Mr. C- L- told Mrs S- the large slit at the top of the Hawk Stone was worn by the friction of the chain when witches were chained to it and burnt.
Scraps of English Folklore, XVII. Oxfordshire
Grace Heuman; Elsie Corbett; A. A. Antrobus
Folklore, Vol. 40, No. 1. (Mar. 31, 1929), pp. 77-83
From Mercian Mysteries 2: 11 – If the Webb Stone at Bradley was moved, crops and livestock would suffer.
Another tradition relating to fertility was that young girls had to bow to it, or they would never be married.
(Puts on sarky voice:) ooh, better get bowing, girls.
Long Meg and her Daughters are associated with several common pieces of megalithic folklore. The first (as with the Rollrights and Stanton Drew for example) explains the circle as people turned into stone for their sins. In this case, they were witches holding a sabbat, with the renowned 13th century Scottish Borders magician Michael Scott taking offence. However, although the people-to-stones idea is common, it seems Long Meg and her daughters is the only circle to made up of purely witches. Perhaps it is a product of paranoid times. ‘Long Meg’ was apparently a popular nickname in medieval times for any long slim object (like cannons) – this would be around the same time as the hysteria about witches.
In common with many other sites, the stones allegedly cannot be counted – though the first person to count them correctly twice in succession will break the spell and the stones will be turned back into witches. You’ve been warned.
Despite the story about witches, oerhaps the stones are literally ‘Long Meg and her Daughters’; other stories have the circle as her lovers or her sisters. If a piece is chipped off Long Meg apparently she will bleed – rather like the elder at the King stone at the Rollrights.
Camden used a description by earliest Westmorland antiquarian (and headmaster of Appleby school) Reginald Bainbrigg, sent to him c 1600. This was the first time the name ‘Meg and her daughters’ or ‘Long Meg’ is recorded.
Besides Little Salkeld.. wher the Romaines have fought some great battle, ther standes certaine.. pyramides of stone, placed ther in the manner of a crown. They are commonlie called Meg with hir daughters. They are huge great stones, long meg standes above the ground in sight xv fote long and tre fathome about.
It’s also reputed that the squared off sides of Long Meg are aligned to the points of the compass – but I must say I didn’t have my compass when I visited – can anyone confirm?
This is no ordinary church – it’s a 150m long cleft in the gritstone here, dripping with ferns and sogginess. At its deepest/highest point the walls tower 14m above you.
It is (possibly) the legendary chapel of the Green Knight in Arthurian legend: Gawain met him for the second time here. To discover the story, I urge you to get hold of this:
amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0571223273/sr=8-3/qid=1209570128/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1209570128&sr=8-3&seller=
The Rollright Trust website also has a page explaining the wide amount of folklore connected with the complex.
rollrightstones.co.uk/index.php/stones/detail/myths-and-legends/
Could it be relevant that the church was built so that the monolith is on its North side? Not only has this cut the sun from the monolith, the door on the north of a church is known as the Devil’s Door. It wasn’t (isn’t?) used so often – for taking the coffin out after a funeral, and also it was left ajar during christenings, so that the devil could escape through it and leave the child alone. Or perhaps it was just a way of making sure that the church-goers didn’t go past it every time they went to a service, reminding them of it. But then, why not just demolish it? Scared eh? or respect? Hunt (in his Victorian ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’)says:
Strong prejudice has long existed against burying on, the northern side of the church. In many churchyards the southern side will be found full of graves, with scarcely any on the northern side.
I have sought to discover, if possible, the origin of this prejudice, but I have not been able to trace it to any well-defined feeling. I have been answered, “Oh, we like to bury a corpse where the sun will shine on the grave ;” and, “The northern graveyard is in the shadow, and cold ;” but beyond this I have not advanced.
We may infer that this desire to place the remains of our friends in earth on which the sun shines, is born of that love which, forgetting mortality, lives on the pleasant ‘memories of the past, hoping for that meeting beyond the grave which shall know no shadow. The act of planting flowers, of nurturing an evergreen tree, of hanging “eternals” on the tomb, is only another form of the same sacred feeling.
A contributor to Notes and Queries in 1850 has this to say:
North Side of Churchyards (Vol. ii., pp. 55. 189).—One of your writers has recently endeavoured to explain the popular dislike to burial on the north side of the church, by reference to the place of the churchyard cross, the sunniness, and the greater resort of the people to the south. {254} These are not only meagre reasons, but they are incorrect.
The doctrine of regions was coeval with the death of Our Lord. The east was the realm of the oracles; the especial Throne of God. The west was the domain of the people; the Galilee of all nations was there. The south, the land of the mid-day, was sacred to things heavenly and divine. The north was the devoted region of Satan and his hosts; the lair of demons, and their haunt. In some of our ancient churches, over against the font, and in the northern walls, there was a devil’s door.
It was thrown open at every baptism for the escape of the fiend, and at all other seasons carefully closed. Hence came the old dislike to sepulture at the north.
R.S. HAWKER.
gutenberg.org/files/13462/13462-h/13462-h.htm#page251
Another folktale is that the stone is supposed to have grown there in one night! Rather like a mushroom by the sound of it. Or maybe a toadstool (they’ve got a bad reputation themselves).
(from Grinsell’s folklore of prehistoric sites, plus ideas about the North door from various internet pages and Hunt’s book online at sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm)
St Lythans is also known as Gwal y Filiast – the greyhound bitch’s kennel. Maybe the greyhound comes from stories about Ceridwen: themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=2234
The cromlech stands in cursed field, where nothing is supposed to be able to grow.
