Rhiannon

This story comes from Ruth E St Leger-Gordon’s “Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor” (1973); she heard it from an elderly man from Chagford.

“Long ago faithless wives and fickle maidens were forced to expiate their misdeeds” in the following way. First they had to go and wash at Cranmere Pool. This was, and still is, a very remote spot – so it would have been some penance to get there in the first place. (Cranmere Pool has other legends connected with it – for example, that a no-good ex mayor of Okehampton, ‘Binjy’, had to empty it with a sieve.. having craftily done this he now sits on the bottom to spin the sand into ropes.. but that’s another story).

They then had to cross the moor to Scorhill stone circle, and run round it three times (supposing they had any energy left).
Next they were driven down to the banks of the River Teign, where they dropped through the hole in a water-worn rock known as the Tolmen. Rumour has it this is a good cure for arthritis – but probably only if you’ve been good.

Next they went soggily up to the Grey Wethers stone circle. Each woman would fall to her knees in front of one of the stones. They would pray for forgiveness (to whom or what the story doesn’t mention).

If nothing happened they could then assume they had been forgiven and purged of their transgressions could get up and stagger home. However, if a particular woman’s sins were just Too Bad, the stone in front of her would topple forward crushing her to death.

“And that,” added R.E.St L-G’s informant, with a twinkle in his eye, “is why so many of the stones was lying flat before they was set up again.”

No mention is made of what fickle and unfaithful husbands had to do. One suspects nothing probably.

Many Cornish tourist sites on the internet point out that the quoit was where King Arthur stopped for a bite to eat before his last battle. Perhaps he was in his larger-than-life giant guise and used it as a table.

This fort makes use of a natural triangle-shaped promontory of the east Quantocks. Today it is swathed in trees and doesn’t look very accessible. But it does come with some creative folklore (as recorded by Grinsell, in his ‘Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain’). His source was from 1857 and gave the following fairy-tale like details:
The fort is said to conceal an iron castle, which is guarded by gnomes and spirits (gnomes aren’t very British, surely?). They’re closely guarding their treasure – mounds of silver and gold. Now, they’re tricky and it’ll be impossible to even see them, let alone their treasure – unless you follow this prescription. You must dig for the iron gateway into the castle at noon, and be sure you dig in silence. I’m afraid there’s no guidance about what to do when the angry gnomes and spirits turn up. Still, some people must have had some luck – Grinsell also mentions that a nearby field is called ‘Moneyfield’ because of the coins that have supposedly been found there.
There is also supposed to be one of those mysterious underground passages in the hill – the EH record on MAGIC mentions an 1890 source saying that ‘a subterranean passage, 100 yards long, now
filled in, gave the occupants of the camp access to a spring of water on the side of the hill’.

Canmore lists this as a ‘possible’ standing stone. It’s a very curious looking thing – its general size and shape suggest a prehistoric standing stone, but in 1821 someone saw fit to attach a round sandstone ball to the top of it with an iron bar. It’s 1.6m tall and is supposed to have been moved from wherever its original position was when someone wanted to widen the road.

In 1982 local folklore held that prior to the 19th century messings-about, newly wed couples strolled around it for good luck (in a sun-wise direction, I’d like to bet).

‘Dagon’ is actually the name of a Philistine god, who was half-man half-fish. But with a Scottish accent it no doubt derives from something much closer to home (assuming it’s not just the romantic invention of an antiquary).

When the tenants of Cotetown were asked about the stone in 1866 they said they remembered a cairn being around it (and admitted they’d actually nicked the stones to build Cotetown itself). There’s said to be no sign of the cairn now.

The stone is 6 1/2ft high, 2 1/2ft broad and a foot thick. It has a single cupmark on its eastern face and four on its west.

(info from the Aberdeenshire scheduled monument record).

If you strike the stone it is said you can hear it seven miles away in Portsoy. It’s said to ‘ring through the rocks’ according to the link, but that’s still pretty loud. What can it mean?

Also the stone is said to be haunted.

The English Heritage record claims that the name Waulud is a corruption of Wayland; that is, the same chap who would shoe your horse at Wayland’s Smithy. I am tempted to say that Waulud’s Bank is where he kept all those silver coins, but that would be silly.

