Rhiannon

Contrary to IronMan’s pessimism, some reports suggest the golden coffin is still buried in the long barrow.. well at least, they don’t say it’s gone. (try Archaeologia 86, 1937, p121-2)

Nope I’ve no proof this holy well has genuine prehistoric connections. But it is on the Wrekin (a hill you can hardly fail to notice) and would surely have been a useful water source for people living in / using the hillfort in prehistoric times?

We complete the holy wells of the Wrekin District with St Hawthorn’s Well on the Wrekin itself. (There is also the Raven’s Bowl, alias Cuckoo’s Cup, near the top of the Wrekin, which suggests a more frankly pagan origin; a natural waterbowl that is still very much to be seen).

None of the authorities locate St Hawthorn’s Well’s exact site on the Wrekin, either because none knew, or when they wrote its position was so well-known that it seemed unnecessary. Like all other hard rock hills the Wrekin has a large number of streams originating from small springs, carrying water down the hill on all sides, so there are many candidates. However, where one stream emerges onto the road (NGR 624 069) the place is known as The Spout, and this may possibly commemorate St Hawthorn’s Well.

The well was known for scorbutic therapeutical properties, and the fact that one unfortunate’s unrewarded visit is commonly recorded suggests it was generally held to be efficacious. Burne holds St Hawthorn(e) to be a corruption of St Alkmund, to whom a nearby monastery was dedicated; but other authorities (and for once Mrs Burne’s view seems unlikely) suggest that there was a tree there that was venerated and the spring was close by.

Borrowed from ‘Notes Towards a Survey of Shropshire Holy Wells – 1’ by Laurens Otter, online at the Living Spring Journal archive:
people.bath.ac.uk/liskmj/living-spring/sourcearchive/fs3/fs3lo1.htm

“Mrs Burne” refers to Charlotte Burne’s ‘Shropshire Folk Lore’. Volume 3 says:

On the summit of the Wrekin there is the Raven’s Bowl, or Cuckoo’s Cup, as it is variously called; a small hollow in the rock, which is always full of water though no spring is there, and is popularly believed to be a drinking-place purposely, and as it were miraculously, formed for the use of the birds after which it is named. It is proper to taste the water in this hollow when visiting the Wrekin. I do not know, but feel no doubt nevertheless, that this was a ceremony pertaining to the ancient Wrekin Wake.

Philpots Camp is a triangular promotory fort that uses the natural cliffs to the south west and south east for defence. On the north east side there’s a bank and ditch to cut the fort off on its sandstone spur of the High Weald. But possibly more excitingly, the overhanging rocks of the cliffs were used much earlier, as rock shelters in Mesolithic times. A lot of flint knapping evidently went on here, and many pieces of flint were found at a large rock called variously ‘Great upon Little’ and ‘Big upon Little’. Geology and weather have created that ‘precarious undermined boulder’ look – hence the name. According to this page at ‘Sussex Archaeology and Folklore‘
sussexarch.org.uk/saaf/philhill.html :

“The stone was a great attraction for tourists at some point and there are initials carved wherever a hand could reach, dating anywhere from the 17th century, with initials being carved over others and the effects of the weather leaving the possibility of earlier dates, indeed Thomas Pownall in 1778 tell us that the stone “was covered with multitudes of names and initials of all dates”. The top of the rock next to it is easily accessible allowing the brave to jump across to the top of Big-Upon-Little. The author of this page found copper coins left there like some sort of votive offering.”

I also found this, which mentions the stone.

A man of 84 years of age told me that he had seen a book which told all about the rock called Great-upon-Little, but that it did not mention what he had heard people say, that the rock had formerly been an object of worship, and to touch it was death. (1905.)

p 163 in
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

Were local people such as the man above responding to speculation they’d heard from people who’d found flints, etc, or local antiquarian’s ideas? Or were they responding directly to the strangeness of the geology – something akin to Julian Cope’s and some modern archaeologists’ ideas of ‘proto temples’ and ‘sacred landscapes’?

The webpage above has a photo of Great upon Little, and pf another stone with carvings and folklore – the ominously named ‘Executioner’s Rock’.

“I was.. told that the giant on Firle Beacon threw his hammer at the Wilmington giant and killed him, and that the figure on the hillside marks the place where his body fell.”
p162 of
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

Seaford Head is an Iron Age hillfort, but it actually contains an older, early Bronze Age round barrow. Folklore seems to connect it with both the fairy folk and the Romans:

An almost unapproachable cave in the face of the cliff at Seaford Head is called (says M. A. Lower) Puck Church Parlour, and is the scene of an ancient superstition. A shepherd on the cliff top told me (1875) that it was called Buck Church; his boy had been in it, but he couldn’t get down the face of the cliff. (1875.)

p162 in: Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

A short distance from the haven [Cuckmere Haven] a steep gulley leads to the beach with a convenient chain and rope to prevent too sudden a descent. It has been suggested that through this gap the Romans passed from their moored fleets to the fortified settlements above. It was at one time possible to descend by another opening higher up the cliff to a ledge called “Puck Church Parlour.” This is now inaccessible except to seabirds.

From chapter 2 of ‘Seaward Sussex’, by Edric Holmes (1920).

Fires were anciently lighted on the top of Firle Beacon, Mount Caburn and other eminences of the South Downs. They were last lighted on the day of the Queen’s Jubilee, June 21st, 1887. On the top of Firle Beacon is a “round”; the woman who told me this did not seem to be certain what this “round” was, and was inclined to think that it might have been a haunt or habitation of the giant of Firle Beacon. (noted 1891)

from p164 of
Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie
C. S. Burne
Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170.

More from ‘Local Traditions of the Quantocks’ by C. W. Whistler
(in Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.), which I seem to have overlooked. Must have been the Pixy Effect.

