top of Martinsell on Palm Sunday, which closely resembled an ordinary country fair. The principal feature of the meeting was the fighting which took place there. The inhabitants of the district would reserve the settlement of their quarrels till the day of the festival, and the scenes which then occurred were often of the most brutal character. But this part of the ceremonies was suppressed, and the fair soon died out.
People still meet on the top of the hill, however, and a curious game is played on the steep slope. A number of boys stand one above the other, and the one at the foot starts a ball, which is hit up the hill with hockey sticks, each of the players passing it to the one above him, until it reaches the top boy, when it is allowed to roll down, and the game is begun again.
I cannot find that any peculiar viands were sold. An old man said “land figs” were eaten, but these seem to be the ordinary fruit. I am told that boys play a game at Roundway Hill, near Devizes, on Palm Sunday, similar to that played at Martinsell.
Folklore Scraps from Several Localities
Alice B. Gomme
Folklore, Vol. 20, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1909), pp. 72-83.
Perhaps there’s nothing here. Or perhaps there’s still a vague bump. It seems to be in the garden of one of the first houses on the east side of the road (the Droveway?).
In what was early this century the garden of the home of Sir Johnston Forbes Robertson there stood a Bronze Age round barrow. It was partly removed in 1920 for a tennis court, when it was found to contain the primary burial of a human skeleton, probably crouched, above which were six later, most likely pagan Saxon, skeletons. These finds caused the house and its surroundings to acquire the reputation of being haunted, with the result that Sir Johnston experienced some difficulty in getting servants or keeping them. The site of the barrow is on Bay Hill, St Margarets at Cliffe, at TR 36414449. I have not seen it but it was still about two feet high in 1964..
The Folklore of a Round Barrow in Kent
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore > Vol. 103, No. 1 (1992), p. 111
The Drake Stone.. consists of one large and one small glaciated boulder of Spilsby Sandstone. This is said to have been all one stone, and that the smaler one has been split off the larger; the stones are always spoken of in the singular. Trollope says [..1872] that “the stone is said to have stood upon another stone at one time.” Only in one traditional account, out of many, were the stones called the “Duck and Drake Stones.”
[..]
Local tradition says that a man was ploughing in the field that is known as “Drake Stone Close,” when he was horrified to find horses and plough fast disappearing into a sort of quicksand. He himself managed to keep on firm ground, but he could not get the horses out, try as he would. As the quicksand finally closed over them, with a horrid sucking noise, a drake seemed to fly out of the hole where the horses had disappeared, and flew away with a discordant quacking. This scared the man so badly that he hurriedly left for home. Next morning he re-visited the spot to find the ground firm, but a slight depression indicated the site of the tragedy, in the middle of which was a large boulder stone, something the shape of a drake’s head; since when this stone has been known as the Drake Stone.
It was always said, that under the Stone there was a great deal of treasure hidden, and many were the efforts to obtain it on the quiet, but no one was successful. Then a man, bolder than the rest, determined to make a great effort to get this treasure, openly; so he got together a yoke of oxen, not of ordinary strength, but all the oxen that he had or could borrow, and he fastened great chains round the stone, and fastened the oxen to them. At the given word the beasts pulled and heaved and managed to move the great stone a very little way from its bed, but then the chains snapped, and the oxen collapsed, and the guardian spirit of the treasure flew from under the stone in the form of a drake, and back went the stone into its accustomed place again.
After that it was deemed unwise to meddle with the stone, and it was left severely alone.
Lincolnshire Folk-Lore
Ethel H. Rudkin
Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 2. (Jun., 1934), pp. 144-157.
Well, you’d really think it was to do with drakes=dragons, rather than quack-quack drakes. Still I guess that’s what happens once a word goes out of popular vocabulary?
THE ARPAFEELIE BASIN STONE
A curious story is attached to an ancient stone, embedded in the ground, in a beechwood on the estate of Alangrange, near Arpafeelie, Black Isle, Ross-shire. The stone, roughly oblong, contains a circular cavity, about eight inches across and eight or nine inches deep, which is very carefully formed out of the hard rock. The stone lies a few yards south of a prehistoric “hut circle” of which there are three pairs, situated on a ridge, called Taendore--Gaelic, Tigh-an-druidbh-- house of the Druids. It is of the class known as Basin Stones.