The record also mentions that ‘some early writers’ believed Waulud’s Bank to be a place called Lygeanburgh (the similarly sounding Limbury is nearby). This was a settlement supposedly captured by Cuthwulf, (Prince of Wessex?) in 571AD. Though it probably was unrelated in reality.

I assume the name is pronounced rather like ‘Warlord’? If any tales exist among local kids, this must surely influence the type of story told?

If you see a raven when you visit the Clumps, keep your eye on it. It’s said to be the guardian of a huge treasure, at a place called ‘The Money Pit’. But I expect it’ll be too wiley to give away the exact spot.

The poem tree that Riotgibbon mentions is a beech (the beech plantation clumps were created in the 1740s, by the Dunch family – hence the rather disrespectful name ‘Mother Dunch’s Buttocks’). As young vandals everywhere will recognise, beeches have ideally smooth bark for carving graffiti into, and it persists for years, becoming more and more distorted as the tree grows. Apparently the tree died in the 1990s but some of the trunk still stands. In 1994 a plaque was put up to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the poem, and it has on it a tracing of the poem that was taken in 1965, when it was a bit more legible. (see northmoortrust.co.uk/home/countryside/nature_reserve/past_land_use for more)

A traveller was once lost on the Downs and was worried he wouldn’t get safely to a village or town before it got dark. He met some shepherds sitting on the mound and asked them the way to Lambourn. The first man said nothing but just nodded his head in a particular direction. The second went to the trouble of raising one finger (not like that – politely) and pointing in the same direction. The third shepherd stirred himself enough to vaguely wave a toe. And lo, the place was consequently named Idle Tump. Despite being a pretty ridiculous story it does include your classic ‘three times’ motif. And it could indeed have been a place where shepherds would have a bit of a kip.

This story is mentioned by Alfred Williams in his ‘Villages of the White Horse’ (1913).

Another tale claims the bushes and trees on the barrow are too lazy to grow properly. “About 1800 some trees were planted on it which would not grow on account of the bleak situation,” claimed Grinsell’s mysterious source in ‘Ancient Burial Mounds of England’ (1936). This seems a very dull explanation to me. You’ll have to go and look yourself to judge the truth of this one.

David Nash Ford has suggested here
https://www.berkshirehistory.com/legends/smithy02.html
that the ‘idle’ actually derives from the meaning ‘empty’, implying that the barrow was unsuccessfully dug into for treasure in the dim and distant past.

Also, as mentioned by wysefool below, the mound was known in Saxon times as Hawk’s Low, but also apparently as Wade’s Barrow (’Weardaes Beorh’): Wade being Wayland’s father. So it seems that the mythic landscape that included Wayland’s Smithy spread further out, and perhaps there were other local places that were part of the stories too.

Those wishing to squeeze some fairies into the equation (that’ll be me) will be able to get some mileage from this:

As many as a dozen or moor horses run, and they started from Idle’s Bush, which wur a vine owld tharnin’-tree in thay days – a very nice bush.

Because fairies do like a good thorn tree. From The Scouring of the White Horse, by Thomas Hughes (1859).

If the dodgy stonework isn’t enough to put you off entering the cairn, perhaps this story from Martin McCarthy’s Ancient Scotland site will be.

There is a tale of a visitor to this tomb who squeezed his way in with great effort, and then exitted with much greater speed and skill after--so he says--something kicked him in the kidneys. Yes, it’s a stupid superstitious story; but after visiting the tomb you can’t help but wonder....

Katy Jordan describes her spooky experiences on the Beckhampton to Devizes road in her book ‘The Haunted Landscape’:

At one time I used to travel this road quite often at night, and after passing the Beckhampton roundabout I would usually start to feel uneasy, as if there was something in the car behind me, and I would find myself looking in the mirror to check. This feeling of uneasiness would not lift until I crossed Wansdyke, and for some reason I always associated it with the round barrows in the area. Quite recently, and without knowing of my experience here, my friend Alison Borthwick told me that she often hears people calling to each other on just this section of road.

Prehistoric sites are often misattributed to the Romans (British history started with the Romans, didn’t it???) – and Figsbury Ring is one of those sites. It has been known as Chlorus’s Camp. Chlorus (the pale) was the nickname of Flavius Julius Constantius, who was sent over to sort out the unruly natives of Britain. It does seem rather an unlikely name for an ordinary person to think up, so I rather suspect it was the bright idea of some erudite middle-class antiquarian in the 18th or 19th century??