The Pixy legends of the district are of no unusual type. Belief in “Pixy leading” is general, and only a few years since a woman, lost in a sudden evening mist within a few minutes walk across the fields from her house, and unable to regain the pathway or find the stile, became actually demented from terror, firmly believing that she was “Pixy led.” The legends have one special centre round a large mound on the Wick “moor”, exploration of which has this year yielded some very remarkable results. The mound is about ninety feet across by eleven feet high, mainly composed of stones, and it was said to move bodily about the field in whose centre it stands.

Barrows moving about? How very unusual. But I do refer you to Grinsell’s cautious remarks below.

On [one] side of Dorchester, on a steep bank overlooking the river Frome, is a single entrenchment called Poundbury (locally, “Pumbury”); it is an irregular quadrangle the longest side of which runs nearly parallel with the river and is more than 400 yards long, – the extreme width is about 150 yards. This is attributed by some to the Danes, and by others to the Romans, who are thought, with much probability, to have erected it when attacking or “observing” Maiden Castle..

Local folklore or just antiquarian speculation? hmm.

Remarks on Some Archaic Structures in Somersetshire and Dorsetshire.
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 11. (1882), pp. 117-122.

The Stones are but a tiny hop from the Winterbourne spring. Is it too imaginative to think the two might be connected? Ok possibly.

“Folks say that no man ever saw a ‘winter-borne break. It is dry one day and running the next, but its first downpour was never beheld. Many years ago watch was kept day and night for a fortnight for the breaking of the Winterborne Abbas stream. One night the watchman on duty found that his pipe had gone out. ‘Bridehead-lodge – he bean’t ‘bove hundred or two yard – can’t do any harm to get light there.’ But in those three minutes the winter-borne broke unseen.”

Some might also be keen to read meaning into the nearby house being ‘Bride-head lodge’.
p117 in
Dorset Folk-Lore
J. J. Foster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 115-119.

Dolmens.-- These were supposed to be giant’s graves, and, if called “altars,” the word was understood in a Christian sense, with a belief that they had been used for the mass during the prevalence of the cruel penal laws.

For example, Altoir Ultach was said to be named from an Ulster priest who served the mass there in the eighteenth century because the nearest magistrates were more tolerant than those of the north.

There is no evidence of any general popular belief that they were pagan altars, such an idea, where it existed, being derived from the “learned ignorance” of local gentry.

p91 in
A Folklore Survey of County Clare (Continued)
Thos. J. Westropp
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Mar., 1912), pp. 88-94.

The highest point of Slievenaglasha, --rising 700 feet above the sea, which is visible far to the west, --has fourteen cairns and overlooks a long shallow valley, with strange brown patches here and there and another strong ring wall over a little cave. The patches are the labbas or beds of the Glas and her calf, the waterfall sprang from the abundant milk of the cow, and the fort is Mohernagartan (“the smiths’s fort”), the residence of Lon the Smith. The footprints of the wonderful animal and of Lon’s seven sons are visible on every crag, and the cave with strange cinder-like debris is the reputed forge of the “dark brown Luno” of (Macpherson’s) Ossian.

p89 in
A Folklore Survey of County Clare (Continued)
Thos. J. Westropp
Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Mar., 1912), pp. 88-94.

The tale of the Glasgeivnagh, or Grey-green Cow, on Slievenaglasha [..] runs as follows:- Lon mac Liomhtha (Loon mac Leefa), of the Tuatha De Danann, was the first smith to make an edged weapon in Ireland. He had only one leg, with which he could spring over hills and valleys, but as compensation he had a third arm and hand growing out of his chest, with which he held the iron on the anvil while forging it with the huge hammer held by his other hands.

He had stolen a wonderful grey-green cow from Spain, and lived on its unlimited milk. After long seeking he found a “desert” sufficiently fruitful to support her in Teeskagh. Many tried to steal her, but failed, because her hoofs grew backwards and she could not be tracked.

One of Lon’s seven sons took charge of her on each day of the week, holding her tail while she grazed. When she reached the edge of the plateau, he pulled her round by the tail, and let her graze back to Lon’s fort, Mohernagartan (“the smith’s fort”). She drank of the seven streams of Teeskagh, and the rocks were marked in every direction with her hoof prints.

At last the fame of Finn mac Cumhail reached Lon, and he, unlike the rest of his race, (who sulked in the fairy hills after their defeat by the Milesians), determined to recognise the chief hero of the new race and to make for him a wondrous sword. Lon set off to make himself known, and springing over the intervening plains and hills reached Ben Edair, the Hill of Howth on the east coast. Finn and his warriors were holding a court when the strange being dropped into their midst, and Finn demanded the name and errand of the intruder.

“I am Lon, skilled in the smith’s craft, a servant to the King of Lochlan,” the visitor replied. “I lay on ye a geis (obligation) to overtake me ere I reach my home,” and off he sprung.

The Fianna were soon outdistanced, except Caeilte “of the slender, hard legs,” who came up with Lon hard by his forge, a cave with heaps of slaggy material in a nook still called Garraidh na gceardchan.

Caeilte slapped Lon on the shoulder with the words, “Stay, smith. Enter not they cave.”
“Success and welcome, true man of the Fianna,” replied Lon, in delight. “Not for witchcraft did I visit thee, but to lead thee to my forge and make thee a fame-giving weapon.”

The two had already wrought in the forge for two days when Finn and his followers arrived, and Lon sold them eight swords. He resumed work aided by Goll and Conan, sons of Morna, but their mighty blows split the anvil and ended the work.*

*Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. ii., p, 71; taken down in 1839 from Shane Reagh O’Cahane, an old tailor and shanachy (story-teller) in Corofin, by O’Donovan and E. O’Curry.