[...]
After a lapse of years the following sequel in events [to the story in PSAS] occurred. In March 1937 permission was given to the Curator of the Inverness Highland Museum, by the owner of Alangrange for the removal of the stone to the Museum. In view of this, two local residents went to examine the stone and accidentally turned it over on one side, leaving it lying thus unnoticed. Forty-eight hours later, the family at Taendore received news of the death of a child relative, caused by an accident. Also a sheep farmer, residing at the same farm, suddenly collapsed while escorting a cousin to her car. Whether or not these incidents were regarded as coincidences, or as acts of diabolical agency, the owner of the estate felt compelled by force of local and family feeling, to cancel the permission for removal of the stone, which she had given so recently.
It, therefore, rests in its original home at Arpafeelie, apparently for all time, as to this day none of the local country people will approach within near distance of the stone.
These later events in the history of the stone, were recorded, at the time, by the Curator of the Museum, in the Inverness Courier, 1937.
There was also a belief that the rainwater contained in the basin of this stone, was a cure for barrenness. “Childless women visited the stone and bathed in its water before sunrise” (Pro.Soc. of Antiquaries Scot. Vol. XVI, p387). This “cure” was resorted to up to the year 1882, at least.
E.J. BEGG.
The Arpafeelie Basin Stone
E. J. Begg
Folklore, Vol. 61, No. 3. (Sep., 1950), p. 152.
I always imagined the Afanc as a bit like a watery dragon. But it seems he could talk and wield a spade:
A North Pembrokeshire legend says that in ancient days the Afanc, dwelling on the Precelly slopes somewhere above Brynberian, ravaged the countryside, committing such depredations on the live-stock of the population that a consultation of the wisest folk was held to devise some means of getting rid of him. They decided to slay him by a trick. A deputation was sent to him to ask him to dig a well for the people. This he agreed to do, and forthwith began working furiously. When he had dug to a great depth (“over one hundred yards” said one relater) the people above tipped into the hole he had made a big load of “white stones” {? Alabaster} which they had collected on the mountain-sides, intending to crush him to death. But next morning they found him still digging, and were informed by him that there had been a rather heavy snowstorm on the previous day. Thus they were unable to do away with him; and he continued as before, eventually “dying a natural death”, after which “he was buried on the hill side” between Hafod and Brynberian, “and his tomb {a cairn of stones} may be seen to this day”. In June, 1928 Charles Oldham and I visited this stone circle which is close to the village of Brynberian, well out on the moor.
This story was collected by T.R.Davis (now Schoolmaster of Newport School) and included by him in original Welsh in his prize essay on N. Pembrokeshire Folklore (MS. Maenchlochog, 1906). He heard it from shepherds and cotters in the Precelly district.
Notes on Pembrokeshire Folk-Lore, Superstitions, Dialect Words, etc
Bertram Lloyd
Folklore, Vol. 56, No. 3. (Sep., 1945), pp. 307-320.
Well this is really ghastly, I’m afraid.
..an account [of this] appeared in a Devonshire newspaper one day last spring, on the Dartmoor, where the foaming river Plym rushes through a ravine under the tall cliffs of the Dewerstone. This wild spot is haunted by the Black Huntsman, who with his “Wish-hounds” careers over the waste at night. A story is told of this phantom that a farmer, riding across the moor by night, encountered the Black Hunter, and being flushed with ale, shouted to him “Give us a share of your game!” The Huntsman thereupon threw him something that he supposed might be a fawn, which he caught and carried in his arms till he reached his home, one of the old moorland farms. There arrived, he shouted, and a man came out with a lantern. “Bad news, master,” said the man; “you’ve had a loss since you went out this morning.” “But I have gained something,” answered the farmer, and getting down brought what he had carried to the lantern, and beheld---his own dead child! During the day his only little one had died.
Folklore Parallels and Coincidences
M. J. Walhouse
Folklore, Vol. 8, No. 3. (Sep., 1897), pp. 196-202.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Rhiannon’s folklore speculations. I’ve never been that convinced by the ‘Hester Peglar’ school of thought when it comes to the name of this long barrow, and recently found some solid(ish) confusion about it (see ‘Misc’). And now I have a no less incredible alternative..
