Rhiannon

I was told in 1875 that the Long Man at Wilmington (called Wilmington Giant by the people of the neighbourhood) was cut on the hills before the Flood.

There are remains of a castle above Wilmington Priory; pilgrimages were made from the castle to the priory, and, at the time of the pilgrimage the giant (Long Man) was slain by the pilgrims.

I was also told that the giant on Firle Beacon threw his hammer at the Wilmington giant and killed him, and that the figure on the hillside marks the place where his body fell.

I was told this again in 1890, and in 1891 was further informed that the Long Man carries spears, not staves, in his hands, and that an upright line (which I was unable to find) runs from top to bottom of the hill a little to the east, and another a little to the west of the figure.

A man told me that the Wilmington Long Man was a giant who fell over the top of the hill and killed himself; he also said that “a boy cut it out; they can’t trace its history, it goes back so far.”

Another man told me that the Wilmington giant was killed by a shepherd, who threw his dinner at the monster. The sun cast a shadow on the hill; the monks marked the place, and cut an outline; thus the Wilmington giant was made.

“One of the Romans” was buried in a gold coffin under the Wilmington giant.

Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

Above Aldershot is a hill called Caesar’s Hill. On May 2nd, 1889, I was told that Julius Caesar, from that hill, witnessed a review of his army.

Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie.
C. S. Burne, in Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

Bwakem’s comment above: humourous or confused? Surely local people couldn’t have got confused so recently to the event? Or perhaps Mr Emslie just wasn’t listening properly to his informant. Perhaps it’s the latter.

Titterstone Clee Hill is pretty imposing in itself. No wonder then that Bronze Age people chose it as a place to site some burial cairns. And later a univallate Iron Age fort was built here. There’s a ‘Giant’s Chair’ too but who can say when the giant built that.

On Titterstone Clee Hill “a wall thrown down” was put up at the time of the Revolution, when cannon would fire balls from there to Ludlow Castle. “Old women in their red cloaks” would go up into the enclosure. The hill was an island in the time of St. Paul.

Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie, by C. S. Burne, in Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

The view from up here is just amazing.

Before you write an email signed ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ just remember I only copied this information.

- On the edge of the Ridge Way, near West Ilsley, is Scutchamfly Barrow. The hill here is called Scotchman’s Nob, also Scratch my Nob. I was told (June, 1901) that a battle was fought there with the Scotch, and that the barrow was the grave of those slain in the battle. An elderly woman told me that her father used to say that the battle was called the Battle of Anna.

Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie, by C. S. Burne, in Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

..old John of Gaunt is said to have been the last of [the giants in Cornwall] and to have lived in a castle on the top of Carn Brea (a high hill near Redruth). He could stride from thence to another neighbouring town, a distance of four miles. I do not know if he is supposed to be the one that lies buried under this mighty carn, and whose large protruding hand and bony fingers time has turned to stone. Here, too, in the dark ages, a terrific combat took place between Lucifer and a heavenly host, which ended in the former’s overthrow.

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

The legends of Donald-Duival McKay, the Wizard of the Reay country.
Donald-Duival learned the black art in Italy. The devil sat in the professor’s chair of that school, and at the end of each term he claimed as his own the last scholar. One day as they broke up there was a regular scramble, for none wished to be the last. Donald-Duival really was so; but, just as Satan snatched at him, Donald-Duival, pointing to his own shadow, which fell behind him, cried, “Take then the hindmost!” and his shadow being seized, he himself escaped. When he returned to Scotland he was never seen to have a shadow.

Donald went one day to meet his old master in the great Cave of Smoo. They had a violent quarrel, and Donald fled: the print of his horse’s hoofs may be seen there to this day. But Donald was himself very cruel, and a ring may also be seen to which at low water he fastened his victims, who of course were drowned by the rising tide. [..]

Donald once explored the Cave of Smoo. Having penetrated further than any man had ever gone, he heard a voice cry, “Donald, Donald-Duival! return!” Undaunted, however, he pushed on till he came to a large cask. In this he bored a hole, and out of it, to his surprise, there jumped a little man about an inch and a half long. Surprise grew to terror when this creature gradually assumed colossal proportions, and addressed him as follows: “Donald, did you ever see so great a wonder?” “Never, by my troth,” replied the wizard; “but wert thou to shrink again, that would be a bigger wonder still.” The giant grinned assent, and, after diminishing to a span, was simple enough to jump into the cask, which Donald closed immediately, and then left the cave much quicker than he had entered it.

