.. "Pepper Hill" at Weeting is said to be so called because from its poplar-crowned summit "Oliver Cromwell peppered Weeting Castle."

Though there are surprisingly few traditions concerning the barrows, yet the curiosity they aroused in the minds of dwellers in the neighbourhood is shown by the fact that so many of them have names. That it was "a very mysterious mound" was all that I could glean from a shepherd concerning a barrow at Croxton, but he was able to inform me that it was called "Mickle Hill" (a name hitherto unrecorded)...

Rhyme on Bulmer Stone, Darlington.

In Darnton towne ther is a stane,
And most strange is yt to tell,
That yt turnes nine times round aboute
When yt hears ye clock strike twell.

This truly wonderful revolving stone, though by-the-by it is not singular in this property, stands in the front of some low cottages constituting Northgate House, in the street bearing the same name. It is a water-worn boulder-stone of Shap (Westmorland) granite.

Abermarlais.

At the entrance gate of Abermarlais Park there is an interesting stone, near which, according to a tradition related to me by Mrs. De Rutzen, the Welsh Princes held a council or* war. I was also informed by people in the neighbourhood that the spot was once haunted by the ghost of a lady in white.

On the surface of the main group of rock are several basins or depressions, no doubt formed principally by Nature, as we have seen many similar amongst the rocks of Upper Wharfedale. ... An old custom of the country people was the dropping of a pin into these basins, they believing that good luck would follow this action. One of the basins is known as the Wart Well; anyone troubled with warts came here and pricked them until the blood flowed freely into the basin, and finished by dipping the hands into the water. If their faith was great enough, the warts were seen no more.

In the year 1776, a young woman of Rigton, having been disappointed by her lover, determined to commit suicide by leaping from the summit of the rocks, a distance of nearly fifty feet. A strong wind blowing from the west inflated her dress, and in her perilous descent she received very little harm. She never repeated the experiment, and lived many years after.

The scene from the top of this rock is magnificent, the silver windings of the old Wharfe passing town, village, meadow, and woodland, whilst far beyond the dale the country in many places can be seen for fifty miles around.

The whole is left intact by the nature of its surroundings. The interior of the chamber is filled with small field stones, and no means are left to examine it; but I understand that tradition tells of "curious things" being got in the inside at one time.

[A] local story suggests that the standing stones at Killadangan are "a pagan cemetery, and that the ashes of Firbolg chiefs lie in urns beneath the boulders" (Quinn's 'History of Mayo, v2', 1993). The legend appears to represent local explanations for the monuments at the site.

Perhaps the most intriguing folk-tale about the site is recorded by a local story teller, James Berry, who relates a story in which the king of Killadangan was the brother of Queen Maeve's first husband (Horgan, ed. 'Tales of the West of Ireland', 1988). The name of this "great pagan king" seems to have disappeared from local tradition, whereas the name of his lazy servant, Thulera, remains in folk memory. In this story the king makes a vain attempt to force the sea and tide under his obedience. As the king awaits the incoming tide, his servant falls asleep, and the monarch is forced to fight a single-handed battle wielding his sword against the encroaching sea. Both the king and Thulera are drowned for their efforts. This story appears to explain the encroachment of the sea into the area around the standing stone monuments.

At Cryhelp, three miles on the east side of Dunlavin, is a granite rectangular stone 6 feet high. It is 1 foot wide at its base and 9 inches near the top; 1 foot 9 inches from the apex the stone is pierced through by a rectangular hole 9 inches by 4 1/4 inches and facing east and west.

[...] Locally the stone is believed to mark the grave of Prince Aralt (Harold) one of the Danish Chieftains killed in the Battle of Glenmama. If we are to take it that the valley near this district was not the site of the Glenmama Battle, then one must conclude that this stone does not mark Prince Harold's grave. Local tradition holds that the corner where this stone stands was formerly a cemetery covered with trees and that this stone once occupied another place in the corner in the field, being removed to its present site to mark the grave of Prince Harold. Many residents state that the cemetery was known as "Crushlow Churchyard."
The stone has certainly a tradition and, on account of the hole in it, it is of interest, but, beyond the fact that marriages were once celebrated at it, there exists no account relative to any curative or other properties being associated with this monument.

