Westwood and Simpson (’Lore of the land’ -2005) mention a tale collected in 1985 by the Cotswold writer Edith Brill. She spoke to an old man who said “he wished he could borrow a bulldozer and search for the money that lay hidden inside [the tump] and then he would be rich for the rest of his life.” She herself ‘knew’ that the money originated from a wealthy local chief who’d left it there while fleeing the Saxons.
Until the 1750s, it seems that the stone stood upright? Westwood and Simpson (’Lore of the Land’ 2005) quote from the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1813:
Some old persons in the neighbourhood, still living, remember when it stood a very considerable height, perhaps 8 or 10 feet, in an artificial fosse or hllow. About fifty or sixty years ago the upper parts of the stone were broken off, and the fosse levelled, that a plough might pass over it; but, according to the then frequent remark of the villagers, the owner of the land who did this deed never prospered afterwards. He certainly was reduced [..] to absolute poverty, and died about 6 years ago in the parish workhouse.
Still, it sounds like he lived to a ripe old age. Unless he actually died six years later.
Many years ago, all the country round about Stokesay belonged to two giants, who lived, the one upon View Edge, and the other at Norton Camp. Most likely they were brothers, for the land belonged to them both alike, and so did the money. They kept all their money locked up in a big oak chest in the vaults under Stokesay Castle, and when either of them wanted any of it he just took the key and got some out, and took the key back with him. And if the other one wanted it, he shouted to his brother on the other side to throw it to him, and then he went down and got some; and so they went on, throwing the key backwards and forwards just as they happened to want it. But at last, one day, one of them wanted the key, and the other had got it, so he shouted out to him to throw it over as they were used to do; and he went to throw it, but somehow he made a mistake and threw too short, and dropped the key into the moat down by the castle. They tried every way to find it, but they never did, and there it lies now at the bottom of the pool somewhere. Many have been to look for it, quite of late years even, but it has never been found. And the chest of treasure stands in the vaults still, so they say, but nobody can get into it, for there is a great big raven always sitting on the top of it, and he won’t let anybody try to break it open, so no one will ever be able to get the giant’s treasure until the key is found, and many say it never will be found, let folks try as much as they please.
From volume 1 of ‘Shropshire Folklore: A Sheaf of Gleanings’ by G F Jackson and CS Burne (1883).
archive.org/stream/shropshirefolkl00burngoog#page/n30/mode/2up
To add to Bryony’s note,
“on the Trundle, near Goodwood, Aaron’s Golden Calf lies buried, and local people in the 1870’s claimed to know the very spot -- only no one could dig it up, because whenever anyone tried, the Devil came and moved it away.”
From Brewer’s ‘Dictionary of Phrase and Fable’ 1870 (351,761) and the Rev. W D Parish’s ‘Dictionary of Sussex Dialect’ of 1875, and mentioned by Jacqueline Simpson in:
Sussex Local Legends
Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 3. (Autumn, 1973), pp. 206-223.
She also says (p207) “Modern archaeological excavations may serve to reinforce [traditions of buried treasure]; a party digging on the Trundle in 1928 found that the story of the Golden Calf ‘was much upon the lips of the people of Singleton during the progress of our excavation’. Their presence can only have strengthened, not created, the belief, for it happens that this particular tale first appeared in print in 1870.”
William Crossing, in his 1900 ‘Stones of Dartmoor’ gave the following explanation of the stones of Stall Moor.
One Sunday afternoon a group of girls set off across the moor – once out of sight of the farmhouses they began to dance. This was of course extremely naughty as it was the sabbath day, when they should have been doing good or resting, not enjoying themselves. They accosted a young man and invited him to dance with them. Cheekily he refused to dance, saying that he would only play ‘Kiss in the Ring’. So the girls formed a circle and (one imagines) they played by him chosing one of them by touching her shoulder, then running off round the ring until she caught and kissed him. However things got a bit out of hand and the girls started grabbing and kissing him out of turn, so he demurely ran off, and they followed, running in a long line. As is usually the way, these transgressors of the Sabbath got turned into stone for their behaviour, and you can see them as the stones of the circle and the row. William Crossing rather bizarrely suggests that perhaps they were petrified for failing to abide by the rules of a game. So no cheating next time you’re playing ludo.
(I have paraphrased from a summary of Crossing’s original story in Westwood and Simpson’s ‘Lore of the Land’ (2005))
The name ‘Pupers Hill’ surely led to the invention of the following story, told by William Crossing in his 1900 ‘Stones of Dartmoor’:
There are two of these [pipers] and according to the story they once played there on a Sunday afternoon, while a companion danced to their harmonious strains. Suddently the music was interrupted, and to the horror of the latter he beheld those who were expending so much wind to furnish a suitable accompaniment to his nimble steps turned to stone.. and as there was no more music to be got out of them, he rather unceremoniously took his leave. But he had not gone far ere he too shared the fate of his comrades. You may see them if you choose to take the trouble to visit the tor.
