Rhiannon

..the dolmen has become to the young girls of the neighbourhood a kind of primitive oracle. At least it has been so used within the memory of man. Old Betsy Hughes.. informed me that years ago, at the time of the barley harvest, when they were often out till dusk in the fields near the “Whispering Knights,” one of the girls would say to another, “Let us go and hear them whisper.” Then they would go to the stones, and one at a time would put her ear to one of the crevices. But “first one would laugh and then another,” and she herself never heard any whispering.
Another old crone told me that the stones were thought to tell of the future. “When I was a girl we used to go up at certain seasons to the ‘Whispering Knights’ and climb up on to one of the stones to hear them whisper. Time and again I have heard them whisper – but perhaps, after all, it was only the wind.”

From: The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore, by Arthur J. Evans
Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), p25 in pp. 6-53.

The fairies dance round the King-stone of nights. Will Hughes, a man of Long Compton, now dead, had actually seen them dancing round. “They were little folk like girls to look at.” He often told a friend who related this to me about the fairies and what hours they danced. His widow, Betsy Hughes, whose mother had been murdered as a witch, and who is now between seventy and eighty, told me that when she was a girl and used to work in the hedgerows she remembered a hole in the bank by the King-stone, from which it was said the fairies came out to dance at night. Many a time she and her playmates had placed a flat stone over the hole of an evening to keep the fairies in, but they always found it turned over the next morning.

Holes in hedgebanks eh. A terrible cynic might think of something more furry than a fairy as culprit. From: The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore, by Arthur J. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), pp. 6-53.

There is a Long Barrow on the roadside at Walmsgate, in the Wolds; locally the name is pronounced Wormsgate, and it is said that once, long ago, three Dragons lived in the neighbourhood, devastating the land. An unnamed hero took arms against them. He slew one, and it is buried in the long mound – this accounts for the name Wormsgate. Another Dragon flew away towards the Trent, but did not succeed in crossing that river. It settled down in Corringham Scroggs, a flight of some 35 miles; the place was known as Dragon’s Hole ever after; in fact, it is mentioned in the late Enclosure Award of 1852. The third Dragon was fatally wounded, and crept away and died at the next village of Ormsby, which they say was once Wormsby.

From: Folklore of Lincolnshire: Especially the Low-Lying Areas of Lindsey, by E. H. Rudkin, in Folklore, Vol. 66, No. 4. (Dec., 1955), pp. 385-400.

..the account of the practice at Pudding Pie Hill in which a knife is stuck into the centre in order to hear fairy speech.. [is the something like the reverse of how a knife is used in] a story concerning Dun Borbe on South Harris, in the Hebrides. The fort was believed to be a fairy abode, and on one occasion:

a sailor of Harris.. sat down to rest on this fairy knoll and heard great lamenting therein. He was curious by nature and also kindly, so he set out to try to find out what was causing the Little People such distress. Being a practical man he decided that the best way to find out was to go into the dun and ask, and he set off walking round it slowly and carefully seeking the entrance. No sign of a door could be seen, but the cries and piteous sobbing continued, indeed seemed to grow more hopeless. He stood wondering what to do next, when he noticed a knife plunged to the hilt in the earth. Without thinking, he pulled it out; instantly an unseen door opened and out rushed the Little People, to surround him and, with cries of joy and welcome, to hurry him into the dun to their Queen. As soon as he saw here he asked what had been wrong. He felt very sorry for the Little People, who still showed signs of having been in great trouble; nevertheless, he wisely held fast to the knife while the Queen explained. She said that a man of the dun had loved a Harris maiden and they met and spent the long summer days together while she herded her father’s cows. But her father had found out, and, being very angry, he had learnt from his daughter how to find the entrance to the dn and had then come and stuck his fisher’s knife in the door frame, and they, unable to touch or pass cold iron, were prisoners in their dun, expecting to starve to death. He had saved them.

Erm I don’t know what they gave him as reward. The story’s from Otta F Swire’s ‘Outer Hebrides and their Legends’ 1966, p77, and quoted in ‘Circling as an Entrance to the Otherworld’, by Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, in Folklore, Vol. 96, No. 1. (1985), pp. 3-20.

[Chanctonbury’s] traditions have been extensively reported and collected by Dr. Jacqueline Simpson. The earliest example which she reports occurs in Arthur Beckett’s The Spirit of the Downs: ‘If on a moonless night you walk seven times round the Ring without stopping, the Devil will come out of the wood and hand you a basin of soup.’ [1909].
Others substituted a glass of milk, or stated that Satan will ‘offer you porridge from his bowl’ after you have run thrice round the earthwork. Several variants of this versioin have been collected from newspapers and from oral informants during the past fifteen or so years.

‘If you run round seven times while the clock is still striking midnight, the Devil will come out. There’s something about porridge, but I cannot remember what.”

“If you run round backwards seven times at midnight, the Devil will give you a glass of milk.”

“It is said that if you run round the Ring three times at midnight on Midsummer Eve, the Devil comes out from the trees and offers you a bowl of soup.”

Other versions of the circumambulation also involve raising the Devil; thus, a teenage girl reported that seven circuits at 7.00am on Midsummer morning would raise Satan. Another informant stipulates that the circling is to be ‘three times anticlockwise on Midsummer Eve,’ while a more earthy variant calls for the practitioner to circumambulate ‘17 times stark naked on a night of the full moon.‘

[..]The Devil, however, was not the only one being raised – three circuits brought a view of ‘a lady on a white horse,’ while twelve rounds at midnight on Midsummer Night conjured up a Druid. In the 1940s, some people apparently feared to circle the Ring at night ‘lest they should meet the old white-bearded ghost that walks with bent head, seeking his treasure.’ Finally, a 50 year old teacher reported that circling seven times at midnight on Midsummer Eve would mean that ‘all your wishes will come true. We all believed that when I was a girl.‘

There’s obviously no single version but lots of variations – though the idea of ‘circling’ is at their heart. Simpson apparently laments that no version explains whether you should accept the beverage/food or not, or what will happen if you do. “She considers at arm’s length” a suggestion that it could come from folk memories of real rites in the Romano-Celtic temple, but concludes that it, and ‘that the Chanctonbury Devil is a dim memory of a Romano=Celtic god’ is “an attractive hypothesis, but no more.“!

