Rhiannon

On the top of “Hedgehope,” the round-headed hill that is neighbour to Cheviot, there is a hollow in an incised stone, known as the “Bluidy Trough,” on account of the colour given to the water by the orange-red moss or lichen covering the stone. It is lucky to make a wish here, and drop in a crooked pin – a great number can be seen clearly, lying at the bottom of the hollow, in the water.
- Contributed by Mr T--, Belford, Northumberland, estate agent.

This from the Northumberland ‘County Folk-Lore’, collected by M.C. Balfour (1904). Perhaps the colour might be down to that red coloured algae you get in bird baths sometimes?

From the Aberdeenshire Ordnance Survey Name Books (1865-71).

This name is given to a standing stone 7 chains south west of Roddentree. There seems to have been a stone circle as other stones are beside this one, but are deeply imbedded in the earth. Many years ago the word ‘Cummer’ was applied to the Mistress of the house, latterly the meaning changed to ‘a worthless woman’. There are traces of a house near this stone which was inhabited by an old woman, many years ago. Hence the name.

I had a look in the Oxford English Dictionary and it has various versions of this Scottish word: a godmother, a female companion, a gossip, or a familiarly-applied word for a woman “with various local specific applications, e.g. young woman, lass, girl, witch, wise-woman, midwife, etc.” (Nothing particularly derogatory unless you mean it that way I suppose).

From the Ordnance Survey Name Books, which you can look at courtesy of the Scotlands Places website. This is from the Forfarshire book, recorded 1857-1861.

Hare Cairn. A prominent knoll forming the highest point of the ‘Hill of Stracathro’. There is a large remarkable stone on the top of it, which is said to have been the spot where the standard of either of the leaders was planted in the battle which took place here in 1452 [...]

After the murder of Douglas, by James 2nd, in 1452, the Earl of Crawford summoned his vassals throughout Angus, with the intention of joining the army of Douglas’ brother, who had risen to revenge his death – to march against the King’s forces. The King, desirous to cut off the communication between the armies of Douglas and Crawford, commanded the Earl of Huntly, whom he had appointed Lieutenant General, to march southwards, while he himself led a powerful army to the north, for the purpose of joining him. Crawford, equally anxious to check Huntly’s progress, met him about 10 miles from his (Crawford’s) own castle, at the ‘Hare Cairn’, about two miles northeast of the city of Brechin, on the 1st of May 1452, when a battle took place in which the valour displayed by Crawford’s party was so great that the battle had in all probability been decided in their favour, had not Collace, the laird of Balnamoon – who was offended at Crawford for refusing to comply with some demands made by him on the field – left his side, with three hundred followers, and joined the ranks of Huntly, which before long decided the battle in favour of the royalists.

The farm on which the battle was fought is still called ‘Huntlyhill’. If ever (as Mr Jarvise states) the names of Earl Beardie’s or Huntly’s stone were known to the stone on the ‘Hare Cairn’ they are now entirely forgotten.

Sir James Campbell, the proprietor, and his park keeper Alexander Howie, a very old man (who remembers it) informs me that there was a large artificial cairn of stones at this place, and that the present large monolith has been tumbled from the top of the beacon which it surmounted. The stones had become scattered in Sir James’ time and hence were removed.
J.B. Lt. Col.

You’ve got to be pretty pissed off (or just like fighting and not care who you’re fighting for) to switch sides so easily?

There is a cute little sketch of the stone on the first page.

Facing the Bristol Channel, with a glorious expanse of hill and vale stretching out for many miles beyond it, the situation of this burial place is grand in the extreme [...]

The field adjoining the one in which the Cromlech stands, is called Maes Arthur (Arthur’s field) and it was so much the custom in Medieval times to connect ancient megalithic monuments with the name of this valiant prince, that it is probable at some period this Cromlech was looked upon as his grave; a circumstance which we find in many parts of England and Wales.

From Mary Bagnall-Oakeley’s ‘An Account of Some of the Rude Stone Monuments and Ancient Burial Mounds in Monmouthshire’ (1889).