-quote taken from excerpt in Westwood and Simpson’s ‘Lore of the land’ (2005)
“A child might easily swing the great stone backwards and forwards, but a ‘mighty man’ with great strength would fail to move it if he had ‘guilt on his soul’.”
(Adrean Searle, in ‘Isle of Wight Folklore’ (1998) -he doesn’t state where he’s quoting from)
.. a very fine monolith, locally called the “Long Stone” [is] on the left hand side of the main road a short distance from Gatcombe Lodge entrance. It is 7 1/2 ft high above the ground, and is said to be as much below the surface.
It is a very fine block of the peculiar stratum of the great oolite formation, locally called holey stone, which underlies the surface soil to a thickness varying from 6” to 18”.
Report says that the superstitious mothers were in the habit of passing ricketty children through a hole in this stone with the idea that they would become strong.
A much smaller stone of a similar kind stands in a wall about 30 feet away, and a third is said to have been removed during the last century.
From ‘A history of the parishes of Minchinhampton and Avening’ by Arthur Twisden Playne (1915).
Iley Oak was said to be the place where King Alfred and his troops rested overnight before the battle of Ethandun. The oak was later a favourite (and less legendary) meeting place of the non-conformists of Crockerton, who held their religious meetings in secret there, at the earthwork called Robin Hood’s Bower.
Iley does look like Ilegh, which was the meeting place for the hundreds of Warminster and Heytesbury until at least 1652, according to the Victoria County history (see
british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16071) – and this was described as the site of a great tree standing in Southleigh or Eastleigh woods. Southleigh is where RHB is. Ah, it all comes together you see.
Completely bizarrely, according to discussion on the Megalithic Portal, RHB is planted with monkey puzzle trees, and you can also see (encouragingly in light of the above) the remains of a stump of a large deciduous tree (an oak? which would fit in with the story – and make a link to Robin Hood and his oaks in Sherwood Forest).
But what is Robin Hood doing so far south? It’s all terribly confusing.
The record on magic doesn’t have much to say about the site:
The monument includes Robin Hood’s Bower, a sub-rectangular prehistoric earthwork enclosure on low lying Greensand south of Warminster.
The monument comprises a sub-rectangular area of 200 sq m enclosed by a ditch up to 1m deep and 7.2m wide and a slight inner bank 3.3m wide and up to 0.2m high. The enclosure is crossed by a modern track.
“An interesting experience is to visit Hob Hurst’s House, the Bronze Age tumulus up on Beeley Moor, especially at dusk. This ancient tomb is said to hold supernatural powers and if you listen carefully you may hear the voices of the original inhabitants.”
quoted from “The Derbyshire Village Book” 1991, according to the 2000 Derbyshire Stones Meet report at
stones.non-prophet.org/archive/Ancient/004500/102350002200c8a7.html
Sounds just what you want to do – go somewhere dark and lonely and listen to your ancestors whispering away. Not terrifying in the least.
It’s suggested that the rather Scandinavian name of these burial chambers is after the supposed founder of Swansea, Sweyne Forkbeard, (Svend Tveskæg) King of Denmark and sometime king of England 1013-14. Swansea is first mentioned as “Sweynesse” in a 12th century charter. The Welsh name for the city is quite different and sensibly refers to the mouth of the river (Abertawe).
“We all know” the chambers are really prehistoric and not Viking at all – but the mounds might well have been recognised and even reused for a burial in later years: many others across the country were. The story is that Sweyne himself is buried here, but you’d like to think he made it back to Denmark really.
There’s an Earl Sweyne going to Wales here in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle in 1046. So maybe Sweynes were just two a penny at the time.
worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/english/TheAnglo-SaxonChronicle/chap11.html
A bit more about the legends connected with Brent Knoll, as explained in Geoffrey Ashe’s ‘Landscape of King Arthur’ (1987).
Occultist Dion Fortune wrote about the hill in her novel ‘The Sea Priestess’ – she called it Bell Knowle and Ashe says she described it as ‘modelled by colonists from Atlantis’. Whilst this is Rather fanciful, you can’t help but admit that Brent Knoll has a decidedly impressive presence in the landscape, rising as an isolated bump at the edge of the utterly flat Somerset Levels. Its previous occupants gave it a single bank and ditch at the top, and may have steepened some of its slopes. It used to belong to Glastonbury Abbey – indeed you can see it from Glastonbury Tor.
A chronicler of the 13th century tells how King Arthur was holding court at Caerleon one Christmas (or should that be Midwinter?). He knighted a bold young man called Ider, who was the son of King Nuth. Ash reminds us that a Gwyn ap Nudd was the lord of the underworld, and he lived in Glastonbury Tor*, and had a run in with St Collen, if you recall. So it seems likely that King Nuth could refer to the same man?
