Rhiannon

It’s thought perhaps that the famous ‘Screaming Skull’ of Bettiscombe Manor is the remains of one of the original (prehistoric) inhabitants of Pilsdon Pen. You can read more at Castle of Spirits.

or get the lowdown from Mr Udal here:
https://www.archive.org/stream/proceedings31dorsuoft#page/176/mode/1up

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Janet and Colin Bord (in Prehistoric Britain from the Air) describe how inside one of the excavated huts on Pilsdon was a crucible, with beads of gold still attached: a goldsmith’s workshop.

Robert Chambers had another explanation for the hill (related in his ‘Picture of Scotland’ of 1827).

Michael Scot was an infamous magician in these parts – and he had three demons who served him: Prig, Prim and Pricker. They were such a nuisance that he had to keep them continually busy. After he’d got them to cleft the Eildon Hills and bridle the Tweed with a curb of stone, he got them twisting ropes of sand. And when they’d done that, he commanded them to level Largo Law. However, they’d only just started – chucking one shovelful, which landed to form Norrie’s Law – when they were called away to do something else.

Here is another story connected to the Fairy Knowe, from Robert Chambers in his 1826 ‘Popular Rhymes of Scotland’.

There was once an honest miller who lived in Menstrie. He had a pretty wife whom he loved very much. She was so beautiful that she took the fancy of the fairies who lived in the Fairy Knowe, and they took her away to live with them. It was bad enough for the miller to be without her: but every morning, although he couldn’t see her, he could hear her singing.

She sang:
“O! Alva woods are bonnie
Tillicoultry hills are fair
But when I think on the braes o’ Menstrie
It makes my heart aye sair”

One day he was ‘riddlin’ some chaff at the door of his mill when he just happened to move into a particular posture: “as the hens do in rainy weather”. Unknown to him this was a magical gesture, and the enchantment which bound his wife was immediately broken – suddenly there she was beside him once more.

Nennius wrote in c800 of one of the marvels of Wales:

There is [in the region which is called Buelt] a heap of stones, and one stone superposed on the pile with the footprint of a dog on it. When he hunted the boar Troynt, Cabal, who was the dog of Arthur the soldier, impressed his footprint on the stone, and Arthur afterwards collected a pile of stones under the stone [...] and it is called Carn Cabal. And men come and carry the stone in their hands for a day and a night, and on the morrow it is found upon its pile.

The hunt is described in Culhwch and Olwen. Culhwch is determined to catch the boar because it is the only way he can win permission from Olwen’s father to marry her. The boar, Twrch Trwyth and his seven piglets are pretty wily and it’s supposed to be an impossible task, but with help from Arthur and his men he manages to accomplish it. At some cost though, as Arthur’s sons were killed in the process. You can see the monument to their bravery at Cerrig Meibion Arthur.

In the 1840s, Lady Charlotte Guest, a translator of the Mabinogion, realised where Nennius’s cairn existed. She ‘prevailed upon a gentlemen’ to go and check it out. He wrote the following account, which I found on the Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust website.

“Carn Cavall, or, as it is generally pronounced, Corn Cavall, is a lofty and rugged mountain, in the upper part of the district anciently called Buellt, now written Builth, in Breconshire. Scattered over this mountain are several cairns of various dimensions, some of which are of very considerable magnitude, being at least a hundred and fifty feet in circumference. On one of these carns may still be seen a stone, so nearly corresponding with the description in Nennius, as to furnish strong presumption that it is the identical as to furnish strong presumption that it is the identical object referred to. It is near two feet in length, and not quite a foot wide, and such as a man might, without any great exertion, carry away in his hands. On the one side is an oval indentation, rounded at the bottom, nearly four inches long by three wide, about two inches deep, and altogether presenting such an appearance as might, without any great strain of imagination, be thought to resemble the print of a dog’s foot . . . As the stone is a species of conglomerate, it is possible that some unimaginative geologist may persist in maintaining that this footprint is nothing more than the cavity, left by the removal of a rounded pebble, which was once embedded in the stone.”

To confuse matters, ‘caballus’ in Latin (the language Nennius was writing in) is actually a horse. So perhaps it’s Arthur’s horse’s footprint you should be looking for.