You know how when you pop past Stonehenge and you don’t want to pay, you stand there pressing your nose to the fence at the Heel Stone? Well, the recumbent stone you can also see between you and the main circle is known as the Slaughter Stone. Katy Jordan records this story in her book ‘The Haunted Landscape’. It was told to the folklorist Theo Brown by T C Lethbridge.

A vicar he knew accompanied a small party there for a couple of days. The first day they wandered round the stones till they came upon the so-called Slaughter Stone. Here they paused, until a small dog in the party sat down and howled dismally. The next day they returned to the same spot and the dog repeated its performance. Everyone was most impressed and told Mr Lethbridge about it later. ‘The dog knew,’ they said.

Lethbridge had been very amused by this tale, because the stone’s name is simply a piece of romantic supposition, and there is no evidence that the stone has ever had any sacrificial function. His interpretation of the event was that the dog had sensed the mood of the people as they looked at this ‘site of slaughter’ and had howled in response to their unease.

Naturally you would assume that once upon a time a great battle was fought here – that was certainly the current story recorded by Ella Noyes in 1913 (and quoted in Katy Jordan’s ‘The Haunted Landscape’ (2000)). There are indeed many camps around here, and battles have no doubt been fought (eg at Bratton) but Jordan supports the idea that the name originally came from the name Paettel – it’s the burh of Paettel or ‘Paettel’sburh’ – and has gradually been changed over the years.

Katy Jordan includes the following story in her ‘Haunted Landscape’ book. It’s rather like the story of St Dunstan, who pinches the devil’s nose with his red-hot blacksmith’s pincers. Remember, the line of the blacksmith goes back to the awesome way skilled people could create metal objects out of rocks. And don’t forget, if you’ve got a bit of iron in your pocket you’ll be safe from the fairies at the very least.

Many years ago there lived at St Edith’s Marsh, Bromham, a blacksmith whom the Devil was very anxious to convert for his purposes. The unfortunate thing was that all his envoys, the devilkins, could not win the blacksmith over. As a last resort the Devil called on the blacksmith at his forge in the shape of a very well-dressed gentleman. The blacksmith recognised him, however, and clapped the red-hot horseshoe he was making onto the heel of the Devil, causing him to jump into the air. Legend says that he landed on Roundway Hill, at the spot still known as the Devil’s Jump. As a result of this experience the Devil does not like the shape of the horseshoe and will always avoid it. Thus many people nail a horseshoe over the door of their house to keep this evil one away.

Gallibury Hump is the most conspicuous of the barrows on Brightstone Down – in fact, at three metres high it’s probably the biggest round barrow on the Isle of Wight. According to Dyer’s ‘Southern England’ it’s largely composed of flints.

Sir John Oglander described it in 1640 as being “where ye ffrench weare buried, being overcome theyre in a battayle” – hence neatly explaining its purpose and name in one.

Dyer however backs the explanation that a gallows probably stood on it.

The Down on which the barrow sits is called Julliberrie Down. Would it be beyond all likelihood that it’s got something to do with berries? Perhaps that’s far too simple.

It is said that it was here the Ancient Britons stood against the Tenth Legion and kicked their behinds so they had to return to the continent (as you can read at Peter Blanche’s ‘Kent Resources’ page at digiserve.com/peter/chilham.htm)

Another explanation is that the mound is the grave of a giant called Julaber (so says Grinsell in his 1936 ‘Ancient Burial Mounds of England’).

THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE.

“The owld White Horse wants zettin’ to rights;
And the squire hev promised good cheer,
Zo we’ll gee un a scrape to kip ‘un in shape,
And a’ll last for many a year.

A was made a long, long time ago,
Wi’ a dale o’ labour and pains,
By King Alfred the Great when he spwiled their consate,
And caddled thay wosberds the Danes.

The Bleawin Stwun, in days gone by,
Wur King Arthur’s bugle harn,
And the tharnin tree you med plainly zee,
As is called King Alfred’s tharn.

There’ll be backsword play and climmin the powl,
And a race for a pig and a cheese;
And us thinks as hisn’s a dummel sowl
As dwoan’t care for zich spwoarts as these.”

from Thomas Hughes’s 1859 book ‘The Scouring of the White Horse’.