.. The tale was minutely localised on Glasgeivnagh Hill and Slievenaglasha before 1839. At first our enquiries seemed to show that the story had died out, but after a couple of years Dr. MacNamara found it still subsisting amongst a few old folk and herdsmen neer Teeskagh. As neither of us referred to the 1839 story, we were much struck by the perfect agreement after the lapse of two generations. I took down one recension at Tullycommaun in 1896, from John Finn. The main story is identical with that given above, and it ends as follows:-

“At Slievenaglasha were the Glas cow’s beds. No grass ever grows on them. She used to feed near the herd’s house [at the dolmen of Slievenaglasha] and over Cahill’s mountain, where she could get plenty of water out of Teeskagh. And she went away, and how do I know where? And there were no tidings.”

Another tale, extant and in 1839, tells that the cow could fill any vessel with milk, until an ill-conditioned woman bought a sieve; the mill ran through and became the Seven Streams; and the cow, mortified at being unable to fill the sieve, ran away and (or, in one version) died. With reference to another appendix to the tale,-- “an Ulsterman took the cow,“...

County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths, I
Thos. J. Westropp
Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Mar., 1913), pp. 96-106.

The record on Coflein says this 1.8m high mound is now part of ‘domestic garden’.

[I examined] a large cairn on the opposite side of the River Ogwen, about a mile south of the village of Llandegai and close to the back of the keeper’s house at Llys-y-gwynt. It was called “Carnedd Howel” from the popular belief that it was the resting place of a prince of that name: but it is hardly necessary to say that these associations of prehistoric burial-places with historical personages are generally mythical; they date probably from a comparatively recent period, when history itself had become somewhat legendary, and when past events had become jumbled together in the traditions of the people.

..An old man of 80, named Robert Roberts, told me that, as a boy, he was much afraid of passing here by night, as he had often seen lights dancing about on the Carnedd.

From p309 of
On the Opening of Two Cairns Near Bangor, North Wales
A. Lane Fox
The Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1869-1870), Vol. 2, No. 3. (1870), pp. 306-324.

Hearing from my friend Sheriff Mackenzie, of Dornoch, of the existence of an ancient fort, with dome-roofed chamber attached, and surrounded by earth-works and a ditch, on the farm of Kintradwell, near Bror, I resolved to take an early opportunity of inspecting it ..

Leaving further excavations at this locality to a more favourable opportunity.. we next morning held council over the mouth of an underground passage opening in the hill side, about a mile off, and averred by the majority of our men to have been traced to Dunrobin Castle, seven miles away, whilst the utmost concession to our most delicately expressed doubts on the subject, could go no further than to reduce its length to four hundred yards, throughout every inch of which it had positively been followed by the uncle’s wife’s father of one of our party, accompanied by his collie and carrying a candle...

p.lxv in Some Further Notes upon Pre-Historic Hut-Circles
George E. Roberts
Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 3. (1865), pp. lx-lxv.

Numerous hut-circles also occur near Clun Castle [sic], Cornwall, of a rude circular form, varying from eight to forty feet in diameter; the “walls” or hedges composed of unhewn stones placed without cement.
The hearth-stone was met with beneath the centre of one circle covered up with about twelve inches of mould. These are locally known as the “huts of the old people.” They have been briefly described by Miss Millett in the Report of the Penzance Nat. Hist. and Antiquarian Society for 1849..

p lxii in:
Some Further Notes upon Pre-Historic Hut-Circles
George E. Roberts
Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 3. (1865), pp. lx-lxv.

Grinsell mentions the story of the broken peel (see below) in his ‘Archaeology of Exmoor’ (1970). He says that similar stories have been recorded in England – at Beedon Barrow for example, but that it has ‘a Scandinavian flavour’. “Miss R.L. Tongue has mentioned another Scandinavian motif (the theft of a gold cup from the fairies) from the Quantock Hills, although apparently not connected with any barrow.”

One final point needs to be added. The Wick Barrow tradition seems to have been first recorded for that site by Rev C. W. Whistler, Rector of Stockland Bristol from 1895 to 1909; he was also an energetic member of the Viking Society of Great Britain and Ireland, for which he was secretary for the Bridgwater area. Because of this the present writer just wonders how vivid his imagination was.

He thought Miss Tongue was quite imaginative too, I believe.

Oh how I would have loved to meet Mr Grinsell. He collects all this folklore but he is such a cynic. I’d like to think we would have got on well.

Okay. So this story isn’t precisely about the Woodbarrow. But I’m inclined to think that Westcote’s vagueness about its location is all part of his storytelling style.

The name of this other burrow I remember not, but it is near another that I cannot forget, Wood-burrow, of which a gentleman worthy credit, both for honesty and wealth (as the proverb saith worth a 1000£), told me this relation.--

Two good fellows, not inhabiting far from this burrow, were informed by one who took on him the skill of a conjuror, that in that hillock there was a great brass pan, and therin much treasure both silver and gold, which if they would mine for, he promised (by his metaphysical skill) to secure them from all danger, so he might have his share with them. They with little persuasions assented, and in love made a fourth man acquainted therewith, whom they knew to be no dastard, but hardy in deed; but he better qualified than to take such courses to purchase wealth, absolutely refused to partake therein, but promised secrecy.

The other two, with their protector the mystical sciencer, proceed, come to the place, go to their work, and apply it so earnestly that long it was not ere they found the pan covered with a large stone; with a sight whereof and their assister’s encouragement they follow their labour with the utmost ability, for he always told them if they fainted when it was in sight it would be soon gone and taken from them, and their whole labour lost.

Now the cover was to be opened, and the fellow at work; but he was suddenly taken with such a faintness that he could neither work nor scarce stand, and therefore called to the other to supply his place, which he presently did. Lifting up the cover he was instantly surprised with the like faintness; which continued not long with either; but their defender told them the birds were flown away and the nest only left, which they found true; for recovering their strength they lift away the stone and take out the pan, wherein was nothing at all but the bottom thereof, where the treasure should seem to have been, very bright and clean, the rest all eaten with cankered rust.

The relator protested that he saw the pan, and they two that laboured told him severally all these circumstances, and avowed them.