In 1802 the Reverend John Skinner reported that this was Branwen’s grave – the same story as told at Bedd Branwen.

(mentioned in Jennifer Westwood’s ‘Albion’ p267)

This is the grave of Branwen, the daughter of Llyr. She was the ‘fairest damsel in the world’. Well, at least Anglesey I expect. Her story is told in the Mabinogion and you can read it here at the sacred texts archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab22.htm

Let me summarise it for you: One day, the Irish King, Matholwch, came sailing over to Wales. He intended to make an alliance with the people there and to marry the beautiful Branwen. He was obviously a very important man with some impressive ships and the marriage was agreed by the family. That night there was a huge feast, loads of beer was flowing and everybody had a super time. However, the next day one of Branwen’s other brothers, who had not been present earlier, turned up. He was unimpressed by the arrangements that had been made without him, and carried out some rather unpleasant revenge on Matholwch’s horses (you don’t want to know). Matholwch was outraged and insulted and was about to leave without the usual pleasantries when Bran, another of Branwen’s brothers, called him back to smooth things over. He gave Matholwch his greatest treasure – a cauldron that could bring the dead back to life (albeit they wouldn’t be able to speak). So Matholwch went back to Ireland happy again and with his new wife.

For a year Branwen had the utmost respect in the Irish court, but then various stirrers started getting at Matholwch, saying that he shouldn’t have let her brother get away with what had happened. Poor Branwen was sent to work in the kitchens where the cook used to box her ears. She was stuck there for three years but eventually managed to tame a starling which flew a letter back to Bran for her. Bran and his army rushed to Ireland to rescue here. In the ensuing battle Bran was killed and his head was taken to the White Mound – now, the tower of London (’white’ also means ‘holy’ in Welsh, as I suppose it implies purity in English). Branwen blamed the entire mess on herself. She died of a broken heart and was buried under the cairn you see today.

So they cut off [her brother, Bendigeid Vran’s] head, and these seven went forward therewith. And Branwen was the eighth with them, and they came to land at Aber Alaw, in Talebolyon, and they sat down to rest. And Branwen looked towards Ireland and towards the Island of the Mighty, to see if she could descry them. “Alas,” said she, “woe is me that I was ever born; two islands have been destroyed because of me!” Then she uttered a loud groan, and there broke her heart. And they made her a four-sided grave, and buried her upon the banks of the Alaw.

The stone is embedded in the ground close to a hedge abutting on the road, and stands on end with the upper part bent. The legend runs that one night a man entered Llandyfrydog church and stole the Bible or church books. On coming out he went along the road with the books on his back, when he saw a person coming towards him, and he turned into the field to avoid him, where for his sacrilege he was transformed into a stone.

Every Christmas Eve when the stone hears the clock strike twelve it moves round the field three times. It is called Lleidr Llandyfrydog, i.e. the Llandyfrydog Thief, and the field name given above, when translated, means the Thiefs Field. The stone bears a very rude resemblance to a man with his back bent under the weight of some load.

R. P. HAMPTON ROBERTS.

From Notes and Queries, December 27th, 1879.

Wirt Sikes (’British Goblins’ 1880) says the thief must stand here until the last trump sets him free on Judgement Day.

Charlotte Burne (in Shropshire Folklore, 1883) related that:

There used to be more stones than there are now, but they have been taken away at one time or another. There was a farmer lived by there, and he blew up some of them and took away the pieces to put round his horsepond, but he never did no good after.

Once upon a time two giants lived in this area: one on Windover Hill and the other on Firle Beacon. They didn’t get on and one day their quarrelling got out of hand. They started throwing huge great rocks at each other – the Windover giant caught one right on his head and fell to the ground, dead. You can see the marks where they hurled the rocks to this day (some boring people will say they’re actually flint mines though). As the giant lay there people drew round him to produce a lasting memorial to him(that’s what the Long Man really is), and then he was hauled up the hill and buried in Hunter’s Burgh longbarrow. {or is it in the one on Firle beacon?}

(theme in Jennifer Westwood’s ‘Albion’. She also includes the following local rhyme, which predicts the weather in Alciston:)

When Firle Hill and Long Man has a cap
We a A’ston gets a drap

I was reading about this stone in ‘Holy Wells of the Bath and Bristol Region’ by Phil Quinn. It’s my pure speculation, but it could be relevant that the stone was situated by the pool – that is, perhaps the pool was the original place of veneration. The pool (now filled in) and stone were to the north-east of the church. I do realise they have to be in some direction, but it did remind me of the Rudstone Monolith which is also to the north of its church. And if it’s a genuine standing stone, it can hardly be a coincidence that they chose to build the church next to it, recognising its importance in some way.