As a new knight, Ider had to pass a test. He was told when at Glastonbury that three giants, ‘notorious for their wickedness’, lived on Brent Knoll, then known as the Mount of Frogs (Mons Ranarum). King Arthur intended to march against them, and Ider would be required to join him. Young and enthusiastic, Ider galloped ahead and slew all three giants singlehandedly. But unfortunately he was wounded himself, and by the time Arthur arrived Ider lay unconscious and dying. The King returned to Glastonbury blaming himself. He gave the lands around the hill to the abbey and asked the monks to pray for Ider’s soul.
Ider also appears as ‘Yder son of Nut’ in a French medieval romance by Chrétien de Troyes.
[*assuming this is the correct location of the St Collen story (see the Tor page).]
According to W B Dawkins’ 1880 “Early Man in Britain” (an excerpt online at Showcaves.com),
the ‘Pin Hole Cave’ is so called because people used to drop a pin in (for luck? for a wish? as an offering?) – part of the ritual being that they took away a pin left by another visitor previously.
showcaves.com/english/gb/showcaves/CreswellCragsDawkins.html#3
A spooky modern story connected with the Crags, summarised from Liz Linahan’s account in her ‘More pit ghosts, padfeet and poltergeists’ (1995):
One evening a couple were driving home past the crags, and stopped at some temporary traffic lights just near the visitors’ centre. The woman glanced out of her window and caught sight of a pale blurred circular shape in the briars next to her, about 2ft from the ground. As she watched it started floating back and forth (though the briars were really dense) and she saw it begin to take on the features of ‘an old hag’ with dark eyes and a beaked nose, and then hollow cheeks and long hair. At first she thought it must be a prank – but then felt scared and became convinced it was ‘something paranormal’. The face moved towards the car and the woman (not unreasonably) screamed, causing her husband to turn round – he said he saw the face briefly before stepping on the accelerator. The woman was so shaken when she got home that the doctor had to be called, and her husband and some police went back to the crags to investigate. They were bemused because entry inside the brambles was nigh on impossible, and one of the policemen ripped his coat trying to do so.
Also that night, around dawn, a lorry driver was driving along the same stretch of road when he had to brake hard and swerve to avoid a ‘dark mysterious figure’ crossing the road from the visitors’ centre side, where it disappeared into the bushes. Shaken, he described it as ‘floating’ and ‘seemingly headless’. He described it as female although there were no particular features that made it so.
One evening in the early 1900s a miner, who had just finished working at Creswell Colliery, thought he’d call in on his fancy woman in Creswell. He was safe because her own husband had just started his shift down the pit. After a bit of courting he set off for his own home in Clowne. He was striding up over Markland Craggs when he looked up ahead of him – and there was the Devil standing there, silhouetted by the full moon. Now really you’d think the Devil would be impressed by a bit of philandering, but apparently he cursed the man, and sent him home white-haired and mumbling gibberish. His own wife was not impressed and he was of no use to man nor beast thereafter.
This tale is described in Liz Linahan’s 1996 ‘More Pit Ghosts, Padfeet and Poltergeists’. Her informant told her he’d heard it from a woman who’d been told it in the 1920s, and liked repeating for the benefit of her poor husband. Even if it’s only a scare story to put off straying husbands, perhaps it still suggests that Markland Grips is not the sort of place you’d want to be on a dark night.
A quote from Aubrey Burl’s ‘Rites of the Gods’:
Up until the eighteenth century, a ‘barren wife’ might visit the circle during the night “in the hope that by baring her breasts and touching the Kingstone with them” she would be made pregnant.
Does this mean you actually become pregnant as a result of touching the stone – what Burl surely implies? He doesn’t specify his source. You’d imagine it more likely that the stone would make you more fertile and so more likely to get pregnant via the usual method. But maybe I’d never really thought about this (not uncommon?) idea before: maybe it is the former that was believed? Especially with the stone being male – the King in fact.
Could this be the place mentioned in ‘Math Son of Mathonwy’ in the Mabinogion?
Then they went towards Dinas Dinllev, and there he brought up Llew Llaw Gyffes, until he could manage any horse, and he was perfect in features, and strength, and stature. And then Gwydion saw that he languished through the want of horses and arms. And he called him unto him. “Ah, youth,” said he, “we will go to-morrow on an errand together. Be therefore more cheerful than thou art.” “That I will,” said the youth.
Next morning, at the dawn of day, they arose. And they took way along the sea coast, up towards Bryn Aryen. And at the top of Cevn Clydno they equipped themselves with horses, and went towards the Castle of Arianrod.
The notes of Lady Guest’s translation imply she thought so:
“DINLLEV*: DINAS DINLLE is situated on the sea-shore, about three miles southward from Caernarvon, in the parish of Llantwrawg, on the confines of a large tract of land, called Morva Dinlleu. The remains of the fortress consist of a large circular mount, well defended by earthen ramparts and deep fosses.”
*Probably ‘Dinlleu’ with a u, not a v? to tie in with Lleu Llaw Gyffes?
She also adds: “The Rev. P. B. Williams, in his “Tourist’s Guide through Caernarvonshire,” speaking of Clynnog in that county, says: “There is a tradition that an ancient British town, situated near this place, called Caer Arianrhod, was swallowed up by the sea, the ruins of which, it is said, are still visible during neap tides, and in fine weather.”
