Rhiannon

Folklore on the stones and some surrounding landscape features:

This interesting old monument derives its name from a whimsical tradition that three spinsters (who were spinners) erected it one morning before breakfast; but “may we not,“* says Mr. Rowe (Peramb. of Dartmoor), “detect in this legend of the three fabulous spinners the terrible Valkyriur of the dark mythology of our Northern ancesters – the Fatal Sisters, the choosers of the slain, whose dread office was to ‘weave the warp and weave the woof of destiny.’”

Polwhele informs us that the legend varies, in that for the three spinsters some have substituted three young men and their father, who brought the stones from the highest part of Dartmoor; and in this phase of the legend has been traced an obscured tradition of Noah and his three sons.

.. The hill on which it stands commands an excellent view of Cawsand Beacon. About 100 yds. beyond the cromlech on the other (N.) side of the lane, is a pond of water, of about 3 acres, called Bradmere Pool, prettily situated in a wood. It is said to be unfathomable, and to remain full to the brim during the driest seasons, and some regard it as artificially formed and of high antiquity – in short a Druidical pool of lustration connected with the adjacent cromlech..

.. The country-people have a legend of a passage formed of large stones leading underground from Bradmere to the Teign, near the logan stone..

p65 in ‘A Hand-book for Travellers in Devon & Cornwall’ by John Murray (1851).

*[ooh go on then].

Ok this isn’t exactly connected with the barrows, but with the nearby brook and a stone there. It was said to be haunted by the Buckland Shag, “a four footed beast with a shaggy coat.” Sounds like one of those big black dogs to me – and they often like barrows too. The actual story refers to where the Shag Brook crosses the main road, which would be at TQ228508.

“By the side of this very stream laid a large stone for I know not how many years – perhaps for centuries.” The lane here was the place where the owner of the manor house of Buckland used to take a local girl courting. But although he swore ‘eternal fidelity’ the cad was just trying to.. well you know the name of the stream. When he suggested this the poor girl was so shocked that ‘her pure spirit escaped’ from her body and she dropped down dead. This must have been a bit of a shock because the poor man then felt the need to stab himself with his own dagger, and fell dead next to her.

The next morning someone (probably walking their dog) spotted a lovely untainted pure stream and a dark stone, dripping blood into it – the implication, you see, being that they had been transformed into these emblems of Innocence and Hardened Wickedness. Well, “this legend has, perhaps naturally, raised a local spectre. At the dreary hour of midnight a terrific object has been seen lingering about the spot.” It used to be seen on the stone, but some interfering descendent of the manor owner moved the stone to his own place. But “the stone, however, still continued to bleed, and I believe it oozes forth its crimson drops even to the present day. Its removal did not remove or intimidate the spectre.”

There is some more on the beast, but unfortunately the scan on Google Books misses this page out.

From p485 of The Gentleman’s Magazine, Dec 1827 (v97).

More:
On the high road between Buckland and Reigate the devil is popularly believed to amuse himself with dancing, sometimes in the shape of a dog, and at others in that of a donkey.. He has been shot at repeatedly, but his Satanic Majesty turned out as might have been expected altogether bullet-proof. One old fellow, who was bolder than his neighbours, then ventured near enough to run a pitch-fork through him, but he danced on as merrily as ever.. Some unbelievers, however, who have a wonderful propensity for explaining everything by natural causes, have hinted at the presence of marshy grounds in the neighbourhood as being likely enough to have originated certain meteoric illusions, which by the usual process of exaggeration might grow into a dancing devil.. the people choose to believe their own eye-sight, and will not give up their Buckland Hag, as they call this apparition, let philosophy say what it pleases.

p207 in ‘New Curiosities of Literature’ by George Soane (1849).

At East Knoyle, in Wiltshire, where I lived from 1869 to 1872, there is, or was, in a field at the foot of the chalk downs, a large irregular stone or rock, of which it was said that there was as much below ground as above, and that many horses had been employed in a vain attempt to remove it. A labourer working in the garden of Knoyle House, once told me, “they do say as Old Nick dropped it there, when he was carrying it to build Stonehenge.”

Miscellanea
Folk-Lore Jottings from the Western Counties
Grey Hubert Skipwith
Folklore, Vol. 5, No. 4. (Dec., 1894), pp. 339-340.

L. V. Grinsell, puts it at ST882312, in
The Legendary History and Folklore of Stonehenge
Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 1. (1976), pp. 5-20.

But is it still there?? Similar stories apply to other lone sarsen stones in Wiltshire. Perhaps the fact this site hasn’t been added before suggests its demise.

Tradition says that some shepherds, on a part of the high ridge over Ivinghoe, on the borders of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, and at a distance of at least thirty miles in a direct line from Edge Hill, saw a twinkling light to the northward, and, upon communication with their minister, ‘a godly and well-affected person,’ fired the beacon there also, which was seen at Harrow on the Hill, and from thence at once carried on to London; and that thus the news was given along a line of more than sixty miles, by the assistance of only two intermediate fires.

p310 in ‘Some Memorials of John Hampden, his party and his times’ by Lord Nugent, v2 (1832).