In 1538, Leland (who was the king’s antiquary – what a position) wrote:
“It is of sum caullid the Round Table, and of sum, Arture’s Castel.”

In 1724 Stukeley said “The site is used to this day for a country rendez-vous, either for sports or for military exercises, shooting with bows, etc.”

The Cumberland historian Hutchinson was told by villagers in 1773 that the place was an ancient tilting yard where jousts had once been held. He said wrestling matches had taken place there within living memory.

info in Marjorie Rowling’s ‘Folklore of the Lake District’ (1976).

Jennifer Westwood in ‘Albion’ mentions this folklore (p398) – which in her words ‘smacks of Druidism’ and hence probably Victorian fantasy. But it’s a nice one.

At sunrise on Midsummer Day the ‘Shining One’ was said to walk along the avenue. His coming was heralded by the call of the cuckoo – the bird of Tir Nan Og, the Celtic land of youth.

{In your fieldnotes, didn’t you hear the cuckoo before your visit, TomBo?!}

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And with regard to how Callanish was made –

A priest-king came to the island bringint the stones with him and black men to raise them. He was attended by other priests and all were adorned with bird skins and feathers.

When King Fergus defeated and killed Coel, King of the Britons, he was buried in a mound topped with stones – which is now in the grounds of Coilsfield House. There are many different spellings of his name, which presumably all derive from the same figure: Cul, Coel, Coil, Cole... (maybe deriving from the celtic god of war?)

Robert Burns knew this version of the rhyme:

Our auld King Coul was a jolly auld soul
and a jolly auld soul was he
Our auld King Coul fill’d a jolly brown bowl
and he called for his fiddlers three
Fidell didell, fidell didell quo’ the fiddlers
There’s no lass in a’ Scotland like our sweet Marjorie

(from Westwood’s ‘Albion’)

Another story connected with Willy Howe – in Jennifer Westwood’s ‘Albion’ (and originally from ‘Hone’s Table Book of 1827). I retell it as a warning to you all to respect the fairies.

One of the fairies who lived in Willy Howe had rather a crush on a local man. She wanted to help him, so she told him that if he came to the top of the Howe early every morning he would find a guinea waiting for him. However, he must never tell anyone where he got his money from.
For some time he did exactly as she said, and as his money grew he was able to live comfortably (and finally maybe a bit too comfortably). His friends were surprised and suspicious at his new found wealth, and couldn’t understand why he was so secretive about its source. Eventually one night the man could keep his secret no longer and told one of his friends. In the morning he took his friend to the hill to show him the guinea that would be there. Of course there was no money at all. He ‘met with a severe punishment’ and was beaten up by invisible fists. For ever after that he found he had lost his luck.

Obtrusch is a Bronze Age round cairn on Rudland Rigg, positioned so it looks on the skyline from round about. It has kerb stones and a central cist; nearby to the southeast there’s another smaller cairn.

It used to be known as Obtrush Rook (or Roque) in the nineteenth century – the Home of Hobthrush. Hobthrush was of course a hob (like a brownie) – the other part of the name may come from ‘thurs’ which is an old english word for a devil or giant.

Unfortunately you probably won’t find much remaining of the barrow that was here. But it was surely carefully placed here at the source of the river Gamber – the Licat Amr – the eye of the Amr.

Nennius wrote about the grave:

There is another wonder in the country called Ergyng. There is a tomb there by a spring, called Llygad Amr; the name of the man who was buried in the tomb was Amr. He was the son of the warrior Arthur, and he killed him there and buried him. Men come to measure the tomb, and it is sometimes six feet long, sometimes nine, sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen. At whatever measure you measure it on one occasion, you never find it again of the same measure, and I have tried it myself.

