Rhiannon

A bit more about the legends connected with Brent Knoll, as explained in Geoffrey Ashe’s ‘Landscape of King Arthur’ (1987).

Occultist Dion Fortune wrote about the hill in her novel ‘The Sea Priestess’ – she called it Bell Knowle and Ashe says she described it as ‘modelled by colonists from Atlantis’. Whilst this is Rather fanciful, you can’t help but admit that Brent Knoll has a decidedly impressive presence in the landscape, rising as an isolated bump at the edge of the utterly flat Somerset Levels. Its previous occupants gave it a single bank and ditch at the top, and may have steepened some of its slopes. It used to belong to Glastonbury Abbey – indeed you can see it from Glastonbury Tor.

A chronicler of the 13th century tells how King Arthur was holding court at Caerleon one Christmas (or should that be Midwinter?). He knighted a bold young man called Ider, who was the son of King Nuth. Ash reminds us that a Gwyn ap Nudd was the lord of the underworld, and he lived in Glastonbury Tor*, and had a run in with St Collen, if you recall. So it seems likely that King Nuth could refer to the same man?

As a new knight, Ider had to pass a test. He was told when at Glastonbury that three giants, ‘notorious for their wickedness’, lived on Brent Knoll, then known as the Mount of Frogs (Mons Ranarum). King Arthur intended to march against them, and Ider would be required to join him. Young and enthusiastic, Ider galloped ahead and slew all three giants singlehandedly. But unfortunately he was wounded himself, and by the time Arthur arrived Ider lay unconscious and dying. The King returned to Glastonbury blaming himself. He gave the lands around the hill to the abbey and asked the monks to pray for Ider’s soul.

Ider also appears as ‘Yder son of Nut’ in a French medieval romance by Chrétien de Troyes.

[*assuming this is the correct location of the St Collen story (see the Tor page).]

According to W B Dawkins’ 1880 “Early Man in Britain” (an excerpt online at Showcaves.com),
the ‘Pin Hole Cave’ is so called because people used to drop a pin in (for luck? for a wish? as an offering?) – part of the ritual being that they took away a pin left by another visitor previously.

showcaves.com/english/gb/showcaves/CreswellCragsDawkins.html#3

A spooky modern story connected with the Crags, summarised from Liz Linahan’s account in her ‘More pit ghosts, padfeet and poltergeists’ (1995):

One evening a couple were driving home past the crags, and stopped at some temporary traffic lights just near the visitors’ centre. The woman glanced out of her window and caught sight of a pale blurred circular shape in the briars next to her, about 2ft from the ground. As she watched it started floating back and forth (though the briars were really dense) and she saw it begin to take on the features of ‘an old hag’ with dark eyes and a beaked nose, and then hollow cheeks and long hair. At first she thought it must be a prank – but then felt scared and became convinced it was ‘something paranormal’. The face moved towards the car and the woman (not unreasonably) screamed, causing her husband to turn round – he said he saw the face briefly before stepping on the accelerator. The woman was so shaken when she got home that the doctor had to be called, and her husband and some police went back to the crags to investigate. They were bemused because entry inside the brambles was nigh on impossible, and one of the policemen ripped his coat trying to do so.

Also that night, around dawn, a lorry driver was driving along the same stretch of road when he had to brake hard and swerve to avoid a ‘dark mysterious figure’ crossing the road from the visitors’ centre side, where it disappeared into the bushes. Shaken, he described it as ‘floating’ and ‘seemingly headless’. He described it as female although there were no particular features that made it so.

One evening in the early 1900s a miner, who had just finished working at Creswell Colliery, thought he’d call in on his fancy woman in Creswell. He was safe because her own husband had just started his shift down the pit. After a bit of courting he set off for his own home in Clowne. He was striding up over Markland Craggs when he looked up ahead of him – and there was the Devil standing there, silhouetted by the full moon. Now really you’d think the Devil would be impressed by a bit of philandering, but apparently he cursed the man, and sent him home white-haired and mumbling gibberish. His own wife was not impressed and he was of no use to man nor beast thereafter.

This tale is described in Liz Linahan’s 1996 ‘More Pit Ghosts, Padfeet and Poltergeists’. Her informant told her he’d heard it from a woman who’d been told it in the 1920s, and liked repeating for the benefit of her poor husband. Even if it’s only a scare story to put off straying husbands, perhaps it still suggests that Markland Grips is not the sort of place you’d want to be on a dark night.

A quote from Aubrey Burl’s ‘Rites of the Gods’:

Up until the eighteenth century, a ‘barren wife’ might visit the circle during the night “in the hope that by baring her breasts and touching the Kingstone with them” she would be made pregnant.

Does this mean you actually become pregnant as a result of touching the stone – what Burl surely implies? He doesn’t specify his source. You’d imagine it more likely that the stone would make you more fertile and so more likely to get pregnant via the usual method. But maybe I’d never really thought about this (not uncommon?) idea before: maybe it is the former that was believed? Especially with the stone being male – the King in fact.

Could this be the place mentioned in ‘Math Son of Mathonwy’ in the Mabinogion?

Then they went towards Dinas Dinllev, and there he brought up Llew Llaw Gyffes, until he could manage any horse, and he was perfect in features, and strength, and stature. And then Gwydion saw that he languished through the want of horses and arms. And he called him unto him. “Ah, youth,” said he, “we will go to-morrow on an errand together. Be therefore more cheerful than thou art.” “That I will,” said the youth.

Next morning, at the dawn of day, they arose. And they took way along the sea coast, up towards Bryn Aryen. And at the top of Cevn Clydno they equipped themselves with horses, and went towards the Castle of Arianrod.