I came across mention of ‘Heg-Peg Dump’, which is a suet pudding made with plums and damsons. It was made, in Gloucestershire (where the Tump is), on the occasion of St Margaret’s Day (hence the ‘Peg’ part of the name, which was her nickname) – which is the 20th July.
Then I read this, which relates the pudding to the specific area of Gloucestershire near the Tump:
Village Feasts.--Many Cotswold parishes keep their annual Feast in the autumn, usually on the Sunday after the church dedication festival, which is sometimes observed on the date according to Old Style. There are family gatherings, a special dish for the occasion, and often open house, especially at the smaller public-houses. [..] at Nympsfield, puddings or dumplings are made of wild plums or “heg-pegs.” There is a local rhyme, twitting the Nympsfield folks, who are very sensitive on the point:-
Nympsfield is a pretty place,
Built upon a tump,
And what the people live upon
Is heg-peg [or “ag-pag”] dump.Nympsfield lies between “Hetty Pegler’s tump,” – i.e. Uley Bury tumulus, --and Lynch Field; but there is a Barrow field, of which only the name remains, in the village itself.
Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs (Continued)
J. B. Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 4. (Dec., 1912), pp. 443-457.
Whaddya reckon. Surely not coincidence?? Could the tump have reminded them of the pudding in shape? Or did they connect St Margaret with the tump.. is St Margaret a christianisation of another protective goddess? Or am I going too far now. Shall we just stick with the pudding theory. Or indeed consign the whole idea to the back burner. The question still remains of whether / when the local people were aware of the barrow – how old is the name??
Four Stones, Old Radnor.-- There was a great battle fought here, and four kings were killed. The Four Stones were set up over their graves. (Kington Workhouse, 1908.)
Welsh Folklore Items, I
Ella M. Leather
Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Mar., 1913), pp. 106-110.
A fine assortment of early opinions on [the henge] is fortunately available. Thomas Pennant, journeying north, wrote of it in 1769, “Some suppose this to have been designed for tilting matches, and that the champions entered at each opening. Perhaps that might have been the purpose of it: for size forbids one to suppose it to be an encampment.” Four years later, however, he visited the Thornbrough henges (all three are very similar) and changed his mind, deciding that they at any rate, were designed for holm-ganga, or single combat in the Norse style, with the contestants entering at either side and spectators thronging the bank. He cites Saxo Grammaticus to illustrate this, and he adds, “I daresay the ring near Penrith, in Cumberland” (i.e. King Arthur’s Round Table) “was formed for the same purpose.”
Hutchinson, who had also visited the Round Table by 1773, noted: “We were induced to believe this was an antient tilting ground, where justings had been held: the approaches seemed to answer for the career, and the circle appears sufficient for the champions to shew their dexterity in the use of the lance and horsemanship: the whole circus being capable of receiving a thousand spectators on the outer side of the ditch.”
Pennant was not the first to record the tradition of “tilting” at the Round Table. Bishop Gibson, a century before, had suggested “Tis possible enough that it might be a Justing-place...
Folklore from a Northern Henge Monument
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 3. (Sep., 1953), pp. 427-429.
During the late summer of 1952 the writer was of a team of archaeologists [excavating Thornborough Central henge].. Curious villagers often visited the “dig”, and from the gossip of one, a fairly intelligent quarry foreman of about 50, the following beliefs emerged. The henge was supposed to have “treasure in’t middle”. It was known as “the charging-ground” and had been used as such by either the Romans or the Saxons (a previous local find of a Roman bath lent favour to the former alternative). The protagonists, mounted on horseback either for tilting or for single combat, had entered at the two opposing entrances, and had hurtled to their mutual encounter at the centre. Cheering spectators had thronged the banks, isolated from the combatants by the inner ditch, which was filled with water.
[..] this local aetiology is of some interest, because it has a parallel in another henge, King Arthur’s Round Table, Penrith, Cumberland.
Folklore from a Northern Henge Monument
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 3. (Sep., 1953), pp. 427-429.
[The fairies] were also associated with caves. One lived in Thor’s Cave, and a whole clan were to be found in the cavern beneath Ludchurch.
St. Mary’s, Leek, Staffs.
W.P. WITCUTT
Notes on Staffordshire Folklore
W. P. Witcutt
Folklore, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Jun., 1942), pp. 126-127.