(John Morris (ed. and trans.) Nennius: British History and The Welsh Annals (Arthurian Period Sources vol. 8, Phillimore 1980) p.42, marvel no. 13) at Thomas Green’s Arthurian Literature site.

Another classic piece of megalithic folklore is attached to Long Meg. In 1740 John Wood (the architect who styled much of Bath) visited the circle and surveyed it. Afterwards a storm blew up, and the villagers (no doubt shaking their heads wisely) said that it was his behaviour that had prompted it.

(mentioned by Jennifer Westwood in ‘Albion’ p32)

Glastonbury Tor and some of the surrounding land used to be pretty much an island. You can get a glimpse of this sometimes when the Somerset Levels are sodden and the water reflects the sky. In ‘Celtic’ thought there was the idea of an Otherworld island. King Arthur was buried in Avalon when he died, but you don’t have to see the Underworld as being inhabited by the ‘dead’. Gwyn ap Nudd was the king of the underworld, Annwn. Later he was seen more as a fairy figure. One of the legends associated with the tor combines his non-christian and fairy characteristics:

St Collen had come to live as a hermit on the Tor. Glastonbury of course had been long associated with Christianity – Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to have visited and planted his staff, which blossomed into a thorn tree.

He overheard two men talking about Gwyn ap Nudd and told them off for talking such un-Christian nonsense. They warned him that Gwyn would not look kindly upon such an attitude, but Collen dismissed their remarks. A few days later a messenger appeared in Collen’s cell with an invitation to Gwyn’s court. Collen declined the offer. The messenger came back every day but each day was turned away. Eventually he lost patience with the saint, threatening that ‘it would be the worse for him if he did not go.’ Perhaps tired of being pestered, Collen at last agreed.

They entered a secret door in the side of the hill and Collen was led along tunnels, finally emerging into the grand throne room, which was filled with courtiers. Gwyn welcomed him warmly and invited him to eat at the feast that had been prepared in his honour. ‘If this does not please you there is plenty more of all sorts.‘

However, Collen wasn’t blinded by fairy ‘glamour’ and could see perfectly well what was on the table. He replied ‘I do not eat the leaves of a tree.’ A shudder of horror rippled through the court. Collen clearly didn’t care about the dangers of being rude to fairies. Next he laid into the dress-sense of the king’s pages: their clothes were ‘scarlet for the ever-living flames’ and ‘blue for the eternal ice of Hell’. Collen didn’t believe in fairies – to him they were the demons of the Christian religion’s Hell.

To top off his rude behaviour he whisked out a bottle of holy water he’d had stashed under his cloak and sprinkled it liberally in every direction. The palace disappeared and Collen found himself in the pale light of dawn on the summit of the Tor. To him this proved the point that they were demons – but maybe they were just fed up of their discourteous guest and ejected him.

(details from various sources, for example ‘Culhwch ac Olwen’ – see Lady Guest’s Mabinogion notes here at ‘sacred texts’..)

Of course it’s possible that the story has nothing to do with Glastonbury at all – St Collen and the story is comprehensively discussed in Bord’s 2004 ‘Fairy Sites’ book. The saint is far more associated with Llangollen. Perhaps early writers equated Annwn (Annwfn) the Celtic otherworld, with Avallon, and thus Glastonbury.

The weather on Dartmoor can be very changeable. Make sure you pack a jumper and some waterproofs if you look for Childe’s Tomb – or you may end up repeating this ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ moment:

“It is left us by tradition that one Childe of Plimstoke, a man of fair possessions, having no issue, ordained, by his will, that wheresoever he should happen to be buried, to that church his lands should belong. It so fortuned, that he riding to hunt in the forest of Dartmore, being in pursuit of his game, casually lost his company, and his way likewise. The season then being so cold, and he so benumed therewith, as he was enforced to kill his horse, and embowelled him, to creep into his belly to get heat; which not able to preserve him, was there frozen to death; and so found, was carried by Tavistoke men to be buried in the church of that abbey; which was so secretly done but the inhabitants of Plymstoke had knowledge thereof; which to prevent, they resorted to defend the carriage of the corpse over the bridge, where, they conceived, necessity compelled them to pass. But they were deceived by guile; for the Tavistoke men forthwith built a slight bridge, and passed over at another place without resistance, buried the body, and enjoyed the lands; in memory whereof the bridge beareth the name of Guilebridge to this day.”

