Rhiannon

... We came to Tintagell Head, a spot more than commonly interesting, not only from the grandeur of its local scenery, but its connection with names and events of our remotest history.

This promontory was once entirely separated from the mainland, but is now connected with it at its base, by a mound of earth which has fallen from the cliffs above. We climbed up it by the best, and indeed the only path, a most frightful ascent over steps of rock, projecting, at very irregular intervals, from the side of a precipice.

On the top, which includes an area of about three acres of ground, are the ruins of a castle, once the residence of the earliest kings and dukes of Cornwall, and illustrious as the birthplace of the far-famed king Arthur.

Lord Bacon observes of this prince, that there is truth enough in his history to make him famous, besides that which is fabulous; determining, I suppose, that all is true, except what is outrageously impossible. All authorities decide that he was born in Tintagell castle, and I see no reason for questioning the fact, provided we admit he was born at all. After having accomplished many deeds that were inconceivably glorious, and have already filled too many volumes to require any illustration from me, he received his daeth blow in a battle with his rebellious relation, Mordred, near Camelford, and not many miles from Tintagell.

[...] I should advise all visitors to Tintagell to content themselves with thus imagining a castle for king Arthur, for I can assure them that, though they may sacrifice their lives by attempting to reach the summit of the promontory, they can see nothing there but the rubbish of an old wall, out of which imagination will be infinitely more puzzled to construct a castle than out of the rocks below

From ‘A voyage round Great Britain, undertaken in the summer of the year 1813’, by Richard Ayton and William Daniell (a pair who look very dapper in their portraits, and who are (sometimes) refreshingly sympathetic to the poor and their living conditions).

An older version of something mentioned by Bottrell:

A short distance from the Cove a mysterious cave was pointed out to us, called Pendeen-Vau, which is conceived by the rustics to be interminable, for they had penetrated at least fifty yards, and still, found no end. At the entrance of it there appeared some years ago a strange lady with a red rose in her mouth, for what purpose it was not easy to ascertain, for the good people seemed unwilling to allow their imaginations to dwell on the possible horrors of the circumstance. This cave was probably used in remote ages as a place of concealment for property during times of war and invasion.

From A Voyage Round Great Britain undertaken in the summer of 1813’ by Richard Ayton.

In many parts of Sweden, these cup-marked boulders are known as elf-stenar, and are still believed by the common people to possess curative powers. They say prayers, and make vows at them, anoint the cups with fat (usually hog’s lard), place offerings of pins and small copper coins in them, and when they are sick, they make small dolls or images of rags, to be laid in them. These facts are stated in the Manadsblad of the Swedish Academy of Science. Miss Mestorf, as quoted by Mr. Rau, is more explicit:-

“The elfs are the souls of the dead; they frequently dwell in or below stones, and stand in various relations to the living. If their quiet is disturbed, or their dwelling-place desecrated, or if due respect is not paid to them, they will revenge themselves by afflicting the perpetrators with diseases or other misfortunes. For this reason, people take care to secure the favour of the “little ones” by sacrifices, or to pacify them when offended. Their claims are very modest: a little butter or grease, a copper coin, a flower, or ribbon, will satisfy them. If they have inflicted disease, some object worn by the sick person, such as a pin, or button, will reconcile them.

A Swedish proprietor of an estate in Uppland, who had caused an elf-stone to be transported to his park, found, a few days afterwards, small sacrificial gifts lying in the cups. in the Stockholm Museum are preserved rag dolls, which had been found upon an elf-stone.”

In Nature v26 (1882).

I remember, when I was a child, between seventy and eighty years ago, being told that the stones could be successfully counted only by laying a loaf of bread beside each. To mark each stone by something to prevent one being missed or counted twice over seems natural ; but why a loaf of bread? [...] I think it probable that I had this from a nursery-maid who came from Mere in Wiltshire, and who had a taste for the marvellous.

O. Fisher.
Harlton, Cambridge, October 19.

From volume 64 of Nature, Oct. 31st, 1901.

In April, 1895, Mr. Albany F. Major (hon. sec. Viking Club) and myself went on a visit to Kits Coity House above Aylesford, Kent. At the foot of Blue Bell Hill on the way to Kits Coity there are a number of sarsens in a field. On inquiring of a rustic as to their whereabouts, in directing us to them he informed us that a baker had made a bet he would count them and placed a loaf upon each stone in order to count them correctly. [...]
R. Ashington Bullen.

From Nature v65 (1901). “Rustic.” It reminds you of the recent “pleb” remark does it not, pretty casual disdain?