Circling as an Entrance to the Otherworld
Samuel Pyeatt Menefee
Folklore, Vol. 96, No. 1. (1985), pp. 3-20.

Simpson’s (surely definitive!) article on Chanctonbury’s folklore can be found in Folklore volume 80, p122-131.

A reasonably old record of the legend:

This was recorded by Francis Wise in 1738:
“All the account which the country people are able to give of it is ‘At this place lived formerly an invisible Smith, and if a traveller’s Horse had lost a Shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the Horse to this place with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and find the money gone, but the Horse new shod.”
(Letter to Dr Mead concerning Antiquities in Berkshire, Oxford, 1738, p37).

The stone tomb is usually called ‘Wayland’s Smithy’, but Wise and other early writers call it simply ‘Wayland Smith’.

From: Weland the Smith, by H. R. Ellis Davidson, in Folklore, Vol. 69, No. 3. (Sep., 1958), pp. 145-159.

How strange that this site, only a kilometre from both Uffington and Wayland’s Smithy, has not been added before? Though it’s not crossed by a footpath one runs close by. It’s an Iron Age promontory fort – it uses mostly the natural contours of the land for protection, unlike most of the forts along the Ridgeway which have big man-made defences.

The neolithic long-barrow on the Berkshire Downs known as Weyland’s Smithy is mentioned by that name in a tenth century land charter. Between White Horse Hill and Weyland’s Smithy is a prehistoric earthwork now known as Hardwell Camp, but in the ninth century called Tilsburh, that is ‘Til’s Castle’. Til is the same person as Weyland’s brother Egil the Archer (the prototype of William Tell). *

The names of Beadohild and Wittich which also occur in the bounds of local Saxon charters are thought to refer to the princess seduced by Weyland, and his son by her, and there are some other place-names less certainly identifed which could be fitted into the same story.

From: New Light on the White Horse, by Diana Woolner, in Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Summer, 1967), pp. 90-111.

*Is this a convincing argument or stretching the pronunciation? This article might be useful if you can find it: LV Grinsell’s “Wayland’s Smithy, Beahhild’s Byrigels and Hwittuc’s Hlaew” in Trans Newbury and District Field Club VIII, 1938-45, p136, which mentions Beahhild (?Beaduhild) and Hwittuc (?Widia) in local charters of Anglo-Saxon date.

Tumuli and Buried Treasure. – On the opposite side of the road to the Longstone, in what was also once part of the Common field, is Gatcombe Tump, a long barrow, of which the following story is told. I got it from a middle-aged woman who keeps a small shop; her mother, from whom she heard it, knew the heroine of the story.

“There was an old woman in Minchinhampton who used to charm ailments; she was called Molly Dreamer, because her dreams came true. She dreamed she would find a pot of gold in Gatcombe Tump and she and her husband dug there many times. Once she actually had her hand on the pot, and was saying,- “Come up! Labour in vain!” when a spirit rose up and frightened her. At another time a spirit appeared to her husband there, and asked him to name five parish churches, [apparently as a condition of getting the gold], but he could remember only four.”

One old inhabitant, who lived as a child at a farm quite near, lays the scene of Molly’s search at the Longstone itself, and adds that, just as she was lifting a stone that hid the treasure, there came a flash of lightning on to it, and Molly was never the same again. Some say, however, that she did find the gold..

From: Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs, by J. B. Partridge, in Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 332-342.

In Avening parish, about half a mile south of the Longstone, is “Tinglestone,” a menhir crowning a long barrow; Mr. Frost of Avening tells me that it too* “runs round the field when it hears the clock strike twelve.”

*’too’ refers to the Long Stone. From: Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs, by J. B. Partridge, in Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 332-342.

That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, “I dare!” would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following...

From Charles Dickens’ story ‘The Holly Tree’, which you can read online at The Complete Works of Charles Dickens:
dickens-literature.com/The_Holly-Tree/0.html

..at St. Nicholas, near Cardiff, a man told me that his mother took him to ‘Castle Corrig’ (a cromlech near St. Nicholas, perhaps the biggest existing in Britain), when he ‘had a decline’ as a boy, and she spat upon the stone, rubbed her finger in the spittle and rubbed him on the forehead and chest.

... I feel convinced there is a good deal of this sort of thing, but I cannot get it out, or else it exists among a residuum which feels such a gap to exist between student and peasant that freedom of speech becomes impossible. But I have felt the sort of thing to underlie many ordinary stories, from certain turns of expression.

From ‘A Fisher-Story and Other Notes from South Wales’ by E. Sidney Hartland and T. H. Thomas, in Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1905), p339.

Perhaps he could have got more out of his informants if he didn’t use words like ‘residuum’ on them. It’s a shame though.

.. I found some five years ago that there were [magical rites] connected with Arthur’s Stone (Gower), though denied by my informant. But she “did hear that gels went and walked round it to see their sweethearts – a long time ago – and if they didn’t see him they took off their shawls and went on their hands and knees – nobody is so fulish now.” This from a young girl at Port Eynon.

Oh right. Just their shawls then is it. From p339 in ‘A Fisher-Story and Other Notes from South Wales’ by E. Sidney Hartland and T. H. Thomas, in Folklore, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1905).

..the inhabitants of the villages around Coldrum once believed that a battle was fought there, and that a ‘Black Prince’ was buried in the chamber.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), p42.