Quoted by Grinsell from Westcote’s ‘View of Devon in 1630’, in
The Archaeology of Exmoor
L V Grinsell
1970
(p157)

Thomas Westcote’s story of the barrow:

A daily labouring man by the work of his hand and sweat of his brow having gotten a little money, was desirous to have a place to rest himself in old age, and therefore bestowed it on some acres of waste land, and began to build a house thereon near, or not far from, one of these burrows, named Broaken-Burrow, whence he fetched stones and earth to further his work;

and having pierced into the bowels of the hillock he found therein a little place, as it had been a large oven, fairly, strongly, and closely walled up; which comforted him much, hoping that some great good would befall him, and that there might be some treasure there hidden to maintain him more liberally and with less labour in his old years:

wherewith encouraged, he plies his work earnestly until he had broken a hole through this wall, in the cavity whereof he espied an earthen pot, which caused him to multiply his strokes until he might make the orifice thereof large enough to take out the pot, which his earnest desire made not long a doing; but as he thrust his arm and fastened his hand therin he suddenly heard, or seemed to hear, the noise of the trampling or treading of horses coming, as he thought, towards him, which caused him to forbear and arise from the place, fearing the comers would take his purchase from him; (for he assured himself it was treasure); but looking about every way to see what company this was, he saw neither horse nor man in view.

To the pot again he goes, and had the like success a second time; and yet, looking all about, could ken nothing. At the third time he brings it away, and therein only a few ashes and bones, as if they had been of children, or the like. But the man, whether by the fear, which yet he denied, or other cause, which I cannot comprehend, in very short time after lost senses of both sight and hearing, and in less than three months consuming died. He was in all his lifetime accounted an honest man; and he constantly reported this, divers times, to men of good quality; with protestations to the truth thereof, even to his death. It is your choice to believe these stories or no; what truth soever there is in them, they are not unfit tales for winter nights when you roast crabs by the fire.

From Westcote’s ‘View of Devon in 1630’.

Killuken, county Roscommon.
In a field on the roadside from Carrick to Croghan, on the left hand, is a long stone set up obliquely. The common people call this Cloghcom, i.e., the crooked stone, and say that it was thrown there from the top of Skimore, in the county of Leitrim (a distance of about seven miles), by the Giant Fin mac-Coole, the print of whose five fingers they say is to be seen in it.

Taken from ‘A statistical account or parochial survey of Ireland, drawn from the communications of the clergy, by William Shaw Mason. 1814-1819.
Quoted on p333 of
Irish Folk-Lore. [Continued]
William Shaw Mason
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 4. (1887), pp. 331-335.

Kindly identified by Ryaner – many thanks.

Camden points out [..] a confusion in the case of [..] a place in Sussex, ‘a military fort compass’d about with a bank rudely cast-up, where the inhabitants believe that Caesar intrench’d and fortify’d his Camp. But Cisbury, the name of the place, plainly shews it was the work of Cissa; who was the second King of this Kingdom, of the Saxon race, succeeding Aella his father.

Camden’s eighteenth century editor interpolates an account of another* Caesar tradition in Sussex: within a mile of Findon ‘is an ancient Camp, about two miles distant from the sea. It is call’d Caesar’s-hill, because the people imagine it was Caesar’s Camp; and they pretend to shew the place where Caesar’s tent was. Notwithstanding which, the form of it shows that opinion to be ill grounded; for, being roundish, it seems rather to have been a British work.‘

p224 in
Local Caesar Traditions in Britain
Homer Nearing, Jr.
Speculum, Vol. 24, No. 2. (Apr., 1949), pp. 218-227.

*surely the same – because Cissbury ring is very close to Findon.

Pant y Meddygon (the Dingle of the Physicians) features in the famous local legend of the Physicians of Myddfai (though curiously the stones aren’t mentioned. Perhaps the stones now represent the physicians?). The Otherworldly Lady of the Lake used to visit her sons here, showing them the plants and explaining their medicinal properties.

You can read the whole story at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf105.htm
where it is part of John Rhys’s ‘Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx’ (1901). He was quoting a writer from 1860 who had based his writing on local accounts.

Maeshowe, or the maiden’s mound, as it has been translated, was formerly known to the Orcadians by the euphonius name of “the abode of the Hog-boy.” Hog-boy, however, is simply a perversion of the Norse Haug-bui or mound dweller.

From p150 of
Orkneys and Shetland
Chas. Sprague Smith
Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, Vol. 23. (1891), pp. 131-155.

[In the photograph] are two “celts.” The lower one is nearly black (basalt?) the upper one is of a very light grey and in perfect condition. Both are of hard close-grained stone. The interest attaching to them is that they are “fairy arrows.” They were found at Mulindry Glen, near what appears in the maps as Dun Nosebridge, locally called Nosbreac, Islay. The original owner of them, when handing them to the lady from whom they were received, said “they were in the possession of her father and her grandfather and were always called saigheadan shith and were saigheadan shith.” In Eigg these seem to be called Ceapa-Sithein, as if they had been used for blocking something on, as a shoemaker’s last is used.

Charms, etc., Figured on Plate IX
R. C. MacLagan
Folklore, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Sep. 29, 1903), pp. 298-300.

A. L. Lewis quotes from a letter “from the Reverend Dr. James Garden, Professor of Theology in the King’s College of Aberdeen, to --- Aubrey, Esquire.”

Honoured Sir,
Yours dated at London, April 9th, 1692, came to my hands about ten days after..
What the Lord Yester and Sir Robert Morray told you long ago is true, viz., that in the north parts of this kingdom many monuments of the nature and fashion described by you are yet extant. They consist of tall, big, unpolished stones set upon end and placed circularly, not contiguous together but at some distances; the obscurer sort (which are the more numerous) have but one circle of stones standing at equal distances; others towards the south or south-east have a larger broad stone standing on edge, which fills up the whole space between two of those stones that stand on end, and is called by the vulgar the altar stone...