It’s also known as ‘Maes y felin’ – the mill in the meadows. Perhaps this is because the capstone spins round three times on Midsummer’s Eve, like a millstone? “Old people in the beginning of the 19th century said that once a year, on Midsummer Eve, the stones in Maes Y Felin field whirled round three times and made curtsies; and if anybody went to them on Hallowe’en, and whispered in good faith, it would be obtained. The field in which these stones stand was unprofitable, and people said the land was under a curse.” (Marie Trevelyan, Folk lore and folk stories of Wales, 1909 ).
This cromlech lies by a brook in a steep sided valley. Twlc y Filiast means ‘Lair of the Greyhound Bitch’.
I couldn’t find anything to connect it directly with this site, but Ceridwen (moon goddess) had the greyhound bitch as one of her symbols – in fact she could turn herself into one:
“The dog was an animal of importance in the mythology and folk-lore of Wales. Ceridwen, the moon goddess, had for one of her symbols a “miliast,” or greyhound bitch. When initiating Gwion the Little into her mysteries, Ceridwen transformed herself into a “milast.”
The canine symbol of Ceridwen was well known in Wales, and is perpetuated in many places to this day. Gwal y Filiast, “the lair of the greyhound bitch,” in the parish of Llanbendy, Carmarthenshire, consists of a large stone supported by four pillars. There is another Gwal y Filiast in Glamorgan, and in Cardiganshire a similar stone is called Llech yr Ast, “the flat stone of the bitch.” In the parish of Llanhamlwch, Breconshire, there is a place called Maen yr Ast, “the bitch stone,” abbreviated into Mannest.”
(chapter 6 of Marie Trevelyan’s ‘Folklore and Folkstories of Wales’ 1909).
You may be familiar with an example of it which is part of the story of Taliesin. As a boy he was being employed to keep an eye on a cauldron she was brewing up, full of a spell that would make the drinker the wisest person in the world. A bit of the mixture spat out and burned his thumb, so he instinctively put it in his mouth to soothe it. But of course he’d swallowed some of the mixture! So realising that Ceridwen would be very angry (she is portrayed as a miserable old witch in the story) he legged it.
When she found out what had happened and started running after him, he found he could become a hare to run faster. She then turned herself into a greyhound and began to gain on him. As they passed a river he quickly turned himself into a fish and dived in – but he wasn’t safe because she followed him as an otter. Jumping out of the water he transformed himself into a songbird and flew higher and higher – but was once more pursued as she sprouted wings and became a hawk. Quick thinking, he changed himself into a tiny grain of wheat, and plummeted to the ground, but she landed next to him, became a hen, and gobbled him up. Later on, when she’d turned back into a woman, she found she was pregnant (but that’s a different story...)
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab32.htm
Aubrey noted that “No history gives any account of this hill; the tradition only is, that King Sil or Zel, as the countrey folke pronounce, was buried here on horseback, and that the hill was raysed while a posset of milke was seething..”
Or you could believe the story that it was dumped there by the devil – it’s a story found all over Britain about various mysterious mounds and hills. The people of Marlborough hated the people of Devizes, and somehow they’d got the devil to agree to smother them with a big spadeful of earth, to get them out of their hair for good. A cobbler (or St John?) was walking towards Marlborough with a cartload of worn out shoes, which he was going to mend. He asked the devil what he was doing. On hearing the reply he explained that he’d set out from Devizes a very long time ago, and pointed to all the shoes in his cart – explaining that he’d worn them out along the way. The devil’s very lazy, so he decided he couldn’t be bothered to walk such a distance. He dropped the spadeful of earth by the side of the road in disgust, and it became Silbury Hill.
On a moonlit night you might see King Sil in golden armour ride by the hill. Perhaps that’s because he’s buried on horseback – or maybe in a golden coffin. A headless man is also sometimes seen. Kathleen Wiltshire (in her ‘Ghosts and Legends of the Wiltshire Countryside’) recounted how she’d been told these legends when she was a small girl, by an old stone-breaker, Worthy Gaisford.
Geoffrey of Monmouth put down his version of events in 1136AD:
King Aurelius Ambrosius (aka King Arthur’s uncle – Uther Pendragon’s brother) had been in a terrible battle, and wanted a fitting monument for the 300 of his men that had died. He asked Merlin’s advice, who suggested that if he wanted a ‘work that shall endure forever’ he should ‘send for the dance of the Giants’ from Killare in Ireland. Apparently the Dance of the Giants was a stone circle in Ireland, and Merlin just wanted to transfer them as they were to the new plot on Salisbury Plain. Whether the stones were giants turned to stone, or just metaphorical giants I don’t think is mentioned.
The king sent his men over to Killare, where they proceeded to beat up the Irish – but when it came to actually removing the stones noone could shift them. Merlin ‘put together his own engines’ (engines?) and ‘laid the stones down so lightly as none would believe.‘
They were then carried by ship to England and reconstructed on the Plain.
Another explanation was that the devil had been enlisted, by Merlin, to bring the stones over. They belonged to an old Irish woman. The devil said that if she let him have them, she could have as much money as she could count out of his purse while he was removing them. She agreed, but of course the devil had no intention of paying out. He made the stones disappear instantly, so she had only counted out one coin.
The devil was boasting that no-one knew how he had acquired the stones, but a friar was listening who had secretly watched the whole scene. When the friar spoke up, the devil threw one of the stones at him. You can now see the mark where it hit him – on the heel – on the heel stone.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the heel stone because it’s out at the back. Or just that it heels (leans) over. Is the Heel Stone even an ancient name for the stone?