Robert M Heanley was told this version “by a native of Melksham, whose family has been settled thereabouts for at least three centuries, and has handed on the tradition from generation to generation:

When Stonehenge was builded, a goodish bit after Avebury, the devil was in a rare taking. ‘There’s getting a vast deal too much religion in these here parts,’ he says, ‘summat must be done.’ So he picks up his shovel, and cuts a slice out of Salisbury Plain, and sets off for to smother up Avebury. But the priests saw him coming and set to work with their charms and incusstations, and they fixed him while he was yet a nice way off, till at last he flings down his shovelful just where he was stood. And that’s Silbury.

Mr Heanley adds: ‘Only those who have seen Silbury can appreciate the size of that shovelful’.

Usually the Devil’s trying to flatten churches, but it sounds like he hates all religions equally?

This is from some correspondence in ‘Folklore’ volume 24, December 1913.

I don’t think it’s wholly stupid of me to think he was referring to this place?

The belief in fairies was once common all over the country. That interesting race seems to have died out in this part of the country. At least in all my wanderings I have never seen a fairy or spoken to any person who had seen one. Though I have conversed with one very old woman, who died about 40 years ago, upon the subject, and remember having listened with amusement, not unmixed with awe, to the wonderful tales she told us of encounters some of her early acquaintances had had with the green-coated fraternity.

But, if we have no fairies, we have still some of the relics of them. On the occasion of our late visit to Deskford, Mr Cramond pointed out to me a clump of trees, which contained a ‘fairy hillock.’ We did not stop to examine it; but, I suppose, it resembles those green round mounds, which are rather common in this part of the country, and of which I intend to have something to say on some future occasion.

He then goes on to tell a tale of fairies in a hillock in the ‘lonely range of Gromack’: I see Grumack Hill is also in Moray.
From the Banffshire Journal, 17th May 1887.

Interesting Incised Megalith.
We are indebted to Mr T.A. Matthews [for the particulars of] a very interesting incised megalith, which is to be seen at Owslow Farm, Carsington, about half-way between Ashbourne and Wirksworth. This relic (said by some authorities to be 3,000 to 4,000 years old) certainly has the appearance of considerable antiquity, and there are several stories related in connection with it.

One is to the effect that it was an altar used in the Druidical days; another states that it marks a burial place, while there is a local tradition that an erstwhile great man of Brassington kicked the stone from a neighbouring hill to its present position.

But the most interesting feature of the “stoup” is a deeply cut cross on its southern face. This cross is not readily noticeable, owing to the growth of moss. It measures about 6 inches by 2 inches, and the arms are not square to the shaft, the one to the right, or east, being considerably higher than the one to the left, or west.

The stone itself measures about 7 feet in vertical height above the ground, and about 7 feet 6 inches on the centre line. It is a matter for serious consideration whether the “stoup” should be restored to an upright position. It has fallen over to the south and west, and is probably still subsiding.

From the Ashbourne News Telegraph, 24th October 1913.

Wellington, under the Wrekin.
It has been usual for the people in this neighbourhood to assemble on the Wrekin hill, on the Sunday after May-day and the three successive Sundays, to drink a health ‘to all friends round the Wrekin;’ but as, on this annual festival, various scenes of drunkenness and other licentiousness were frequently exhibited, its celebration has, of late, been very properly discouraged by the magistracy, and is going deservedly to decay.
February, 1826. W.P.

Hone’s “Everyday Book and Tablebook,” (1837). I don’t think you’ll ever stop people getting drunk and misbehaving, sorry. And judging by the other (later) examples below, it didn’t stop any time soon.

This site features in Macpherson’s Ossian poems of the 18th century. Even at the time people thought they were Rather Imaginative. But given that all folklore’s imaginative, perhaps it doesn’t hurt to mention his take on the stones, and who knows, perhaps it was a real local story after all.

So it seems the legendary Fingal brought his dog Bran over to Scotland when he visited the local chief. And the Sutherland chief had his own dog, Phorp. But the dogs had an altercation, quite a bad one really, where Phorp got his heart ripped out. This is supposed to have been at ‘Leck na Con’ (the stone of the dogs) between Clyne and Wildonan. And Bran didn’t come off so well either and had to be buried in Glen Loth – which is why this place is called Carn Bran.

(Summarised from the summary in ‘The illustrated book of the dog’ by VK Shaw, 1881).