The battle of Edgehill in 1682 was the first major battle of the Civil War.

Bad Rhiannon, adding an allegedly ~holy~ well. But this isn’t just any holy well, oh no. This holy well is right on the top of a mountain. Ha! a reckless contributor wouldn’t know whether to add it as a sacred well or a sacred mountain. Is it justifiable. Possibly. Read on.

BEN NEWE WELL.
There is a big rugged rock on the top of Ben Newe in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire. On the north side of this rock, under a projection, there is a small circular-shaped hollow which always contains water. Everyone that goes to the top of the hill must put some small object into it, and then take a draught of water off it. Unless this is done the traveller will not reach in life the foot of the hill. I climbed the hill in June of 1890, and saw in the well several pins, a small bone, a pill-box, a piece of a flower, and a few other objects.*

The RCAHMS record says the OS visited in 1968, and ‘offerings of coins [were] still made’.

From p69 of
Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs
W. Gregor
Folklore, Vol. 3, No. 1. (Mar., 1892), pp. 67-73.

*try not to think of it as Victorian geocaching.

The RCAHMS record also mentions WJ Watson’s 1926 ‘History of the Celtic place-names of Scotland’ in which he proposes “The well may be the sacred place (the Celtic ‘nemeton’) preserved in the ‘Newe’ element of Ben Newe”.

Below the barrow on the south side of the hill is ‘Eldon Hole’, a scary looking chasm that is known as one of the Wonders of the Peak. It was rumoured to be bottomless. “..in the reign of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester is said to have hired a man to go down into Eldon Hole, to observe its form, and ascertain its depth.. ‘He was let down about two hundred ells, and, after he had remained at the length of the rope awhile, he was pulled up again, with great expectation of some discoveries; but when he came up he was senseless, and died within eight days of a phrensy.’”
p181 in Museum Europæum; or, Select antiquities ... of nature and art, in Europe; compiled by C. Hulbert (1825)

A two mile plumbline was supposed to have been lowered down without finding the bottom.

This ‘Cressbrook’ page (with a picture) rather dully says it’s only 60m deep. Still quite deep admittedly. Mad people go caving in it.
cressbrook.co.uk/visits/eldonhole.php
People (and sheep) still fall into it and die now and again, so it hasn’t lost its scary reputation just yet. Though it may not be the entrance to Hell it was previously thought to be.

A local phrase:

Eldon Hole wants filling up [said as a hint that some statement is untrue].

p292 in
Derbyshire Sayings
George Hibbert; Charlotte S. Burne
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 7, No. 4. (1889), pp. 291-293.

According to Alaric Hall’s article here
eprints.gla.ac.uk/3146/01/are23there_any_elves_offprint.pdf
the hill was known as ‘Elvedon Hill’ in the 13th century – a name that could come from Elves (or it could be from person’s name). Not that you’d be surprised to find elves here really.

Bit of a link here for folklore addicts (just me then): The Reverend Robert Kirk, he of ‘The Secret Commonwealth’, was a minister here in Balquhidder for 19 years, before he transferred to Aberfoyle. And eventually disappeared into the Other world.
You can read ‘The Secret Commonwealth’ at the Sacred Texts Archive, here:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm

Saint Angus really liked it here.

[He] is said to have come to the glen from the eastward, and to have been so much struck with its marvellous beauty that he blessed it. The remains of the stone on which he sat to rest are still visible in the gable of one of the farm buildings at Easter Auchleskine, and the turn of the road is yet called “Beannachadh Aonghais” (Angus’s Blessing).

From p83 of JM Gow’s (1887)
‘Notes in Balquhidder: Saint Angus, curing wells, cup-marked stones, etc’,
Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 21, 1886-7 – link below.

If the building’s still there, the stone probably will be too – the OS saw it at NN 5499 2071 when they checked in 1979. “This much weathered stone, locally associated with St Angus, is built into the top of the E gable end of a farm building.” (RCAHMS record).

There are lots of other stones with cupmarks or stories in the vicinity (including a rumoured stone circle and a ‘stone setting’, but the RCAHMS don’t seem to think these have much antiquity, when they can be tracked down).

Although this is apparently cupmarkless, it seems worthy of mention as is surrounded by other sites and helps complete the stoney folklore of the area?

Going still further east to the first turning of the road beyond the farmhouse of “Wester Auchleskine, and on the left-hand side, there used to be a large boulder with a natural cavity in its side, famous as a curing well for sore eyes. This stone was called “Clach nan sul” (the Stone of the Eyes). In 1878 the road trustees caused it to be blasted, as it was supposed to be a danger in the dark to passing vehicles. Its fragments were broken up, and used as road metal.

..It is said that money used to be left in the cavity by the patients, and my informant stated that people when going to church, having forgotten their small change, used in passing to put their hands in the well and find a coin; indeed, he had himself done so more than once.