There doesn’t seem to be a legend to explain how the stones got here – Jordan in her ‘Folklore of Ancient Wiltshire’ suggests that perhaps that’s because of the village: familiarity breeds contempt?
Various stones have special names; there’s the Swindon stone mentioned below, the Devil’s Chair at the southern entrance (young women reputedly sat in it to make a wish on May Day Eve), and the cove of the N inner circle were called the ‘Devil’s Brand Irons’.
There is a rumour (mentioned by Stukeley?) that snakes cannot live within the circle. But in christian mythology the snake often represents the devil. So really you’d expect the circle to be knee-deep in snakes! However, on the church font at Avebury there is a carving of a bishop crushing a dragon/serpent with his crozier (nasty man) – so perhaps the ‘no snakes’ thing is actually a memory of the christian church insisting that Paganism Is Over Around Here. On the other hand, you will notice that the church isn’t actually within the stone circle: perhaps they didn’t dare put it in there??
A dog from the fairy otherworld inhabits the barrow. He is white with red ears – as you’d expect from his heritage.
On Midsummer’s morning you can see him entering the barrow at sunrise (perhaps as some kind of metaphor of the barrow’s alignment and the sun?)
[edit – I’ve found a kind of source for this – Janet and Colin Bord’s ‘Atlas of Magical Britain’. They say “the ghost of a priest enters the barrow at sunrise on Midsummer Day, followed by a ghostly white dog.”
But where did they hear that? Who knows. I fear it is from the modern celtic revival (ie randomly made up for reasons of romance). But maybe that’s no worse than being made up at some point in the past. A place so impressive rather needs some impressive story, don’t you think. White fairy dogs with red ears are in genuinely old stories. And some burial chambers in Wales are kennels for greyhounds. So it’s not ridiculous to transport the story here. Just not very “authentic” perhaps. Anyway. Maybe who cares.
But if you know different... please leave a post.)
- – - – - – -
During excavation, holed limpet and periwinkle shells were found – perhaps they were strung as parts of necklaces or amulets? or had some symbolism connected with their far off origins? I always pick up shells at the beach...
(shell info from Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’)
Another fierce contender for the ‘second biggest manmade hill after Silbury’ this 18m high mound sits overgrown in the grounds of a school. It’s not a quarter of the volume of Silbury though. It was long said to be Norman, but when the Hartford family reshaped it John Aubrey reported that Roman coins had been found in the side – so surely it must be at least Roman in age (unless some joker put the coins in later – unlikely I feel). They also found red deer antler picks – which also backs up the theory the hill was built in the Neolithic.
Like Silbury Hill and the lost barrow at Marden it lies partly surrounded in a bend of a river. Stukeley believed that a spring rose under it – or at least from inside the ditch.
The name ‘marlborough’ comes from the site perhaps, from the anglo-saxon ‘Maerle beorg’ – Maerla’s barrow. It is also said to be the burial place of Merlin – the town’s motto is ‘Ubi nunc sapientis ossa Merlini’ ie Where now are the bones of wise Merlin. I don’t know if this is a statement or a question..
According to messages on the TMA forum, it is fairly easy to obtain permission to visit if you say you are a student of archaeology – but maybe given the news above, visitors will be encouraged in the school holidays in future anyway?
The mound apparently sported a spiral path in the past, a charming gazebo on the top – but now a rather ugly water tank.
(partly from Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’)
‘Big Cley Hill do wear a hat. Little Cley Hill do laugh at that.‘
Little Cley sits at the foot of Cley Hill. Maybe the hat refers to the impression the earthworks give. Or maybe (as Ella Noyes says in her 1913 book ‘Salisbury Plain’) it’s to do with cloud resting on the big hill when it’s going to rain.
There are several customs associated with Palm Sunday here. The grass was burnt ‘to burn the devil out’ (the last time this was done was apparently 1924). People also used to play ‘Bandy’ – a kind of hillside hockey, where a line of people with curved sticks tried to hit a ball from the bottom to the top of the hill.
From what my boyfriend’s grandfather has said, I think it was a popular place for a knees-up in his youth, and he even said something about driving a truck up there (which would seem a bit difficult, but maybe if you followed the earthworks round it would no doubt have been possible?).
Bratton Castle is the name of the hill fort perched up here above the white horse between Bratton and Westbury. Right in the middle is a longbarrow, so I suppose people have been using the site for a lot longer than the Iron Age. The view up here is pretty fantastic. You sometimes get mad people up here hanging off their parachute/kite contraptions which is quite entertaining to watch.
Bratton Castle is reputedly the battlefield for King Alfred’s victory over the Danes, with the white horse being built as a memorial. There’s some debate about how long a white horse has been here at all. Some say the present (now concreted) one was made in the 18th century, but drawings exist of a horse facing in the opposite direction – perhaps that was there previously, or is it a printer’s mistake? The drawing shows a stretched out animal, apparently half daschund, looking a bit bonkers. The present figure frequently undergoes controversial little alterations – it has been turned into a zebra, and has also sported a hat.
It’s a fantastic spot (particularly when sunny) – especially if you ignore the cement works below. My boyfriend’s grandma had her ashes scattered here (unfortunately it always seems rather windy up here and he got a faceful).
This site, as so many of the entries above have said, is so clearly chosen for the fantastic way the mountains encircle this plateau. You can walk round and round and everywhere you see alignments of the stones with the mountains, echoes of the shapes in the skyline. This is the place to convince you that the landscape is sacred, that the space outside the circle is as important as whatever went on inside it. There have been many studies of the possible astronomical alignments here too – though personally the alignments with the landscape seem enough for me.