[..] Two of the largest and most remarkable of these monuments that ever I saw are yet to be seen at a place called Auchincorthie. [..] Being lately at Auchincorthie, I was told that a poor man who lives there having taken a stone away from one of the neighbouring monuments above described and put it into his hearth was, by his own relation, troubled with a deal of noise and din about his house in the night time until he carried back the stone unto the place where he found it.

[..] Some of them are called chapels... others are called temples... and those two [described] are called by the people that live near by ‘Law Stones,’ for what reason I know not, and ‘Temple Stones.’ They have a tradition that the pagan priests of old dwelt in that place, Auchincorthie, and there are yet to be seen at a little distance from one of the monuments standing there the foundations of an old house which is said to have been their Teind Barn; they report likewise that the priests caused earth to be brought from other adjacent places upon people’s backs to Auchincorthie for making the soil thereof deeper, which is given for the reason why this parcel of land, though surrounded with heath and moss on all sides is better and more fertile than other places thereabouts*..

“*This tradition, which seems rather absurd at first sight, may have arisen from the custom which we know to have prevailed of bringing earth and stones from a distance to form special parts of tumuli and circles. -- A.L.L.”

From p 49-51 of
Stone Circles Near Aberdeen
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 17. (1888), pp. 44-57.

In a Welsh manuscript from 1600* there is a list of giants and their abodes. It includes

“Clidda Gawr in the parish of Bettws Newydd, and his abode in the place called Cloddeu Caer Clidda, and that land to­day is called Tir Clidda in the parish of Llanarth.”

Coed y Bwnydd is near/on Clytha Hill, so it seems Coed y Bwnydd may well be Clidda’s castle. It’s now a wooded nature reserve looked after by Monmouthshire council. (There is a Clytha Castle to the north, but that’s far too new for a giant).

*Owen, H., ‘Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837’ Y Cymmrodor, XXVII, (1917) pp.115-52. Text and translation.
cited here on the Arthurian Gwent page.

The Trioedd Ynys Prydain (“The Triads of the Island of Britain”) were compiled in the 13th century*. Triad 5126 describes Vortigern, who was not a very nice man. But he came to a sticky end:

“[He] first gave land to the Saxons in this Island, and was the first to enter into an alliance with them. He caused the death of Custennin the Younger, son of Custennin the Blessed, by his treachery, and exiled the two brothers Emrys Wledig and Uthur Penndragon from this Island to Armorica, and deceitfully took the crown and the kingdom into his own possession. And in the end Uthur and Emrys burned Gwrtheyrn in Castell Gwerthynyawn beside the Wye, in a single conflagration to avenge their brother.”

The triads had been influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work, the ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ (c1138). (a translation of which is online at yorku.ca/inpar/geoffrey_thompson.pdf )
and this similarly describes Arthur going to
“.. the town of Genoreu, whither Vortigern had fled for refuge. That town was in the country of Hergin, upon the river Gania, in the mountain called Cloarius.”

(bear with me here)

People (eg John Edward Lloyd in
The English Historical Review, Vol. 57, 1942) have suggested that Genoreu is ‘Ganarew’, which is today the name of the settlement below Little Doward hillfort. So this could be the intended scene of this story. For another Arthurian link, there is a cave on the hillside called “King Arthur’s Cave“.

*but you have to bear in mind that Iolo Williams had an overactive imagination too.

This mound is called a round barrow in the scheduled monument record (though maybe there’s some doubt about its origins).

To quote the Furness Family History Society: “In a field called Ellabarrow is an oval tumulus crowned with trees, and in the next field is a pit from which its earth is thought to have come, it is said that in the barrow the mythical Lord Ella is said to be buried along side his golden sword.”

furnessfhs.co.uk/pennington_church_01.htm

These earthworks (probably an Iron Age hillfort reused in medieval times) – are where the giant threw the Tibblestone from.

I haven’t found an older reference for this, but Danny Sullivan claims the giant was aiming at Tewkesbury:
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.rtf.
whilst Celia Haddon says he was aiming at the boats on the Severn:
celiahaddon.co.uk/standing%20stones/gloucestershire.html
That’s really the wrong direction! but then, it is said that he slipped mid-throw.
The ‘Tibblestone’ page quotes ‘The Old Straight Track’: “A long time ago, a giant lived in these parts, and he went up the hill to fetch a large stone to destroy his enemy’s house. When he was carrying it down, his foot slipped, and his heel made a great furrow in the hillside, and you can see it to this day, and he had to drop the stone just where you see it. It is quite true because you can see for yourself the holes where the giant’s fingers had hold of it.”
tibblestone.users.btopenworld.com/tibblestone.htm

This is a slightly different version of the tale below (which is also in the article). It was told by Mr. Howel Walters of Ystradgynlais, who assured the writer it was firmly believed in that parish. It’s quite long, but then it has to be to accommodate the traditional ‘three repeats’.

There was a conjurer living at Ystradgylais at the beginning of the present century, who had an iron hand; and there is an old tradition that a treasure is hidden at the Garngoch, the highest point of the Drim mountain. The “Iron-hand” conjurer made the acquaintance of one John Gething, a farmer’s son, who lived at Werngynlais farm, and gave him some books to study, with a view of teaching him the black art. John is reported to have made great progress in a short time; and, being a very courageous man, his teacher was able to perform in his presence many things which few mortals can withstand.

One day John Gething was working at the hay on his father’s farm, when two men appeared before him. John said to them, “Hei!” And one of the men said to him: “Well, is it for thee that thou hast spoken! Thou must come with us to the Garngoch to seek the hidden treasure.”

John went, and on the way he found out that he who spoke to him was his old teacher: but the other being disappeared, and John never saw him again. On arriving at Garngoch the conjurer told John that he was not, on the peril of his life, to divulge anything that he would see or hear that night on the top of Garngoch.

