fitzcoraldo

Who, that has not seen, but has heard of Roseberry Topping? – The pride of northern England – familiar as household words to a wide and wealthy district – a subject of enquiry and wonder unto all who have for the first time looked upon its isolated and lonely magnificence, its gigantic cone, like some eastern pyramid, now lit up, glowing suddenly as a huge furnace, now black and bare, its narrow peak shooting abruptly into the sky, the very image of solitude and desolation. No wonder that its neighbourhood is the deposit of many of those grotesque and fearful legends, arising out of, and connected with, the most ancient of our superstitions; and that the almost universally exploded belief in supernatural agency, witches, fays, and all their subsidiary marvels, should linger in these comparatively untraveled recesses, unquestioned and undenied.

The opening lines of The Witch of Roseberry Topping or the Haunted Ring.
Blackwood’s Magazine.
1835
Available via Google Books.

The following folklore is taken from, Dolmens & menhirs de Provence by Daniel Riba (pub. Equilibres 1984). Riba credits the tale to J. P. Clebert.
The tale was written in french all I have done is is typed it into the babel fish translator. I could have paraphrased the tale but I have decided to paste the translation it its entirety as I believe that the babel fish adds its own poetry to the tale.

It was time a fairy which liked has to be disguised as a shepherdess. Thus disguised, it from went away, under the thickets of oragers and pomegranates, and played of the mandoline. The false shepherdess, thanks to her beauty and, fear-to be, has some magic melody, arrived has to inspire a great passion has a young genius of the vicinity which finishes by him requiring its hand. The fairy authorized to grant it to him, if it accepted, of its dimension, that the marriage was famous on a table formed of three stones of which she made him a meticulous portrait. The young man recognized in the description of his beloved the stones which, for ten centuries, had had descends the mountain of Frejus to pile up with the bottom of the close throat. Joining together all its supernaturelles forces, physics and, he arrived has to draw up the two first stones, but was unable of deplasser third. Overpower, it believed to have lost the hand of the shepherdess.
But the fairy, has which it was not indifferent, took it in pity. The following night, it approached the recalcitrant stone and traced around it a magic circle. At once, an immense flame rose and the heavy flagstone was transported on the two others. At dawn, the shepherdess magician supervised her lover to share her joy at the time or he would discover the wonder. But the young man understood only that it was a quite modest genius and that it was condemns has to die because it liked a fairy more skilful than him. He thus died, followed soon by the fairy, insane of despair.

Another legend makes following the preceding one and the end disputes some, since it holds for ensures that the fairy survived has his/her unhappy companion it disappears only in smoke, without to join the kingdom of the shades. During the clear nights of winter, it returns to contemplate its jewels, masks under the dolmen. A pure young girl who would see it then would be likely to receive in gift a handle of pearls or diamonds. For reaches the treasure, the fairy seizes the horizontal flagstone, then of only one gesture, it makes half-open the ground: it is which pile up of the trunks loads of gold and precious stones. But of all the young girls who came there to spend a sleepless night, none has borer never yet the secrecy of the dolmen. From where the legend concludes that the purity is a difficult way

So I returned [from Lowther Hall] 4 mile back to Peroth ... and came by a round green spott of a large circumfference which they keep cut round with a banke round it like a bench; its story is that it was the table a great Giant 6 yards tall used to dine at and there entertained another of nine yards tall which he afterwards killed; there is the length in the Church yard how farre he could leape a great many yards; ...

Travel book, manuscript record of Journeys through England including parts of the Lake District, by Celia Fiennes, 1698.

Taken from the very excellent website
Guides to the Lakes
geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/simpson/smp3fram.htm

At one stage, the stone leaned markedly, rather than standing fully erect, and was known locally as “The Dean”. This name apparently had something to do with an elderly dean of the island who had recently married a woman very much younger than himself

Jersey in Prehistory
Mark Patton
La Haule Books
1987

The late Archdeacon Wilberforce, who was at that time Rector of Burton Agnes, had come over to make an archdiaconal inspection of the Church, when he met an old parishioner in the Church yard. The Archdeacon said to him,
” Well ! my good man, can you tell me anything about this wonderful stone ?
” Na, I can’t say as how I can,” was the answer.
“Why ! you’ve lived here a great many years, and surely you must know something about it,” said the Archdeacon.
” Na, I doint,” was the laconic reply.
“Well then if you don’t know anything about it and can’t tell me anything about it,” said the Archdeacon, ” you can tell me what they say about it.”
” Whoy ! yaas, I can tell you what they say about it,” was the information derived this time.
” Come then, my friend, let me hear what they do say about it,” said the Archdeacon.
” Well ! ” replied our Rudstonian friend,
” they says it was put up here to com-memorate a great vict’ry ‘tween Danes and Roman Cath-licks.”