The circle is known as the Druid’s Circle, but I haven’t found any traditional stories which relate to the site. A relatively recent story concerns the experience of a Mr Singleton and his companion, who in 1919 saw some strange balls of white light moving among the stones.
From The English Mechanic, October 17th, 1919:
“Some years ago, during Easter, returning to Keswick from an ascent of Helvelly with a hotel acqauintance, we saw lights, no doubt will o’ the wisps. It was so dark that we had to probe for the road walls with our sticks, when we were at a point near which the track branches off to the Druidical Circle (the stone circle of Castlerigg).
Then, all at once we saw a rapidly moving light, as bright as the acetylene bicycle lamp, and we instinctively stepped to the road boundary wal to make way for it, but nothing came.
As a matter of fact, the light travelled at right angles to the road, say 20 feet above our level, possibly 200 yards or so away.
It was a white light, and having crossed the road it suddenly went out... when we saw a number of lights, possibly a third of a mile or so away, directly in the direction of the Castlerigg stone circle, but of course much fainter, due to the distance. The lights were moving backwards and forwards horizontally; we stood observing them for a long time. Whilst we were watching... a remarkable incident happened, one of the lights, and only one, came straight to the spot where we were standing, at first very faint.
As it approached the light increased in intensity. When it came quite near I was in no doubt whether I should stop below the boundary wall, as the light would pass directly over us, but when it came close to the wall it slowed down, stopped, quivered and disappeared. The light was globular, white with a nucleus, possibly six feet or so in diameter, and just high enough above the ground to pass over our heads.”
Bright oval lights were also seen more recently at the circle, in 1997 (admittedly by some people who were having ‘a laugh and a drink’)
Men An Tol means ‘stone of the hole’ in Cornish – the stone’s also been known as ‘The Devil’s Eye’. Holed stones are often thought to have special powers, especially for healing.
If scrofulous children are passed naked through the Men-an-tol three times, and then drawn on the grass three times against the sun, it is felt by the faithful that much has been done towards insuring a speedy cure. Even men and women who have been afflicted with spinal diseases, or who have suffered from scrofulous taint, have been drawn through this magic stone, which all declare still retains its ancient virtues.
– from Hunt’s ‘Popular Romances of the West of England’ (online at the sacred texts archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/prwe069.htm)
Hunt also described how the holed stone could answer your questions:
“If 2 brass pins are carefully laid across each other on the top edge of the stone, any question put to the rock will be answered by the pins acquiring, through some unknown agency, a peculiar motion.”
Unfortunately he didn’t mention how to interpret the peculiar motion. You’ll just have to give it a go.
The site as it is has obvious sexual / fertility symbolism – but maybe it wasn’t always as we see it now: there is a lot of debate over whether the stones have been rearranged, were part of a circle, tomb or cairn. The Avening Burial Chamber had a porthole style entrance – maybe this was the same.
Apparently -
Mottistone means ‘speaker’s stone’ in Old English. The Druids are supposed to have sacrificed white bulls beside the longstone (white cattle with red ears belonged to the fairies or came from the Celtic underworld, so perhaps that is relevant). The two stones here have been interpreted as male and female. Perhaps it’s more likely they are the remains of a destroyed burial chamber with more stones.
(folklore found in the Reader’s Digest ‘Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain’)
King Arthur and his men ride round the hill on silver-shod horses when there’s a full moon at midsummer. They ride over the hill to the spring next to Sutton Montis church. You can also hear their horses in Arthur’s Lane (is this ‘Folly Lane’?). It is also called ‘King Arthur’s Hunting Causeway’. Normally Arthur and his knights live inside the hill: it’s hollow, and they lie sleeping waiting for when the country needs their help.
Sounds from King Arthur’s Well can be heard at Queen Anne’s Wishing Well, which is a good 200 metres away, but still within the ramparts.
(partly from J+C Bord’s ‘Atlas of Magical Britain’, also ‘Somerset Folklore’ by Ruth Tongue, 1965, collected 1906)
[King Arthur and his knights] come riding down from Camelot to drink of the waters of a spring by Sutton Monks [sic] Church on the eve of every Christmas Day (J A Bennet, Cadbury, p4). According to another account, related to me by Mrs Church, King Arthur goes down to drink on St. John’s Eve, and anyone he meets, if not of perfectly pure life, he strikes dead.
From The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore
Arthur J. Evans
Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), p25 in pp. 6-53.
In 1872 the Bath Nat. Hist and Antiq. Field Club took an excursion here – they recorded the story about King Arthur riding around the hill with his men on silver-shod horses – and to prove it, they were told that one of the shoes had been found embedded in the track! King Arthur’s Lane is also mentioned as ‘a nearly lost bridle path leaving Cadbury by its West gate’ and heading straight for Glastonbury.
S Toulson (in ‘Moors of the Southwest, v1’ 1983) says that the fairies who lived in the surrounding fields used to bring corn up to the fort to give to Arthur. This was until the installation of bells in the nearby church – at which time they left.
Delightfully located just outside Hinkley Point nuclear power station, Wick Barrow is also known as ‘Pixies’ Mound’. I noticed on the HP website that they intend to Enhance the Appearance of Pixies Mound. Goodness knows what this means, hopefully they will just mow it now and again.
In this mound the pixies were said to live, and an old barn close at hand is the last place where they were seen by “Mr. Rawlin’s uncle.” He heard the sound of threshing, and crept up to the barn to see who was making free with his corn. As he came near he heard voice.
“How i do tweat,” said one.
“So thee do tweat, do ‘ee?” answered another, “well then, I do tweat and double tweat, looky zee!”