Indeed, there is a stack off the coast (no doubt visible from Dinas Dinlle?) called Caer Arianrhod.
You can read the story courtesy of the brilliant Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/index.htm
From the website which Kammer links to below:
..a somewhat spooky story I unearthed about Cholesbury Camp a while back. Ever heard of the ‘Screaming Pigs of Cholesbury’? Well the story is told of strange ‘unearthly noises’ emanating from Camp and the reluctance of even the most fearless of the men of the village to enter the Hillfort after dusk. So if anyone fancying a stroll as darkness falls is welcome to test out this theory let me know what happens!
Neil Fairbairn, in his 1983 ‘Travellers guide to the kingdoms of Arthur’, mentions a Christianised version of the story. He says that at the end of the world the golden round table will rise to the earth’s surface and be carried up to heaven. The saints will sit round it to eat, and Christ will be the waiter and serve them.
He also mentions that at its yearly midsummer appearance, a flash of light from it briefly illuminates the sky, and then it sinks again. Nah that’ll just be the earthlights I reckon.
The Canmore record has a spot of folklore about this 9’10” stone from the Name Book of 1878: “It is said to mark the spot where the son of the Viking Harold Harfager was killed some time around 900AD. He is said to have been buried in the tumulus to the southwest.” I guess this tumulus must be the chambered cairn you can see on the OS map, which is on the island on the other side of the Skuda Sound.
Practically in Exmoor, one of the standing stones here (at SS601439) is 2.5m high – or at least it was before being struck by lightning very recently. The other (at ss603438) lies down and is 2.8m long (with another bit unattached slightly to the north, according to the SMR Magic record). Also on Mattocks Down, in the vicinity of the first stone, are four round barrows.
Lilian Wilson’s 1976 book ‘Ilfracombe Yesterdays’, gives the local view of the standing stone: “This is a rock believed to be a ‘Gathering Stone’ around which chiefs and tribes of that part of Devon met in times of trouble, or when they had matters to discuss.”
The ‘Alternative Approaches to Folklore’ bibliography at
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.doc
mentions that the stones at Ballochroy were thrown by Brownies (one assumes the little people type, not the bobble-hatted sort). Do you know more about the story? Tiny Cara Island, just across the Sound of Gigha, has its ‘Brownies’ Chair’. Perhaps they threw them from there (though you wouldn’t normally think them so strong).
Near Dinas Emrys, Owain ap Macsen fought with a giant. As they were equal in fighting with tree trunks, Owain leapt up a hill on the other side of the river and cast a stone which fell at the feet of the giant, who cast it back. They then tried wrestling. Owain became enraged, threw down the giant, who shattered a huge stone in the fall and a piece entering his back, he was killed. In dying he crushed Owain to death.
From T Gwynn Jones’s “Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom” (1930), from a Welsh 1875 source.
From Ruth L Tongue’s ‘Somerset Folklore’.
Zebedee Fry were coming home late from the hay-making above Shipham. It were full moon, for they’d worked late to finish, and the crop was late being a hill field, so he had forgot what night ‘twas. He thought he saw something big and dark moving in the field where the big stone stood, but he was too bone-weary to go chasing any stray bullock. Then something huge and dark in field came rustling all alongside lane hedge, and Zebedee he up and dive into the brimmles in the ditch till it passed right along, and then he ran all a-tiptoe to reach Shipham. When he come to the field gate he duck two-double and he rush past it. But, for all that, he see this gurt stone, twelve feet and more, a-dancing to itself in the moonlight over top end of field. And where it always stood the moon were shining on a heap of gold money. But Zebedee he didn’t stop for all that, not until he were safe at the inn at Shipham. They called he all sorts of fool for not getting his hand to the treasure – but nobody seemed anxious to have a try – not after he’d told them how nimble it danced round field. And nobody knows if ‘twill dance again in a hundred years. Not till there’s a full moon on Midsummer Night.
This was told to Tongue by a schoolfriend, who’d heard it from her Mendip great grandmother, who was 90 at the time.
This hill fort was inhabited from about 200BC to after the Romans arrived, though it seems that it’s known locally to be a ‘Roman Camp’.
On the NE side of the hill is a spring with certain magical powers, dedicated to St Ann. As usual it’s especially good for the eyes – but you had to collect the first bucket of water at the stroke of midnight on twelfth night, to ensure the best efficacy.
(Folklore of the Welsh Border, J Simpson 1976)
***
Caer Rhain is another name for Aconbury.
Baring-Gould suggests the Rhain of the name was Rhain Dremrudd, King of Brycheiniog. He translates ‘Dremrudd’ as red-eyed, but could it be more subtle than this? Trem is (I believe) Welsh for sight or gaze; could it not imply he got the red mist sometimes, rather than conjunctivitus. I dunno. Perhaps he should have visited the well (see above). All this etymology. It’s a minefield.