Rudston A Sketch of its History and Antiquities
by
the Rev. P. Royston.
1873.

Taken from
Publications of the Folk-Lore Society
County Folk-Lore Vol VI
Examples of printed folk-lore concerning the East Riding of Yorkshire
Collected and edited by
Mrs Gutch

Roulston Scar, Hambleton Hills. In some parts the rock is perpendicular, and has the appearance of an irregularly built castle. The foreground of this for fifty or one hundred yards is covered with massive blocks of stone, evidently thrown off by some convulsion of nature. On the side of the rocky wall is a fissure opening into a small, narrow cavern, called the Devil’s parlour, from the common disposition to attribute what is at once gloomy and marvellous to infernal agency, especially when in any way connected with heathen worship, of which there are not wanting traditions in the immediate vicinity.
For instance, the vale below dividing Roulston Crag from Hood Hill is called ’ The Happy Valley’ but the intermediate distance is less auspiciously named ’ The Devil’s Leap! for which this reason is given by the village oracles. The Happy Valley was a famous retreat of the ancient Druids, who without molestation or disturbance had for centuries practised their incantations upon the poor deluded inhabitants.
When the first Christian missionaries visited Yorkshire, they sought out the hidden retreats of Druidism, and one of them had penetrated the Happy Valley to the no small dismay of the Druidical priest The ancient Britons listened patiently to the statements of the Christian missionary, weighed the evidences in their own minds, and were perplexed as to their future procedure. In this dilemma a conference was appointed, in which the advocates of Druidism and Christianity were to meet in public contest in order to decide which of the two systems had the best claim to their worship and submission. The meeting, as usual, was appointed in the open air, at the foot of Roulston Crag. The intellectual assailants met, and the devil, in the garb of a Druidical priest, came with the worshippers of Baal. The Evil One placed his foot on one of those mountain rocks, and being foiled in his arguments by the powerful reasoning of the missionary, flapped his brazen wings and fled across the valley with the stone adhering to his foot, the heat of which (they say) melted a hole in the top, until he came to the ridge of Hood Hill, where he dropped the massive block, leaving the missionary the undisputed master of the field. This account will of course be received as a legend, but it is a matter of fact that a large stone weighing from sixteen to twenty tons of the same rock as Roulston Scar, is deposited on the ridge of Hood Hill, bearing a mark on the top not unlike a large footprint.

Vallis Eboracensis : comprising the History and Antiquities of Easingwold and its Neighbourhood.
By Thomas Gill.
London 1852.

Blagged from
County Folk-Lore.
Publications of the Folk-lore Society
1899.

Lowick. About three miles wast of the village is Renting Lynn. ... A cataract, 18 feet high, the sounds of which can be heard a distance of 200 yards . . . near this spot is a well, in which, according to an improbable tradition, King James of Scotland washed the blood off his hands after the battle of Flodden.

History, Topography, and Directory of Northumberland, Tyneside Division.
J. Bulmer
1887

Addleborough. Tradition tells of a giant who was once travelling with a chest of gold on his back from Skipton Castle to Pendragon ; while crossing Addleborough he felt weary, and his burden slipped, but recovering himself he cried
’ Spite of either God or man,
To Pendragon Castle thou shalt gang ! ‘
when it fell from his shoulders, sank into the earth, and the stones rose over it. There the chest remained, and still remains, only to be recovered by the fortunate mortal to whom the fairy may appear in the form of a hen or an ape. He has then but to stretch forth his arm, seize the chest, and drag it out, in silence if he can, at all events without swearing, or he will fail as did that unfortunate wight, who uttering an oath in the moment of success, lost his hold of the treasure, and saw the fairy no more as long as he lived.

A Month in Yorkshire.
By Walter WHITE.
London
1858.

Taken from
PUBLICATIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY
COUNTY FOLK-LORE
XLV/ 1899.

Roseberry. Towards the weste there stands a highe hill called Roseberry Toppinge, which is a marke to the seamen and an almanacke to the vale, for they have this ould ryme common,
’ When Roseberrye Toppinge weares a cappe
Let Cleveland then beware a clappe.‘
For indeed yt seldome hath a cloude on yt that some yll weather shortly followes yt not, when not farre from thence on a mountayne’s syde there are cloudes almoste contynually smoakinge, and therefore called the Divels Kettles, which notwithstandinge prognostycate neither good norbadde ; . . . yt hath somtymes had an hermitage on yt, and a small smith’s forge cut out of the rock, together with a clefte or cut in the rocke called St. Winifryd’s Needle, whither blynde devotyon led many a syllie soule, not without hazard of a breaknecke tumblinge caste, while they attempted to put themselves to a needlesse payne creepyng through that needle’s eye.