‘The’ Black Prince (Edward, the son of Edward the Third) was married to ‘Joan of Kent’, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral in 1376.

A somewhat similar story [to that at the Countless Stones] is that Kits Coty House cannot be measured for as fast as the imprudent surveyor takes his measurements he is made to forget them even before he can commit them to paper.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), p. 39.

Up to the last generation there was a widespread belief that [megalithic] monuments could not be measured, nor the stones which composed them counted. Hence the name of “The Countless Stones” for the destroyed Lower Kits Coty, and as proof of their uncountability the story is told of a clever baker who placed a bread roll on each stone, thinking that when he collected his rolls again he would have the hidden number. His ingenious trick was in vain, however, for the Devil ate some of the rolls and then sat gibbering at the discomfited baker.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), p38.

As the Lower Kits Coty [the Countless Stones] were destroyed about 1690 it might be thought that this legend [of them being countless] arose after their dispersal, but this is not a necessary inference, sinceI was told many years ago by a countryman that the stones of Coldrum were ‘difficult’ to count, and that no two persons got the same number.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), p39.

..the building of Kits Coty House is attributed to the magical work of three witches who lived on Blue Bell Hill. Having raised the huge wall-stones, they found themselves unable to lift the capstones, and had to call in the assistance of a fourth member of the sisterhood, by whose help they were enabled to raise the immense stone into the air and lower it gently upon its walls.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), p. 39.

It is a persistent tradition that if a personal object is placed upon the capstone, and the donor thereof walks around the monument three times, then the object will disappear; this ritual must be carried out on the night of the full moon. Interested persons have carried out this ritual at intervals right up to this year when the activities of a local investigator were fully reported in the local press.

The insistence that a personal object must be used suggests a substitute sacrifice by which the worshipper buys his own immunity from the Otherworld powers, or, possibly, that the received gift is a reward for favours granted or to be granted, although there is no hint that the ritualist must make a wish when making the circuit.

Another curious story is that if a person climbs on to the capstone, again at full moon, and thrusts his hand into a natural cavity in the stone, he will withdraw five iron nails. The five iron nails (without doubt for a horseshoe) will irrisistably remind readers of the legend attached to Wayland the Smith’s Forge, in Berkshire, which is the ruined dolmen of a Long Barrow like Kits Coty House. The story attached to this megalith is that if a traveller places coins upon the capstone he will have his horse shod by an invisible smith. Bearing this story in mind there is thus the further possibility as regards the Kits Coty rituals that they have become confused and separated, and that the object which disappears is really payment for the nails.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), p. 39.

Between Maidstone and Blue Bell Hill the ‘Pilgrim’s Way’ crosses the Chatham-Maidstone road, and in the north-west angle there once stood upright another huge sarsen called variously ‘The Kentish Standard Stone’ or ‘The White Horse Stone’; but this was broken up about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but another stone, still existing, but standing in the opposite north-east angle of the crossing, has inherited the name, and is today marked on the Ordnance Survey maps as ‘The White Horse Stone’. It is a huge monolith standing upright and very similar to the great rectangular wall stones of Kits Coty House and Coldrum, having at one end the crude outline of a face caused by the natural configuration of the rock.

..... in 1834 we are told the legend of the (original) White Horse Stone. Upon this stone, it was written, fell the White Horse banner of Horsa when the Teutons were routed, hence its name of ‘The Kentish Standard Stone’. This stone was soon afterwards destroyed, and the present ‘White Horse Stone’ inherited the legend.

...Since the names of Hengest and Horsa mean ‘gelding and mare’ it has been suggested that they refer to the war standards or war effigies of the invaders, and not to actual persons. It would be interesting to trace the origin of the story that Horsa bore a White Horse emblem, for it fits in remarkably well with the other implications of the legend. We cannot digress here into the subject of the Horse-Cult, but readers will doubtless be aware of the ancient sanctity of the animal; alike among Kelts and Teutons, white horses were considered sacred, and only a priest among the pagan Saxons could ride a white mare. Carvings of horse-heads on the gables of roofs in Denmark are still called Hengest and Horsa, and represent the guardian deities. Thus the fall of a White Horse banner at Aylesford would represent the death of Horsa. It should be emphasized that we are dealing here with legend, for history has yet to be satisfied as to the acutality of the Jutish invasion of Kent.

From ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths’ by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946), pp. 36-43.

An old man of Newchurch, near the Gaerlwyd Cromlech, told the writer that Jackie Kent and the Devil threw the stone forming the Gaerlwyd Cromlech at Newchurch West – the same tradition as that about the Trelech maenhirs.

From ‘Folklore of Gwent’by T. A. Davies, in Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 1. (Mar., 1938), p. 30.

On the south side of this Loch Seante, as this small inlet of water is called in Gaelic, at the village of Sandbank, there is an interesting old cromlech, which is known in the region as ‘Adam’s Grave.’ [...] Lovers come from all parts of Cowal to make their vows at this old shrine. The lady has to creep into the recess formed by the stones, and, holding the hand of the gentleman, who stands at the entrance, he repeats in Gaelic a curious oath, and the spot is considered so sacred that a terrible fate is believed to befall anyone who should prove unfaithful to their troth when it has been thus plighted.

By H A Walker in the Daily News, June 7th 1878, reprinted in the ‘Notes’ section of ‘The Folk-Lore Record’, Vol. 1. (1878), p242.

“When Roseberry Topping wears a cappe,
Let Cleveland then beware a clappe.”

This cap refers to the mist overhanging the lofty hill bearing that name in the North Riding, previously to a thunderstorm. Camden, who notices this proverb, observes, that, “when its top begins to be darkened with clouds, rain generally follows.”
There are variations of the distich –

“When Roseberry Topping wears a cap,
Let Cleveland men beware of a rap.“**

And allusions to other places are made in some of the variants. Thus –
“When Roseberry Topping wears a hat
Morden carre will suffer for that.”