(N.B. In the adjacent field on the north side is a nettle-covered hollow. This has been opened and a passage was discovered underneath leading in a northerly direction. It is said that the passage communicates with what is apparently a destroyed mound in the northern corner of the field on the opposite side of the road. In some parts one can stand erect within it. Those who have been in the tunnel state that their clothes were covered with a fine flour like mould on exit).

The Kilgowan Long Stone

[...] The residents in the district regard this stone with awe and believe it to mark the grave of a "great man who lived long ago." One old resident stated that the stone goes to the local stream to drink at night.

Twenty-one yards north-west of the "piper" (the outer stone of the circle) are two smaller stones 10 yards apart; they seem to be the end stones of an avenue leading to the circle.

The only explanation of this remarkable monument which I could obtain in the neighbourhood was that "bag-pipe" music played by the good people or fairies was to be heard occasionally at the spot.

On the summit of Brewel Hill, 2 1/2 miles S.W. of Dunlavin, encircled by a wide double entrenchment now much levelled, is a group of four large boulders of which two are granite, another is of white quartz while the fourth is of red "pudding stone." Locally they are known as the "Piper's Stones," the quartz one being called the "Piper's Chair," from the resemblance its form bears to that of a chair.

[...] According to legend, three giants - pipers by profession - had a dispute as to which of them could throw a stone the farthest. They decided to put their strength to the test and chose Knuckadow, a tall hill about a mile and a half south of Brewel, as the position from which the "cast" was to be thrown. The stones landed on the top of Brewel hill where they remain to this day. The fourth, and smallest boulder, was thrown by a young ambitious piper who was spectator of the contest and desired to emulate his older brethren.

Legend, also relates that one of these giants had a famous greyhound which, two days after the contest, leaped from Knuckadow to Brewel, and, landing on the stones, left the imprint of its toe nails on each boulder.

Broomfield Dolmen.
[...] The cover stone and supporting pillars are all of granite and are of massive proportions. It is still an imposing spectacle and must have appeared much more so when each stone held its proper position. Mrs. O'Reilly, whose father died some two years ago at a very advanced age, told me that she often heard him relate how three strong men from the old mill (near Donard) pushed the cover stone off its supports for a wager.

[...] Locally this monument is known as a "Druid's altar," though some believe it to be a sepulchral monument. (The belief that it was a Druid's altar is supported by a remark made to me by a Donard resident, when I was speaking to him about this monument. The late Colonel Heighington told him that a story was once current in Donard that a religious fanatic, who had a strong antipathy to Pagan antiquities, got the cover stone thrown off its supports, thus accomplishing his one great desire, the destruction of existing remnants of pre-Christian religion.)

In Kilbaylet Upper on the boundary of the Blackmoor townland, are three raths which are regarded with some superstition in the neighbourhood. (It is said that an old woman resident near the raths wandered out one night and lost her way. When found she stated that she had been to the raths and had seen people dance from one rath to the other. She gave the names of a number, all of whom were deceased at the time.)

Conversations with local people have confirmed that up to 50 years ago the cairn was visited by a great many people on Crom Dubh's Sunday or Lughnasa, the last Sunday in July. The people approached the cairn from the south-west, and after visiting the cairn, where dancing and celebrations took place, walked down the mountain to the west, following a trail that led to a standing stone. This traditional route up the mountain to the cairn was lost when the forestry plantation commenced. The location of the standing stone [...] was ascertained by the author, with the help of local youths, some 200m to the west of the cairn [...] The stone, 3.6m in height, was damaged some time ago and has broken in two.

[...] Fieldwork carried out has confirmed that a clear view of Mullyash mountain may be had from the majority of megalithic monuments in east Monaghan, and the mountain is clearly visible from Slieve Gullion in County Armagh, itself the location of a passage tomb.