(Thomas Risdon’s Survey of Devon, early 17th century, quoted by Jennifer Westwood in ‘Albion’).

‘Childe’ apparently comes from the Anglo Saxon ‘Cild’, meaning ‘young lord’. Obviously the tomb, if you follow the story, can’t be where he’s buried. Because that’s Tavistock. Oh well.

Carew entertainingly wrote in his 1602 Survey of Cornwall:

“.. a gentleman, dwelling not far off, was persuaded.. that treasure lay hidden under this stone: wherefore, in a fair moonshine night, thither with certain good fellows he hieth to dig it up.. a pot of gold is the least of their expectation: but... in the midst of their toiling, the sky gathereth clouds, the moonlight is overcast with darkness, down falls a mighty shower, up riseth a blustering tempest, the thunder cracketh, the lightning flasheth: in conclusion, our money seekers washed, instead of laden.. and more afraid than hurt, are forced to abandon their enterprise, and seek shelter of the next house they could get into.”

Another example of the bad weather and trouble you can expect if you mess with the monuments of our ancient forefathers.

at
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/srvcr10.txt
(scroll down to 137)

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Daphne du Maurier lived near where the Tristan stone stood before it was moved (crossroads at sx1051), and she wrote her own version of the Tristan and Iseult story, with which it has legendary connections (see also Castle Dor.)

In 1016 King Edmund Ironside fought and lost to the Danish invader Cnut at a place called Assundun. This was traditionally taken to be Ashdon, just south of Bartlow Hills .

In the parish of ASHDON, sparated from Bartlow, in Cambridgeshire, only by a small rivulet, are four large contiguous Barrows, called the BARTLOW HILLS, from their situation being not very distant from Bartlow Chuch. These are vulgarly regarded as the tumuli raised over the slain in the battle fought between Edmund Ironside, and the Danish King, Canute, in the year 1016; but as this tradition is not supported by any historical authority, it cannot be considered as deserving of credit.

(p380 of ‘The Beauties of England and Wales, Or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive’ by John Britton and others, 1801. It’s online at Google Books.)

Cnut rather kindly built Ashdon church over the graves of the English, and created Bartlow Hills as the resting place for his own fallen warriors.

It’s true and if you want further proof, Camden reports in his ‘Britannia’ of 1610 that:

“Dane-wort which with bloud-red berries, commeth up heere plenteously, they still call by no other name than Danes-bloud, of the number of Danes that there were slaine, verily beleeving that it blometh from their bloud.”

The tradition is rather like the one we have of poppies growing on the WW1 battlefields. Danewort is thought to be dwarf elder (Sambucus ebulus).

(Actually the battle is now thought to have been in Ashingdon, some way away. And of course, the barrows aren’t Danish. They’re generally referred to as (shh) Roman – you can’t deny the wealth of Roman artefacts discovered there! but to be fair they were probably rich native people who were buried in the traditional British style through their own choice).

(info from ‘Albion’ by Jennifer Westwood, p103)

Geoffrey Grigson, in his fascinating miscellany ‘The Shell Country Book’ gives the name ‘Thunor’s Stone’ (Thunor is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Thor, fair enough).

Five barrows lie in a line from SE to NW: there are two bowl barrows and three bell barrows. These are in the woods of Mortimer Common. There are also a couple of outlying barrows – one now amongst the houses of Mortimer.

Jeremy Harte, in his ‘Alternative Approaches to Folklore‘ cites that a phantom army was seen on Mortimer Common in 1778, the soldiers being assumed to be real until they vanished!

The barrow is in a field called ‘Giant’s Ground’ and is said to be the grave of Giant Gorm (who appears in various local tales – eg that of Druid Stoke). The field is said to be the site of a great battle (- perhaps that refers to the demise of the giant?).

The barrow was also formerly known as Charleborow, whatever the derivation of that may be – perhaps the name of another purported occupant?