When night came on the conjurer opened his books, lit a candle, and began to read, with strict injunctions to John not to be afraid of anything he saw. While the conjuror read spirits appeared and surrounded them with great noise; and then great light shone on Garngoch, and John saw three pots full of gold. Nothing more happened that night; but the conjurer gave John strict instructions to meet him there another night which he named.

When the appointed night came John met him to time. The first thing done by the conjurer this night, after giving John the same instructions as on the previous night, and that he was not to be frightened, was to make two rings joined like the figure 8. John stood in one ring and the conjurer in the other, and neither of them was to step out of the ring, or fear, at the risk of losing their lives or being carried away by the devil! The conjurer lit his candle and began to read his books; and the spirits appeared with great noise. Then came a fiery bull, and ran at John Gething; but John stood in the ring fearlessly, and the bull and all the evil spirits vanished. The conjurer was very pleased with John Gething’s courage, and told him one night more would be sufficient for them to fight against the spirits to secure all the hidden treasure and gold he had seen on the first night. The conjurer, before leaving, told John on what night he was to meet him again.

On the third night the conjurer had brought more books, and told John before he opened them that it was a matter of life or death to im how he acted that night, that terrible things would appear, but there would be no harm if he stood fearlessly, and did not move out of the ring; but first he must have a drop of John’s blood to give to the devil to satisfy him before the spirits appeared, and John gave a drop of his blood to the conjurer to give to the devil.

The conjurer then made to rings as before, lit his candle, and began to read his books. The spirits came with greater noise than before, and surrounded them, and a large wheel of fire came towards the ring in which John Gethin stood, and John was so frightened that he stepped out of the ring.

The devil immediately took hold of him, and was going to carry him away in such a terrible storm and heavy rains as no one before witnessed in the district, but the conjurer implored him not to kill John, as he had displayed such courage before; and there was a hard fight between the devil and the conjurer for John’s life, and the devil at last gave in, and permitted John to live as long as the candle lasted which the conjurer had to read his books, and the devil told them that neither of them should ever have the hidden treasure, but a virgin not yet born would some day own the same.

The conjuror gave John Gething the candle, and told him not to light it, but to keep it in a cool place. John did so, but the cndle wasted, though it was never lighted, and John Gething from that night became ill, and worse and worse, until he died. The candle also was found to have wasted completely at the time of his death.

During John’s illness several doctors attended upon him, but no one understood the cause of his sufferings or death, except a few persons to whom he divulged what had transpired on the Garngoch. John was buried at Ystradgynlais church.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

The Treasure on the Drim
E. Sidney Hartland
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 125-128.

The Witch-Elder still watches over the victims of her magic. As to the exact position of the tree, however, the tradition is shifting. According to some accounts it used to stand in the field not far from the dolmen called the “Whispering Knights.” Some say it was near the circle, but was blown down not many years ago. Others say that it is to be found in the hedge by the road not far from the King-stone, or further in the field beyond the mound where an elder-bush that stood by a large stone was some years since pointed out to a friend as “the Witch.”

[..]

The proof that the elder is a witch is that it bleeds when it is cut. And with regard to this I came upon a remarkable tradition, which an old woman, the wife of a man of eighty, told me she had heard many years ago from her husband’s mother.

On Midsummer Eve, when the “eldern-tree” was in blossom, it was a custom for people to come up to the King-stone and stand in a circle. Then the “eldern” was cut, and as it bled “the King moved his head.”

It is to be observed that this breaking of the spell by blood-letting itself fits on to a very widespread superstition regarding witches, of which I found many surviving expressions in the neighbouring village of Long Compton. They say there that if you only draw her blood, “be it but a pin’s prick,” the witch loses all power for the time.

For the “eldern-tree” to bleed it must be in blossom. The more sceptical spirits amongst the country people explain the matter by the catch, “If you cut the elder with your hand on it it will bleed,” but among the children at least the more literal belief in the bleeding elder has not died out.

An old man of Little Rollright told me that some years ago he was up by the stones and a ploughboy asked him whether it was really true that the elder-tree bled if it was cut. “Lend me your knife,” said the old man, and forthwith stuck it into the bark. “Won’t you pull it out?” siad the boy. “Pull it out yourself!” was the reply, but the boy was too scared to do so. It was only at last, as they were about to go home for the night, that the boy, fearful that he would lose his knife altogether, approached the tree “tottering with fright and all of a tremble,” and, snatching it out, rushed away without waiting to see whether the tree bled or not.

From p20/21 in
The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore
Arthur J. Evans
Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), pp. 6-53.

[This] was told me in the summer of 1894: I was in Meath and went to see the remarkable chambered cairns on the hill known as Sliabh na Caillighe, ‘the Hag’s Mountain,’ near Oldcastle and Lough Crew. I had as my guide a young shepherd whom I picked up on the way. He knew all about the hag after whom the hill was called except her name: she was, he said, a giantess, and so she brought there, in three apronfuls, the stones forming the three principal cairns. As to the cairn on the hill point known as Belrath, that is called the Chair Cairn from a big stone placed there by the hag to serve as her seat when she wished to have a quiet look on the country round. But usually she was to be seen riding on a wonderful pony she had: that creature was so nimble and strong that it used to take the hag at a leap from one hill-top to another. However, the end of it all was that the hag rode so hard that the pony fell down, and that both horse and rider were killed.

From Celtic Folklore
Welsh And Manx
by John Rhys
[1901]

online at sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf200.htm

..the Cailleach Bheara is most closely associated with the great cairns at Loughcrew, about two miles south-east of Oldcastle, Co. Meath. The Hill called Sliabh-na-Caillighe is 904 feet high and a prominent feature in the landscape. It has three main peaks, two of which are covered with tumuli and cairns while the third had large tumulus on it which was broken up by the landowner to make walls round his property.

[..]