[...] the Folklore Commission records that local lore connected the cairn with the burial of a nobleman's daughter in an urn on the top of the mountain. Her father killed her after she eloped with a young prince of whom he did not approve. Ordinary mortals are able to see the gold treasure buried with her if they eat certain foods. There are also connections with Fionn MacCumhaill, who is said to have thrown a stone onto the top of Mullyash mountain from Slieve Gullion. Local legend states that the standing stone is this very stone.

The most important remains of prehistoric religion found in Leicestershire are probably the two monoliths known as the St. John's Stone, or Little John's Stone, and the Hostone, or Hellstone. The former was a pillar of sandstone, originally embedded in sand, which stood in a field near Leicester Abbey, called Johnstone Close.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was about 7 feet high, but by the year 1835 it had become reduced to about 3 feet. In 1874, according to the British Association's Report, it was about 2 feet high, and it has now completely disappeared.* A drawing of the stone, made by Mr. J. Flowers in 1815, has been reproduced in Kelly's Royal Progresses and Visits to Leicester.

A custom existed from time immemorial until last century of paying an annual visit to the St. John's Stone on St. John's Day, the 24th of June, when "a festival was formerly held there, a vestige of old fire or sun-worship."** Children who played about it were careful to leave before dark, for then, it was said, the fairies came to dance there. This superstition attests the religious significance of the monolith, for fairies, all the world over, continue in popular imagination to haunt ground which has once been sacred.

*British Association Report, 1874, p. 197. Mr. Warner, who lived at Leicester Abbey, said, however, that the stone had quite disappeared by the year 1840.
**British Association Report, 1878, p. 190.

About sixty years ago a respectable man declared that he was cutting a hedge between Trefas and Pant y Groes when a grey-headed old man came to him and told him that there was an underground way from Caerau to Pentre-Evan ; and that if he excavated a certain place he would find two hundred " murk " (? marks).

... I am told that the Scar Races were held here in early summer. There is a stretch of ground more than a mile long and several yards wide which has at some period been cleared and roughly levelled like a terrace, and this is known as "the race-course."

Llan Fernach, in the Cwmwd of Uwch Nefer, Cantref of Cemaes, Co. of Pembroke, South Wales. ... It is 13m. N.N.E. from Narberth. ...

Tradition says, that a very bloody battle was fought on the Common above the Church, when two Princes or Generals were slain, and buried near four large stones now standing, and which are visible at a great distance.

A large swamp called Leachfield, situate about a mile from Baslow, on the road from that village which leads to Sheffield, is said to be the site of a buried village. Some people say that this buried village once belonged to one man who saw it all go down into the swamp one day as he stood on a hill. I am told that near this fen or swamp are two stone circles and two rows of unmistakeable stone-built barrows.

In Glover's Derbyshire (vol. ii. p. 86.) the following lines occur about this place:

When Leach-field was a market town,
Chesterfield was gorse and broom;
Now Chesterfield's a market town,
Leach-field a marsh is grown.

I have heard the last two lines repeated thus:
Now Leach-field it is sunken down
And Chesterfield's a market town.

Just beyond West Kennet we enter the precincts of the great temple of Avebury - if temple it be; for on the left hand stand the remains of what was once a grand avenue of huge stones that led to the Great Circle. The land surrounding these stones being now under cultivation, it is not always possible to follow the line of the avenue to its goal, but at certain times it can be done, and then the visitor, before reaching the outer stone circle, passes through the vallum which encircles it.

Many of the Avebury villagers hold to the not uncommon belief that stones grow. To prove that this is so they point out some in this avenue which they say are eighteen inches higher now than when as boys they first observed them.

No tradition exists regarding the history of this fragment [a sculptured stone that was in the church], nor of a boulder which is built into a cottage to the west of the parish kirk. The latter is covered with a number of cup-markings, which are locally called "the Devil's Tackets."