[Tammy Norries, the cattle herd on Balmain] not only suffered instantaneous death, but by a supernatural influence his body was prevented receiving ordinary burial! For it is stated that, being found at his post and standing upright, it was found impossible (in accordance with announcement of the ghostly warder) to remove the body from the spot to which it appeared to be rooted!

With the inventive genius for which the natives of Scotland, and more particuarly the inhabitants of the district, are remarkable, an uncommon mode of burial to suit the uncommon obstinacy and unbending disposition of the subject was adopted, and a cairn of stones was erected round the body, which (namely a cairn of stones) undoubtedly remains until this day, and is known by the name of Norries’ Law.

The above ridiculous legend has laid claim to no small degree of credibility on the strength of an occurrence no farther back than sixty years ago! The farmer of the land on which Norries’ Law is situated having occasion for a quantity of stones to repair some fences, and actuated by the utilitarian principles which even then were spreading their poisonous scepticism through our land, took upon him to lay his sacrilegious hands upon the aforesaid mysterious cairn, and to make it available for his vile purpose. But, lo! a superior power steps in to put a stop to the impious act! Mr Durham’s steward appears, with anger on his countenance and a message from the laird on his lips, requesting the said farmer to desist from removing, and to restore the stones already removed to their places.

It was at this important epoch of this memorable history that the cairn was discovered to be not a solid mass of stones, but to have enclosed something, and what more likely than the body of a human being? The fact of a few bones and other substances being found there and thereabouts was looked upon by the simple natives as giving confirmation strong to the aforegoing romantic tale; and were this not an age of scoffers and sceptics, we would not have taken the trouble to refresh the minds of the public with a story which, although some may consider it stale, is as good as most others of the same sort.

Fife Herald, 21st December 1843.

This is a large cairn of stones at the top of Ballyheady Mountain which is about 3 miles to the west of Ballyconnell.
The following is a local legend connected and accounting for the cairn.
Once in Meath a chieftain committed some crime and drew the wrath of the people upon him. A crowd of women gathered to kill him. They filled their aprons with stones to stone him to death and they started for the place of his abode. But he heard of their coming and fled northwards. They pursued him, still taking stones with them in their Aprons. With his pursuers close at his heels the criminal was fording the River near Ballyconnell; now known as The Woodford River, and he got drowned. The women foiled of their prey, went to the nearby mountain and emptied out the stones from their Aprons at its top.
Such was the origin of the cairn.

From the 1930s Schools Collection of folklore at Duchas.ie.

I also found the following:

It is now, of course, quite impossible to discover the identities of the personages whose remains have rested in the Ballyheady cairn for three thousand years. History is silent on the matter, but there is a local tradition that this cairn marks the burialplace of Conall Cernach, the hero of the Tain Cycle. [...] Conall Cernach, who was the foster-brother of Cuchullain, was murdered by the desperadoes of Queen Medb at Ath na Mianna – the Ford of the Miners – in Breiffne. [...] It is generally accepted that Ath na Mianna was on the River Graine, now the Woodford River, and in the neighbourhood of the present town of Ballyconnell.

From the Breiffne Antiquarian Historical Society Journal for 1931-1933.

Less than 100 yards north of the fort was (is?) a spring. (I can see it on an 1867 map at SZ314970).

Buckland Spring.
Near Buckland, north of Lymington, there was a small spring to the north of the great earthwork which was for generations held in great estimation for its reputative curative properites in ophthalmic disorders.

In RC Hope’s ‘Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England’ (1893) – he’s quoting from the Hampshire Field Club v2, pt i., p.47.

A steep path leads down from Windsbatch to some springs (and a church) at the foot of the hill. I expect the “person with glasses” charged for their use, but that is not to take away from the ambience of the spot, I am sure.

Holy Wells.
I see in the April Antiquary that Mr Hope does not mention a spring or well at Upwey, a few miles from Weymouth – it is a wishing well. There is always a person near with glasses from which to drink the waters, wish, and throw the remainder over the shoulder. It is really the source of the Wey, a fine spring of clear water coming out of the ground, and flows on until it becomes the river at Weymouth. There is a church a few yards higher up.
George Bailey, Derby.

From ‘The Antiquary’ v21 (1890).