Gow, J M (1887 )
‘Notes in Balquhidder: Saint Angus, curing wells, cup-marked stones, etc’,
Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 21, 1886-7, p85.

The OS reported in 1968 that “the remains of this stone, considerably fractured and the natural cavity no longer evident, were pointed out by Mr Ferguson (D Ferguson, farmer, Auchleskine, Balquhidder) in the bank on the N side of the road. It is still known as ‘Clach nan sul’ (Information from Mr Stewart MacIntrye, Stronslaney).” (from RCAHMS record)

Once on a market day a large number of armed Buclianans came over from Leny and quarrelled with the Maclaurins, the result being such a terrible conflict that only two of the Leny men escaped from the spot. The slaughtered Buclianans were thrown into a pool of the Balvaig River adjoining, and that part of the river is to this day called ” Linn na Seichachan (the Linn of the Hides), where the corpses of the slain for a time stopped the course of the stream.

The two men who fled had only a short respite. They swam the river and made for home, but were pursued, one being overtaken and killed on the hillside about a mile from the market. A cairn marks the spot where he fell. The other, making for Strathyre, met his fate a little farther on, the spot being still known as “Stron-lenac,” the Leny Man’s Point).

This is the cairn then. The RCAHMS record says the OS visited it in the 1960s and described it as a low, grassed-over mound of stones, 3.0m in diameter and 0.3m high. “On top of this, a modern cairn, with many white stones, had been been erected. Whether or not this is a burial cairn could not be established but there are very strong local traditions agreeing with that by Gow”.

Story from Gow, J M (1887)
‘Notes in Balquhidder: Saint Angus, curing wells, cup-marked stones, etc’,
Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 21, 1886-7, 83-4.

According to the notes on the RCAHMS site, this standing stone is about 1.2m high, 0.9m broad and up to 40cm thick.

It is shaped like a wedge, with the edge to the east, and is famous in Balquhidder as the place where trials of strength took place. A large round water-worn boulder, named after the district, “Puderag,” and weighing between two and three hundredweight, was the testing stone, which had to be lifted and placed on the top of the standing stone. There used to be a step about 18 inches from the top, on the east side of the stone, on which the lifting stone rested in its progress to the top. This step or ledge was broken off about thirty years ago, as told to me by the person who actually did it, and the breadth of the stone was thereby reduced about 8 inches. This particular mode of developing and testing the strength of the young men of the district has now fallen into disuse, and the lifting-stone game is a thing of the past. A former minister of the parish pronounced it a dangerous
pastime. Many persons were permanently injured by their efforts to raise the stone, and it is said that he caused it to be thrown into the river, but others said it was built into the manse dyke, where it still remains. There were similar stones at Monachyle, at Strathyre, and at Callander, and no doubt in every district round about, but the man who could lift ” Puderag ” was a strong man and a champion.

J M Gow’s 1887 ‘Notes in Balquhidder: Saint Angus, curing wells, cup-marked stones, etc’,
Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 21, 1886-7, 84.

ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_021/21_083_088.pdf

It sounds like this site is a bit of a muddle now, and there won’t be much to see. It is honestly thought to have prehistoric roots though:
rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.details_gis?inumlink=5140

The burn of Invernauld, and the hill of Durcha, on the estate of Rose hall, are still believed to be haunted by fairies who once chased a man into the sea, and destroyed a new mill, because the earth for the embankment of the mill-dam had been dug from the side of the hill. The hill of Durcha is also the locality assigned for the following tale:-

A man whose wife had just been delivered of her first-born set off with a friend to the town of Tain to have the child’s birth entered in the sessions-books, and to buy a cask of whiskey for the christening fete. As they returned, weary with a day’s walk [..] they sat down to rest at the foot of this hill, near a large hole, from which they were ere long astonished to hear a sound of piping and dancing. The father, feeling very curious, entered the cavern, went a few steps in, and disappeared. The story of his fate sounded less improbable then than it would now, but his companion was severely animadverted* on, and when a week elapsed, and the baptism was over, and still no signs of the lost one’s return, he as accused of having murdered his friend. He denied it, and again and again repeated the tale of his friend’s disappearance down the cavern’s mouth.

He begged a year and a day’s law to vindicate himself, if possible, and used to repair at dusk to the fatal spot, and there call and pray. The term allowed him had but one more day to run, and, as usual, he sat in the gloaming by the cavern, when what seemed as his friend’s shadow passed within it. He leant down, heard reel-tunes and pipes, and suddenly descried the missing man tripping merrily with the fairies. He caught him by the sleeve, stopped him, and pulled him out. “Bless me! why could you not let me finish my reel, Sandy?” cried the dancer. “Bless me!” rejoined Sandy, “have you not had enough of reeling this last twelvemonth?” “Last twelvemonth!” cried the other in amazement; nor could he believe the truth concerning himself till he found his wife sitting by the door with a yearling child in her arms. So quickly does time pass in the company of the “good people.”

p217-18 in
The Folk-Lore of Sutherland-Shire [Continued]
Miss Dempster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4. (1888), pp. 215-252.