A Description of Cleveland in a letter addressed by H. Tr. to Sir T. Chaloner. [From the MS. Cotton. Julius F. VI., p. 431.] Printed in the Topographer and Genea-
logist, edited by John Gough Nichols. Vol. ii., pp. 405-430. London 1853.

Lifted from
PUBLICATIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY
COUNTY FOLK-LORE
XLV/ 1899.

A granite menhir at Holne, on the spurs of Dartmoor, was associated with a May festival known as “the Ram Feast”. Before daybreak the young men of the village would assemble at the pillar, and having run down a young ram from the moor, they fastened it to the stone, killed it and roasted it whole and undressed. At midday struggles took place for slices of the animal, and these collops were esteemed as mascots for the ensuing year. Dancing, wrestling and drinking prolonged the festival, which did not cease till midnight.

The Minor Traditions of British Mythology
Lewis Spence
1925

Many years ago the number of the stones was twelve, and the following amusing story is told about the removal of the missing one. A ploughman, while at work in the field, broke his plough against one of the stones, and, in the absence of his employer, took upon himself to remove the obstacle, and left it in the waters of Gluden. The farmer on his return was rather alarmed about the sacrilege, as he considered it to be, for the twelve stones represented the twelve Apostles, and he, being fearful that some calamity would follow, took the ploughnlan to task, but the man was ready with the answer : Hoots, there’s nae fear o’ ill. Ane o’ the Apostles was a traitor ; weel, it’s him I’ve ta’en awa’, and gin the Gluden disna’ wash him, it’ll droon him.‘

From
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON
SECOND SERIES, VOL. X.
1885

In Myth and Magic of Northumbria, Coquet Editions 1992
There is a tale of a man who decided to dispel the myth of the mischevious dwarfes who inhabited the Simonside hills and waylaid strangers by spending a night in the hills.
He wandered about for some time and saw nothing and so decided to pretend he was lost and in the local dialect shouted “Tint! Tint!“.
Immediately he saw a light in front of him.
To cut a long story short he found himself surrounded by ugly dwarves, each carrying a club and a torch, their evil faces twisted with menace. The man falls unconsious and lays until dawn. When he awakes the dwarves had gone.

“At the extreme edge of the Plains on the brow of a cliff overlooking Sale Bottom is another mound composed solely of stones; it is twenty-six yards in diameter, and has originally been about seven or eight feet high. It is known as Hollinstump, a corruption, as some think, of Llewellen’s Tomb. Llewellen was the last of the Welsh Kings, and was beheaded about 1280 in the reign of Edward I., but it is improbable the King would trouble to send his mangled remains for interment to such a distant part. It was opened by some gainseeking hill-breakers, who say they found a large slab of sandstone, under which was a full length skeleton and a small implement – in the words of the finder: – “He seemed t’eve been buried in his cleayse wid a jack-a-legs knife in his waistcwoat pocket.” Of the sandstone slab: – “They brak it up an’ gat three carfull o’t finest sand et iver was carried to Appleby Low Brewery.” Bone dust was not then come into fashion, or else we may be certain his bones would have been sold to the crushing mill. This place is said to be haunted, the apparition being a headless horseman who dashes along at a furious yet noiseless speed. Those who have seen him describe him as having in place of a head something like a blaze of fire, and others like a backboard laid upon his shoulders – perhaps the distinguished spirit of the wronged and headless Welsh King, whose sole revenge is to dash on the midnight wind around his tomb, to the terror and dismay of each benighted wanderer.”

From The Vale of Lyvennet
by J.S. Bland
Published 1910

Tony Walker in his online book, The Ghostly Guide to the Lake District, reports that the Skellaw mound was haunted by a ‘gypsy looking man with a dark complexion who would glide among the rocks’. Apparently he stopped visiting the mound once it had been excavated.

www.ghoststories.org.uk/stories/ghostlyguidelakedistrict.pdf

With reference to Rhiannon’s comments about Robin Hood’s Pillars.
These can be found at NZ918095.
Stanhope White describes them as
“two saddle-like stones, round pillars with small mushroom caps; the rim of the first is engraved Robin Hood Close and the other Little John Close......
It is not improbable that these two stones have replaced two Bronze Age standing stones; they would have attracted tales of Robin Goodfellow; when Robin Hood began to appear as a folk hero his name replaced the earlier leaders name, and no doubt some good burgher of Whitby replaced the ancient stones with these more decorative modern ones!”
Stanhope White
Standing Stones & Earthworks on the North Yorkshire Moors.
1987

With regard to the folklore below, it seems like Sir John and the Wyverne got about a bit. This is from Walter Whites 1861 book A Month in Yorkshire.
“And it was near Lofthouse the Sir John Conyers won his name of Snake-Killer. A sword and coffin , dug up on the site of an Old Benedictine priory were supposed to have belonged to a brave knight who “slew yt monstorous and poisonous vermine or wyverne, and aske or werme, overthrew and devoured many people in fight, for yt ye sent of yt poison was so strong yt no person might abyde it.” A grey stone standing in a field still marks the haunt of the worm and place of battle.
Tradition tells, moreover, of a valliant youth who killed a serpent and rescued an earls daughter from the reptiles cave, and married her: in token whereof Scaw Wood still bears his name.”
Lofthouse is Loftus, a small town on the coast about 30 miles from Sockburn.