On the hill behind Byre cleugh is a very curious and remarkably-shaped cairn called the Deil’s Mitten, which, according to tradition, marks the burial place of a Pictish King.

This monument is deserving of more careful investigation. In the old Statistical report of the parish of Longformaeus, it is described by the Rev. Selby Orde, as “a heap of stones 80 yards long, 25 broad, and 6 high, collected probably by some army, to perpetuate a victory or other remarkable event,” Vol. I., 71. In the new Statistical report, the Rev. Henry Riddell observes “that a large heap of stone at Byrecleugh, 240 feet long, 76 broad, and 18 high, appears to attest a similar conflict. The stones have been carried to their present place from a crag half a mile distant. They have received the name of meeting stones, but there is no authentic account of the occasion that led to their accumulation.” Vol. II., 94. In Towler’s map of Berwickshire, 1826, they are called the meeting stones.

From volume 6 of the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club (1869).

As late as 1889 the members of a Cornish antiquarian society went down a lane east of Morvah church. To the west of this lane was a stone of about a ton weight. They were told this was the Giant’s Grave by tradition, and the ’ “old people” used to hear voices from beneath it.’ They were also told it marked the pit-fall made of an old mine-adit by Jack [the giant-killer, that is], and how when the giant came storming down the hill and fell in they piled stones on him and crushed him. If one walked three times round the stone and threw stones at it, even now one might still hear him roar.... It was this ‘happy event’ – the giant’s death – siad the guide, that was commemorated by Morvah Feast.

It would be better to read the original, in the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society volume for 1888-9, but this is from B C Spooner’s summary in Folklore v76 (spring 1965), ‘The Giants of Cornwall’.

Unlike many of the circles, this one, for some reason at present unknown to me, enjoys an extended reputation and is the centre of attraction to large numbers of the residents in the locality on a certain day or days in autumn.

Extremely vague, it could be anything. But it seems now is the season to visit. From Fred Coles’ report on the stone circles of the NE of Scotland, in PSAS v35 (1900-1).

It’s possibly a bit cheeky to add this as I don’t know where it is. But let’s face it, it’s unlikely to have wandered off somewhere. And while large rocks like Allt an Airgid exist very nearby, I’d dearly like to think this is somewhere around too, and not so far from the circle at Killin.

I have scoured the 25 and 6 inch maps for a sign without luck. But we do know that it is/was on the estate of Auchmore House (now demolished) and it was in woodland. There’s an offputting amount of forest today, but 100 years ago it was mostly confined to the area north of the road: see here for example.

The other stone ... to which I alluded to is in the woods of Auchmore at Killin... This stone is called Fuaran na Druidh Chasad, or the Well of the Whooping-Cough. I heard of it ... from a native of Killin, who remembered vividly when a boy having been taken to drink the water in the cavity of the stone, in order to cure the whooping-cough, from which he was suffering at the time. Happening to be in Killin lately ... I made inquiries in the village; but though some of the older inhabitants remembered having heard of the stone, and the remarkable practice connected with it, I could not get any one to describe the exact locality of it to me, so completely has the superstition passed away from the mind of the present generation. I went twice in search of the stone; and though, as I afterwards found, I had been within a very short distance of it unawares on both occasions, I was unsuccessful in finding it. At least I met an old man, and after some search we found the stone, and he identified it.

I understood then what had puzzled me before, viz., why it should have been called Fuaran or Well, for I had supposed it had a cavity in a stone like that at Fernan. It was indeed a cavity; but it was in the projecting side of the stone, not on its top surface. It consisted of a deep basin penetrating through a dark cave-like arched recess into the heart of the stone. It was difficult to tell whether it was natural or artificial, for it might well have been either, and was possibly both; the original cavity having been a mere freak of nature – a weather-worn hole – afterwards perhaps enlarged by some superstitious hand, and adapted to the purpose for which it was used.

Its sides were covered with green cushions of moss; and the quantity of water in the cavity was very considerable, amounting probably to three gallons or more. Indeed, so natural did it look, so like a fountain, that my guide asserted that it was a well formed by the water of an underground spring bubbling up through the rock. I said to him, “Then why does it not flow over?” That circumstance he seemed to regard as a part of its miraculous character to be taken on trust.

I put my hand into it, and felt all round the cavity where the water lay, and found, as was self-evident, that its source of supply was from above and not from below; that the basin was simply filled with rain water, which was prevented from being evaporated by the depth of the cavity, and the fact that a large part of it was within the arched recess in the stone, where the sun could not get access to it. I was told that it was never known to be dry – a circumstance which I could well believe from its peculiar construction.