*Animadvert – meaning ‘To remark or comment critically, usually with strong disapproval or censure’. A new and useful word to me.

A local newspaper, in 1883 (Cornishman), gives the following:-
“Superstitions die hard. -- A horse died the other day on a farm in the neighbourhood of St. Ives. Its carcase was dragged on a Sunday away up to the granite rock basins and weather-worn bosses of Trecroben hill, and there burnt, in order to drive away the evil spell, or ill-wishing, which afflicted the farm where the animal belonged.”

On p195 of
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part III. [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3. (1887), pp. 177-220.

A lot of effort – so a deliberate effort to take it to a particular place? Or is it just that burning horses are very stinky.

..although an innocent baby held in the arms is thought in Cornwall to protect the holder from mischief caused by ghosts and witches, it has no power over [spriggans], who are not supposed to have souls.

This legend took place under Chapel Carn Brea on the old road from Penzance to St. Just in Penwith. The mother, Jenny Trayer by name, was first alarmed on her return one night from her work in the harvest field by not finding her child in its cradle, but in a corner of the kitchen where in olden days the wood and furze for the general open fires was kept. She was however too tired to take much notice, and went to bed, and slept soundly until the morning.

From that time forth she had no peace; the child was never satisfied but when eating or drinking, or when she had it dandling in her arms.

The poor woman consulted her neigbours in turn as to what she should do with the changeling (as one and all agreed that it was). On recommended her to dip it on the three first Wednesdays in May in Chapel Uny Well, which advice was twice faithfully carried out in the prescribed manner. The third Wednesday was very wet and windy, but Jenny determined to persevere in this treatment of her ugly bantling, and holding the brat (who seemed to enjoy the storm) firmly on her shoulders, she trudged off. When they got about half way, a shrill voice from behind some rocks was heard to say,
“Tredrill! Tredrill!
Thy wife and children greet thee well.”

Not seeing anyone, the woman was of course alarmed, and her fright increased when the imp made answer in a similar voice:
“What care I for wife or child,
When I ride on Dowdy’s back to the Chapel Well,
And have got pap my fill?”

After this adventure, she took the advice of another neighbour, who told her the best way to get rid of the spriggan and have her own child returned was “to put the small body upon the ashes pile, and beat it well with a broom; then lay it naked under a church stile; there leave it and keep out of sight and hearing till the turn of night; when nine times out of ten, the thing will be taken away and the stolen child returned.”

This was finally done, all the women of the village after it had been put upon a convenient pile “belabouring it with their brooms,” upon which it naturally set up a frightful roar. AFter dark it was laid under the stile, and there next morning the woman “found her own ‘dear cheeld’ sleeping on some dry straw” most beautifully clean and wrapped ina piece of chintz.
“Jenny nursed her recovered child with great care, but there was always something queer about it, as there always is about one that has been in the fairies power – if only for a few days.”

Bottrell being quoted on p183/4 of
Cornish Folk-Lore. Part III. [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3. (1887), pp. 177-220.

In the old abbey gardens at Tresco is a curious stone, about four feet long, two feet wide, and six inches in thickness, in an upright position. Near the top are two holes, one above the other (one being somewhat larger than the other), through which a man might pass his hand. It is supposed to be an old Druidical betrothal or wishing-stone, and used before the monks built the abbey at Tresco. Young people, engaged to be married, would pass their hands through the holes, and, joining them together, would so plight their troth. As a wishing-stone, or to break a spell, a ring woudl be passed through the holes with some incantations. – J.C. Tonkin’s Guide to the Isles of Scilly.

p40 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1. (1887), pp. 14-61.

Giants, of course, frequently played a great part in the history of Scilly. Buzza’s Hill, just beyond Hugh Town (St. Mary’s), commemorates a giant of the name of Bosow, who made his home on its summit (now crowned by a Spanish windmill), and from whom the family of Bosow were decended.

p40 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1. (1887), pp. 14-61.

On a hill near Veryan is a barrow, in which Gerennius, a mythical king of Cornwall, was said to have been buried many centuries ago, with his crown on his head, lying in his golden boat with silver oars. It was opened in 1855 when nothing but a kistvaen (a rude stone chest) containing his ashes was found. His palace of Dingerein was in the neighbouring village of Gerrans. A subterranean passage, now known as Mermaid’s Hole, one day discovered when ploughing a field, was supposed to have led from it to the sea.

p30 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1. (1887), pp. 14-61.

I can’t see Mermaid’s Hole on the map, so be careful not to fall into it if it’s still there.

I know this is long, and it’s about a well, but maybe the bit that says “A small piece torn (not cut) from the child’s clothes was hung for luck (if possible out of sight) on a thorn...” isn’t something often quoted in your new age holy well books. Might be something to think about at the Swallowhead Springs for example. Or will it just become a different type of geotrashing.