(Baring-Gould, ‘Lives of the British Saints’ v4, p 108. 1913)
Local lore adds more about Merlin. He stayed on for a while after Vortigern left. When he left himself he filled a golden cauldron with treasure and hid it in a cave, blocking the entrance with a stone and a heap of earth. The treasure is intended for one particular person, a youth with blue eyes and yellow hair. When he approaches, a bell will ring and the cave will unblock itself. Other treasure seekers have been repulsed by storms and sinister omens.
p89 in Geoffrey Ashe’s ‘The Landscape of King Arthur’ (1987).
According to legend the ghosts of Arthur and his knights make a periodic nocturnal ride over the hilltop and down to Sutton Montis below, where their horses drink at a spring. This is reputed to happen on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Night, or Christmas Eve, or every seventh year, so the ghosts may be difficult to catch riding.
I have kept the vigil twice without seeing them, but perhaps I chose the wrong night; and I do recall walking along the uppermost rampart in pitch darkness, and hearing, far below in the woods, the sound of a flute.
p45 in ‘The Landscape of King Arthur’ by Geoffrey Ashe (1987). Hmm. A flute – or maybe pan pipes?? Spooky.
The name of the highest part of the plateau can be traced to at least the same kind of time (1586): ‘Arthur’s Palace’. Curiously, (although no trace was known before excavation) there actually was a timber hall on that spot in the 5th century – the era that an ‘Arthur’ would have lived. There was also a gatehouse (in the gap in the top rampart to the SW) and the whole perimeter was protected by a 16ft thick fortification made of stone and wood. Such a type and size of structure is apparently very unusual for this period – so ‘Camelot’ is actually quite credible as the headquarters of a king or regional chief, according to Ashe’s book.
To this day you can hear local tales of a chamber below the summit, or a well sinking far into the depths, or a tunnel running all the way to the Abbey, a distance of more than half a mile. Rash explorers are supposed to have found a way in and to have come out insane.
From ‘The Landscape of King Arthur’ by Geoffrey Ashe (1987).
This small circle of 6 stones could be (according to the RCAHMS record) the remains of a chambered cairn, from which the small stones have been robbed. There are a number of similar monuments in this area, overlooked by Bheinn Tangabhal – so you can bet one of them is the setting for the following story:
THE TULMAN.
There was a woman in Baile Thangusdail*, and she was out seeking a couple of calves; and the night and lateness caught her, and there came rain and tempest, and she was seeking shelter. She went to a knoll with the couple of calves, and she was striking a tether-peg into it. The knoll opened. She heard a gleegashing as if a pot-hook were clashing beside a pot. She took wonder, and she stopped striking the tether-pig. A woman put out her head and all above her middle, and she said, “What business hast thou to be troubling this tulman in which I make my dwelling?” “I am taking care of this couple of calves, and I am but weak. Where shall I go with them?” “Thou shalt go with them to that breast down yonder. Thou wilt see a tuft of grass. If thy couple of calves eat that tuft of grass, thou wilt not be a day without a milk cow as long as thou art alive, because thou hast taken my counsel.”
As she said, she never was without a milk cow after that, and she was alive fourscore and fifteen years after the night she was there.
* Now ‘Tangasdal’, I assume. ‘Tulman’ sounds suspiciously like ‘dolmen’, or perhaps that’s coincidence? Perhaps someone local knows of this term. The story goes to show that you should be polite to people who live in grassy mounds – the woman lived to a great age in addition to her luck with livestock.
From “Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales” by Sir George Douglas [1901]. Online version at the excellent ‘Sacred Texts Archive’:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sfft/sfft33.htm
The following is an account of a fairy frolic said to have happened late in the last century:--The victim of elfin sport was a poor man, who, being employed in pulling heather upon Peatlaw, a hill in Selkirkshire, had tired of his labour, and laid him down to sleep upon a fairy ring. When he awakened, he was amazed to find himself in the midst of a populous city, to which, as well as to the means of his transportation, he was an utter stranger. His coat was left upon the Peatlaw; and his bonnet, which had fallen off in the course of his aerial journey, was afterwards found hanging upon the steeple of the church of Lanark. The distress of the poor man was, in some degree, relieved by meeting a carrier, whom he had formerly known, and who conducted him back to Selkirk, by a slower conveyance than had whirled him to Glasgow.
That he had been carried off by the fairies was implicitly believed by all who did not reflect that a man may have private reasons for leaving his own country, and for disguising his having intentionally done so.
From Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales
by Sir George Douglas
[1901] – his source supposedly being Sir Walter Scott’s “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”.
What sort of cynic would doubt such a story (especially as his hat was found on the steeple). But if you are ever tempted to ‘do a bunk’ and start a new life somewhere – perhaps it’s not that advisable these days to profess you were kidnapped by the fairies. Call it aliens or something (more fashionable).