Mr. Rawlins’s uncle looked over the half-door, and there were the pixies with their red caps.
“Well done, my little vellows!” he cried, and at that they fled, and have been seen no more.
The story is not unusual, of course, and occurs in connection with other old barns and relatives of other living men elsewhere in the district.Another less common legend, but one which is found elsewhere in England and Scandinavia alike, is that of a ploughman who was at work in one of the Sidwell fields. As he worked he heard what he took to be a child crying, and lamenting that it had “broken its peel,” round the barrow. The “peel” is the long wooden shovel with which the bread is put into the old brick-ovens, but the man went to see if he could find the child, whom he supposed must have wandered from home. He could see no one, but on the side of the mound was the broken peel, which he mended with string, being good natured, and supposing that the child could not be far away. When he left work in the evening he went to see if the peel had been recovered. It was gone, but in its place was a cake hot from the oven of the grateful pixy.
There is no treasure-legend attached to the mound [..] It was said that “beautiful music comes from it of a night,” and [..] “that a Dane was buried there.” But the most persistent statement concerning the mound was that “if it were digged down by day, it would be put back that night.”
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.
Presumably he ate the cake thinking it was a present for him- but what if it was just out cooling?! And note that usually you should refuse fairy food – but generally it’s ok if it’s a gift for you (under which circumstances it could be dangerously rude to refuse).
(edited to provide earlier versions of the stories).
You know us country types, anything to play up to the townies’ idea of us as stupid, so we can laugh at their gullibility when they go home.
But apparently, it was a common belief in East Anglia (and probably elsewhere – the Growing Stone in South Wales) that pebbles grow in the soil into large stones.
The Blaxhall stone is on the land of Stone Farm, Blaxhall. Apparently it was only the size of a small loaf a century or two ago. But now it’s about 5 tons. It’s good soil round here.
Alternative versions have the devil adding an extra loaf when the baker wasn’t looking, or appearing disguised as another loaf. Another has the baker finally totting up the stones but dropping dead just as he’s about to utter the result. You have been warned. They are called the countless stones, for goodness’ sake.
As mentioned above, this is reputedly the site of combat between a British chieftan and the Jutish Horsa c455AD. It is said that sometimes you can see the combatants still fighting ‘in uncanny silence’. Castleden notes in his ‘Neolithic Britain’ that it is supposed to be Horsa who is buried here.
It is also supposed to be known as the hut of St Christopher – well, according to Castleden who suggests some bizarre explanation referring to fords: but this is on top of the hill and surely well away from any fords?? Feel free to prove me wrong.
It’s also said that if you place an object on the capstone at full moon it will disappear when you walk round the stones three times. Makes you wonder what you might try getting rid of.
St Paulinus was a missionary in the 7th century. One day he was riding his ass along the ancient trackway above Caistor. The ass was more obstinate than usual because it hadn’t had any breakfast. St Paulinus saw a man up ahead who was sowing corn. Perhaps he would share some of the grain? He asked the man for some corn from the sack in the field. ‘Oh that’s not a sack,’ replied the farmer. ‘That’s – a stone.‘
A stone, eh. ‘Then stone it shall be’ retorted St Paulinus. And so it was. Apparently it stayed in place in the field for many generations, and then a farmer decided to move it off his land. It was practically immoveable and took a whole team of horses to shift. After that every misfortune imaginable fell on the farm. The farmer thought he’d better replace the stone. This time an old horse managed to drag it up the slope easily by itself.
It’s also said that various other people who’ve damaged it have come to a sticky end, like one of the builders of the nearby Pelham’s Pillar in the 1840s, who chipped a bit off and then mysteriously fell from the pillar and was killed.
The stone is supposed to have a ‘gathered’ effect like the mouth of a sack. Can anyone track it down??
Hen Pit Hole lies between Langtoft and Kilham. In Langtoft you can see a stone slab embedded in a house wall, which tells of the huge flood in 1892 when the waters rose to 7 1/2 ft above street level. The local well, ‘Toon Well’ filled with debris – quite impressive since it was 126ft deep (it’s now covered over). When there’s been very wet weather and the well rises like this, water starts gushing out of Hen Pit Hole with enormous force.
It was said that a man could ride a horse under the spectacular arch of water without getting wet. John Nicholson reported on his website (https://www.helperthorpe.freeserve.co.uk)
that his own father had been able to pass under the water ‘in a crouching attitude’.
The traditional explanation for the name ‘Hen Pit Hole’ is that a gypsey* put a hen into the well at Langtoft, and it reappeared at the site. The dell is supposed to be haunted by a ghostly hen and her 9 chicks!!
However, it’s been suggested that because the intermittent phenomenon at the site is/ would have been so impressive, it would have been a natural focus for ‘nature worship’ – or what you will. Perhaps the name Hen comes from Hen Wen, reputedly a “Celtic” goddess connected with water. Or perhaps the Norse water goddess Ran, who had 9 daughers.
*Is this just confusion with the gypsey of the ‘Gypsey Race’ – the intermittent springs of the Wolds?
(I’m not sure if this is the same gypsey as the one going past Wold Newton)
The Gypsey Race is the only surface stream on the ‘High Wolds’ of Yorkshire. There are a number of ‘Gypsies’ in the region – they are streams that only flow with water intermittently and irregularly. They are associated with divination and are supposed to flow particularly vigorously before major events. These are often unhappy ones, and the streams are also known as ‘Woe Waters’.
The fish stone is 5.5m high, and is probably the tallest standing stone in Wales (certainly Powys).
It must get fed up stuck on the bank – so every Midsummer’s Eve it leaps into the river for a swim. There must be some splash.