The sword which Sir John slew the worm with, the Conyers Falchion, is now kept in Durham Cathedral and can be seen here bjorn.foxtail.nu/h_conyers_eng.htm

The above web page also mentions Lewis Carroll’s connection with Sockburn.
“The Sockburn Worm itself was almost certainly immortalized by Lewis Carroll in his famous nonsense rhyme, “Jabberwocky”, as he lived in Croft on Tees as a boy and it was there he wrote the first verse of the rhyme.”

“Sockburn has its legend, one of those interesting dragon stories which enrich our northern folk lore. It is thus told in the Bowes MSS p.57: ” Sir John Conyers, Knt., slew yt monstorous and poisonous vermine or wyverne, and aske or werme, overthrew and devoured many people in fight, for yt ye sent of yt poison was so strong yt no person might abyde it. But before he made this enterprise, having but one sonne, he went to the church of Sockburn in complete armour, and offered up yt his onely sonne to ye Holy Ghost. Yt place where this serpent laye was called Graystane: and thisw John lieth buried in Sockburn church in complete armour, before the conquest.”
The Grey Stone beneath which the monster was buried, is still pointed out in a field near the ruins of the church.”

Bulmers Directory of North Yorkshire 1890

In his 1829 work entitled ‘The History of Initiation 3 courses of lectures’, the masonic writer, George Oliver described Mayburgh and Arthur’s Round Table. He then goes on to quote an anecdote related to him by the late Mr Briggs of Kendal.

Not many years since, an old man in the neighbourhood told me, there were four stones at the entrance, and he had heard the old folks say that there had been four stones in the centre, but he could not recollect them. Those at the entrance he remembered well, and they were destroyed by the landlord of the public house by the side of Arthur’s Round Table, and his servant man. But, added he, I think they did wrong to meddle with these ancient things, for one of the men soon hanged himself, and the other lost his reason. What must have been the veneration for this place in the days of its greatest glory, when such a striking relic of superstitious respect is still fostered among the peasantry of the neighbourhood!

Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
And liv’d upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf
And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
Her currants pods o’ broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
Her Sisters larchen trees--
Alone with her great family
She liv’d as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
No dinner many a noon,
And ‘stead of supper she would stare
Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
She plaited Mats o’ Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere--
She died full long agone!

John Keats

With reference to Rhiannons excellent post
“Morden carre will suffer for that.”

Morden carre is probably Morten Carr which is about a mile and a half north west of Roseberry at NZ552143

“AD946, Edmund wasted Cumbria, and having put out the eyes of the two sons of Dunmail, gave that province to King Malcolm, King of Scotland. Dun-mel-wrays is supposed to have been erected in memory of it or a boundary of Dunmails kingdom.”

The Gentleman’s Magazine Library Compendium 1731-1868

How to Become a Witch
Touch a Logan stone nine times at midnight, and any woman will become a witch.

Source: Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England; or, The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall (London: John Camden Hotten, 1871), p. 321.

pitt.edu/~dash/monuments.html#scott

In his excellent book, The Book of the Cailleach, Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer, Gearoid O Crualaoich tells the tale of how Emain Macha got its name.

There were three kings , Dithorba, Aed Ruad and Cimbaeth who took it in seven year stints to rule over Ireland. When Aed Ruad died his daughter, Macha Mongruad demanded her fathers turn of the kingship. The remaining two kings refused to surrender the kingship to a woman, so Matha defeated them in battle and took her seven year turn.

When Dithorba died his five sons claimed the kingship. Macha fought and defeated the sons and banished them to Connaught. Then she married Cimbeath.

Matha went to visit the five sons disguised as a hag. The sons try to trick Macha with lies but one by one she ties them up and brings them back to Ulster, where she orders them to dig a ring fort as a capital for Ulster and marked out the boundaries of the fort with a pin from her golden brooch.
The fort was founded four hunderd and five years before Christ and lasted until four hundred and fifty years after Christ.