The Fiddling Hobthurse of Thor’s Cave in the Manifold Valley, whose “fiddling” or screeching filled the cavern, was however something more than a harmless sprite. One cannot go far wrong in taking him to be the god to whom sacrifice was offered on the altar in the cave. Thor’s Cave, as a matter of fact, has nothing to do with Thor. Its old name is Thursehole, the cave of the thurse or fairy..
Notes on Staffordshire Folklore
W. P. Witcutt
Folklore, Vol. 52, No. 3. (Sep., 1941), pp. 236-237.
Hinckley Point [sic], on the Severn Coast, where an Atomic Power Station has been built within the last few years, was considered for centuries to be fairy-haunted land. The neighbourhood is full of pixy tales and beliefs, and the Quantock people are quite outspoken in their expectation of disaster for the intruding Power Station. It has had, and is still having, a more than reasonable number of setbacks. There have been some bad accidents which are freely ascribed in the countryside to its being built where it is. Usually, West Somerset people will not discuss their still-remembered fairy-beliefs, but in this case their speech is suggestive and indicates a full knowledge of the tradition.
[..]The elderly, and not so elderly, find a ghoulish pleasure in recounting the accidents and dangers attendant on its building. One or two grim watchers have tallied up deaths and near-deaths at one a year since the beginning of the desecration. Of these they say, ‘Ah! they won’t stop till there’s seven.’ Are these victims to placate the River Severn or the vengeful pixy-people? An answer to modern boasting abou the triumphs of science is: ‘You and I won’t be here come a hundred years time. But They’ll have ‘en! Hundred years be nothing to They. They can bide.‘
Watching Folklore Grow
R. L. Tongue
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 2. (Summer, 1964), pp. 110-112.
Above Porlock Hill, imbedded in the heather, to the left of the road, are two large stones called the Whitstones. Mentioned in Guide Books of the district, they are traditionally said to have been thrown by St. Dubricius and the Devil, from Hurlstone Point, during a hurling contest.
Mr. H. of Porlock, giving a variation of this legend, said they were thrown by “Dr. Foster” and the Devil. He said many attempts had been made to remove the stones from their horizontal position to upright, but that no one could move them an inch.
Between sixty to seventy years ago a Mr. M., steward to the Squire of Porlock Manor, made an attempt without any success.
Another informant, old Tommy S-- of Porlock, said the stones were thrown by an Angel and the Devil, and a third informant, an old inhabitant of the nearby village of Horner, again said they were thrown by Dr. Foster and the Devil. No information about the legendary person, Dr. Foster, could be obtained.
Scraps of Folk-Lore from Somerset
E. O. Begg
Folklore, Vol. 56, No. 3. (Sep., 1945), pp. 293-295.
A writer on Somerset superstition in Cassell’s Family Magazine for November, 1890, says: “The prophecies of Mother Shipton are nowhere more widely believed in than in the county of Somerset. Not long ago a report was in circulation that a great catastrophe had been predicted by this old sage. She had prophesied that Ham Hill, one of the great stone quarries of Somerset, would be swallowed up on Good Friday. This catastrophe was to be the consequence of a tremendous earthquake, which would be felt all over the county. Some of the inhabitants left the neighbourhood to escape the impending evil; others removed their crockery and breakable possessions to prevent their being thrown to the ground; others, again, ceased cultivating their gardens. Great alarm was felt, and Good Friday was looked forward to with universal anxiety. And yet when the day came and went without any disaster at all, even that did little to dispel the faith in Mother Shipton; the calculator had made a blunder about the date, and it was not her fault; and many Somersetshire folk are still waiting, expecting to suffer from the prophesied catastrophe.
The Folk-Lore of Somerset
Edward Vivian; F. W. Mathews
Folklore, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1920), pp. 239-249.
On Palm Sunday there were gatherings on Longbridge Deverill Cow-down to play “trap,” going up by “Jacob’s ladder.” The young men, with the elders to watch them, would “beat the ball” up Cow-down and then play trap.
And on Palm Sunday the women and children would go out into the fields “to tread the wheat.” (1897)
Folklore Notes from South-West Wilts
John U. Powell
Folklore, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Mar., 1901), pp. 71-83.