The standing stone at Yevering in Glendale is a large column of prophyry planted upright in a field at the northern base of the hill called Yevering Bell. It is usually spoken of as indicating a battle, but is in reality prehistoric, there being another, now prostrate, among the old forts and tumuli on the eastern end of the lower slope of that hill. By the common people it is called the "Druid's Lapfu'." A female Druid's apron string broke there, and the stone dropped out and remained in its present position. Another account is that one of the Druids, who are represented like the Pechs or Picts to have had very long arms, pitched it from the top of the Bell, and it sunk into the soil where it fell.

{The elder Celtic race responsible for the carvings at Pitland Hills} perhaps worshipped around the "Devil's Stone," by the Birtley Holy Well, on which great isolated rock appear several "cups," three of them being in a straight line, which can scarcely all have been formed by natural sub-aerial forces as geological 'pot-holes'.

A very curious legend associates the worn cups and hollows upon the weathered and channelled summit of this great detached rock with the footprints of a Satanic personage, who is said to have leapt towards the further bank of the North Tyne river, about a mile distant, above Lee Hall. Miscalculating the distance, it is averred that in his descent he touched the projecting rocks in the river-bed, which bear much larger hollows upon them in the form of indubitable water-worn 'pot-holes', about 2 feet in depth by 1 foot in diameter, and then fell into the deepest abyss, according to popular belief, in the whole course of the North Tyne, where he was drowned! Hence the name by which it is still called - "The Leap-Crag Pool."

Dun Charlobhaidh (pronounced Doon Karlovay), Uig, Lewis."

... In Lewis they have a tradition that when these towers were being built a row of men reached from the dun to the shore, from whence the stones were passed from hand to hand; and that the towers being conical, they were built to such a height that only a single stone or flag was required to close the top.

... Donald Cam Macaulay and a famous blacksmith called the Gow Ban (Gobha Ban = Fair Smith) went to the Flannan Isles in summer; when the Morrisons of Ness, hearing they were away, came and seized all their cows that were on the Uig moor. None dare offer resistance to the Morrisons, but on the return of the Macaulays their wives met them on the beach to tell them of the foray. The Macaulays at once crossed Loch Roag in pursuit, and on nearing Dun Carloway they saw their cattle grazing there, and guessed from that the Morrisons were in the castle. The Macaulays rested that night on a hill close by, and early next morning Donald Cam and the Smith went out to reconnoitre.

Not far from the dun was a fire, over which rested a large kettle, wherein was a whole carcase of one of the cows plundered by the Morrisons; and the cook was asleep near it. Donald Cam told the Smith to hold the man till he took the meat out of the kettle, which he did. As soon as the beef was out of the kettle the Smith threw the cook into it. The beef was put into the Smith's plaid, and carried to the Macaulays for their breakfast.

Donald Cam then stalks the sentry at the door of the dun and kills him. The Smith is directed to prevent escape by the door, while Donal Cam climbs up the walls by means of two dirks or daggers, using them as steps, changing them by turns until he got to the top of the uncouth edifice. This dun, upon a superstructure at the top, is closed by a large flag(?). When Donald Cam got to the top he told his men to pull heather and make it into large bundles; these he threw into the area of the dun, and, calling for fire, he sets light to the heather, and smothers and burns all the inmates.

Donald Cam then demolished Dun Carloway; - that old fabric, built in the fourth century by a giant, called Dearg Mac Nuaran. There are two similar duns in the parish of Uig, built and inhabited by two brothers of Dearg, named Kuoch Mac Nuaran and Tidd Mac Nuaran.

Before dinner we walked up to a place called the Kettles, a curious glen among the mountains at the back of Wooler, the scene of a battle in lang-lang syne. There are traces of an encampment still to be seen.

There is a big stone, too, called the King's Chair, and here once upon a time a certain king - but who he was, or when it was, or where he lived, the deponent sayeth not - did sit and did watch his army fight another army in the valley below, but whose army the other army was, or why they fought, or who got the best of it, your depondent won't undertake to say.