The notes of Lady Guest’s translation imply she thought so:
“DINLLEV*: DINAS DINLLE is situated on the sea-shore, about three miles southward from Caernarvon, in the parish of Llantwrawg, on the confines of a large tract of land, called Morva Dinlleu. The remains of the fortress consist of a large circular mount, well defended by earthen ramparts and deep fosses.”
*Probably ‘Dinlleu’ with a u, not a v? to tie in with Lleu Llaw Gyffes?

She also adds: “The Rev. P. B. Williams, in his “Tourist’s Guide through Caernarvonshire,” speaking of Clynnog in that county, says: “There is a tradition that an ancient British town, situated near this place, called Caer Arianrhod, was swallowed up by the sea, the ruins of which, it is said, are still visible during neap tides, and in fine weather.”

Indeed, there is a stack off the coast (no doubt visible from Dinas Dinlle?) called Caer Arianrhod.

You can read the story courtesy of the brilliant Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/index.htm

From the website which Kammer links to below:

..a somewhat spooky story I unearthed about Cholesbury Camp a while back. Ever heard of the ‘Screaming Pigs of Cholesbury’? Well the story is told of strange ‘unearthly noises’ emanating from Camp and the reluctance of even the most fearless of the men of the village to enter the Hillfort after dusk. So if anyone fancying a stroll as darkness falls is welcome to test out this theory let me know what happens!

Neil Fairbairn, in his 1983 ‘Travellers guide to the kingdoms of Arthur’, mentions a Christianised version of the story. He says that at the end of the world the golden round table will rise to the earth’s surface and be carried up to heaven. The saints will sit round it to eat, and Christ will be the waiter and serve them.

He also mentions that at its yearly midsummer appearance, a flash of light from it briefly illuminates the sky, and then it sinks again. Nah that’ll just be the earthlights I reckon.

The Canmore record has a spot of folklore about this 9’10” stone from the Name Book of 1878: “It is said to mark the spot where the son of the Viking Harold Harfager was killed some time around 900AD. He is said to have been buried in the tumulus to the southwest.” I guess this tumulus must be the chambered cairn you can see on the OS map, which is on the island on the other side of the Skuda Sound.

Practically in Exmoor, one of the standing stones here (at SS601439) is 2.5m high – or at least it was before being struck by lightning very recently. The other (at ss603438) lies down and is 2.8m long (with another bit unattached slightly to the north, according to the SMR Magic record). Also on Mattocks Down, in the vicinity of the first stone, are four round barrows.

Lilian Wilson’s 1976 book ‘Ilfracombe Yesterdays’, gives the local view of the standing stone: “This is a rock believed to be a ‘Gathering Stone’ around which chiefs and tribes of that part of Devon met in times of trouble, or when they had matters to discuss.”

The ‘Alternative Approaches to Folklore’ bibliography at
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.doc
mentions that the stones at Ballochroy were thrown by Brownies (one assumes the little people type, not the bobble-hatted sort). Do you know more about the story? Tiny Cara Island, just across the Sound of Gigha, has its ‘Brownies’ Chair’. Perhaps they threw them from there (though you wouldn’t normally think them so strong).

Near Dinas Emrys, Owain ap Macsen fought with a giant. As they were equal in fighting with tree trunks, Owain leapt up a hill on the other side of the river and cast a stone which fell at the feet of the giant, who cast it back. They then tried wrestling. Owain became enraged, threw down the giant, who shattered a huge stone in the fall and a piece entering his back, he was killed. In dying he crushed Owain to death.

From T Gwynn Jones’s “Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom” (1930), from a Welsh 1875 source.

From Ruth L Tongue’s ‘Somerset Folklore’.

Zebedee Fry were coming home late from the hay-making above Shipham. It were full moon, for they’d worked late to finish, and the crop was late being a hill field, so he had forgot what night ‘twas. He thought he saw something big and dark moving in the field where the big stone stood, but he was too bone-weary to go chasing any stray bullock. Then something huge and dark in field came rustling all alongside lane hedge, and Zebedee he up and dive into the brimmles in the ditch till it passed right along, and then he ran all a-tiptoe to reach Shipham. When he come to the field gate he duck two-double and he rush past it. But, for all that, he see this gurt stone, twelve feet and more, a-dancing to itself in the moonlight over top end of field. And where it always stood the moon were shining on a heap of gold money. But Zebedee he didn’t stop for all that, not until he were safe at the inn at Shipham. They called he all sorts of fool for not getting his hand to the treasure – but nobody seemed anxious to have a try – not after he’d told them how nimble it danced round field. And nobody knows if ‘twill dance again in a hundred years. Not till there’s a full moon on Midsummer Night.

This was told to Tongue by a schoolfriend, who’d heard it from her Mendip great grandmother, who was 90 at the time.

This hill fort was inhabited from about 200BC to after the Romans arrived, though it seems that it’s known locally to be a ‘Roman Camp’.

On the NE side of the hill is a spring with certain magical powers, dedicated to St Ann. As usual it’s especially good for the eyes – but you had to collect the first bucket of water at the stroke of midnight on twelfth night, to ensure the best efficacy.

(Folklore of the Welsh Border, J Simpson 1976)

***

Caer Rhain is another name for Aconbury.

Baring-Gould suggests the Rhain of the name was Rhain Dremrudd, King of Brycheiniog. He translates ‘Dremrudd’ as red-eyed, but could it be more subtle than this? Trem is (I believe) Welsh for sight or gaze; could it not imply he got the red mist sometimes, rather than conjunctivitus. I dunno. Perhaps he should have visited the well (see above). All this etymology. It’s a minefield.

(Baring-Gould, ‘Lives of the British Saints’ v4, p 108. 1913)