The stone, which was a rough irregular boulder, somewhat square shaped, of mica schist, with veins of quartz running through it, about 8 feet long and 5 feet high, was covered almost completely with luxuriant moss and lichen; and my time being limited, I did not examine it particularly for traces of cup-marks. There were several other stones of nearly the same size int he vicinity, but there was no evidence, so far as I could see, of any sepulchral or religious structure in the place.

There is indeed a small, though well-formed and compact so-called Druidical circle ... within a short distance on the meadow near Kinnell House ...

... The superstition connected with it has survivied in the locality for many ages. It has now passed away completely, and the old stone is utterly neglected. The path leading to it, which used to be constantly frequented, is now almost obliterated. This has come about within the last thirty years, and one of the principle causes of its being forgotten is that the site is now part of the private policies of Auchmore.

The landlady of the house at Killin, where I resided, remembered distinctly having been brought to the stone to be cured of the whooping-cough; and at the foot of it, there are still two flat stones that were used as steps to enable children to reach up to the level of the fountain, so as to drink its healing waters; but they are now almost hidden by the rank growth of grass and moss...

From ‘Notice of two boulders having rain-filled cavities...’ by H Macmillan, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, v18 (1883-4).

If it was to be found, I think the description is detailed enough that you would be sure. There is a slightly unenlightening picture in the scan at the ADS website.

One for fans of rock-art folklore. The stone’s Canmore record isn’t sure that all the cupmarks are man-made, but it’s willing to go for ‘at least four’.

In the district of Breadalbane, Perthshire – which has in it the Pool of St Fillans, famous for its supposed power of curing mentally afflicted persons – there are two boulders with water-filled cavities, which have a local reputation for their healing virtues. One is at Fernan, situated on the north side of Loch Tay, about three miles from Kenmore. It is a large rough stone with an irregular outline, somewhat like a rude chair, in the middle of a field immediately below the farmhouse of Mr Campbell, Borland. The rest of the field is ploughed; but the spot on which it stands is carefully preserved as an oasis amid the furrows. The material of which it is composed is a coarse clay slate; and the stone has evidently been a boulder transported to the spot from a considerable distance.

In the centre on one side there is a deep square cavity capable of holding about two quarts of water. I found it nearly full, although the weather had been unusually dry for several weeks previously. There were some clods of earth around it, and a few small stones and a quantity of rubbish in the cavity itself, which defiled the water. This I carefully scooped out, and found the cavity showing unmistakeable evidence of being artificial. On the upper surface of the stone I also discovered seven faint cup-marks, very much weather-worn; two of them associated together in a singular manner, and forming a figure like the eyes of a pair of spectacles.

The boulder goes in the locality by the name of Clach-na-Cruich, or the Stone of the Measles; and the rain-water contained in its cavity, when drunk by the patient, was supposed to be a sovereign remedy for that disease. At one time it had a wide reputation, and persons afflicted with the disease came from all parts of the district to drink its water. Indeed, there are many persons still alive who were taken in their youth, when suffering from this infantile disease, to the stone at Fernan; and I have met a man not much past forty, who remembers distinctly having drunk the water in the cavity when suffering from measles.

It is is only within the lifetime of the present generation that the Clach-na-Cruich has fallen into disuetude. I am not sure, indeed, whether any one has resorted to it within the last thirty years. Its neglected state would seem to indicate that all faith in it had for many years been abandoned.

From ‘Notice of two boulders having rain-filled cavities...’ by H Macmillan, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, v18 (1883-4), which you can read at the ADS website.

Carnedd Llwyd on Moel Gallt-y-Llyn.
This is a large carnedd situated near the summit of the above named mountain [...] close to a boundary wall dividing the Nantcow and Gwastad-fryn sheep-walks. It measured about forty-five feet in diameter from east to west. It was reputed to be the repository of treasure; and some years ago an old woman, goaded by nightly visions and dreams, became so impressed with this idea, that she made a vigorous attack upon it; but the wished for prize was dashed from her thirsty lips by an avenging storm of thunder and lightning, as she herself affirms. This old lady is still living, I believe. The story was told to me by one of our workmen, who was acquainted with her.

From Archaeologia Cambrensis v3 (1852).