In East Cornwall they have a custom of bathing in the sea on the three first Sunday mornings in May. And in West Cornwall children were taken before sunrise on those days to the holy wells, notably to that of St. Maddern (Madron) near Penzance, to be there dipped into the running water that they might be cured of the rickets and other childish disorders. After being stripped naked they were plunged three times into the water, the parents facing the sun, and passed round the well nine times from east to west. They were then dressed, and laid by the side of the well to sleep in the sun; should they do so and the water bubble it was considered a good sign. Not a word was to be spoken the whole time for fear of breaking the spell.

A small piece torn (not cut) from the child’s clothes was hung for luck (if possible out of sight) on a thorn which grew out of the chapel wall. Some of these bits of rag may still sometimes be found, fluttering on the neighbouring bushes. I know two well-educated people who in 1840, having a son who could not walk at the age of two, carried him and dipped him in Madron well, a distance of three miles from their home, on the two first Sundays in May; but on the third the father refused to go. Some authorities say this well should be visited on the first three Wednesdays in May; as was for the same purpose another holy well at Chapel Euny (or St. Uny) near Sancred.

The Weslyans hold an open-air service on the first three Sunday afternoons in May, at a ruined chapel near to Madron-well, in the south wall of which a hole may be seen, through which the water from the well runs into a small baptistry in the south-west corner.

Parties of young girls to this day walk there in May to try for sweethearts. Crooked pins, or small heavy things, are dropped into the well in couples; if they keep together the pair will be married; the number of bubbles they make in falling shows the time that will elapse before the event.

Sometimes two pieces of straw formed into a cross, fastened in the centre by a pin, were used in these divinations. An old woman who lived in a cottage at a little distance formerly frequented the well and instructed visitors how to work the charms; she was never paid in money, but small presents were placed were she could find them. Pilgrims from all parts of England centuries ago resorted to St. Maddern’s well: that was fames, as was also her grave, for many miraculous cures.

p228-30 in
Cornish Feasts and “Feasten” Customs. [Continued]
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3. (1886), pp. 221-249.

Look, I know it’s a well, but this has got a stone (kind of) connected with it. I just report these things. You’ll have to see if it’s still there, if you’re passing.

Welsh Folk-lore Items. -- At the Archaeological Association Congress at Tenby some interesting notes were given. The party having halted at Gumfreyston church it was noted that on the hillside, below the church, there is one of the holy wells which are not infrequent in Wales.

Some curious old customs connected with the parish were given in a paper prepared by Miss Bevan, from which it appears that within the last fifty years on Easter Day the villagers used to repair to a well called “the Pinwell,” and throw a crooked pin into the water. This was called “throwing Lent away.” The field in which this well is situate is called “Verwel”[..]

On Lammas Sunday little houses, called “Lammas Houses,” were set up on “corse.” They were made of sods, reeds, and sticks, and a fire was lighted inside them, and apples roasted, people paying a penny to go in and have a roasted apple.

At the bottom of the street, near the brook, is a large upstanding stone with a small round hole in the top, and there is a saying that until you have put your finger in this hole you cannot say you have been in St. Florence* church.

(*This is surely St Lawrence’s church.)
From Notes and Queries
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 2, No. 11. (Nov., 1884), pp. 348-351.

A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (S. Lewis, 1833), as quoted on the Genuki pages, mentions the ‘highly medicinal properties’ of the iron-rich springs, and the likelihood of Gumfreston being able to become a fashionable spot.
genuki.org.uk/big/wal/PEM/Gumfreston/index.html

Some more info and pics on the Cistercian Way pages, here
cistercian-way.newport.ac.uk/place.asp?PlaceID=123

More fairies at Castell Dinas Bran: Llandyn Hall is on the south-east slope of the hill.

Fairies under Trees.-- One of our readers has forwarded us an old document, dated Nov. 30th, 1817, containing a quaint description of a walnut tree of extraordinary dimensions. It grew on a rock of limestone at Llanddyn Farm, near Llangollen; its height was about twenty-five yards, and its boughs covered a space of ground about thirty yards diameter. According to a story in the neighbourhood, this tree was very old. A man 95 years of age said that he remembered a bough of it being broken by the snow when he was a child, and that his grandfather used to tell the family that, in olden times, fairies used in the dead of night to celebrate their marriages under this walnut tree. ---Shrewsbury Chronicle, 3 Nov. 1882. From
Notes and Queries
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3. (Mar., 1883), pp. 90-93.

Midway down the cliff, is a large cavern, the gloomy recesses of which are said in the traditions of the peasantry to be inhabited by Pixies, or Pisgies...

...The entrance to the cavern is by a natural arch, about twelve feet wide, and ten high: the passage continues nearly of the same dimensions for about twenty yards, when it suddenly diminishes to nearly six feet wide, and four high, and still decreasing in size, extends about fifteen yards further. Here it expands into a spacious chamber, which dividing into two parts, runs off in different directions; but the rock dropping, neither of them can be pursued to any great distance; though tradition asserts, that a dog put into one of them, came out at an aperture in Botter rock*, about three miles distant.

p102 /104 in The Beauties of England and Wales, by John Britton etc. 1803.