Phantom Coaches
Bill Elliot said that, when a boy, he used to leave Upwood at 2a.m. to take the wheat into Salisbury. One morning, by first light of dawn, he saw near Handley Cross a coach drawn by a pair of headless horses plunge across Oakley Down from the direction of Cranbourne and disappear near the Yew-Tree Garage on the main Blandford-Salisbury road. He told me several other people had seen this apparition.
From:The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.
I have not recorded in the body of the text the story that the Rev. A.R.T. Bruce was chased off Oakley Down by a ghostly warrior because, when I asked him if this adventure had indeed occurred, he denied it, albeit regretfully.
I have also omitted the tradition, told me by several people, that Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, fought a battle at Handley Cross, because all historical evidence is against the possibility of this event. The story probably originated because of the large numbers of barrows in the area, which tradition claims to be the war cemetery for the dead from the battle.
I think he’s slightly missing the point. Whoever said folklore had to be factual?!
From: The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.
Another version of the story:
Kit’s Grave. A copse on the county border is said by some to be named Kit’s Grave after a highwayman, Kit, who was hung and buried there. However, Herb Lucas, the chauffeur at Upwood, said that Kit was an old woman, possibly a Romany, who lived a nomadic life between the parishes of Bowerchalke and Ebbesbourne Wake, and died on the boundary. No one knew her well. Those who found the body approached the authorities of both parishes, but neither would meet the funeral expenses or claim the body. Kit was therefore buried where she was found, and the copse was named after her.
The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.
.
Bottlebush Down. I was told that one evening a man lay down to rest on top of one of the barrows on Bottlebush Down, and was astonished to see a crowd of little people in leather jerkins, who came and danced round him. Since hearing ths tale, I have been told that the man was the late curate of Handley, the Rev. A.R.T. Bruce, but unfortunately he died before I could confirm this.
The Folklore of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, Part I
Aubrey L. Parke
Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 481-487.
Can you doubt the testimony of a man of the cloth? Did his fatigue / relaxation predispose him to dreaming, hallucinations or Actually Seeing Something? Or did it happen at all – this isn’t a first hand story after all.
A forester accounted for the tumuli on Beaulieu Heath in this fashion:-- “We calls ut Saltpetre Bank. All these here mounds was throwd up by Uliver Crummle when he tuk the Farest; he and the Danes beat the English the fust time they ever was beat, and he druv the English into Wales.”
Hampshire Folklore
D. H. Moutray Read
Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1911), pp. 292-329.
Headless Ghost.--On Roundway Down a headless ghost is said to walk. Some years ago a shepherd declared that he met it, that it walked some distance by his side, and then vanished. The gentleman to whom he told the story asked why he did not speak to the ghost. “I was afraid,” he replied, “for if I hadn’t spoken proper to him he’d a tore ‘un to pieces.” A barrow is near the place, which was excavated some time ago, when a skeleton (not headless) was found. Since the barrow was opened the ghost has ceased to walk.
Death and Burial Customs in Wiltshire
L. A. Law; W. Crooke
Folklore, Vol. 11, No. 3. (Sep., 1900), pp. 344-347.
I don’t know how well this equates to the source of the following:
We have been reading the story of the man who carried his head under his arm and disappeared by a barrow on Roundway Hill, near Devizes, but has not been seen since the opening of the barrow and the finding therein of a skeleton lying on its left side in a doubled-up position.*
*Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, May 16, 1895.
Wiltshire Notes and Queries , June 1895, p482.
Silbury Hill. ---“Silbury Hill is to this day thronged every Palm Sunday afternoon by hundreds from Avebury, Kennet, Overton, and the adjoining villages.*”
*Wilts Archaeological Magazine, December, 1861, p181.
Quoted in Wiltshire Folklore
T B Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 211-212.
Hill Sliding. ---Martinsell Hill, on the top of which is an ancient encampment, formerly used to be the scene of a great fair on Palm Sunday. Boys used to slide down the hill on the jawbones of horses; men from the neighbouring villages used to settle their disputes on this day by fighting; oranges were thrown down the slope and lads used to rush headlong after them. At the present day only a few children stroll about the hill on Palm Sunday
Wiltshire Folklore
T B Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 211-212.