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

Looking across the western valley that bounds Minchinhampton Common, we see Selsley Hill, which is partly Common, and has earthworks, including a tumulus called “The Toots.” On Selsley Hill is a small enclosed piece known as “Kill Devil Acre.” An old farmer accounted to me for the name by the story of a man who was promised that he should have as much land as he could fence round in a day. He fenced in this piece (no doubt with a dry wall, as is usual here), and then fell down dead of overwork. Another version of the story was given me in these words by Miss Fennemore, of Randwick:- “Some man, having taken a fancy to this piece, determined to enclose it for his own use. To ensure safety and success, he determined to do this by night, so that he might not be disturbed, as his success depended on being able to build a row of stones round it, make a rough chimney, and light a fire therein, after which no one dared molest him. He worked all through the night, but died as he finished the task.

I’m not sure what all that’s about. It sounds more than usually confused. Wasn’t there a law where you could build a house quickly and thereby become a ‘legal squatter’? And where’s the connection with the devil anyway?? From Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs, by J. B. Partridge, in Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 332-342.

Near Enstone is a ruined cromlech known as the ”Hoar Stone.” The villagers say that “it was put up in memory of a certain general named Hoar, who was slain in the Civil War. It was put there, as that was a piece of land no one owned. A letter signed ZWn in the Oxford Times of March 29, 1902, mentions this story, and adds that “there was a battle over there, Lidstone way.” Lidstone being a hamlet of Enstone, about one and a half miles to the north west. Mr W Harper in ‘Observations on Hoar-Stones,’ printed in Archaeologica (1832) xxv., 54, speaks of the “War Stone at Enstone. This conspicuous object is said by the country people to have been set up ‘at a French wedding.’”

From:Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore, by Percy Manning, in Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1902), pp. 288-295.

Near Steeple Barton is another ruined cromlech, also called the ”Hoar Stone,” which is now only a confused heap of small stones, having been broken up by an ignorant farmer. Some fifty years ago it was much more perfect, and two of the side stones were standing about four feet out of the ground. “They used to say that whenever they tried to drag them two pebbles away with horses, they would roll back of their own accord. Them two pebbles growed out of little uns: at least that’s my way of thinking.” (From George Nevill, of Yarnton, aged 74, March, 1901.)}

From:Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore, by Percy Manning, in Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1902), pp. 288-295.

Beacon Hill is a very conspicuous landmark, just above Eynsham Bridge, on the Berkshire side of the Thames, about two and a half miles in a straight line from the “Quoits.” [..] The devil was playing quoits on Beacon Hill on a Sunday, and in a rage at being told it was wrong, he threw these three to where they are now.
One of the quoits standing in Walker’s Field was once taken away and put over a ditch called the “Back Ditch” in the “Farm Close” to make a bridge; but it was always slipping, and although often put back, it would not rest, and they were obliged at last to take it back to where it now stands. Wheel marks can still be seen on it – (From Chas. Batts, labourer, of Stanton Harcourt, aged 35, who had it from his father. January 1 1898).
{Mr. Akerman, in 1858, records a rationalised version of the same story, as follows: “There is a tradition in the neighbourhood that the northernmost stone was once removed by an occupier of the land, and laid across a watercourse, where it served as a bridge over which waggons and carts for some time passed, and that it was restored to its old locality at the request of one of the Harcourt family. A grove in this stone, eight inches from the top, seven inches in width, and about three inches deep, is believed to have been caused by the wheels of the vehicles when it lay prostrate.“}

{Joseph Goodlake of Stanton Harcourt (now of Yarnton), aged 63, in March, 1901, gave me the following particulars which he had from his father: “When the war was in England, the fighting ended at Stanton by those stones, and from there across to Stanlake Down by Cut Mill. Harcourt was the general; he was Emperor in England; he is buried in the church with his sword and gun and clothes.” Further: “When the war was in England the officers used to hide behind them” (the Devil’s Quoits) “from the bullets,” and the men used to pick the bullets out of them when my informant was young.}

{The legend connecting the Quoits with a battle is confirmed by a story told by Tom Hughes [Scouring of the White Horse, 1859]: “An old man in that village” (Stanton Harcourt) “told me that a battle was fought there, which the English were very near losing, who was in the thick of it, and called out, ‘Stan’ to un, Harcourt, stan’ to un, Harcourt,’ and that Harcourt won the battle, and the village has been called Stanton Harcourt ever since.“}

From:Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore, by Percy Manning, in Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1902), pp. 288-295.

..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.