In ‘The Secret Country’ Janet and Colin Bord describe John Williams’ experience at the stone. The “experienced dowser from Abergavenny” felt a spiralling force building up in his body as he touched the stone, whereupon he was thrown backwards off it (and no doubt landed unceremoniously on his bottom).
St Weonard’s Tump is a bronze age barrow reused as a Norman motte. Excavation in 1855 revealed two burnt human burials under a cover of stones. The village church was built less than 100m away.
It is a prominent landmark right at the centre of the village, and seems to have been used as a focus for the community for centuries: a Victorian writer (ok, maybe romantically) spoke of it being used ‘since time immemorial’ for fetes and dancing. It is planted with trees – most recently to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Just try to ignore the disused water tank sunk into the summit.
The folklore is christianised – St Weonard is said to be buried inside in a golden coffin, or maybe on a golden coffer filled with gold, with the inscription “Where this stood is another twice as good; but where that is, no man knows”.
This round barrow, one of the largest in Wiltshire, is said to conceal a golden chair at its bottom. Some visitors tried to open the hill, but were stopped by the local people. This was told to LVG in 1950, by Christopher Oliver of Shaw House, West Overton.
(From Grinsell’s Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain. Also in
Barrow Treasure, in Fact, Tradition, and Legislation
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 1. (Spring, 1967), pp. 1-38. ).
The area round these barrows is excitingly haunted by a headless horse and some spectral hounds. Stay on the path.
(Grinsell, ‘folklore of prehistoric sites in Britain’)
Grinsell (Folklore of prehistoric sites in Britain) says the barrow associated with the stones is supposed to be immovable. Though I don’t think there’s much left bar the stones, so it can’t have been that immovable.
The area is “said to be” haunted by a lady in white (a ‘Lake Lady’ more fairy than ghost, says Ruth Tongue). However I am not wholly convinced that this bit of folklore was originally attached to this site. In PSAS v21 for 1875, the Lady in White is mentioned – but in a paragraph about Parc-y-Meirw at Fishguard, casually thrown into the middle of a discussion about Murtry Hill. I felt confused when I read it and I wonder if some people have got the wrong end of the stick from this very bit of writing. The idea is repeated in the 1912 ‘highways and byways in somerset’ by Hutton – but perhaps he just read it in the PSAS journal. I suppose the only way to know is to find someone who’s seen a white lady at Murtry Hill! Otherwise, it seems like the idea’s stuck anyway.
Ruth Tongue also mentions how some men were once employed to dig up the stones. They got down ten feet – but the stone was still going and it was still ‘rock’ solid. Suddenly it fell and squashed a man – and immediately (to the astonishment of the onlookers) returned to its original position. So do show the stones some respect should you visit – you never know...
(in ‘Somerset Folklore’ 1965. The workman’s fate was told to her in 1909 by a school friend. The 10ft anecdote was from the 1933 Somerset yearbook)
The stones are also mentioned in ‘The Sun and the Serpent’ (by Miller and Broadhurst) as one of the sites on the cross-England ley line of St Michael/Mary. If you go in for such things. It connects Glastonbury, Avebury and many other esoteric spots.
Pixie Rocks (aka Swincombe Rocks) are probably the source of the stone for the Longstone.
If you haven’t guessed, the crags of this quiet combe are also home to pixies.
There are 11 barrows here on Challacombe (’Homer’) Common. Westcote (in his 1630 history of Devonshire) said that these “divers hillocks of earth” were supposed to have fiery dragons flying and lighting on them*.
Nearby you may find the Negus stone which commemorates an 18 year old, Robin Negus, who thought the place was top.
*I haven’t read the original but this was noted in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.
Fiddler’s Hill comes complete with picnic site, you lucky people.
It was thought that there was an underground tunnel connecting Binham Priory with the one at Walsingham. One day a fiddler decided to check the tunnel out to see if it was true. He took his dog with him for company. As he set off he started playing his fiddle, and the people of Binham followed the sound above ground. After a while the music suddenly stopped. This coincided with them reaching the mound now known as Fiddler’s Hill. The fiddler was never seen again (although his dog finally made it back to the entrance shivering and whining). The entrance to the tunnel mysteriously fell in.
I belive the story is similar to some in other parts of the country. William Mayne’s ‘Earthfasts’ uses a drummer boy to replace the fiddler.
The veracity of [this incident] is, however, proof against the valiant deeds of bygone generations, becauase “Jimmy Griggs” and his canine friend “Trap” were characters well known to the great-grandfathers of many of the unimpeachable inhabitants of Binham.
From ‘History of the Borough of King’s Lynn, volume 1’ by Henry J Hillen (1907).
Mutlow Hill is a mid Bronze age roundbarrow next to the impressive Saxon Fleam Dyke. It was reused by the Romans for a temple site. A gold coach is reputedly buried inside. An 1852 source put it that this “is, or should I rather now say has, been implicitly believed among the labouring classes thereabouts for many years.“(!)*
‘Mutlow Hill’ might come from ‘Moot Low’ / ‘Gemot hlaw’ – a Saxon meeting mound. It is at the boundary of three hundreds.
*quoted by Westwood and Simpson in their 2005 ‘Lore of the Land’.
Wayting Hill is just next to Ravensburgh Castle, an iron age fort and alleged stronghold of Cassivellaunus, said to have been attacked in 54BC by Julius Caesar.
A warrior lies sleeping (wayting?!) underneath the hill until the day arises when he will wake up and march to victory. (This has echos of the ‘sleeper under the hill’ legends attached to Arthur and such sites as Alderley Edge, does it not?) I read somewhere that it was actually a long barrow at the site(?); elsewhere J+C Bord say it is a round barrow. Neither is evident on the OS map.