The legend, which was commonly related in the neighbourhood up to fifty years ago, was that a famous old hag of antiquity called Cailleach Bheara came one day from the North to perform a magical feat, by which she was to obtain great power if she succeeded. She took an apron full of stones and dropped a cairn on Carnbane; from this she jumped to the summit of Sliabh-na-Caillighe, a mile distant, and dropped a second cairn there; then she made a third jump and dropped a cairn on another hill about a mile distant. If she could make a fourth leap and drop a fourth cairn, the feat would have been accomplished; but, in making the jump, she slipped and fell in the townland of Patrickstown in the parish of Diamor, where the poor old hag broke her neck. Here she was buried, and her grave was to be seen in a field called Cul a’mhota, “Back of the Mote”, about 200 perches east from the mote in that townland, but it is now destroyed.

p246 of “Legends and Traditions of the Cailleach Bheara or Old Woman (Hag) of Beare” by Eleanor Hull, in
Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3. (Sep. 30, 1927), pp. 225-254.

She refers to Conwell and O’Donovan in Proc. R.I. Acad., vol ix, pp42, 356

If you make seven circles of Mount Caburn the Devil will jump out at you – according to a local chap this tale was seriously believed c.1914 when he was a boy.

Apparently cited in a letter to? Jacqueline Simpson in 1973, and mentioned in a footnote in
Circling as an Entrance to the Otherworld
Samuel Pyeatt Menefee
Folklore, Vol. 96, No. 1. (1985), pp. 3-20.

“The church of Brent Tor is dedicated to St Michael. And there is a tradition among the vulgar that its foundation was originally laid at the foot of the hill ; but that the enemy of all angels, the Prince of Darkness, removed the stones by night from the base to the summit,--probably to he nearer his own dominion, the air,--but that, immediately on the church’s being dedicated to St Michael, the patron of the edifice hurled upon the devil such an enormous mass of rock that he never afterwards ventured to approach it. Others tell us that it was erected by a wealthy merchant, who vowed, in the midst of a tremendous storm at sea (possibly addressing him. self to his patron, St Michael, that if he escaped, he would built a church on the first land he descried. If this was the case, he seems to have performed his vow with more worldly prudence than gratitude; as it is one of the smallest churches any where to be met with. Indeed it frequently, and not inappropriately, has been compared to a cradle.

p252 of A Description of the Part of Devonshire bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy, by Mrs Bray. v1 (1836).

The beacon at Veryan stands on the highest ground in Roseland, at a short distance from the cliff which overlooks Pendower and Gerrans Bay. Dr Whitaker, in his ‘Cathedral of Cornwall,’ states it to be one of the largest tumuli in the kingdom. Its present height above the level of the field in which it stands is about twenty-eight feet, and its circumference at the base three hundred and fifty feet; but it must have been originally much larger, as a considerable portion on one side has been removed, its summit being now about’ eighty feet from the base on the south side, and only fifty feet on the north, whilst the top of the cairn which was discovered in it, and which ‘was, no doubt, placed exactly in the original centre of the mound, is at least ten feet still farther north than the present summit.

“A tradition has been preserved in the neighbourhood, that Gerennius, an old Cornish saint and king, whose palace stood on the other side of Gerrans Bay, between Trewithian and the sea, was buried in this mound many centuries ago, and that a golden boat with silver oars were used in conveying his corpse across the hay, and were interred with him. Part of this tradition receives confirmation from an account incidentally given of King Gerennius, in an old book called the ‘Register of Llandaff.‘

It is there stated that, A.D. 588, Teliau, bishop of Llandaff, with some of his suffragan bishops, and many of his followers, fled from Wales, to escape an epidemic called the yellow plague, and migrated to Dole in Brittany, to visit Sampson, the archbishop of that place, who was a countryman and friend of Teliau’s. ‘On his way thither,’ says the old record, ‘he came first to the region of Cornwall, and was well received by Gerennius, the king of that country, who treated him and his people with all honour. From thence he proceeded to Armories, and remained there seven years and seven months; when, hearing that the plague had ceased in Britain, he collected his followers, -caused a large bark to be prepared, and returned to Wales.’ ‘In this,’ the record proceeds, ‘they all arrived at the port called Din.Gerein, king Gerennius lying in the last extreme of life, who when he had received the body of the Lord from the hand of St Teliau, departed in joy to the Lord.‘

‘Probably,’ says Whitaker, in his remarks on this quotation, ‘the royal remains were brought in great pomp by water from Din-Gerein, on the western shore of the port, to Came, about two miles off on the northern; the barge with the royal body was plated, perhaps, with gold in places; perhaps, too, rowed with oars having equally plates of silver upon them; and the pomp of the procession has mixed confusedly with the interment of the body in the memory of tradition.’ ”

From Popular Romances of the West of England
collected and edited by Robert Hunt
[1903, 3rd edition]

online at the Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/prwe/index.htm

Celts or stone implements.---These in the west of Ireland, but especially in the Aran Isles, Galway Bay, are looked on with great superstition. They are supposed to be fairy darts or arrows, and are called saighead [syed] anglice dart. They had been thrown by fairies, either in fights among themselves or at a mortal man or beast. The finder of one should carefully put it in a hole in a wall or ditch. It should not be brought into a house or given to anyone, yet the Aranites are very fond of making votive offerings of them at the holy wells on the mainland. They carry them to the different patrons and leave them there; the reason for this I could not make out; they do not seem to leave them at the holy wells on the islands. A person supposed to be fairy-struck is said to have been “struck with a dart.” Grown people who suddenly get fits are supposed to be struck with a saighead..

p112 in
Notes on Irish Folk-Lore
G. H. Kinahan
The Folk-Lore Record, Vol. 4. (1881), pp. 96-125.