F.R. Coles wrote this about the stones in 1906
“Auld Wives’ Lifts belong, in the megalithic folk-lore, to the section which comprises legends of women, or witches, or carlines, who transport through the air masses of stone, great or small, and here and there drop them ; thus forming cairns, groups of standing stones, or single groups of enormous blocks, like the pierres levies
‘at Poictiers and other French localities. This remarkable group on Craigmaddie Muir has also associations with another phase of superstition ; for Mr Robertson observes that it is ” still necessary for all strangers visiting this enchanted place for the first time, to creep through it, if they wish to avert the calamity of dying childless.” He notes the old spelling was Craig-madden, and translates madden as
= moid/lean, entreaty, supplication : The rock of prayer.”

Some modern folklore from ‘The Ghostly Guide to the Lake District’ by Tony Walker
ghoststories.org.uk/stories/ghostlyguidelakedistrict.pdf

“In the early 1990s, a local girl called Paula Thompson and her friends decided to do a bit of ghost hunting at Long Meg. Friends had gone there in their cars late at night to sit and talk and do what teenagers do. They reported seeing flashes of light outside the car, coming from the
stones. They told Paula and they all decided to go back another night as a group.
It was late, after midnight and at first Paula wouldn’t get out of her car. Her friends teased her and so, reluctantly she opened the door. By that time the others had spread out round the circle. There was some light from the moon, and so she walked over to Long Meg, the tallest stone. She saw a dark shape in front of her. As she got closer, it started to move towards her very quickly. She thought it was a male friend having a laugh and called out jokingly for him to stop. He didn’t stop and she saw that he was going to run into her. As it got closer she saw the shape wasn’t her friend. To her horror it ran right through her. She says she felt cold and frightened and rushed back to the car.
Another time a group of people went there late, they met a coven of witches. When you visit Long Meg, you will more often than not see offerings of flowers or suchlike around Long Meg herself, or hanging in the tree nearby. My advice would be to stay away from Long Meg after dark. These people probably mean no harm, but they don’t like to be disturbed”.

Legend has it that Addlebrough was once the home of a giant who had a feirce row with the devil. Perched on the top of the crag, the rough ridge to the west, the giant hurled boulders down at the devil, but they fell short and landed at the side of Semerwater. The devil’s response landed high on the flank of Addlebrough.
The giant granite boulders thrown by the giant can be seen on the edge of Semerwater and are known as The Carlow and Mermaid stones.

“In the farmers family for at least three generations that he knew about, the circle had been used as a vet. he had been brought up with the knowledge that is, if lambs did not play in the circle, there was something wrong with them, so have a look at them”.

Taken from
The Reason for the Stone Circles in Cumbria by Ray Seton
published the author.

The earliest reference to the monument is on a 1771 map where it is refered to as “Mitten full of Stones”. A local legend tells how the devil was carrying stones in his mitten to Dunbar to build a dam across the Tweed to Kelso, when the mitten burst and the stones fell on the moor. There is also a tale of gold wrapped in a hide of an ox and buried beneath the cairn.
The cairn was excavated by Lady John Scott in 1871 who “failed to find anything of interest” and then in 1924 by James Hewat Craw.
Hewat Craw uncovered a number of walls and areas of disturbance which led him to the conclusion that the long cairn may have contained “enclosed chambers of one sort or another and which have as yet yeilded only relics of the stone phase of culture”

All information from
The Mutiny Stones, Berwickshire
By James Hewat Craw F.S.A. Scot
Proceeding of the Society of Scottish Antiquities 1925

“A witch story related by a native 25yrs ago attempts to explain two conspicuous natural features two miles apart on Pickering Moor; Blakey Topping, an isolated hill, and the Hole of Horcum, a deep basin-shaped valley. The local witch had sold her soul to the devil on the usual terms, but when he claimed it, she refused to give it up, and flew over the moors, with the devil in hot pursuit. Overtake her he could not, so he grabbed up a handful of earth and flung it at her. he missed his aim and she escaped. The Hole of Horcum remains to prove where he tore up the earth and Blakey Topping where it fell to the ground.
From our point of view the significance of this story lies in the fact that between the Hole and the Topping there is a Bronze Age settlement site at Blakey Farm, with its stone circle. The rough trackway leading from the Hole to the circle is known as the Old Wife’s Way, presumably also marking the witch’s flight. This, together with other Old Wife’s Ways, preserves as it were Bronze Age church tracks”.

The Archaeology of Yorkshire
F & HW Elgee
1933
Republished 1971 by SR Publishers Ltd.

“Luath’s Stone on the hillside some distance north of Whitehouse Station on the Alford railway, is reputed to mark the site of the death of “Luath,” said to be a son of Macbeth.
Some doubt must attach to the tradition, which is repeated in connection with another site a good many miles away; even the existence of a son so-called is doubtful. The colour of the stone suggests that the present name may have been derived from the Gaelic word liath, meaning “grey”—the “Grey Stone” and nothing more”.