*This must be Bottor Rock, at SX 826 804

A vast number of places out of the Highlands still retain their Gaelic names, and it is interesting to understand them; for example, TINTOCK is the highest mountain in Lanarkshire; and the name has a meaning in Gaelic, “The house of the mist” (Tigh n’ to-ag); and a local rhyme shews that to be the true meaning of the name, which has no English meaning.

On Tintock tap there is a mist,
And in the mist there is a kist,
And in the kist there is a cup,
And in the cup there is a drap;
Tak up the cup and drink the drap,
And set the cup on Tintock tap.

There was a popular tale about this mountain which I failed to get; but a cup, with some mysterious drink, is common in Celtic traditions.

p351 of Popular Tales of the West Highlands By John Francis Campbell (1862).

In the eighth volume of the Archaeologia, is an account, by Mr. Hayman Rooke, of some ancient remains on Hathersage Moor, particularly of a Rocking-stone, twenty-nine feet in circumference; and near it, a large stone, with a rock-bason, and many tumuli, in which urns, beads, and rings, have been found. At a little distance he mentions observing another remarkable stone, thirteen feet, six inches in length, which appeared to have been placed by art on the brow of a precipice, and supported by two small stones. On the top is a large rock-bason, four feet, three inches in diameter; and close to this, on the south side, a hollow, cut like a chair, with a step to rest the feet upon. This, in the traditions of the country, is called Cair’s Chair [Carl’s Chair?]. Not far from this spot are also some Rocking-stones, “and of such a kind as seems plainly to indicate, that the first idea of forming Rocking-stones at all, was the appearance of certain stupendous masses, left by natural causes in such a singular situation, as to be even prepared, as it were, by the hand of Nature, to exhibit such a curious kind of equipoise.” (Munimental Antiqua, vol 1).

p477-478 of ‘The Beauties of England and Wales’ (1802).

When all the world shall be aloft,
Then Hallam-shire shall be God’s croft;
Winkabank and Temple-brough,
Will buy all England through and through.

Winkabank is a wood, upon a hill, near Sheffield, where there are some remains of an old camp. Temple-brough stands between the Rother and the Don, about a quarter of a mile from the place where these two rivers meet...

p235 of ‘A Provincial Glossary’ by Francis Grose (1811). Whatever it means.

On Pen Dinas, a very high and steep hill, near the bridge over the Rheidiol, is a large entrenchment, still in a good state of preservation, and where, Caradoc informs us, Rhys ap Grufydd, in 1113, encamped his forces, which, by a manoeuvre of the English, were enticed from the hill over the bridge, to besiege Aberystwyth castle, where they were surrounded and cut off almost to a man.

The tradition of the town attributes this entrenchment to the forces employed by Cromwell to beseige the castle.

p16 of ‘Excursions in North Wales’, ed. by John Hicklin, 1847. Online at google books.

A story about the circular churchyard. TP Ellis doesn’t believe its druidic roots either.

The church stands in the middle of a circular graveyard, one of the most perfect specimens of the type left to us.. ..The reason why it is circular is this. In olden times, the altar in a church was a very holy place indeed; more holy than it is generally regarded now, for people believed that, on the altars of the Church, Christ was, in the strictest literal sense of the word, actually present. That being so, anyone who claimed the protection of the altar, no matter what he had done, could not be touched. He was at once protected by the altar and by God from the vengeance of man, and round the sacred altar a circle was drawn, within which a man, so long as he remained within that circle, could claim sanctuary for seven years and seven days.

The graveyard at Llanelltyd was a sanctuary circle of the church, and the limits of the circle were settled in this way: the ploughman stood at the foot of the altar,with his arm outstretched, and, in his outstretched hand, he held the yoke of his plough-team. A plough team consisted of eight oxen, yoked two abreast, and the yoke extended from the front of the first couple to the end of the plough. Holding the yoke in his hand, the ploughman, no doubt with assistance, swept it round in a circle, and all land within that circle, which was called the “erw,” became holy ground. That is the origin of the phrase “God’s acre,” for “erw” means “acre.” It was the immediate circle of God’s protection, not of the dead, but of the living, however guilty.

People, I think rather fancifully, go a great deal further back than that in explaining the old Welsh circular graveyards. They associate them with the ancient stone-circles of the Druids, or whoever it was who made stone-circles.

Another object worthy of notice in the Llanelltyd church is an old stone, on the top of which there is incised a footprint, and underneath an inscription which reads in Latin, “The mark of Rhodri is on the top of this stone, which he placed there when he set out on a pilgrimage.” Nothing is known about Rhodri, for that or Rhydderch appears to be the name..