In addition to Fitz’s information:
On Kirkby Moor.. is a low ringwork of loose earth and stones. “It goes by the name of ‘The Kirk,’ and a ‘venerable inhabitant’ (Archaeologia, liii.) could recollect that it had once borne a peristalith. The natives assert that the spot was traditionally ‘a place where their fathers worshipped’, and, as a matter of fact, games used, until recent times, to be held on the spot by the Lord of the Manor at Eastertide” (Allcroft, Earthworks of England, 1908, p139).
Lancashire Folklore
T B Partridge
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 211
“’They’ say that a king is buried on Denbury, and among several couplets one goes:
‘Whoever delves in Denbury Down
Is sure to find a golden crown’.”
This comes from Tristram Risdon’s ‘Chorographical Description.. Devon,’ written in the early 17th century, and quoted in ‘The Folklore of Devon’ by Theo Brown, in Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.
The story of a bull’s hide filled with gold is connected with many stones. At its simplest it is found at the Binghill stone circle on Deeside, at Lulach’s Stone near Kildrummy, at a standing-stone at Glenkindie close by a branch road to Towie, and at the Muckle Stane o’ Clochforbie, near the steading of the farm of that name. The last may be a broken recumbent stone, but there is nowadays no standing-stone near it. In this case also an attempt was once made to remove the treasure, but the great efforts made to shift the stone proved fruitless, and a warning voice having been heard from beneath the depths of the stone to command ” Let be!” the advice was taken and the stone has remained undisturbed ever since.
From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313. )
The RCHAMS database says “A large block of whinstone 2.59m in circumference; believed locally to mark the spot of a battle. There is one single cup mark in the centre on the W side.” but then goes on to discount the cup mark as a natural feature of ‘nil antiquity’. There is a photo of the stone here:
rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.newcandig_p_coll_details?p_arcnumlink=681538
I imagine this folklore also refers to the stone: “At Sinnahard, Towie, there is a standing-stone near which a pot of gold is said to be buried. On one of my visits a good many years ago, the farmer announced that he had no faith in the tale: the only gold he hoped to gain from the place was that of the golden grain then ripening for the harvest.” (from Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313. )
The notion that ill-luck attends the destruction of the circles is not yet altogether dead, as is apparent from an incident which occurred in recent times at Corrydoun. Some alterations were being made on the farm buildings, and the mason employed to do the work reckoned that he could make good use in his building operations of the stones in the stone circle. So he set to work to trim one of them, but, finding the stone harder than he had supposed, made little progress. At the dinner-hour he returned to the farm, where it was noticed that he had damaged one of his fingers badly, an injury of which he was not conscious. Someone suggested that it was unlucky to interfere with the stones, and the workman, agreeing, made no further attempt to use them; but his tool-marks still remain.
From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.
“The devastation of his cattle herd by disease fell ..upon the farmer
of-Cairnfauld, in Durris parish, following upon his removal of some of
the stones of the circle near-by.”
In: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.
A .. story is told of the Drumel Stone on the farm of Old Noth, near Gartly. The stone was taken to the farm to make a lintel over a doorway in the steading, but thereafter the steading door was so often found open, and the interned animals wandering about the countryside, that at last it was decided to put the stone back again. When this was done the trouble ceased.
From: Ritchie, J., Folklore of Aberdeenshire Stone Circles, in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland, LX, 1926, pp304-313.
The barrows in the group [on Snail Down] (there are at least thirty) are locally explained as the burial places of “the people killed in the battle of Sidbury Hill.” The latter is crowned by an Iron Age hill fort which looms over the downs...
This hill, like many other natural eminences, owes its position traditionally to Satanic action. “It happened this way,” Mr. M--- told the writer. “The Devil was carrying it from Bristol to London, and he got tired and dropped it on the way.” The same story is told of Silbury Hill, a vast artificial mound.. which actually does stand on the Bristol-London road.. the writer is inclined to regard this tale as having been transferred in comparatively recent times from the former to the latter, doubtless through confusion of the somewhat similar place-names.A much more fascinating story connects Sidbury Hill with the village, a distance of some two miles. According to Mr. M---, “There is a well in Everleigh village, opposite the two cottages up by the racing stables. I was born in one of those cottages, and they were burnt down in 1884. Down the well, there is an opening in the side, and a tunnel leads from there to Sidbury Hill. They say there is a golden chair in the tunnel.”
.. “Place-Names of Wiltshire”, records the following forms of the name; Shidbury, Chydebur’ (1325), Shudburie, Shudburrowe Hill (1591) and Chidbury (1812).