Of the coming of the Danes the battle traditions have much to say, if nowadays they are growing misty. But here it must be noted that every tale of ancient warfare in the Quantock country, and probably in the rest of Somerset, is assigned to the time of the Danes in a way which is not wonderful when one considers that Athelney itself lies on the edge of the Quantock land, and that from 835 to 1010 the North Somerset coast was constantly ravaged by the Viking fleets. I have known even Sedgemoor fight ascribed to the Danes.

The first landing of these invaders, in A.D. 835, was at Parrett Mouth, but on the right bank of the river. The memory of that invasion is still so clear, however, that it should be recorded. The field of battle lies under Brent Knoll, and is known as ” Battle Borough.” The tradition is that the enemy was destroyed because a certain old woman dared, during the fight inland, to prevent their escape by cutting the cables of the ships, and so setting them adrift on the falling tide.

Battleborough is on the south flank of Brent Knoll. From p38 in
Local Traditions of the Quantocks
C. W. Whistler
Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Mar. 30, 1908), pp. 31-51.

One earth-castle, Hembury, near Buckfastleigh, has a legend that long ago when the defenders were likely to be overwhelmed, they retreated leaving their womenfolk to deal with the situation in the manner of the Danaides. The ladies welcomed the enemy, took them into their beds and stabbed them all in the night. We owe the discovery of this legend to Mrs Diana Woolner, F.S.A., who has found the same story attached to
Danebury in the Quantocks, Somerset, and also at Portland, Dorset.

p148 in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

Earth-Castles
Devon is dotted with hill-forts of many periods, constructed against invaders from east or west, or from the sea. Their exact purpose is being investigated, and indeed they are still being counted. Quite a lot have legends attached to them. Bradley, near Newton Abbot, has men in armour lying there on moonlight nights.

p 147 in
The Folklore of Devon
Theo Brown
Folklore, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1964), pp. 145-160.

.. the Callinish Stones .. by very long tradition are looked upon as ‘countless’ locally..

.. Mackenzie [in ‘History of the Outer Isles, 1903] mentions a very early tradition which associates the Callinish Stones with the tombs of warriors slain in battle.

You can’t help feeling wary of ‘very long traditions’ but that’s just how you relate folklore I suppose – you know, once upon a time. From the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section:
F. H. Amphlett Micklewright
Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 1. (1976), pp. 115-116.

It seems very likely to me that the following folklore relates to this impressive sounding stone (“a large monolith of sandstone, roughly quadrangular at base, tapering to a point at its upper extremity. It is 8’ 9” in height above the ground, 2’ 5” across the W face at base, and 1’ 10” across the N”, according to the RCAHMS record).

ST. GILBERT AND THE DRAGON.
There lived once upon a time, in Sutherland, a great dragon, very fierce and strong. It was this dragon who burnt all the fir-woods in Ross, Sutherland, and the Reay, of which the remains, charred, black and half decayed, may now be found in every moss. Magnificent forests they must have been, but the dragon set fire to them with his fiery breath, as he rolled over the whole land. Men fled from before his face, and women fainted when his shadow crossed the sky-line. He made the whole land a desert. And it came to pass, that this evil spirit, whom the people called “the Beast,” and Dhu guisch (of the black firs), came nigh to Dornoch, as near as to Lochfinn, from whence he could see the town, and the spire of St. Gilbert – his church.
“Pity of you, Dornoch!” roaredthe dragon.
“Pity of you, Dornoch!” said St. Gilbert and taking with him five long and sharp arrows, and a little lad to carry them, he went out to meet the “Beast.”
When he came over against it he said, “Pity of you!” and drew his bow. The first arrow shot the Beast through the heart.
He was buried by the townspeople. Men are alive now who reckoned distance by so or so far from “the stone of the Beast” on the moor between Skibo and Dornoch. The moor is now planted, and a wood called Caermore waves over the ashes of the fir-destroying dragon. – (From Alexander the Coppersmith.)

p157 in
The Folk-Lore of Sutherland-Shire
Miss Dempster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3. (1888), pp. 149-189.

There is a somewhat graceful creation of fancy associated with the Vow, or fuggo, at Pendeen, which is said to extend from the mansion to Pendeen Cove, and some say it has branches in other directions, which spread faraway from the principal cavern.

At dawn on Christmas Day the “Spirit of the Vow” has frequently been seen just within the entrance, near the Cove, in the form of a beautiful lady, dressed in white, with a red rose in her mouth. There were persons living, a few years since, who had seen this fair but not the less fearful vision; for disaster was sure to visit those who intruded on the spirit’s morning airings.

From William Bottrell’s second volume of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (1873), which you can read at the Proceedings of the London Antiquaries Society

Such caves, inasmuch as they are, almost invariably, found under hedges or large banks of earth, I shall venture to place in a separate class, and term ‘hedge caves.’ Two of the most remarkable of these may be noticed in passing – one, at Pendeen, in the parish of St. Just, which legend connects with an Irish lady, who, dressed in white and bearing a red rose in her mouth, is to be met with on Christmas morning at the cave’s mouth, where she confides to you tidings brought from her native land through the submarine recesses of that mysterious cavern...

But why call them ‘hedge caves’ when fogou will do?!

According to ‘The Giants of Cornwall’ by B. C. Spooner, the stones of Mulfra are said to be quoits from a giant’s game.

Folklore, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Spring, 1965), pp. 16-32.

A species of divination is still practised at Arthurstone, by the neighbouring rustic maidens, who have little idea that they are perpetuating (perverted indeed in its object,) the rites of Druidism and the mysteries of Eleusis in their propitiatory offering. At midnight of the full moon, if a maiden deposit in the sacred well beneath, a cake of milk, honey, and barley meal, and then on hands and knees crawl three times round the cromlech, she will see, if “fancy free,” the vision of her future lord; if her affections are engaged, the form of the favoured youth will stand before her, fearfully bound to answer truly her questions as to his sincerity.

. An early version of the folklore mentioned below. It’s got to be worth a try.

p186 in
Tales of the Cymry: with notes illustrative and explanatory
By James Motley
1848