From chapter 9 of The Story of Two Parishes Dolgelley and Llanelltyd, by TP Ellis (1928)

From the Merioneth Local History Website / Merionnydd Gwefan Hanes Lleol:
rootsweb.com/~wlsmer2/DolgaLLan/llanchch.htm

Seems like there’s some confusion over the names.. Rhodri.. Kenric.. hmm.

Among the traditions attaching to megaliths and boulders a very common one is that they have been hurled to their place by giants, and crosses have been added by giants to this sport. The famous Hurle Stone at Chillingham, much famed for its circumambulatory ritual expressed in the jingling rhyme:

“Wind about and turn again,
And thrice round the Hurl Stane.
Round about and wind again,
Thrice round the Hurl Stane”

is actually a Christian cross. In this case the acquisition of the tradition may be due to the conformation of the shattered shaft which is pointed and inclines to the east, thus giving it “from a distance the look of a gigantic cross-bow bolt hurled here.“**

*Denham Tracts, ii, p142.
**History of Northumberland (Northumberland County History Committee) vol.xiv, 1935, pp323-4

In Pre-Christian Survivals in Connection with Crosses in the North of England
E. M. Guest
Folklore, Vol. 52, No. 3. (Sep., 1941), pp. 224-228.

So is the idea that it was a cross actually part of the folklore? To my untrained eye it seems more convincing crossbow bolt. And when a giant’s thrown it, you just know it’s a standing stone and not a cross shaft. Probably.

Abbotsbury Garland-Day Procession stopped. Chief Constable’s Apology to Parish Council.
The Daily Express of May 14, 1954, reported that the village constable of Abbotsbury had stopped the children’s Garland-Day Procession as it danced its way through the fishing village to the sea, on the ground that it was “begging” and was against the law. He also confiscated the collection amounting to £1 1s. 7 1/2d. The uproar reached Mr. John Fox-Strangways, Chairman of the parish council and son of the Earl of Ilchester, lord of the manor. He rang up a solicitor and said that the village would take steps to preserve its ancient and picturesque custom. The Thanksgiving Garland is blessed annually and thrown into the sea from whence comes their livelihood. In the evening the children put the Garland on its pole and again danced down to the sea, while the police were busy preparing a legal action.

The Times of May 20 announced that the Chief Constable of Dorset had expressed his sincere apologies for the “unfortunate occurrence” to the Abbotsbury parish council and said that the constable had acted on his own initiative, without the knowledge of the divisional superintendent. “It is no part of my policy to interfere with old village customs,” he stated. Mr. Fox-Strangways was authorised to take any necessary action to establish the legality of the Garland Day custom.

Proof that the Express has been complaining about Political Correctness for decades. p175 in Folk Life and Traditions
E. F. Coote Lake
Folklore, Vol. 65, No. 3/4. (Dec., 1954), pp. 172-175.

..I walked across to Criccieth Station; but on my way I was directed to call at a farm house called Llwyn y Mafon Uchaf, where I was to see Mr. Edward Llewelyn, a bachelor then seventy-six years of age. He is a native of the neighbourhood, and has always lived in it; moreover, he has now been for some time blind. He had heard a good many fairy tales.

.. He told me of a man at Ystum Cegid, a farm not far off, having married a fairy wife on condition that he was not to touch her with any kind of iron on pain of her leaving him for ever. Then came the usual accident in catching a horse in order to go to a fair at Carnarvon, and the immediate disappearance of the wife. At this point Mr. Llewelyn’s sister interposed to the effect that the wife did once return and address her husband in the rhyme, Os bydd anwyd arfy mab, &c.

From chapter three of
Celtic Folklore Welsh And Manx
by John Rhys
[1901] (online at the sacred texts archive).
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf105.htm#page_44

Surely the fairies had something to do with the cromlech – it can’t be coincidence that the husband came from that farm?

The ‘usual incident’ is that the husband had tried to throw a bridle over his horse, but accidentally touched his fairy wife with it. The rhyme is some motherly advice for the children she’d left behind:
“If my son should feel it cold,
Let him wear his father’s coat;
If the fair one feel the cold,
Let her wear my petticoat.”

Just to the north east of the church, at ~SN101270 (there’s a public footpath to it from the road) is/was St Teilo’s Well. As Kammer’s added the area of the church, I won’t feel too guilty adding this. It is very long, and I have cut it down somewhat – but it’s such a popularly cited case (what with the alleged Celtic Head symbolism) that I thought it good to have the original account.

[The landlady of Llandeilo farm-house] told me of St. Teilo’s Well.. adding that it was considered to have the property of curing the whooping-cough. I asked her if there was any rite or ceremony necessary to be performed in order to derive benefit from the water. Certainly, I was told; the water must be lifted out of the well and given to the patient to drink by some member of the family: to be more accurate, I ought to say that this must be done by somebody born in the house. One of her sons, however, had told me previously, when I was busy with the inscriptions [at the church], that the water must be given to the patient by the heir, not by anybody else.