At the foot of Wayting Hill was once a famous holy well and the shrine of St Faith’s. This was in the churchyard in Hexton – but was unfortunately destroyed in the 17th century.
Springs emerge from the hill beneath the fort, and next to them an area called ‘Fairy Hole’ – so all in all, this is a locality steeped in legend!
(more gleaned at ukdecay.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=215&sid=5f22e11c463d3c880583e3a0869ad914)
Cow castle (aka Ring Castle) was built by the pixies at the confluence of the Barle and White Water. The good pixies were constantly at war with the bad mine spirits. The pixie queen decided to build the castle on this conical hill. Each stone and turf was carefully imbued with the memory of a good deed. Thus the whole place was infused with good vibes and the evil mine spirits just couldn’t get in.
The Reverend George Tugwell (in his North Devon Scenery Book of 1863 – and noted in Bord’s 2004 ‘Fairy Sites’) also said that the fairies placed a standing stone at the entrance, and that people had seen them as bright lights flying around the fort.
In Toulson’s ‘Moors of the Southwest 1’ (1983) she describes a conical outcrop of rock which is just to the south of Cow Castle, near the river. It is known as the Calf, and she says it was this that the fairies built to protect themselves from the earth spirits.
Another site on the Icknield Way, Galley Hill has two rather mauled barrows on it. One was used for the site of a gibbet (galley from ‘gallows’?), and lots of people including so-called witches were hanged here. A horse’s skull with a dice at the end of its nose was found buried in the barrow, which Dyer says “probably relates to witchcraft.”
(info in Dyer’s Southern England)
It’s apparently intervisible with Five Knolls.
A long distance photo is here: themodernantiquarian.com/post/54446
This circle is known in the neighbourhood by the name of Mitchell’s Fold. The traditionary story of which is – that within this circle an old man of the name of Mitchell kept a cow, which cow was indued with so much benevolence for the human race, that she contributed to the supply of almost all the wants of the surrounding peasantry, constantly suffering herself to be milked for any one’s benefit; and whatever was the quantity required by the person who was milking her, she supplied it. No vessel, however capacious, was suffered to return empty, nor to be only partially filled; till, at last, an old wicked hag of a witch, jealous of and hating so great a good, brought her pail and milked the generous beast; at the same time threw a spell over her, which prevented her from ever afterwards supplying her owner, or the neighbourhood with a single pailful.
p144 in ‘Museum Europaeum’ by Charles Hulbert (1825).
This version misses off the more satisfying ending which I know, viz, the cow was pretty disgusted and disappeared, never to be seen again – and meanwhile the witch was turned into the largest standing stone.
But on second thoughts, maybe the people were taking advantage of the overly generous cow – and the witch did a good job of saving the poor animal from Abuse. They didn’t have the RSPCA in those days you know.
There are apparently some good carvings of the story at a church at SO298993, done in 1879, which could be worth a look.
The story is mentioned in the third volume of ‘The Family Memoirs of Rev. William Stukeley’:
Cherbury, Shropshire.-- “A proverb in this country, ‘Medgelly’s cow, for one that gives a deal of milk.’ The report of this temple is that a cow in this place gave milk to all the honest and good folks of the neighbourhood; but one of evil life milked her into a sieve, whereupon the cow disappeared and never came more.” --1753. p179.
Stukely quoted in Edward Peacock’s contribution to
Notes and Queries
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4. (1888), pp. 273.
The mound is the result of the devil scraping his spade after he’d dug his ‘Devil’s Ditches’ in the locality. If you walk round the hill seven times at midnight you’ll get to meet him. A hollow in the hill is known as ‘the Devil’s Hole’.
There are also said to be golden or silver bells buried in the mound.
(J+C Bord, ‘Atlas of Magical Britain’)
This, believe it or not, contains a golden wheelbarrow.
[edit] – I’ve now found where this story probably comes from, and I expect I originally saw it in Grinsell’s 1976 folklore book:
Littleton Drew, Barrow Lane: anyone digging in vicinity is asked, ‘are you digging for the golden wheel-barrow?’ (Rev. R. B. Lamplugh, vicar, to L.v.G., about 1950.) The Lugbury long barrow (in Nettleton parish) is near.
Barrow Treasure, in Fact, Tradition, and Legislation
L. V. Grinsell
Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 1. (Spring, 1967), pp. 1-38.
It’s no good – farmers with all their horses chained up to the stones just can’t shift them. Besides this would deprive a demon of his breakfast – if you pour some water into the depressions on the top slab you can guarantee that some fiend will have drunk it by the morning.
At midnight the Devil yokes up 4 white oxen to try and mve it – and even he can’t. (Why he wants to do this when it’s his own den I don’t know). A great white dog watches them from under the capstone, with eyes like burning coals. Or perhaps it’s a giant white rabbit with similar eyes (or a hare? – that seems a bit less soppy?). White animals (with red ears) generally come from the underworld in Celtic mythologies.
(these stories in ‘Folklore of Ancient Wiltshire’ by Katy Jordan)
Fort / ancient flint mines reputedly the last stronghold of the fairies in England. Apparently they left in 1925 when the flint mines reopened. Too much noise I expect.