The latter place cannot be exactly indicated, but doubtless from its name, carre, some lowland likely to be flooded in wet weather.

From the Denham Tracts, privately printed at Richmond, Durham, and Newcastle upon-Tyne, in various years since 1850, we have –
“When Eston nabbe puts on a cloake,
And Roysberrye a cappe,
Then all the folks on Cleveland’s clay
Ken there will be a clappe.”

From ‘Yorkshire Local Rhymes and Sayings’ in The Folk-Lore Record, Vol. 1. (1878), pp. 160-175. The article is a compilation of folk lore collected by Mr Reginald W Corlass and Mr Edward Hailstone FSA.

**The Denham Tracts say “The ‘rap’ alluded to is, in plain language, a thunder-storm. This old proverb is noticed by Camden, two hundred years ago. He observes that ‘When its top begins to be darkened with clouds, rain generally follows.

At Offington, near Worthing, an old seat of the Delawarrs, a blocked-up passage, which can only be approached from the cellars, is still believed to communicate with the encampment on Cisbury Hill, and to be full of buried treasures. Some years ago there was a story current of the then occupier of the house having offered half the money to be found there to anybody who would clear out the subterranean passage, and that several persons had begun digging, but had all been driven back by large snakes springing at them with open mouths and angry hisses.

From ‘Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868’ by Charlotte Latham, in ‘The Folk-Lore Record’ Vol. 1. (1878), p16.

Sir Charles Peers, the joint excavator of the site, described the folk lore and its curious confirmation by the post-War work. It was said that Wayland, the Farrier God, lived here and shod the horses of the wayfarer who left a silver groat upon the stones. Now in excavating the site two iron currency bars of the first century B.C. were revealed, as if in fulfilment of the story.

But the stones themselves are the remains of a 200ft. long barrow erected 2,000 years before the currency bars came into being, while the name of the Teutonic god could not have been attached to the site until four or five centuries within the Christian era.

From The Times, August 9th, 1932, p13.

However, dully, I have read elsewhere the suggestion that the ‘currency bars’ aren’t as old as they might be. But what’s the truth?
According to the Davidson article in the Folklore post above, the bars are mentioned in C R Peers and R A Smith’s article in Archaeological Journal, I, 1921, p188.

In Northamptonshire the plant [dwarf elder] is known also as Dane-weed, and Defoe in his ‘Tour through Great Britain’ speaks of his going a little out of the road from Daventry to see a great camp called Barrow Hill, and adds :—

“They say this was a Danish camp, and everything hereabout is attributed to the Danes, because of the neighbouring Daventry, which they suppose to be built by them. The road hereabouts, too, being overgrown with Dane-weed, they fancy it sprang from the blood of Danes slain in battle; and that, if upon a certain day in the year you cut it, it bleeds.“—Vol. ii. p. 362.

Notes and Queries January 7th, 1911.

In ’ Tongues in Trees,’ a work on plantlore published by George Allen in 1891, I read at p. 48 :— “The pasque-flower, Anemone pulsalilla, a native in the fields near Royston, is there supposed to have grown from the blood of Danes slain in battle.

Pasque flowers (with luck) still grow on Therfield Heath just outside Royston. And of course the long barrow must be where the Danes are buried? Quote in Notes and Queries January 7th 1911.

In a letter among his MSS. in the British Museum Bishop Pococke discusses the dragon legend. He dates from “Highworth, April 12th, 1757,” and the following expresses his views:—
” A mile further is the hamlet of Up Lamborn, which is a pretty place We went up the down to the right of it, and in three miles came to the camp over the White Horse, at the end of these hills. They command a glorious prospect into Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire. We passed a line to the east of it. The camp itself ii defended by one deep fosse. It is of an irregular form of four sides, about 800 paces in circumference. To the north-east of it is a small hill like a barrow, which was cut off from it. It is called Dragon Hill. On the side of the hill over it, just under the camp, is the White Horse, cut in turf as if in a trot. The green sod remains to form the body. It may be a hundred yards in length, and is well designed. On Dragon Hill the common people say St. George killed the dragon. They show a spot on it which they affirm is never covered with grass, and there they say the dragon was killed, and I think buried, and that the white horse was St. George’s steed.

Notes and Queries, October 25th 1884.

It is singular how tradition, which is sometimes a sure guide to truth, is in other cases prone to mislead us. In the celebrated field of battle at Killiecrankie the traveller is struck with one of those rugged pillars of rough stone which indicate the scenes of ancient conflict.

A friend of the author, well acquainted with the circumstances of the battle, was standing near this large stone, and looking on the scene around, when a Highland shepherd hurried down from the hill to offer his services as cicerone, and proceeded to inform him that Dundee was slain at that stone, which was raised to his memory. ’ Fie, Donald ! ’ answered my friend; ‘how can you tell such a story to a stranger: I am sure you know well enough that Dundee was killed at a considerable distance from this place, near the house of Fascally, and that the stone was here long before the battle, in 1688.‘

’ Oich ! oich !’ said Donald, no way abashed: ‘and your honour’s in the right, and I see ye ken a’ about it. And he wasna killed on the spot neither, but lived till the next morning; but a’ the Saxon gentlemen like best to hear he was killed at the great stane.‘

Further proof that those rural working class types weren’t as daft as the country gentlemen seemed to think sometimes. From the Appendix of Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Abbot’, which is online at Project Gutenberg here:
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/abbot10.txt

It was said that a miller at Long Compton thinking the stone would be useful in damming the water of his mill, carried it away and used it for that purpose; but he found that whatever water was dammed up in the day disappeared in the night, and thinking this was done by the witches, and that they would punish him for his impertinence in removing the stone, he took it back again, and though it required three horses to take it to Long Compton, one easily brought it back.