A halt was made at a pit, and [the Rev. W. Barnes] observed that military men wondered how the people taking refuge in these fortifications obtained water [...] This pit was in the shape of an inverted cone. Some thought that it had been a chalk-pit. [...] Others thought it was a cattle-pond, but it was too steep to be used for such a purpose. Dr. Cowdell had told him that he dug at the bottom of the pit, and found it to be lined with flint stones, and his (Dr. Cowdell’s) theory was that the pit was used as a tank, in which the occupants of the castle placed the water fetched from the spring for their use. At the present time he did not believe the pit would hold water for any length of time.

The Rev. C. W. Bingham observed there was a tradition as well founded as traditions generally were, that once upon a time a goose was put into this hole, and the same afternoon it came up at the town pump of Durnovaria [Dorchester].

From ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’, September 1865.

This is highly speculative I’m afraid. I know I’ve got the right place, as I can see the stone marked on maps even as recent as the 1960s. It sounds like an unworked stone, from the extract below. But is it something more interesting?

Maen Y Gweddiau – The Stone of Prayer.
On the Ordnance map, about three or four miles north-east of Coelbren Chapel, among the mountains, Maen y Gweddiau is marked. It is on an open hill, called the Thousand Acres, which is, I believe, private property, and is nothing more than a single flat stone, one of the landmarks between the parishes of Ystradgynlais and Ystradfellte, on which the rector of Ystradgynlais, when perambulating the boundaries of the parish, used to kneel and read prayers to those who accompanied him – hence it is called the Stone of Prayer. The custom has always been observed on every occasion of walking the boundaries, which used to take place every seven years. I could not learn anything as to the origin of the custom, but it is undoubtedly very ancient.

From ‘Brecknockshire Traditions’ in Archaeologia Cambrensis, April 1858.

The stone is by the river on the floodplain of the Severn, and not so far from the modern national boundary.

Later on Beuno went to Berriew, in Montgomeryshire, where he was given lands also. But one day whilst there he heard a Saxon shouting to his dogs to pursue a hare on the further side of the Severn, and he at once resolved to leave a place made odious to him, because within sound of the English tongue. In a rage he returned sharply to his disciples, and said, “My sons, put on your clothes and shoes, and let us leave this place, for the nation of this man has a strange language which is abominable, and I heard his voice. They have invaded this land, and will keep it.” Then he went deeper into the Welsh land and visited S. Tyssilio, and remained with him forty days.

It sounds like Saint Beuno could get pretty ratty. The next stop he got cross at some young men when he was cooking dinner for them and they got impatient. He cursed one of them, who died the next day. Then there was the episode with Saint Winefred (of the well) – he cursed Caradog for chopping off her head and turned him into a puddle (perhaps fair enough). Winefred wasn’t the only person whose free-ranging head he was able to successfully stick back on their neck – he also did it for a princess called Digwg. Her husband had cut off her head, and when her brother found out he chopped off the husband’s head too. Beuno sorted him out also, which was quite charitable.
The quote is from volume 16 of Baring-Gould’s Lives of the Saints (1914), but for more detail see his Lives of the British Saints (1907).

Three oblong mounds, one on each side of the broad road, that form a narrow gorge through which we must pass, are the portals of one of the ancient British fortifications raised when the Wrekin was the first mountain on the border-land between Britain and Wales, to which the native tribes could retreat before the Roman armies. The portals still bear the name of Hell Gates; and on either side of them are the remains of a rampart and moat, formed of a double agger or rampart of stones, after the manner of all British encampments.

Nearer to the summit of the hill, where the ascent is almost finished, we can trace an inner line of inclosure, discernable for thirty yards, with a second gorge of entrance similar to Hell Gates, which is still called Heaven Gates.

[...] Upon the south-east of the hill, just within the lower rampart, stands a ragged and storm-beaten rock, rising sheer from the smoothly sloping sides to a giddy and precipitous height. It is now called by a name that has no meaning – the Bladder Stone; but this is probably corrupted from the name Balder’s Stone [...] to the Scandinavian god of light, Balder [...]

[in medieval times] the hill was called St. Gilbert’s Mountain, and a recluse, renowned for sanctity which even won royal favour, dwelt upon this summit [...]

I think the thin air up there was getting to the author a bit. He also mentions the tale that the “cleft in Balder’s Stone, now called the Needle’s Eye, [they believed it] to have been rent at the crucifixion of their Lord”. There could be other reasons for calling a rock the Bladder stone, but he’s not entertaining them.

From ‘A Summer Day on the Wrekin’ in the magazine ‘The Leisure Hour’, September 17th 1864.