In the Clee Hills is St Milborough’s Well at Stoke St. Milborough (in Domesday Book, Godestoch). It is an unfailing spring, a little above the church, and at the foot of the steep bank leading up the Brown Clee Hill.

It was reputed to be good for sore eyes, and was also much used for ‘bucking’ clothes, which were rinsed in the well-water and beaten on a flat stone at the well’s mouth: but some ten years ago it was covered in, and altered, and I am told is now in a ruinous and unsightly condition.

The legend still current in the village, relates that St Milburga was a very holy and beautiful woman, who, nevertheless, had so many enemies that she was obliged to live in hiding. Her retreat, however, became known, and she took to flight, mounted on a white horse, and pursued by her foes with a pack of bloodhounds, and a gang of rough men on horseback. After two days and two nights’ hard riding she reached the spot where the well now is, and fell fainting from her horse, striking her head upon a stone. Blood flowed from the wound, and the stain it caused upon the stone remained there plainly visible, and has been seen by many persons now living.

On the opposite side of the road, some men were sowing barley in a field called the Plock, and they ran to help the Saint. Water was wanted, but none was at hand. The horse, at St. Milburga’s bidding, struck his hoof into the rock and at once a spring of water gushed out. ‘Holy water, henceforth and for ever flow freely,’ said the Saint. Then, stretching out her hands, she commanded the barley the men had just sown to spring up, and instantly the green blades appeared.

Turning to the men, she told them that her pursuers were close at hand, and would presently ask them, ‘When did the lady on the white horse pass this way?’ to which they were to answer, ‘When we were sowing this barley.’ She then remounted her horse, and bidding them prepare their sickles, for in the evening they should cut their barley, she went on her way.

And it came to pass as the Saint had foretold. In the evening the barley was ready for the sickle, and while the men were busy reaping, St Milburga’s enemies came up, and asked for news of her. The men replied that she had stayed there at the time of the sowing of the barley, and they went away baffled. But when they came to hear that the barley was sown in the morning, ripened at mid-day, and was reaped in the evening, they owned that it was in vain to fight against God.

Medieval hagiologists relate the flight of St Milburga from the too violent suit of a neighbouring prince, whose pursuit was checked by the River Corve, which, as soon as she had passed it, swelled from an insignificant brook to a might flood which effectually barred his progress. They also tell how when the wild geese ate the new-sown grain from the Saint’s fields, she commanded them to be gone, and forbade any of their race to trespass on ‘St Milburga’s Land’ from that time forth; how, when the veil fell from St Milburga’s head in the early morning sunshine, it remained suspended in the air until replaced; and how a mystic flame enveloped her as she prostrated herself beside the dead body of a certain poor widow’s son, who was restored to life by her prayers.

St Milburga’s Day is the 23rd of February, and thus falls at the period of ‘Lent-tillin’’ or spring wheat-sowing. It is very evident from these traditions, both ancient and modern, that in the minds of the still half-heathen people among whom she dwelt, she took the place of one of their ancient rustic goddesses, coming forth in the morning sunlight, and swiftly journeying in the spring time among the hills and valleys, making the waters flow and the corn spring up as she went.

From ‘Shropshire Folklore’, edited by C.S. Burne, from the collections of G.F. Jackson (1886).

It doesn’t look that ‘ruinous and unsightly’ in Time Prevett’s video on Youtube, it looks rather nice. And it’s certainly a very pagan-tinged story. I think it might be worth a visit. I guess you can argue it’s a mile or two away from the top of the hill, but certainly in its foothills.

This is a bit feeble really.

Haughmond Hill. A reason for the name of this hill is given in the following legend – While the battle of Shrewsbury was being fought, the Queen was looking on from a cluster of trees on the top of the hill. (The legend says that it was Queen Anne, and that she gave the name of Queen Anne’s bower to the place where she was standing; while history shows that she was not Queen at that date.) When she saw that the Royalists were winning she exclaimed, “Amen! the battle is won”! and thus the hill received its name. It was called Amen Hill, later Hamon, which ultimately passed into Haughmond.

From ‘Shropshire Traditions’ in the Wellington Journal, 31st October 1903.

Picturesque Llanblethian.