.. a story of certain caves in the chalk, behind a farm near Ludgershall (five miles east of Everleigh). These were believed to run for miles underground, to go beneath Sidbury Hill, and to come out near Pewsey.
.. “There is an old castle at the foot of Sidbury Hill”, Mr. M--- told the writer, “with a wall around it. The castle has gone now, but the wall is still there, and the Forestry Commission raise young trees inside it. This castle belonged to King Ina.“.. Mr. M---’s story confirms a version of the same tradition recorded in 1812. Sir Richard Colt Hoare published in that year the first volume of his Ancient History of Wiltshire; at p181 he states of the linear earthwork running from Sidbury Hill,
“It terminates in a valley, and immediately at a spot where there are several irregularities and excavations in the soil. With all the ardour and fancy of a zealous antiquary, I once fondly thought that here I might discover the traces of King Ina’s palace, who according to tradition, had a country seat at Everley.”
Folklore from a Wiltshire Village
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 65, No. 3/4. (Dec., 1954), pp. 165-168.
The writer was.. fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a Mr. M---, who was born in Everleigh about 1880. Mr. M---, a gardener, knew a number of legends and traditions which, he said, “were handed down to me from my grandfather.” Many of his points were corroborated by other villagers of his generation.
Very little information could be obtained about local reaction to the [1950s] excavation, but the general feeling seemed to be that it was regarded as faintly improper – an act of disturbing the dead.. The local aetiology of the place-name Snail Down .. was given thus; “Snail Down is called that because of the number of snails you find on it.” In actual fact the area is unusually poor in mollusc life.. Mr L. V. Grinsell.. suggests that a double bell-barrow amongst the Snail Down group, when viewed from a certain angle, has the appearance of a giant snail in motion, and this may well be the true explanation.
The barrows in the group (there are at least thirty) are locally explained as the burial places of “the people killed in the battle of Sidbury Hill.” The latter is crowned by an Iron Age hill fort which looms over the downs..
...A remarkable and genuine example of folk-memory occurred during the [Snail Down] excavation. It was known that Sir Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington of Devizes had already dug the two barrows which were being examined.. It was the practice of this cautious and enlightened antiquary [WC] to place a small bronze disc, bearing his name and the date, in the sites which he dug and filled in, and one such, with the inscription “William Cunnington – 1805”, was discovered, together with the actual mark in the chalk made by the workman’s spade at the time.
An old shepherd who frequented the downs, and who gave his age as 77, volunteered the information that he, as a boy, had spoken to an old man (who died at the age of 93), and that this old man could remember people digging up the barrows on Snail Down, an act for which, it was alleged, they had been put in prison! If the old man had died about 1880-1885, he would have been between 13 and 18 when Cunnington excavated: since the shepherd was born in 1876, he could have been a boy of nine or ten when the old man quitted this life. Links of two generations spanning 150 years are, according to The Sunday Times, not uncommon, but it is still satisfactory to find such an interesting and unusual one. The gloss of the “imprisonment”, it is suggested, may reflect local opinion of Cunnington’s desecration of the dead.
Folklore from a Wiltshire Village
Charles Thomas
Folklore, Vol. 65, No. 3/4. (Dec., 1954), pp. 165-168.
About a mile east of Berriew, on the green by the side of a lane, is a stone about five feet high, called, on the Ordnance Map, Maen Beuno, but by the people in the neighbourhood “the Bynion Stone.” A man who told me (in 1891) that he was fifty years of age, said he had been told by old men when he was a boy that it was intended to have built a church on the spot where the Bynion Stone stands, but that every night the stones which had been placed in position were carried away and put down on the spot where Berriew Church now stands. (1891.)
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.
I was enquiring for the Sarsen Stones or Grey Wethers, when only about a furlong from them, but an old man and his neice did not know either name; at last they suggested that what I was seeking was what they called the Thousand Stones. The man told me (what I had heard before) that the stones certainly grew; he had seen this, for, when he was a boy, there were not nearly so many, nor were they so large, as now. (June 1901.)
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.
King Alfred fought on Wolstonbury Hill, and the ten horse-shoes which are on the Bull Hotel at Ditchling are said to have been cast by his ponies. (1905.)
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.