Source
Folklore of the Aberdeen Stone Circles and Standing Stones by James Ritchie
Proceedings of The Society of Antiquities of Scotland. Vol LX.20
May 10 1926

“The Auld Kirk o Tough circle is now almost destroyed: only one stone remains on its original site, the others having been removed many years ago by a tenant on the farm. He is said to have formed one of the stones into a field-roller, which broke just after having been put to use—a just judgment upon his interference, said his neighbours”.

Source
Folklore of the Aberdeen Stone Circles and Standing Stones by James Ritchie
Proceedings of The Society of Antiquities of Scotland. Vol LX.20
May 10 1926

Love them bees!

“The Candle Stone is a large pillar-stone which stands at Candle Ridge, Drumwhindle,
near Arnage, and there are three Candle Sills, one at Oyne, one in the parish of Rayne, and the other near Insch, within a few miles of each other. On each of these Candle Hills there are remains of a stone circle, so that al these candle-names appear to be associated with either stone circles or a standing-stone. The association has given rise to the idea that candles were employed in the ceremonies performed by the “Druids” at such places; but Professor Watson tells me that the Gaelic word signifies not a diminutive candle, but even a huge torch, so that the word might well be applied figuratively to a tall stone suggesting the shape of a torch.
Another explanation of the name, however, is possible. In former days wax candles were much used in Church services, and since the wax was derived from bees, whose honey was used for sweetening, it was not overplentiful, and was accordingly highly valued. Thus gifts of wax frequently find mention in old deeds arid charters : two stones of wax were dedicated in 1233 by the Earl of Buchan to the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin at Rattray, and another grant of 5pounds is referred to in the
confirmation of a charter of John Lord of the Isles in 1460. Grants of wax for Church use came to be associated with land suitable for beekeeping : thus the Candlelands at Ellon were dedicated to the use of the church there, and had to provide twenty-four wax candles three times a year to burn before the high altar of the Church of Ellon. These Candlelands are only some 5 miles distant from the Candlestone and Candle Ridge of Drumwhindle. It may be no more than a coincidence that the Candle Ridge near Ellon and the three Candle Hills in the Insch district have each a standing-stone or a stone circle. Naturally hill-top monuments would escape much of the destruction which visited similar monuments on arable land, so that out of the large numbers of these monuments which must have existed at one time, the hill-top examples stood every chance of survival; further, the very conditions which would account for the preservation of the stones, rough, rather high ground with abundance of heather and the characteristic vegetation of such places, would be just those best suited for the keeping of the bee-stocks which were to produce the sacred candle wax. The suggestion, therefore, is that the ancient stones have only a casual connection with candlelands from which beeswax was obtained or levied”.

Source
Folklore of the Aberdeen Stone Circles and Standing Stones by James Ritchie
Proceedings of The Society of Antquities of Scotland. Vol LX.20
May 10 1926

“In the large and almost complete circle at Cothiemuir, in the parish of Keig, the recumbent stone is of peculiar rounded shape, and has numerous hollows upon its surface, caused by weathering. Two of these on the outside, rather larger than their fellows, are known as the ” Devil’s Hoofmarks,” their shape resembling the mark of a cloven hoof.
A short distance, some 200 yards, from the Chapel o’ Sink lies the Ark Stone, very likely the recumbent stone of the circle, which would help to account for its unusual name”.

Source
Folklore of the Aberdeen Stone Circles and Standing Stones by James Ritchie
Proceedings of The Society of Antquities of Scotland. Vol LX.20
May 10 1926

A different telling of Rhiannon’s tale

“Many years ago some of the stones of Mains of Hatton Circle, Auchterless, were removed to form gateposts, but the spirits, it is said, resented human interference with the circle, and it was only with great trouble that horses could ever be induced to pass through the gate. So little was the farmer prepared to encounter the spiritual enmity thus clearly indicated, that he decided to replace, on their original site, the stones which had been taken away; but it was remarked that while two horses with difficulty dragged each stone
downhill to the gate, one only found it easy work to pull a stone uphill from the gate to the circle”.

Source
Folklore of the Aberdeen Stone Circles and Standing Stones by James Ritchie
Proceedings of The Society of Antquities of Scotland. Vol LX.20
May 10 1926

The mighty Graeme C told me that a local farmer told him that the devil threw this stone to its current location. Apparently you can still see his finger marks on the side of the stone.

“King Eric was treacherously killed by Earl Maccus in a certain lonely place which is called Stainmore, with his son Haeric and his brother Ragnald, betrayed by Earl Oswulf, and then afterwards King Eadred ruled in these districts”.
Flowers of the Histories
Roger of Wendover

In his book “In Search of The Dark Ages"Michael Wood describes Eric as “The last king of the Northumbrian race”

A few more quotes relating to Rey Cross and Stainmore.