Notes and Queries, April 8th 1876.

You may like the end of the letter:
“Witches, and ghosts, and village legends, though the belief in them may still linger in remote parishes, are becoming, as the old man at Rollright said, less cared for, and will soon be things of the past. But are the thoughts, and the interests, and the beliefs that are rising up in their place calculated to advance the morality and the religion of the labouring classes? I fear not.
J. W. LODOWICK.”

--It is, of course, a common practice in most places to make a neighbouring ancient object a kind of standard of age. At Honiton, and in the country round, “As old as Dump’n ” used to be, and perhaps still is, a popular expression, the reference being to a British or Roman earthwork conspicuously visible on Dumpdon Hill, close by.
PROCOL.

From Notes and Queries, November 4th 1876.

The climate is cold but invigorating and healthy. In the southern part of the parish is a tract of dreary treeless waste, commonly called King Harry, where, according to tradition, one of the Kings of England who bore that name encamped with his army. Tradition has not preserved any distinguishing feature to enable us to indicate the king alluded to, but we know that the unfortunate Henry VI, after the battle of Hexham, fled into Cumberland, and may probably have had with him a remnant of his army, and encamped here. A stone is pointed out from which, it is said, King Harry mounted his charger.

.. Upon an eminence near the centre of this moor are the remains of a Druidical circle, which formerly consisted of eighty-eight stones, and was fifty-two yards in diameter. It is designated in the locality Grey Yauds, from the colour of the stones, of which there now remains only one, and yaud, a north country name for a horse.

At Cairn Head, on the eastern side of King Harry, and within a space of twelve yards, are three springs, from which issue volumes of water sufficiently large to form, when united, a brook of considerable magnitude. These springs are not only the most copious, but also the purest in the county.

From Bulmer’s “History and Directory of Cumberland”, published in 1901, and online at Steve Bulman’s website here
stevebulman.f9.co.uk/cumbria/1901/cumwh_f.html

As a writer to Notes and Queries in October 1884 explained, the fort was also known as ‘Poor Man’s Wall’ – in Sussex the Poor Man was a euphemism for the Devil.

This fort is on the summit of Mynydd y Dref (Conwy Mountain). It has 24 hut circles inside, and some outside its walls. There’s the remains of a larger building (a ‘citadel’ so Coflein grandly says) at one end of the fort.

This from ‘Notes and Queries’, March 12,1870.

I have [examined repeatedly the] remains on Conway mountain. They are intensely interesting.. They consist of a multitude of circular structures partly sunk below the ground, with rough walling a little raised above, evidently the substructure for huts... They are called by the country people “Cyttiau Gwyddelod,” which is generally interpreted ” the huts of the Irishmen,” but which in its primary meaning is “the huts of the savages,” or wild men, in contradistinction from the Gal, or agricultural race.

‘Cytiau’ (so I understand from the dictionary) does imply a rude kind of hut, more of an animal shelter, so this could be a dig at the Irish?? Or maybe not at all. Maybe a Proper Welsh person can explain the subtleties of the phrase for me.

Notes and Queries, July 31st, 1875.

On Midsummer morning a party of Americans, who had left London for the purpose, visited Stonehenge for the purpose of witnessing the effects of the sunrise on this particular morning. They were not a little surprised to find that, instead of having the field all to themselves as they had expected, a number of people from all parts of the country side, principally belonging to the poorer classes, were already assembled on the spot. Inquiries failed to elicit any intelligible reason for this extraordinary early turn out of the population except this, that a tradition, which had trickled down through any number of generations, told them that at Stonehenge something unusual was to be seen at sunrise on the morning of the summer solstice.

Stonehenge may roughly be described as composing seven-eighths of a circle, from the open ends of which there runs eastward an avenue having upright stones on either side. At some distance beyond this avenue, but in a direct line with its centre, stands one solitary stone in a sloping position, in front of which, but at a considerable distance, is an eminence or hill. The point of observation chosen by the excursion party was the stone table or altar, near the head of and within the circle, directly looking down the avenue. The morning was unfavourable, but fortunately, just as the sun was beginning to appear over the top of the hill, the mist disappeared, and then for a few moments the on-lookers stood amazed at the phenomenon presented to their view. While it lasted, the sun, like an immense ball, appeared actually to rest on the isolated stone of which mention has been made, or, to quote the quaint though prosaic description of one present, ’ it was like a huge pudding placed on a stone.‘

[..] Unless it is conceivable that this nice orientation is the result of chance,—which would be hard to believe,—the inference is justifiable that the builders of Stonehenge and other rude monuments of a like description had a special design or object in view in erecting these cromlechs or circles, or whatever the name antiquarians may give them, and that they are really the manifestations of the Baalistic or sun worship professed by the early inhabitants of Great Britain [..]

JAY AITCH.

Slightly unfair on those ‘poorer classes’ who turned up, because the Americans were surely there for similarly vague reasons, and they’d come all the way from London (hmm.. plus ca change, eh).

There are a number of round barrows and cairns on this hilltop. A contributor to Notes and Queries (March 5th 1870) found some folklore referring to them in Fenton’s ‘Tour through Pembrokeshire’ (1811). “In the midst of this convulsed chaos (Plumstone Mountain) are three rocking-stones, and a cromlech ; and on the top of one of the highest fragments, in an excavation on the surface, I found water, said to be always there, and probably, as this was the 22nd of July, after a long run of dry weather.”

— On visiting Kit’s Coty House near Maidstone, Kent, a few months ago, I was informed, by a person who apparently knew something of the country round about, of the following common belief by the rustics of the district. It is said by them that a pool of water contained in a hollow on the top of the capstone never dries up, not even in the hottest weather, when it might reasonably be supposed to soon evaporate.