Descending Llanblethian-hill, the path to Cowbridge passes over very rocky ground, some of the rocks curiously marked – one forms a fancied resemblance to the impression that would be made by a foot and knee in kneeling, is set down as having been made by the devil, who, in carrying a load, was obliged to rest there. May not the legend have taken its rise in monkish times?

Entering the field from the hill, the pathway winds at the head of three or four strong springs in the field corner. That nearest the hill used to be considered good for diseases of the eye, and cures were wrought there – nothing is now heard of its restorative powers.

Further on, by the hedge-side is a spring protected by a low square of masonry, with an orifice on one side for the overflow. In this are some fragments of an oaken box (nearly perfect a few years ago), where children and others used to go and wish, dropping a pin into the box at the time. Ill-luck was to attend those who took any of the pins out of the box, nevertheless the pins were often cleared out. Either at this well, or the Bomin (Bowman’s) well in the next field, children used to flock on a certain day in the year, All-Hallow’s-tide, I fancy, taking with them drinking vessels and sugar, mixing the sugar with the waters of the spring, and drinking them.

Some years ago a half-crazed fellow began searching for treasures within the precincts of the old castle. After wasting some time therein he gave it up as a bad job. In a drawing of the place as it stood in 1740 the ruins appear of much greater extent than at present, as well as those of Castell Llychad (or Llychod), which is introduced in the back ground. Much of the old castle was taken down 40 years ago to build St. Quentin’s Cottage [...] between here and the castle, on the top of Llanblethian-hill, Castell Llychod, a subterranean passage is said to exist. As there is nothing to indicate such a means of communication, the tradition must be taken upon its own merits.

‘Cadrawd’ writing in the Cardiff Times, 1st July 1893.

I had a look at the old maps and “The Devil’s Foot and Knee” is marked up until the 1960s, at SS986743, on a footpath, so might well be findable. The eye well is at SS987744 and Bowmen’s well at SS988745.

At a point 352 yards S.S.E. from the farmsteading, the O.M. records the position of a monolith as the “supposed remains of a Stone Circle.” Information obtained on the land was to the effect that the Stone had been long ago removed, and was on the point of being built into a wall, when the tenant became “troubled” – the precise symptoms not discoverable – and he thereupon caused the Stone to be replaced “as nearly as he could remember” on its original site. This happens to be on the distinctly steep westward slope of the field, an unlikely place, as it seems to me, for a Circle. The drawing (fig. 5) shows the Stone as seen from the south-east, looking down into the water of Livet. It is an irregularly prism-sided, tall, block of, I think, quartziferous schist, 5 feet 6 inches in height, and with a girth of about 4 feet 5 inches.

From ‘Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in the North-East of Scotland (Banffshire and Moray)..’ by Fred R Coles, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (February 11th 1907).

Should you be here, not half a mile down the hill from this stone (at SN064383) there is said to be a special well:

A rocky outcrop nearby is called Carn Cwn (Cairn of Dogs). Beneath an overhanging rock is a wishing well. The water is said to rise and fall with the tide and people used to throw pins into it to cure their warts.

Mentioned by Chris Barber in ‘Mysterious Wales’ (1982).

The Bully Hills, Tathwell.
These artificial mounds consist of a group of six, lying in close contiguity to one another, and of a detached one removed a few hundred yards from the others, now surrounded by a tuft of trees. They are from 8 to 10 feet in height, and being conspicuously situated on the brow of one of the higher Wold hills, near the village of Tathwell, have long attracted considerable attention, particularly as the remains of two small circular earthworks on an adjoining elevation (consisting of six slightly-raised concentric rings about 180 feet in diameter, usually assigned to the Danish period), in conjunction with these tumuli, have naturally led to the supposition that some conflict between the Saxons and the Danes occurred here, the entrenchments indicating the position of the defendants – the tumuli the graves of the chiefs who fell in the contest.

Other reports have also long been floating about in the vicinity respecting these hills, as retailed by nursery-maids, to the great delight of their juvenile charges, and of course all are connected with hidden treasure. The following reason, for instance, why these mounds are termed “Bully Hills” is really too good to remain unrecorded, although we fear it will not satisfy the doubting mind of every ethnologist and archaeolgian who may come to examine these remarkable earthworks, enquiring what race found them, and when?