There, too, is a large stone, much worn on all sides, like a huge grindstone, for hereon the soldiers of either side came to sharpen their swords when they were blunted and notched with hacking and hewing - at least so somebody says, but deponent voucheth not for the truth of the same, further than that there are well-worn stones on the spot indicated.

On our return we stopped in an adjacent-glen, at the Fairy's Well, commonly called the Pin Well, a small rough basin rudely fashioned from some half-dozen large granite stones, which contains bright clear water. The bottom is almost covered with crooked pins, in every state of preservation, from the new bright one of yesterday to the old rusted worn one of him or her now sleeping peacefully in the auld kirk-yard not far awa, and whose sons and daughters, or even grandchildren may be, have dropped in those later ones in their turn, to propitiate the good fairy of the spot: the belief, or kindly superstition of the place, being that if you utter a wish and drop into the well a crooked pin as an offering, the wish, by the aid of the fairy, will come to pass; and many a maid forlorn, and many a stout herd pining with hopeless love, have thrown a pin to the fairy and breathed the dearest wish of their hearts over that simple basin of crystal water in the dim twilight - half doubting, half hoping, the fulfilment of their wishes, in fear and trembling as the mist of the hills wreathed itself into fantastic and shadowy forms, and every stone, turf, or twig, assumed a fairy figure or shape to their superstitious and excited imaginations.

The practice is kept up, though the superstition, however, like all others, is dying out before the march of civilisation. Alas for the country that has no superstitions! And what superstition could stand before the apparition of a pork-pie hat or the march of crinoline?

Resort to the Fairy Well is still a favourite pastime in holiday times with young people at Wooler. They express a secret wish and drop in a crooked pin. Hence it is also called the Pin and Wishing Well. The well is situated in a narrow hollow among the lower Cheviots which rise above the town, and is formed out of a natural spring of pure and very cool water originating among rocks at the base of a high platform, which has been occupied in the olden time by a British camp, now known as the Maiden Camp (the Maiden Castle of Wallis). From its connection with the camp, or in compliment to the spirit of the spring, its genuine name is said to be the "Maiden Well." It is drained into an open ditch and is at present too shallow to admit of children being dipped into it. Nor do I know that this has ever been practised here, but the old inhabitant who communicated some of this information was familiar with the formula incidental to such applications for healing purposes at sacred springs. The applicant having cried "Hey, how!" dipped in the weakly child, and before departure left a piece of bread and cheese as an offering.

[...] Mr. George Tate, in a notice of the Wooler Pin Well, mentions having heard that a procession was formed to visit the well on the morning of Mayday. This may have been so, but on inquiry I could not find any tradition of such a circumstance.

"[The fairies] used to come out from an opening in the side of the knowe, all beautifully clad in green, and a piper plaing to them in the most enchanting strains." They once attempted, but failed, to abstract the shepher's wife of little Billy when in childbed; and they were detected loosening Langton House from its foundations in order to set it down in an extensive morass called Dogden Moss, in the parish of Greenlaw, but were scared by the utterance of the holy name.*

*Henderston's Popular Rhymes of Berwickshire.

The Berwickshire fairies were either a quiet lot or they lived among a too matter-of-fact population, for their memorial has almost vanished. The banks of Fosterland Burn, a contributory to a morass called Billy Mire in the Merse, "were," says the late Mr. George Henderson, "a favourite haunt of the fairies in bygone days, and we once knew an old thresher or barnsman, David Donaldson by name, who, although he never saw any of those aerial beings, constantly maintained that he frequently heard their sweet music in the silence of the summer midnight by Fosterland Burn, by the banks of Ale Water, and on the broom-clad Pyper Knowes."

[Originally in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle newspaper?] A. Scorer writes, "There is a cavern on Bewick Moor called the 'Cateran's Hole,' which has not been fully explored, although tradition mentions an adventurer proceeding so far that he heard supernatural visitants dancing round the Hurlstone."