A contribution to Notes and Queries by EHW Dunkin, January 8th, 1870.

A slightly different take on the legend is this, from N+Q from July 26th 1879 –

A belief was current in the neighbourhood of these stones—say in Rochester, &c. — some forty-two years ago, that there was on Kit’s covering stone a basin of water that, ladle it out as you would, could never be emptied. Two of us, curious boys, mounted the flat roof and found, not one basin, but two, or one cavity divided by a septum.

Commencing on Baconian principles, we carefully examined these, and the murder soon seemed out. The septum had a communicating hole below, and our minds were satisfied with the theory that, not caring to take the trouble of throwing the water over the stone, some one had ladled it from one basin into the other, with the result, of course, of everything remaining in status quo.

Mr. Fletcher [in ‘Antiquity’] says that Gildas’ mention of a monument erected in Kent to Horsa and bearing his name should be treated with scepticism. Was not the White Horse Stone near Aylesford supposed to be this ” monument” ? An erratic boulder, probably ; but Gildas as quoted does not say that a monument was set up, only that one bore Horsa’s name after he was slain in battle and buried in Kent.

That the locality of the White Horse Stone used to be haunted by a white horse and its rider (who was buried thereabouts), both of them wrapped in flame, might be thought to have perpetuated a memory of cremation, if such a theory were not so shockingly unscientific.

At any rate, Aylesford seems to have been a horsy neighbourhood long before it saw any Saxons. Excavations there have unearthed, decorative steeds that were lying buried when Caesar came—strange-looking creatures fit to have sired the Ufnngton effigy.

From Notes and Queries, August 14, 1943.

THE GODSTONE, FORNBY.—In the churchyard of Saint Luke, Formby—a village on the Lancashire coast between the Mersey and the Ribble—is to be seen an ancient stone, bearing on it an incised cross on a Calvary of three steps surmounted by an orb. Until recently Roman Catholics were buried here, and the coffins carried three times round this stone, presumably (as in other instances) following the way of the sun. The custom may be very ancient, and indeed a pagan survival. Roman Catholics, moreover, in visiting the churchyard, used to kneel down and pray before this stone. The church has been rebuilt, but was of Norman or pro-Norman foundation. The font is remarkable, polygonal in plan, with twentythree sides. HENRY TAYLOR.,
Birklands, Birkdale, Lancashire.

From N+Q, MArch 7th, 1908. Do I detect a hint of ‘Those wacky Roman Catholics!!’ in his attitude? Perhaps. But it doesn’t shed any more light on the stone’s mysterious roots. He doesn’t seem aware of it being moved into the churchyard (supposedly only 30 years before, according to Jimmyd’s notes) – in any case quite a weird thing to do with an allegedly pagan stone. You think you’d sooner be moving such things out of churchyards.

Well here’s some weirdness which would certainly have caught the eye and imagination of anyone who could have seen it in prehistory, if that’s possible (bear with the first bit, without it the second makes no sense).

To the Editor of the Staffordshire Advertiser.

“Sir,—The extraordinary explosions that issue from a cleft in a rock near Wetton (an account of which lately appeared in the ‘Reliquary’) are a circumstance extremely puzzling ; so much so that a satisfactory solution appears almost hopeless. The attempt by your correspondent that appeared lately in your valuable paper is certainly very ingenious, and to many may appear a satisfactory one. But residing, as I do, in the immediate vicinity, I am well acquainted with the district and with circumstances that set aside the mere possibility of the reports being caused by pent-up atmospheric air upon the accession of a flood filling the subterranean course.

During the present hot and dry summer a river(except to Darfur bridge, a little below Wetton mill) has had no existence, yet loud explosions were heard by several persons on the 25th of June, and as well attested as any of the previous ones. Besides, no flood, however great and sudden, could produce an explosion or expulsion of air from the fissure in the rock, which is sixty or seventy yards or more above the bed of the river. The subterranean course throughout is directly beneath the upper or surface one, and, owing to the dislocations of the strati, numerous communications exist betwixt them. Not many of these holes or clefts can be seen on walking along the dry bed, owing to their being covered by blocks of limestone, bouldered grit, stones, and pebbles.

Whilst we were clearing out Thor’s Cave, which overlooks the bed of the river, a heavy thunderstorm, in the distance, suddenly filled the subterranean passage with water, which also flowed down the previously dry bed at the surface, when I witnessed a novel and pretty sight—numerous small jets of water forced up by pent-up air, which indicated tbe progress of infilling in the underground channel.

Noiselessly the puny fountains continued to advance, and the water from below to rise and mingle with the stream above. It is evident, when the communications are so free and requent, that other causes than pent-up air originate the loud reports that issue from the fissure in the rock. With respect to the flames said to be seen after the reports, we have the united testimony of three men, two of whom were certainly highly terrified at the time, but they still positively adhere to their first relation.
The third person was a cool spectator, who went purposely to a neighbouring eminence, and as near as he durst venture, to witness the occurrence.

It has been suggested that large cavities, connected by strait and intricate passages, may exist, where falls of rock take place occasionally, and that cherty fragments, by producing sparks, would ignite hydrogen gas. However scientific individuals may differ in their attempt to explain the cause, the fact that explosions do occur is too notorious to be ignored, although nothing similar in nature has been recorded.—Yours, &c,
” SAMUEL CARRINGTON.”
“Wetton, Aug. 10th, 1870.”

The jets of water sound truly strange. And you can’t help wondering whether that’s why the cave is ‘Thor’s Cave’ – Thor had a hammer and was responsible for lightning (hence the explosions and the flames?). Yep it’s another of my speculations but I like it. Yeah I know – it’s more likely to do with Thyrs / Thurs cave, and linking back to Hobthrush...

(An unrelated but bizarre fact is that ‘The Verve’ filmed one of their videos here, apparently.)