A similar story to the one below (this time involving a brother kidnapped by the fairies of the Burnswark, with the sister left behind) is ‘Elphin Irving – The Fairies’ Cupbearer’. You can read a long version (including song) in ‘Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales’ by Sir George Douglas [1901] – an online version available courtesy of the magnanimous people at the Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sfft/sfft81.htm
The tradition that the Mount was formerly called in old Cornish, Careg-luz en kuz*, and that it rose from the midst of an extensive forest, is very prevalent. “A forest is supposed to have extended along the coast to St Michael’s Mount, which was described as a ‘hoare rock in a wood,’ and stood five or six miles from the sea. The bay was said to have been a plain of five or six miles in extent, formed into parishes, each having its church, and laid out in meadows, corn-fields, and woods.”
*or Careg cowse in clowse--i.e., the hoary rock in the wood.
This and much other folklore connected with the island at the online version of Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’, at the sacred texts archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe088.htm
Hunt also said:
Merlyn is said to have pronounced the following prophecy, standing near St German’s Grotto on the shores of Whitsand Bay:--
“When the Rame Head and Dodman meet,
Man and woman will have cause to greet.”
Rame Head is near Plymouth, so I reckon it won’t be any time soon. The old misery.
Quote from the online version at the Sacred Text Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe076.htm
This Iron Age cliff fort has been reused for defensive purposes over the centuries, during the Napoleonic and First World wars. But the IA earthworks (presumably referred to in the folklore below) aren’t the first signs of the place’s significance – there are also Bronze Age barrows which survive.
In the parish of Goran is an intrenchment running from cliff to cliff, and cutting off about a hundred acres of coarse ground. This is about twenty feet broad, and twenty-four feet high in most places.
Marvellous as it may appear, tradition assures us that this was the work of a giant, and that he performed the task in a single night. This fortification has long been known as Thica Vosa, and the Hack and Cast.
The giant, who lived on the promontory, was the terror of the neighbourhood, and great were the rejoicings in Goran when his death was accomplished through a stratagem by a neighbouring doctor.
The giant fell ill through eating some food--children or otherwise--to satisfy his voracity, which had disturbed his stomach. His roars and groans were heard for miles, and great was the terror throughout the neighbourhood. A messenger, however, soon arrived at the residence of the doctor of the parish, and he bravely resolved to obey the summons of the giant, and visit him. He found the giant rolling on the ground with pain, and he at once determined to rid the world, if possible, of the monster.
He told him that he must be bled. The giant submitted, and the doctor moreover said that, to insure relief, a large hole in the cliff must be filled with the blood. The giant lay on the ground, his arm extended over the hole, and the blood flowing a torrent into it. Relieved by the loss of blood, he permitted the stream to flow on, until he at last became so weak, that the doctor kicked him over the cliff, and killed him. The well-known promontory of The Dead Man, or Dodman, is so called from the dead giant. The spot on which he fell is the “Giant’s House,” and the hole has ever since been most favourable to the growth of ivy.
From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (3rd ed. 1903), online at the Sacred Texts Archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe020.htm
Do giants always have to reach a sticky end?
The giant on the Mount and the giant on Trecrobben Hill were very friendly. They had only one cobbling-hammer between them, which they would throw from one to the other, as either required it. One day the giant on the Mount wanted the hammer in a great hurry, so he shouted, ” Holloa, up there! Trecrobben, throw us down the hammer, woost a’?”
“To be sure,” sings out Trecrobben; “here! look out, and catch ‘m.”
Now, nothing would do but the giant’s wife, who was very nearsighted, must run out of her cave to see Trecrobben throw the hammer. She had no hat on; and coming at once out into the light, she could not distinguish objects. Consequently, she did not see the hammer coming through the air, and received it between her eyes. The force with which it was flung was so great that the massive bone of the forehead of the giantess was crushed, and she fell dead at the giant’s feet. You may be sure there was a great to-do between the two giants. They sat wailing over the dead body, and with their sighs they produced a tempest. These were unavailing to restore the old lady, and all they had to do was to bury her. Some say they lifted the Chapel Rock and put her under it, others, that she is buried beneath the castle court, while some--no doubt the giants’ detractors--declare that they rolled the body down into the sea, and took no more heed of it.
From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (1903 – 3rd ed) – online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe014.htm
More about the giant who lived on Carn Galva:
Holiburn, according to tradition, was a very amiable and somewhat sociable gentleman; but, like his brethren, he loved to dwell amongst the rocks of Cairn Galva. He made his home in this remote region, and relied for his support on the gifts of sheep and oxen from the farmers around--he, in return, protecting them from the predatory incursions of the less conscientious giants of Trecrobben. It is said that he fought many a battle in the defence of his friends[...] I once heard that Holiburn had married a farmer’s daughter, and that a very fine race, still bearing a name not very dissimilar, was the result of this union.
So if you meet any exceptionally tall people in the locality, perhaps they could be a relation. From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (1903, 3rd ed), online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe010.htm
Hunt also heard from a man named Halliwell that “"Somewhere amongst the rocks in this cairn is the Giant’s Cave” where the giant lived.