Then came my question how the water was lifted, or out of what the patient had to drink, to which I was answered that it was out of the skull. “What skull?” said I. “St. Teilo’s skull,” was the answer. “Where do you get the saint’s skull?” I asked. “Here it is”, was the answer, and I was given it to handle and examine.

I know next to nothing about skulls; but it struck me that it was a thick, strong skull*, and it called to my mind the story of the three churches which contended for the saint’s corpse. You all know it, probably: the contest became so keen that it had to be settled by prayer and fasting. So, in the morning, lo and behold! there were three corpses of St. Teilo – not simply one – and so like were they in features and stature that nobody could tell which were the corpses made to order and which the old one.

I should have guessed that the skull which I saw belonged to the former description, as not having been very much worn by its owner; but this I am forbidden to do by the fact that, according to the legend, this particular Llandeilo was not one of the three contending churches which bore away in triumpth a dead Teilo each. Another view, however, is possible: namely, that the story has been edited in such a way as to reduce a larger number of Teilos into three, in order to gratify the Welsh fondness for triads.

Since my visit to the neighbourhood I have been favoured with an account of the well as it is now current there [..] that the people around call the well Ffynnon yr Ychen, or the Oxen’s Well [..and] that the current story solves the difficulty as to the saint’s skull as follows:- The saint had a favourite maid-servant from the Pembrokeshire Llandeilo: she was a beautiful woman, and had the privilege of attending on the saint when he was on his death-bed. As his death was approaching, he gave his maid a strict and solemn command that at the end of a year’s time she was to take his skull to the other Llandeilo, and to leave it there to be a blessing to coming generations of men, who, when ailing, would have their health restored by drinking water out of it [..]

I would now only point out that we have here an instance of a well which was probably sacred before the time of St. Teilo: in fact, one would possibly be right in supposing that the sanctity of the well and its immediate surroundings was one of the causes of the site being chosen by a Christian missionary. But consider for a moment what has happened: the well-paganism has annexed the saint, and established a belief ascribing to him the skull used in the well-ritual. The landlady and her family, it is true, do not believe in the efficacy of the well, or take gifts from those who visit the well; but they continue, out of kindness, to hand the skull full of water to those who persevere in their belief in it.

In other words, the faith in the well continues in a measure intact, when the walls of the church have fallen into utter decay. Such is the great persistence of ancient beliefs; and in this particular instance we have a succession which seems to point unmistakeably to an ancient priesthood of this spring of water.

p75-77 of
Sacred Wells in Wales
John Rhys; T. E. Morris
Folklore, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Mar., 1893), pp. 55-79.

*In his Celtic Folklore, Welsh And Manx [1901] he says it was the ‘upper portion’ of the skull.

Some more details in the Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1892-3)l

This possibly refers to the stone-walled square holy well at SH242294, just called ‘Ffynnon Sant’ on Coflein.

Myrddin Fardd* [..] mentioned Ffynnon Cefn Lleithfan,, or the Well of the Lleithfan Ridge, on the eastern slope of Mynydd y Rhiw, in the parish of Bryncroes, in the west of Lleyn. In the case of this well it is necessary, when going to it and coming from it, to be careful not to utter a word to anybody, or to turn to look back. What one has to do at the well is to bathe the warts with a rag or clout which has grease on it. When that is done, the clout with the grease has to be carefully concealed beneath the stone at the mouth of the well. This brings to my mind the fact that I have, more than once, years ago, noticed rags underneath stones in the water flowing from wells in Wales, and sometimes thrust into holes in the walls of wells, but I had no notion how they came there.

*aka Dr John Jones. Myrddin was his ‘bardic’ name. From p61 of
Sacred Wells in Wales
John Rhys; T. E. Morris
Folklore, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Mar., 1893), pp. 55-79.

I suppose this chamber could well be the stones referred to in the story:

Hundreds of years ago they used to keep the Collection money in the Church. One time, thieves broke into Llanfaelrhys Church to steal the money. Somehow, while at their work they were seen by passers by, who went into the church. When the thieves saw this they fled for their lives and they were followed by their pursuers until they came to the top of Rhiw, there the thieves were caught, on the road by a place called Terfyn. After catching the thieves they killed them on the spot, that was the punishment in those days for thieving. The two were buried in Four Crosses Field, Rhiw, and to show where they were buried big stones mere placed on their graves and till today these stones are called Lladron Maelrhys, but few people know of them today. It’s a pity that old things become lost.

From “Recollections” by Rowland Willlams
Bryn Golau, Rhiw.
Written in April 1946, when he was 72 years old.
This is online at Rhiw.com, here:
rhiw.com/pobol/rowland_williams/rowland_willlam_03.htm

“A couple of tumuli near the Bay are called “Robin Hood’s Butts,” at which, it is stated, he exercised his men in archery.”
p114 in ‘A glossary of Yorkshire words and phrases collected in Whitby and the Neighbourhood. By An Inhabitant. 1855. You can read this on Google Books.