.. the Scots at Largs, in 1263, might have combated the Norwegians under the protection of Saint Margaret, and hence, possibly, the origin of the name Margarets-Law, given to the large cairn near Haily House,—given evidently in comparatively modern times, and that by a local population, under a mistaken belief, which yet continues, that the Norwegian dead (those who fell through the agency of St. Margaret) were interred within it.

In Notes and Queries, July 5th 1873. It all sounds a bit confused, especially when you see that there are a number of Margarets around in history c. the battle at Largs, on both sides.

Two pieces of stone-related folklore at Dull, with all its cupmarks, standing stones, stone circles and enclosures.

When Cuthbert was living at a town in Scotland called Dul, he retired to lead a solitary life on the top of a mountain called Doilweme, which was haunted by the devil. As there was no water, he brought a spring from the rock, which is a medicinal well to the present day.. He checked its flow by putting a stone over it, and anyone who draws water there must replace the stone quickly, or it would overflow the whole countryside.

Whil Cuthbert lived there the Devil was continually annoying him. Cuthbert erected a great stone cross on the top of the mountain, which could only be approached by a staircase. He built himself an oratory and hewed out a bath in the rock, in which he used to spend the night praying in the freezing water. The Devil in mockery made another huge bath near it. At last St. Cuthbert could bear the Devil no longer, and drove him out of the mountain with a great staff like a fuller’s stake. The cliff down which the Devil rushed can still be seen, and also the footprints of the Saint, which are of normal size, and those of the Devil, which are monstrous and deformed. When the lame place their feet in the footprints of Cuthbert they are healed.

After St. Cuthbert left that place it was a sanctuary which no one dare violate, but no women might go there. A Nobleman of Scotland, Madet Maccrie Mor, that is, son of Mor, who had committed a crime punishable by death, in the reign of King David fled there and remained there in safety. But when he brought his wife and daughters there, he fell from the top of the steps and broke his hip so badly that it could not be healed. He took the women away, and none ever dared to come there again.

Taken from ‘The Irish Life of St Cuthbert’ and submitted to Notes and Queries, Dec 19th 1925.

I’m a bit disappointed in Cuddy in this instance. So he’ll ignore a man who had ‘committed a crime punishable by death’ but as soon as some women turn up there’s hell to pay?? Honestly.

Despite extreme ignorance of Irish sites I’ve figured out this refers to somewhere in Laois: perhaps Fourwinds or someone else knowledgeable can pin the location down (if the latter large stone is truly prehistoric).

ST. M’LOO’S STONE.—In the district of Ryle in the Queen’s County in Ireland there exist a grave, a trough, and a stone with which the name of St. M’Loo is connected. His grave and his trough are in a small old burial-ground, in the middle of which stands a ruin, apparently of a chapel, but there seems to be no tradition connecting the name of the saint with this ruin.

The grave is 11 ft. long, and faces differently from the graves around. On the assumption that St. M’Loo was the priest, two explanations of this are given in the locality—the one that the priest may more easily stand in front of his flock to present them on the Resurrection Day ; the other, that he may occupy the most conspicuous place to bear the Divine indignation should he have proved unfaithful to his trust.
St. M’Loo’s grave is at one end of the burialground, and his trough at the other. The trough is of hewn stone, 2 ft. long by 1 ft. broad, and is overshadowed by a small white-thorn tree. Many resort to this trough to be cured by its holy water of their various diseases, and every one who comes attaches a piece of rag to the little tree. The trough is never empty, and is said to be miraculously filled. Interments still take place in Ryle graveyard, and often at Roman Catholic funerals, when the body has been laid in the grave, all the mourners gather round the trough and pray there.

St. M’Loo’s stone lies in the middle of a field opposite to the burial-ground, from which it is separated by the high road. Tradition states that the saint knelt so often upon the stone to weep and pray that he wore five holes in its surface —two by his knees, one by his clasped hands, and two by his tears. The holes worn by his tears are on the right side of the stone. The circumference of the stone is 15 ft. 11 in., its length 5 ft. 7 in., its breadth 4 ft., and its depth 3 ft. There are on the sides traces of what appear to have been cup and ring marks. The usual unwillingness to disturb such relics prevails, and the people believe that a blight would fall upon any one who ventured upon such desecration. Who, then, was St. M’Loo ? W.

It could read ‘McLoo’ throughout. From Notes and Queries, June 10, 1882.

Mr. Lang, in his article on the’ Cup and Ring,’* mentions how in Argyll a woman who desires to have a baby will slide down a cup-marked {i.e., an inscribed) rock, and adds that the sliding is attested by a chief of Clan Diarmid... J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC. Schloss Wildeck, Switzerland.

From Notes and Queries, April 27th, 1901.

*I believe this refers to the 1899 article in the ‘Contemporary Review’.

In the.. township of Saddleworth, near the romantically situated village of Greenfield, there is a wellknown Druidical remain, said to have been an altar-stone, where appeared to a man who died only a few years ago “Raura Peena,” the last” fairee ” (fairy) seen in the ” parish ” of Saddleworth. A short distance away are the “Fairy Holes,” a couple of subterraneous caves into the inmost recesses of which she tried to allure him.

I imagine this would be the Druidical remain to which the correspondent referred. From Notes and Queries, February 5th, 1870.

.. from a ’ Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases’..

Claymore Well, near Kettleness, on the coast, was a noted spot where the fairies washed their clothes and beat and bleached them, for on their washing-nights the strokes of their bittles or battledores were heard as far as Runswick.