(information from the Somerset Historic Environment Record)

Saint Illtyd was King Arthur’s cousin and helped out with his funeral arrangements, according to the medieval writings of Nennius.

You can read about his rather eventful life at Mary Jones’ page:
geocities.com/branwaedd/illtud.html

One of his deeds involved turning two robbers into standing stones. Perhaps he did use this tomb as a hermitage – all the crosses carved on it suggest a lot of people believed he did.

He himself is supposed to be buried on Mynydd Illtud in the Brecon Beacons (apparently close to the visitor’s centre :)

This is one of the Dancing Stones of Stackpole.

This is one of the Dancing Stones of Stackpole.

I saw this stone alone in its field on a beautiful warm summer’s day. However, it’s not always alone. It is one of the Dancing Stones of Stackpole (the other two are here and here, the central one being in a field called ‘Horestone Park’, according to Sikes in ‘British Goblins’ – 1880). Sometimes they meet up and go to Rhyd Sais where they dance until they’re too tired to dance any more. Sometimes their music is provided by the Devil himself, who plays for them on his flute.
(folklore from Barber’s More Mysterious Wales)

Janet and Colin Bord specifically state (in ‘Secret Country’) that the stones dance ‘The Hay’ – a country dance.

William Howell, in “Cambrian Superstitions,” (1831) says that anyone witnessing the stones dancing is granted exceptionally good luck. He mentions that witches are also said to have conducted their ‘revels’ at the stones (presumably while they are standing still – it could get a bit dangerous dancing with them).

Rhyd Sais means ‘ford of the English’ – or Saxon, which Sais originally meant. (Where the ford actually is, I don’t know – do you?) I wonder whether this part of the story links with the fact one of the stones is called the Harold Stone. Harold is (according to the information on Coflein) Harold Godwinson – the Anglo-Saxon loser at the battle of Hastings, who had earlier successfully beaten Grufudd ap Llewelyn (who had control of the whole of Wales). Pembrokeshire has been known as the ‘Little England beyond Wales’ so maybe ‘Rhyd Sais’ wouldn’t have the negative connotations it might have elsewhere in Wales. It’s all very confusing.. do you know more?

Coflein even suggests there should be another stone, at SR97309530. The three are somewhat in a line, but the entry doesn’t suggest why there ‘should’ be another – I suppose it would make the gaps between the stones equal. If the line of the stones is important – could that imply that we’ve lost the site of Rhyd Sais? Bosherston lakes are artificial (made to go with the now demolished house) so are they covering where the ford would once have been – in line with the stones? Or am I really entering the realms of fantasy now.

Ok so these are ‘Roman’ and they do run alongside a Roman road. But keep it quiet, keep it quiet. It is suggested in the smr that they are the graves of native British aristocrats who “chose to perpetuate aspects of Iron Age burial practice” so I think they’re kind of allowable.

By the way – the earth in them comes from neaby Whormerly Wood (TL247236):

Near Stevenage are six barrows by the roadside. My father, John Emslie, was told, in 1835, by Mr. Williams, baker, of Stevenage, that in an adjoining wood are seven pits and one barrow. The devil, having dug out six spadefuls of earth, emptied them beside the road, thus making the six barrows. He then returned to the wood, dug another spadeful of earth (thus making the seven pits) and, walking along with this spadeful, dropped it and thus made the solitary barrow, which, I was told in 1883, had long since been cleared away.

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

If you’re passing through Stevenage on the train you’ll be able to see them if you look east through the buildings just south of the station.

This fort is one of the traditional sites of the last stand of Caractacus, ‘King of the Britons’, against the invading Romans. He was also known as Caradoc. Having regrettably lost the fight he was taken with his family to Rome – but apparently not to the unpleasant fate you might imagine for him: it seems the Emperor respected his reputation and spared him.

(Reader’s Digest ‘Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain’)

Twyn-y-beddau means ‘mound of graves’. It is said to be the site of a terrible battle between the Welsh and Edward 1st’s supporters. So grim was the bloodshed that the nearby stream was said to have run red for for three days.

(from the trusty Reader’s Digest ‘Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain’!)