How’s this for a weird bit of (modern) folklore? (found in Grinsell’s ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’)
The Manton round barrow was excavated in 1906, and they found an old woman’s skeleton amongst a number of grave goods. For some reason (unspecified) the skeleton was kept in a shed for a number of years. The owner of the shed apparently decided to send one of the skeleton’s fingers away to a friend overseas. He himself had circulatory problems and soon it turned out that he had to have a finger amputated. For some reason he then took it upon himself to replace the skeleton’s finger with his own, and he reburied the whole skeleton back in the barrow*. A ghost was then repeatedly seen looking in at his cottage window for the next few weeks.
(v odd and even sounds quite muddled, as you’d have expected the replacement of the finger to have happened after the ghost appeared. And you’d have thought being stored in a shed would annoy you more than having your finger removed. Dunno. For those interested, Grinsell notes the original sources and you could always look these over.)
*As MJB mentions below – the reburial in the barrow is at least actually true.
May 2025. I have discovered that this story – skeleton uncovered, wailing outside the window, vowing to rebury the skeleton, keeping the little finger, the wailing continuing, the excavator’s finger gets infected and needs to be amputated, they bury the finger in the grave and everything’s great again – it’s a story by Ethel Hampton in the Tatler of 18th February 1931 (“The Bath Road, an eerie story of the Wiltshire Downs”). I don’t think it’s even pretending to be anything other than fiction?
Grinsell said (in his 1975 folklore collection) “In dry summer weather I occasionally see children sliding down the shaggy grass-covered steeps... They sit on the discarded paper bags that held chemical fertiliser.” Much comfier than a jawbone.
A G Bradley’s 1907 ‘Round about Wiltshire’ says:
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, great sports were held up here on Martinsell. The custome still, I believe, survives in picnics for children. But at the original function a part of the programme consisted in sliding down the almost perpendicular face of the hill seated on the jawbones of horses, a practice which an antiquarian friend in the neighbourhood believes to show some trace of pagan origin. I can myself remember as a child the well-worn mark of a slide traced down this three or four hundred feet of precipitous turf, and the legend that a certain grave episcopal and academic dignitary, then living, had been persuaded to launch himself down it, without the assistance even of the horse’s jawbone, and that having once started had to continue his career unchecked till he landed safe but sore in the vale of Pewsey. All trace, however, of the historic slide has long vanished. But within the memory of men only elderly, the pugilists of the neighbouring villages used to take advantage fo what was left of the ancient festival, and fight out their battles on the top of Martinsell. These encounters were sometimes so ferocious that unsuccessful efforts were made to stamp out the festival, which, however, died a natural death.
At Cissbury Ring there is a treasure concealed in an underground tunnel guarded by serpents. Perhaps this is linked to the extensive Neolithic flint mines on the western side of the hill? 250 blocked shafts have been found – up to 12m deep with side galleries.
The Ring itself is actually a lump of earth thrown off the Devil’s spade as he was digging his Devil’s Dyke.
from Janet and Colin Bord (in ‘Prehistoric Britain from the air)
Apparently the Devil threw the Goldstone here after it fell on his foot as he was excavating the Devil’s Dyke (he was trying to let the sea through into the Weald to drown all the people there).
I had to include this stone – firstly for its excellent name, but also for the piece of folklore attached to it, which seems strangely upside down.
This stone (3ftx3ftx2ft) is apparently a boundary stone, and lies between Southwick and Thunders Barrow (at TQ229083). It is said that it used to be part of the parish church. ?!
The Wimblestone / Wimble Stone stands in a field at Pylle Well, to the NW of the Star Inn. It’s 5’6” high, 6’2” broad and 18” thick.
Legend has it that it can move (wimble means giddy or lively – though it’s also the name of a stonecutter’s tool for boring holes, and the stone does have a hole). On nights when there’s a full moon or on Midsummer’s eve (especially both) it goes dancing round its field. Underneath it is said to be a pot full of gold.
One day a farmer decided to move the stone, so he chained it to two of his horses. They struggled all day but had to give up, exhausted. That evening the stone leapt up and roamed across the Mendips to the nearby Water Stone near Wrington to tell it all about how stupid the farmer was. The Water Stone always contains water in the hollow of the capstone, and the Wimble Stone had a good drink before returning to its own field.
[I imagine I read this in Grinsell’s collected ‘Folklore of Prehistoric sites’]
The remains of this burial chamber are just south of Bristol Airport. The mound is almost gone. The cover slab remains – with a hollow in it that collects the rain water, hence the name. The slab is said to always have water in it, and this was taken advantage of by the Wimblestone, who once came to drink here. It’s also said (R Tongue – ‘Somerset Folklore’ 1965) that offerings of primroses and milk were once made here.
A mile or so to the west is Goblin Combe – definite proof of the area’s general otherworldly credentials, don’t you think. Goblin Combe has a folktale involving primroses too.
There was a parcel of children and they was a-picking primroses, see, and one poor little dear her wandered away on her lone self right down into Goblin Combe. She were only a little trot, see, and didn’t know no better. Well, when she do find she’s a lost she cries, and the tears do run down her dear little face, and dap on her pinafore like summer rain, and she do throw her self against a rock. Then the rock opens and there’s the fairises all come to comfort her tears. They do give her a gold ball and they lead the dear little soul safe home – on account she was carrying primroses, see.
Well, twas the wonder of the village and the conjuror he gets the notion he’d aget his fistes on more than one gold ball when next the fairises opened the hill. So he do pick a bunch of primroses and he go on up Goblin Combe, and he was glad enough to get in to the rock after all he see and hear on the way up. Well, twasn’t the right day, nor the right number of primroses, and he wasn’t no dear little soul – so they took him!
From ‘Folktales of England’ by Briggs and Tongue (1965). It was collected by Ruth Tongue who heard it told in chorus by two old ladies from Clevedon in 1945.