Trencrom Hill was also used as a spot from which to throw stones at St Michael’s Mount:
In several parts of Cornwall there are evidences that these Titans were a sportive race. Huge rocks are preserved to show where they played at trap-ball, at hurling, and other athletic games. The giants of Trecrobben and St Michael’s Mount often met for a game at bob-buttons. The Mount was the “bob,” on which flat masses of granite were placed to serve as buttons, and Trecrobben Hill was the “mit,” or the spot from which the throw was made. This order was sometimes reversed. On the outside of St Michael’s Mount, many a granite slab which had been knocked off the “bob” is yet to be ‘found; and numerous piles of rough cubical masses of the same rock, said to be the granite of Trecrobben Hill, [a] show how eagerly the game was played.
Also from Hunt’s book, online at the sacred texts archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe009.htm
Hunt mentions that “Trecrobben Hill still exhibits the bowl in which the giants of the west used to wash.” – so you may wish to keep your eyes open for this if you visit. This is presumably ‘The Bowl Rock’, on the stream to the NE, judging from the OS map.
On the summit of this hill, which is only surpassed in savage grandeur by Cam Brea, the giants built a castle--the four entrances to which still remain in Cyclopean massiveness to attest the Herculean powers by which such mighty blocks were piled upon each other. There the giant chieftains dwelt in awful state. Along the serpentine road, passing up the hill to the principal gateway, they dragged their captives, and on the great flat rocks within the castle they sacrificed them. Almost every rock still bears some name connected with the giants--“a race may perish, but the name endures.” The treasures of the giants who dwelt here are said to have been buried in the days of their troubles, when they were perishing before the conquerors of their land. Their gold and jewels were hidden deep in the granite caves of this hill, and secured by spells as potent as those which Merlin placed upon his “hoarded treasures.” They are securely preserved, even to the present day, and carefully guarded from man by the Spriggans, or Trolls, of whom we have to speak in another page.
From Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (3rd ed 1903). He mentions that Trencrom was also known as Trecrobben Hill.
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe008.htm
The vulgar belief is that the Red Lady was entombed in the cave by a storm while seeking treasure there – a legend the truth of which no one can dispute with authority, since the bones are certainly of a period contemporary with the Roman rule in this island.
From ‘British Goblins’ by Wirt Sikes (p387) 1880.
According to C. Grooms (The Giants of Wales. Cewri Cymru Welsh Studies Vol. 10 (Lampeter, 1993)) this stone was one of three quoits thrown by Arthur from the top of Moelfre, and is said to have his fingermarks upon it.
According to C. Grooms (The Giants of Wales. Cewri Cymru Welsh Studies Vol. 10 (Lampeter, 1993)) this stone was one of three thrown by Arthur from the top of Moelfre.
“[A]cromlech named ‘Arthur’s Quoit’ is found in Myllteyrn parish, Caernarvonshire (SH22973456). Professor Grooms (1993, pp.118-9) translates the following from Myrddin Fardd (writing in the 19th-century), which is worth repeating for its illustration of the local folkloric traditions surrounding these stones:”
A multitude of tales are told about him [Arthur]. Sometimes, he is portrayed as a king and mighty soldier, other times like a giant huge in size, and they are found the length and bredth of the land of stones, in tons in weight, and the tradition connects them with his name – a few of them have been in his shoes time after time, bothering him, and compelling him also to pull them, and to throw them some unbelievable distance... A cromlech recognized by the name ‘Coetan Arthur’ is on the land of Trefgwm, in the parish of Myllteyrn; it consists of a great stone resting on three other stones. The tradition states that ‘Arthur the Giant’ threw this coetan from Carn Fadrun, a mountain several miles from Trefgwm, and his wife took three other stones in her apron and propped them up under the coetan.
Borrowed from Thomas Green, the writer of “A Gazetteer of Arthurian Topographic Folklore” at arthuriana.co.uk/concepts/folkgazt.htm
Dr William Borlase, writing in 1754 , said:“Round Arthur’s Bed, on a rocky Tor in the parish of North-hill, there are many [rock-basins], which the country people call Arthur’s Troughs, in which he us’d to feed his Dogs.”
lifted from The Arthurian Resources pages at
arthuriana.co.uk/concepts/folkgazt.htm
The bridge is said to be haunted by ‘weary looking phantoms’ – they cross the bridge in the gloaming, looking misty and depressed as though they’ve just staggered from the battle, and then ‘pouf’ melt into the dusk. Or so says Marc Alexander, in his completely unreferenced ‘Companion to the folklore, myths and customs of Britain’ (2002). He also calls the stone ‘Arthur’s Gravestone’.
Apparently there are two stones though?? Which is a bit confusing? One in the stream and one by the stream? The following from the Celtic Inscribed Stones doesn’t exactly clarify things.
ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
There is some confusion about the exact history of this stone as it appears to have occasionally been mixed-up with a second, probably uninscribed stone which now lies in the stream.
Okasha/1993, records that the stone was first mentioned in 1602. By 1754 it had been used as a footbridge and then as part of a early 18th landscape folly. The stone is unlikely to have moved since at least 1799.