From Notes and Queries, Jan 4th, 1896. Butter Howe must be in the vicinity of this well – a house called Claymore is less than half a mile away. You’d imagine the Howe was where the fairies lived. A similarly short distance away was where a helpful hob lived. His cliff caves are marked on the OS map. The ‘Northern Echo’ describes his folklore:

“When a child was suffering from whooping cough, the mother would carry the patient down to the beach and walk along to the mouth of the hob’s cave. There she would halt and call out these words: ‘Hob Hole Hob? My bairn’s gitten t’kink cough. Tak it off, tak it off.’”
archive.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/2001/10/26/155896.html

According to N&Q for November 6th 1852, “The fishermen of the neighbourhood still regard the place with superstitious dread, and are unwilling to pass it by night.”

There is a long mound in a part of my parish which is popularly called the “Giant’s Grave,” and very near it two large stones, which have probably rolled down from the beds of chert-like rock on the side or the chalk-hill above. I discovered lately that there is a popular tradition existing, though my informant somewhat doubted its correctness, that these stones move whenever they hear the cocks crow in Chesilborne, a neighbouring village.

C. W BINGHAM

From Notes and Queries, Jan. 6th, 1866.

Mr. P. H. Gosse, in his interesting work, Tenby: a Sea-side Holiday, 1856, p. 80, informs us that” the people talk a good deal of a curious cavern called Hoyle’s Mouth, about which they have some strange notions. It opens at the end of a long lime-stone hill, or range of hills, about a mile inland; and the popular legend is, that it is the termination of a natural subterranean chasm which communicates with the great cave called, the Hogan, under Pembroke Castle, some eight miles distant.

It was once traversed, they say, by a dog, which, entering at one end, emerged from the other, with all his hair rubbed off! A gentleman is said to have penetrated to a considerable distance, and found ’ fine rooms.’ But the vulgar are very averse to exploring even its mouth, on the ostensible ground that a boar,’ a wild pig,’ dwells there; I fear, however, that there are more unsubstantial terrors in the case. I walked out to look at it; and if I found no dragons, nor giants, nor pigs, I enjoyed a most delightful rural walk.”

From Notes and Queries, October 12, 1861.

In the valley below the two hillforts in Drumelzier is supposed to be the site of Merlin’s grave. RCAHMS puts it at NT13413453 (this is the hillfort side of the river), where Burnfoot Pool is marked. RCAHMS says:

“According to legend which is at least as old as the 15th century, the wizard Merlin was buried 200 yds NNW of Drumelzier Church, on the level haugh close to the right bank of the River Tweed. No structural remains are now to be seen, or have ever been recorded, at the place in question, but it is possible that the tradition may have been originated from the discovery of a Bronze Age cist.
RCAHMS 1967, visited 1956.

There is nothing to be seen at this site which lies in a field. The tradition still survives.
Visited by OS(IA) 11 August 1972.”

No doubt while there’s Merlin postcards to be sold, the tradition still survives. I also found this slightly confusing piece in ‘Notes and Queries’ for May 23rd, 1942:

Nearly fourteen hundred years ago Merlin (Myrddin Wyllt). the bard and prophet of the Strathclyde Britons, withdrew himself from an uncongenial world after the collapse of paganism at the battle of Ardderyd. The gateway “through which he departed was a whitethorn in full bloom at Drummelzier on the right bank of the Upper Tweed. We are able to fix the date of his disappearance satisfactorily, since the battle is recorded as having been fought in the year 575. A still-living tradition which I met with last year says that while Merlin lay entranced under the tree the spiders (fairies? or their emissaries?) gathered from all sides and bound him in their threads, so that he vanished from human eyes into the land of Faerie. But his spirit can still” be invoked and consulted at ” Merlin’s Thorn “—which must be a descendant of the original tree.

Something else on the confluence of rivers and Merlin’s Grave at Drumelzier:

The rivulet of Powsail falls into the Tween a little below a small eminence called Merlin’s Grave, near Drumelzier. Whether the prophet or wizard Merlin was buried here or not, Dr Penicuik, who notices both the grave and the rhyme, cannot certify. The following popular version of the rhyme [of Thomas the Rhymer?] is better than that which he has printed, and, I fear, improved:-

When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin’s grave
Scotland and England that day ae king shall have.

Accordingly, it is said that, on the day of King James’s coronation as monarch of Great Britain, there was such a flood in both the Tweed and the Powsail, that their waters met at Merlin’s Grave. An ingenious friend remarks, though I cannot entirely go along with him, that the lines might be originally intended to attest the improbability of the two hostile kingdoms ever being united under one sovereign and as a means of keeping alive, at least in Scotland, the spirit of disunion. It will appear to modern scepticism that the rhyme was made after the event.

p29 of ‘Select Writings of Robert Chambers’ 1847. Online at Google Books.

In Cornwall, Madron Well near Penzance had till recently—probably still has—a large thorn-tree growing against the wall of the baptistry which encloses the well. Young children suffering from skin-complaints are dipped in the well and carried round it three times, after which rags from their clothing are laid beside the streamlet and hung on the tree. This should be done about the beginning of May—the first Sunday if possible.

From Notes and Queries, May 23, 1942.

.. the Hill of Dun-o-Deer, in the parish of Insch: a conical hill of no great elevation, on the top of which stand the remains of a vitrified fort or castle, said to have been built by King Gregory about the year 880, and was used by that monarch as a hunting-seat; and where, combining business with pleasure, he is said to have meted out evenhanded justice to his subjects in the Garioch.

It has long been the popular belief that this hill contains gold; and that the teeth of sheep fed on it assume a yellow tinge, and also that their fat is of the same colour. Notwithstanding this, no attempt at scientific investigation has ever been made.
Abredonensis.

From Notes and Queries, September 24th, 1853.

The New Statistical Account says “.. only one wall [of the tower] remains entire, and this having but two windows, one above the oteher, and the upper one very much enlarged by the crumbling of its sides, has a curious effect seen at a distance, and is known by the name of “Gregory’s wall,” from a tradition that King Gregory had resided here.”