Hereabouts was a stronghold of the old British, until ousted by the advancing legions of Rome; and yonder on the south bluff of Addlebrough is an immense cairn, and under a large heap of stones, called Stone Raise, there slept in peace, for centuries, a chieftain of the old Celtic race; but tradition reported that vast wealth was hidden in the “Golden Chest on Greenbar,” as the spot is called, and so, for either curiosity or greed of gain, the ancient chieftain’s resting-place has been rudely disturbed; but if the visitor be sufficiently imaginative, he will hear in the spirit of the whirlwind sweeping and howling around Addlebrough, dire sounds as if of conflict; it is the confusion of battle welling up the centuries.

From Wensleydale and the lower vale of the Yore by Edmund Bogg (1899).

It is naturally the subject of many legends in the district, and few, we imagine, of the people about would care to find themselves too close to it at the solemn hours of midnight, though one of the stories necessitates such a state of things; for we were told that if any one pours water into any of the natural cup-shaped cavities on the top stone at midnight, it will always be found in the morning to be gone, drank by a thirst-tormented fiend; while another of the local stories tell us that as twelve o’clock arrives each night Satan arrives with eight white oxen, and vainly endeavours to pull the structure down, while a white rabbit with fiery eyes sits on the top stone, and aids matters by his advice and general encouragement of the proceedings. Another belief is that if a good child walks seven times round it nothing in particular happens, but that on the seventh revolution of the bad boy or girl a toad comes out and spits fire at them. This legend has probably been constructed by some posessor of ne’er-do-weels, as a sort of bugbear or bogey to hold over them, in the same way that our immediate ancestors were scared into propriety by the terrors of “Boney,” and its efficacy having been proved, it has been incorporated in the mass of beliefs floating in the rustic mind. The examples given are only a very few out of the many stories associated with this ancient pile.

From p121 of ‘Town, College and Neighbourhood of Marlborough’, by F E Hulme (1881).

On the top of the Longmynd, midway and almost in a straight line between Church Stretton and Ratlinghope and near the sources of the streams of water which run down towards those villages, is a tract of ground known at Ratlinghope as “The Burying Ground.” It was pointed out to me by a gentleman who is so well acquainted with the hill by long residence in the locality that he was able to find it though blind. Two low circular mounds of about fifteen or eighteen feet diameter are observable, but the soil is so soft that wind and weather have nearly levelled them with the ground. No trace of a fence can be seen. The old footway runs by at a distance of twenty or thirty yards on the Stretton side of the mounds. Are these British Graves? J.L.P.

In ‘Salopian Shreds and Patches’ for June 16, 1886.

This is the text that accompanies this drawing.

Beneath [the abbey at ‘Einsham’], Evenlode a little river, arising likewise out of Cotteswald speedeth him into Isis; which riveret in the very border of the Shire passeth by an ancient monument standing not far from his banke, to wit, certaine huge stones placed in a round circle (the common people usually call them Rolle-rich stones, and dreameth that they were sometimes men, by a wonderfull Metamorphosis turned into hard stones). The draught of them, such as it is, portraited long since, heere I represent unto your view. For, without all forme and shape they be, unaequal, and by long continuance of time much impaired. The highest of them all, which without the circle looketh into the earth, they use to call The King, because he should have beene King of England (forsooth) if he had once seene Long Compton, a little towne so called lying beneath, and which a man, if he go some few paces forward, may see: other five standing at the other side, touching as it were, one another, they imagine to have beene Knights mounted on horsebacke; and the rest the army. But lo the foresaid Portraiture.

[The picture is inserted here.]

These would I verily thinke to have beene the monument of some victorie and haply, erected by Rollo the Dane, who afterwards conquered Normandie. [...]

From Camden’s ‘Britain’ (p374 in this 1610 edition).

Some time since, a young woman of the village, a member of one of the very few families who have resided on the spot continually for upwards of a century, told my son that a great battle had been fought ages ago on Marden down between men with red heads and men with black heads, and that the red-headed men won, she added that the dead were buried in a large cave on the down, and that nobody had ever dared to enter it. I have not been able to identify the cave, but it seems exceedingly probable that after the fight the slain were collected and buried with more than usual care, because the closest enquiry I have made has failed to trace any record of human remains, armour or weapons having been unearthed at any time in the neighbourhood.

[..]

In the barrow fields, beneath Camden’s great sepulchral monument (Camden, writing in 1590, [says that] “the largest barrow in these parts, except Silbury, exists” in the parish), tradition says that great treasure is buried, and an old inhabitant assured me that once or twice it had been searched for ...

FromWiltshire Notes and Queries for March 1913.