..the first recorded location of the stone was its use as part of a footbridge at Slaughterbridge. We do not know the original location.
..Nearby, in the early 18th century, Lady Dowager Falmouth created a kind of hill with spiral walks to which the stone was removed as decoration.
This barrow (now marking a boundary) is said to contain a pot of gold. But don’t be getting any ideas. It is guarded by a ‘big hag-worm or adder’, and if that isn’t enough to see you off, then the inevitable thunderstorm that will roll up when you start meddling will soon scare you away.
(recorded by Grinsell in ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’ 1976 – will have original source noted but I forgot).
Russell’s Cairn at Windy Gyle is supposed to mark the site of the mysterious death of Lord Francis Russell in 1585. He was in a truce meeting with the Scottish Warden Thomas Ker at the time. It’s thought that he could have been bumped off as part of an English plot to remove Ker and other Catholic supporters of Queen Mary from their positions of power by implying they murdered him. The cairn’s thought to be Bronze Age though, and there are others along the ridge.
See:
archive.org/stream/uppercoquetdalen00dixo#page/51/mode/1up
A round barrow near Ashmore was once haunted by little ‘gabbygammies’ or ‘gappergennies’ who made strange noises. Funnily enough, the strange noises ceased after the barrow was opened and the bones allegedly found inside reburied in the village churchyard. Poor gabbygammies. There probably aren’t any in the longbarrow near Ashmore but if you hear any strange noises while you’re there..
(mentioned by Grinsell in ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain, 1976, not sure of original source he quotes)
There seem to be various traditions relating to skipping in Easter week, from various places around the country. In Cambridgeshire, Good Friday seems to have been the day singled out. “An eighty year old woman of Linton recalled in the 1930s that in her youth the villagers of Linton and Hadstock used to skip on Good Friday to Bartlow Hills to join in the fun of the fair held there.”
p107 in ‘Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore’ by Enid Porter (1969).
Mind out for the ferns on Garth Hill.
A very amusing story about fern-seed came from the neighbourhood of the Garth Mountain, Glamorgan. An aged Welshman said that when he was a small boy he heard his grandfather gravely relating the experience of a neighbour who chanced to be coming homeward through the mountain fern on Midsummer Night between twelve and one o’clock. At that hour fern-seed is supposed to ripen, to fail off directly, and be lost. Some of the fern-seed fell upon his coat and into his shoes. He thought nothing of this, but went home.
At this point he totally freaks out his family, because they can’t see him, but they can hear him talking – he remains invisible until he inadvertently shakes the seeds from his clothing.
The man who told this story said that when he was a boy not a person would wear a fern of any kind – first, because it caused men to lose their paths; and secondly, because adders were likely to follow you so long as it was worn.
From Marie Trevelyan’s ‘Folk lore and folk stories of Wales’ (1909).
Of course, really boring botanists would tell you that ferns don’t have seeds.
A number of round barrows known as ‘The Beacons’ sit on Mynydd Garthmaelwg. Marie Trevelyan recounts a peculiar story about this mountain:
The following story about a black snake was told in the first half of the nineteenth century. It must have been a very old story because the narrator always located it on the nearest mountain to his home and this particularly black reptile appeared to have no fixed abode. In Carmarthenshire it was located among the Van Mountains; in Pembrokeshire it was found in the Preceley Range; while in Glamorgan its home was the Great Garth, the Llantrisant, or Aberdare Ranges. The story ran thus: A great black snake was seen coiled in the sunshine. Its head and tail did not exactly meet, but left a small opening. In the middle of the coil there was a large heap of gold and silver and copper coins. A working man once saw all this treasure, and he resolved to have some for himself. There was nothing to be done but to just pass through the opening between the black snake’s head and tail, and step in. At first the man was afraid, but, mustering up courage, he stepped in. He saw that the snake was asleep, and there would be no harm in having some of the coins for himself; so he began to fill his pockets with gold, silver, and copper. When his pockets were full, he took off his coat, laid it down, and began filling it with more treasure. Greediness made him forget the snake, but a fearful roaring frightened him. He immediately left his coat where it was, and fled. Looking back, he saw the black snake and the treasure sinking into the mountain, and the noise ceased.
From ‘Folk-lore and folk-stories of Wales’ (1909)
The Rhondda Cynon Taf Libraries Heritage Trail website at
fhttps://webapps.rhondda-cynon-taf.gov.uk/libraries/heritagetrail/taff/llanharran/Llanharan.htm
has some additional information:
Until a few generations ago, the Brenin Llwyd or Grey Monarch of the Mists was believed to inhabit this mountain and woe betide anyone caught in his grasp! A walk from Llanharan towards Llantrisant over the mountains will still take you to the site of “The Beacons”, where before the 1700s the Militia met to muster and show arms. In later times this beacon would be lit to celebrate coronations. A short distance to the east is the location of the popular Egg Wells, whose sulphurous waters attracted hundreds of summer visitors to sample their curative properties and enjoy the fairground atmosphere.