“Here was the boundary between the ‘Westmoringas’ and the Northumbrians, the old Glasgow diocesan border, and before that the frontier of the Cumbrians and the Northumbrians. The place is marked by the stump of a cross still called rey Cross, from the Norse word hreyrr, meaning boundary.
Some seventy years ago Prof. W. Collingwood identified this as an English-style cross with figured decoration, and suggests that it was done by an English sculptor and commisioned by sympathisers in York to commemorate their king”.

“Eric’s other monument survives in a more intelligible form. When his wife and family fled by sea from York to Orkney, a poet in their entourage composed his epitaph, the Eiriksmal. It is redolent of the old Scandanavian world, thoroughly pagan, soaked in the shamanistic inspiration of Odin”.

“The lost History of the Ancient Northumbrians ended with Eric’s death, and was rounded off with the king lists; ‘Ever since, the Northumbrians have been mouring their lost liberty.’ And of course, some of them still do!”

All Quotes from
In Search of the Dark Ages
Michael Wood
Published by BBC Books
1987

“On the Moor above the village (Cotherstone) is a stone called the Butterstone, whereat a market was held once during a time of plague, and near it is a farmstead, once a school whereat Richard Cobden was at one time a pupil. It is said of this village that once upon a time the folk were so irreverent and Godless as to0 christen calves in open contempt of the sacrament of baptism, and that hence sprang up a derisive saying – “Cotherstone, where they christen calves, hopple loups and kneeband spiders.” “To hopple a loup” means to tie the legs of a flea together; “To kneeband a spider” is not so easy of explanation”
From
The Enchanting North by J.S. Fletcher.
Pub 1908

” A musing stroll across the heath from Studland, brings you to the Aggllestone, the holy stone (Helig – Anglo-Saxon for holy) hurled by the devil on to the crest of a hillock rising above the peaty waste. Fiends often do dress like angels, and it is certainly hard to detect anything of the devil when the Madonna-blue chalices of that visionary flower, Gentiana pneumonanthe, are open on the heath. But devils did traffic with holy stones in archaic England, for devils were once gods themselves fallen from heaven upon evil days, the days when the usurping Celts looked with dread upon the works of their predecessors. For the Agglestone is a menhir”.
Taken from
Downland Man by H.J. Massingham
Pub 1927 by Jonathan Cape

A variation on Rhiannon’s tale taken from Janet & Colin Bord’s “The Mysterious Country”

“A man who used oxen to move the stone to get at it’s treasure was unsuccessful: the chains snapped, the oxen collapsed and the ‘guardian-spirit of the treasure’ in the form of a drake flew from under the stone, which fell back into place. This happened in 1832, according to one account. The stone was eventually buried in a hole dug beside it, because it interfered with ploughing; and in 1913 it was relocated, hauled up (in two pieces, because it had broken), and redeposited near the churchyard gate. Two drakes regularly seen sheltering beneath the stone gave it it’s name.”

“There ev’ry herd by sad experience knows,
How wing’d with fate, their elf shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes,
Or stretch’d on earth the heart-smit heifers lie”

From
Flint Chips, A guide to Prehistoric Archaeology
by Edward T. stevens
1870

An elf shot is a flint arrow head.

People have said that they have heard the fairies patting butter on the hill as they passed at night. Once a man heard them say “mend that peel!” (a peel was a long-handled shovel used to remove bread from the oven.) Passing by the next day, he found the broken shovel and took it home to be mended. The following day a piece of bread and butter was lying on a stone where he had found the peel. The man was afraid to eat the bread or give it to his horses, fearing the consequences. Unfortunately, unaware that he had offended the fairies, his horses dropped dead before they reached the top of the hill.

Myth and Magic of Northumbria
Coquet Editions
1992

Elf-stones
” When I was a boy, I was an ardent archaeologist. I remember on one occasion having been told that chipped flints were to be found in a field near Blois Hall, in the North Riding.
Hurrying thither the first whole holiday, I was fortunate enough on that occasion to find a flint arrow head-the only one I ever did find. This I showed to an old fellow who was hedging; without hesitation he pronounced it to be an elf-stone, declaring that the elves were evil spirits, who in days past used to throw them at the kie-I had up to that time always been told they were shot at cattle-but my informant stuck to throwing. I well remember that he also said the elves got them out of whirlpools, where they were originally made by the water spirits, but he could not say what the water spirits used them for, though he knew of several instances in which both cattle and horses had been injured by the elves throwing elf-stones at them. He further informed me that when the elves got them from the whirlpools, they had much longer shanks than the one I had found: this was so that better aim might be taken with them. ‘But’ said he, ‘tha’re nivver fund wi’ lang shanks on, acoz t’ fairies awlus brak’ em off, seea ez t’ elves wadn’t be yabble ti potch ‘em at t’ beeasts neea mair’ and he had been told that fairies often wore them as ornaments. Sore eyes could be cured by the touch from an elf-stone, if a fairy had worn it, and they were also a potent love-charm if worn so they rested near the heart. ”

Yorkshire Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs
R. Blakeborough
1911

“This moor, according to legend, took it’s name from a giant Rombald, who favoured it a good deal. The large block of sandstone at it’s eastern end, known as the calf, which lies at the foot of the mass of rock called the Cow, bears an indentation which is said to be the imprint of the foot of the giant, who, in taking a stride from the Cow to Great Alms’ Cliff, several miles away, broke the calf off and sent it rolling down the hillside.”