John Slobbs, London, says, "I suppose this will be a version of a story I heard in the far north many years ago. It was of a cavern, somewhere, and nobody knew where it went to, or where it ended. An adventurous wight made up his mind to solve the difficulty and win renown in his own rustic circle.

He therefore took seven years' meat and seven years' candles, or seven days' meat and seven days' candles - I cannot say which exactly, but either will do - and started on his journey. And as happens in all such cases, he travelled and travelled and travelled. And he travelled until he had only one-half of his meat and one half of his candles left. Then he began to consider that if he travelled much further, and did not reach the end of his journey, or an opening to get out of some way, he would neither have meat nor candles to serve him on his road back, and consequently must die there and never more be heard of.

And so it happened that whilst he was studying what to do, and quite at a loss to know whether to return or proceed, he heard a voice saying -
'Jee woah agyen
Turn back the stannin' styen.'
And he took it as a warning, and returned to his home and kindred." The writer's impression was that the cavern he had heard of was on Greenside Hill, near Glanton.

J. Swinhoe, writing on the same subject, relates: "It was always believed that there was a subterraneous passage clear all the way from Cateran's Hole, on Bewick Moor, to Hell's Hole (more frequently called Hen's Hole), a wild ravine at the foot of Cheviot Hill, and that in the olden, troublous times of Border warfare it was frequently used both for purposes of offence and defence, for concealment of person and property, and as the means of transporting rieving bands of hostile borderers from the one locality to the other.

An adventurer, our wight, made up his mind to test the truth of its existence, and took provisions and candles - whether for seven years or seven days, I cannot exactly tell either - but he travelled on and on until the consumption of half his stock suggested the necessity of returning; and just when he was wondering where he might be, and what he should do, he plainly heard overhead the voice of a ploughman, saying to his horses:
"Hup aboot and gee agyeen,
Roond aboot the Whirlstyen." "

He states that an acquaintance recently explored the cavern on Bewick Moor, and it ended in something less than forty yards; in no simple obstruction, but solid rock.

There was a different tradition about the termini of this supposed underground passage in Horsley's time. He says that "at Hebburn," which is near Chillingham, and by the crags under which lie Hebburn Wood, behind which stretch wastes of peaty moor, connected with the moorlands that stretch to Bewick, "is a hole called Heytherrie Hole, which people imagine to be an entrance into a subterraneous passage, continued as far as Dunsdale on the west (north rather) side of Cheviot Hill, where there is another hole of the same kind called Dunsdale Hole." *
*Materials for a History of Northumberland.

It is told of "Eelin's Hole," which lies far up among the rocks on the east side of the Henhole Ravine, that a piper having once entered it to explore it, his music continued to be heard for half-way across the interval betweixt it and Cateran's Hole, on Bewick Moor. Like other pipers in a similar predicament, his tune terminated in --
"I doubt, I doubt I'll ne'er win out."

In a field on the other side of the house is another monument to a hero of that day, to the memory of the brave young Seward, who fell, slain on the spot by Macbeth. A stupendous stone marks the place; twelve feet high above ground, and eighteen feet and a half in girth in the thickest place. The quantity below the surface of the earth only two feet eight inches; the weight, on accurate computation, amounts to twenty tons; yet I have been assured that no stone of this species is to be found within twenty miles.

Roche: St. Gundred's.
Roche, north of St. Austell, famous for the Roche rocks, with St. Michael's Chapel built amongst them. Once tenanted by a hermit; then by a leper, whose daughter waited on him, and drew water from a well, said to ebb and flow, called after her. To St. Gundred's, near a group of cottages called Hollywell village, maidens would repair on Holy Thursday, to throw in pins and pebbles, and predict coming events by the sparkling of the bubbles which rise up. Lunatics were also immersed in it.

On the western side of the beautiful valley through which flows the Trelawny River, and near Hobb's Park, in the parish of Pelynt, Cornwall, is St. Nunn's or St. Ninnie's Well. Its position was, until very lately, to be discovered by the oak and bramble which grew upon its roof. It is entered by a doorway with a stone lintel, and overshadowed by an oak. [...] At the farther end of the floor is a round granite basin with a deeply moulded rim, and ornamented with a series of rings, each enclosing a cross or a ball. The water weeps into it from an opening at the back, and escapes again by a hole in the bottom. [...]

An old farmer (so runs the legend) once set his eyes upon the granite basin and coveted it, for it was no wrong in his eyes to convert the holy font to the base uses of a pigsty, and accordingly he drove his oxen and wain to the gateway above for the purpose of removing it. Taking his beasts to the entrance of the well, he essayed to drag the trough from its ancient bed. For a long time it resisted the efforts of the oxen, but at length they succeeded in starting it, and dragged it slowly up the hillside to where the wain was standing. Here, however it burst away from the chains which held it, and, rolling back again to the well, made a sharp turn and regained its old position, where it has remained ever since. Nor will anyone again attempt its removal, seeing that the farmer who was previously well-to-do in the world, never prospered from that day forward. Some people say, indeed, that retribution overtook him on the spot, the oxen falling dead, and the owner being struck lame and speechless.

[...] The people of the neighbourhood knew the well by the names St. Ninnie's, St. Nun's, and Piskies' Well. [...] In the basin of the well may be found a great number of pins, thrown in by those who have visited it out of curiosity, or to avail themselves of the virtues of its waters. A writer, anxious to know what meaning the peasantry attach to this strange custom, on asking a man at work near the spot, was told that it was done "to get the goodwill of the Piskies," who after the tribute of a pin not only ceased to mislead them, but rendered fortunate the operations of husbandry.

Hard by, upon a steepe hill, howbeit betweene two others higher than it, toward the Sea, stood by report, the Castle of Wada a Saxon Duke, who in that confused Anarchy of the Northumbers, and massacre of Princes and Nobles, having combined with those that murdred King Ethered, gave battaile unto King Ardulph at Whalley in Lancashire: but with so disasterous successe, that after his owne power was discomfited and put to flight, himselfe was faine to flie: and afterwards by a languishing sicknesse ended his life; and heere within the hill betweene two entire and solid stones about seven foote high lieth entombed: which stones because they stand eleven foote asunder, the people doubt not to affirme, that hee was a mighty Giant.

Leland says "Mongrave Castel standeth on a craggy hille, and on eche side of it is a hille far higher than that wheron the castel standeth. The north hille on the topp of it hath certain stones, commonly caul'd Wadda's grave, whom the people there say to have bene a gigant and owner of Mongrave."

There is a curious prophecy connected with a stone situated near the ruins of the chapel of Arnchly, and which is worth recording. From time immemorial this stone went under the name of the "Peace Stone," and it was held in great reverence by the natives. One Pharic McPharic, a noted Gaelic prophet, foretold that, in the course of time, this stone would be buried underground by two brothers, who, for their indiscretion, were to die childless. By-and-by the stone would rise to the surface, and by the time it was fairly above ground, a battle was to be fought on "Auchveity," that is, "Betty's Field." The battle was to be long and fierce, until "Gramoch-Cam" of Glenny, that is, "Graham of the one eye," would sweep from the "Bay-wood" with his clan and decide the contest. After the battle, a large raven was to alight on the stone and drink the blood of the fallen. So much for the prophecy then; now for the fulfilment. About fifty years ago, two brothers (tenants of the farm of Arnchly), finding that the stone interfered with their agricultural labours, made a large trench, and had it put several feet below the surface. Very singular, indeed, both these men, although married, died without leaving any issue. With the labouring of the field for a number of years, the stone has actually made its appearance above ground, and there is at present living a descendant of the Grahams of Glenny who is blind of one eye, and the ravens are daily hovering over the devoted field. Tremble ye natives! and rivals of the "Hero Grahams," keep an eye on Gramoch-Cam!