The Enchanting North
J.S. Fletcher
Pub. Eveleigh Nash
1908

“In times of old, when British nymphs were known
To love no foreign fashions like their own;
When dress was monstrous, and fig-leaves the mode,
And quality put on no paint but woad”

From Garth’s poems

“The history of another stone, the Stone of Scone, which is commonly believed to have originated here (Dunadd).
The story goes that when Fergus, the first king of Dalradia, was crowned here in AD 500, making the first footprint in the Dunadd stone, he also brought with him the Stone of Destiny, which was no less than Jacob’s pillow. This was set beside a majic cauldron which always supplied the right amount of food for the number of people needing sustenance”

Celic Jouneys
Shirley Toulson
Hutchison 1985

“Then Whitby’s nuns exulting told,
How to their house three barons bold
must menial service do;
They told how in their convent-cell
A saxon princess once did dwell,
The lovely Edelfled;
And how of thousand snakes, each one
Was changed into a coil of stone
When holy Hilda pray’d -
Themselves, within their holy round,
Their stony folds had often found.”

Marmion, canto ii
Sir Walter Scott.

Ord comments on this
” Sir Walter like all true antiquarians, had large faith. “These miracles” he says, “are much insisted on by all ancient writers who have occasion to mention Whitby or Saint Hilda. The relics of the snakes which infested the precincts of the convent, and were at the abbess’s prayer not only beheaded but petrified, are still found about the rocks and are termed by protestant fossilists Ammonitae”

The History and Antiquities of Cleveland
J.W. Ord
1846

“The twin dales of Fryup (Fri-hop = Frigas valley) meet to th south of the elevated oval-shaped barrier which seperates them. The southerly tip of that rising piece of moorland is called Fairy Cross Plain, a name which dates to more than two centuries, and accordingly to local folklore, this used to be the haunt of fairies”
Folktales from the North York Moors
Peter N. Walker
Pub. Hale
1990

The son of King Osmund of Northumbria was prince Oswy.
The kings wise men told him that Oswy would drown before his third birthday.
After Oswy’s second birthday, Osmund instructed his queen to take Oswy to the highest part of the land, the summit of Odinsberg (Roseberry).
He told her to make use of the hermitage.
To cut a long story short, the boy drowned in the spring that flows from the top of the hill.
The boy was buried in Tevotdale, the queen was so distraught that she died soon after. King Osmund buried his queen beside his son. Tivotdale was given a new name. it was called Oswy-by-his-mother-lay and is known today as Osmotherley.

The Sleeping Knights of Freeborough
One legend suggests there is a deep pit shaft running directly from the summit into the depths of the earth, and that this was used to bury hundreds of dead soldiers and horses after bygone battles.
Some say it contains the bodies of those who died during the black death: indeed a grave was found on the side of the hill during the last century. This was made of whinstone blocks, which had been carried three or four miles to this site, thus indicating a grave of some importance.
The is the legend of Edward Trotter who lived in a small holding in Dimmington.
When chasing a lost lamb he found a large hole the size of a badger sett. On crawling inside the hole he found a tunnel running deep into the hill. The tunnel grew larger as he passed through it. He then came across a huge chamber with a heavy oak door studded with iron with a large iron handle.
On entering the door, Edward encountered a man in chain mail with a long spear in one hand and a sword in the other.
The man awoke and stopped Edward from running away.
The man commanded Edward to be quiet. Edward notice that there were more men in similar dress all asleep and seated at a round table.
The guard informed Edward that “we are King Arthur and his Knights of the round table, we are sleeping until our services are again required.
He then swore Edward to secrecy and told him to leave.

“Some say his (Wade) grave is at Goldsborough where there is a standing stone called Wade’s Stone: others say it is at East Barnby where there is another Wade’s stone. The original two stones which were twelve feet apart have disappeared, and perhaps one of the remaining Wade’s stone was, at one time for his huge grave?
The two remaining Wade’s stones are a mile apart, but it would be a tremendous giant who was that tall... but if Wade really did build that causeway, if he did dig a handful of earth out of the Hole of Horcum and toss his hammer between Pickering and Mulgrave, then he could have been a mile high! Those two remaining stones might well be the extent of his grave”
Folk Tales From The North York Moors
Peter N. Walker