It had ever been believed that they covered an immense treasure, and at length a certain farmer, probably by the aid of a judicious dream, was led to dig into one of them, when, after much toil, deep below the surface he found a vast chest, which from its great weight clearly contained some very heavy substance – probably gold! To drag this from its long entombment the said farmer borrowed all the bulls of the district, and yoking them to an iron chain nearly half a mile in length urged them on. The bulls began to pull; but alas! alas! the chain broke – the animals were scattered in the greatest confusion over the hill side – in fact there was a regular “bouleversement” of them, and the mysterious chest sank into the earth deeper than ever, leaving only a reminiscence of this transaction in the term the mounds still bear of “Bully Hills!”

It may be considered presumptuous, perhaps, to doubt the correctness of any part of the above charming bit of local folk lore; otherwise, we might have ventured to suggest that, as several bubbling springs are termed “Bully” springs from the French “bouillant” or boiling, so these hills may have received their appellation from “boule” or “boulet” (a ball), indicative of the rotundity of their outline.

I really don’t think his statements about Saxons and Danes are any better than the pronouncements of “nursery maids” but there we are. From the ‘Stamford Mercury’, 17th July 1857.

The cairns are numerous, but are rapidly disappearing before the advance of improving agriculture, and are only to be found intact on the unreclaimed land. The first we will notice is a ruined one, in a field on Burnside of Rathven, a few hundred yards west of the farm house of Conage, on the road from Fochabers to Cullen. When complete it must have been of considerable dimensions, and probably marks the last resting place of some chief of Celtic or Scandinavian type. The centre portion has been reduced to the level of the surrounding field. It measures 133 feet from east to west, and 50 from north to south; and varies in height from 5 feet 3 inches to 8 feet 6 inches.

The local name is “Tarry Clearick,” which some translate as “Priest’s Cairn;” but this interpretation does not agree with the apparent antiquity of the cairn. Tradition says that it occupies the site of a battle between the Danes and Picts, and that the cairn itself is the grave of the chief who fell in the engagement.

Thomas D Wallace, writing in the Banffshire Advertiser, 24th May 1883.

Someone getting a bit of mileage out of the local folklore:

A Singular Legend.

Those prone to superstition, no less than students of folklore, will have a special interest in the finding of the body of the young man who is accused of having murdered his sweetheart on the lofty Cornish hill of Castle an Dinas. The ancient and ruined fortress stands in the parish of Ludgvan; and of the saint after whom it was named there has long been told in the district a singular legend.

Saint Ludgvan, the alleged founder of the church there, was an Irish missionary; and it is said of him that he brought a stream of water under the church stile for the purpose of bestowing on it certain miraculous qualities, one of which was that no person baptised with it should ever expiate any of his crimes through medium of a halter.

Consequently it has been accustomed to be believed that no man of Ludgvan ever suffers this disgrace; and the popular belief in the legend is certain to be strengthened by the fact that now a peculiarly cruel murder has been perpetrated at Castle an Dinas, suicide, to use the old phrase, has “cheated the gallows.”

The belief, it may be added, is so strong in the district that the inhabitants of neighbouring parishes have been known to carry away the water of Ludgvan for baptismal purposes; but proof of its efficacy when thus removed is wanting.

From the (geographically surprising) ‘East of Fife Record’, 24th June 1904. It’s a slightly peculiar interpretation that St Ludgvan would be complicit in people getting away with terrible crimes, perhaps he intended that the local people would actually turn out very good and not do anything meriting hanging. But there we are. The poor victim found in the ditches at Castle-an-Dinas was Jessie Rickard, shot by Charles Berryman.

Fonaby Top is now a farm, immaculate and clearly highly organised. This place is also the resting-place of the Fonaby stone sack, whose sinister history clings close. It nestles in a hedge bottom, untouched and, while not immovable, unmoved.

Mr Peter Cole, who farms here, treats it with the respect due to its hideous reputation. Would he move it, I asked? “By hell I wouldn’t,” he replied swiftly and decisively. And you wouldn’t think to look at him that the stalwart Mr Cole was a man to be easily moved by old wives’ tales. But that’s Lincolnshire!

From ‘Grimsby Daily Telegraph’, 17th September 1986.

This is from ‘The Antiquities of Warwickshire‘ by William Dugdale (1656).

Southwards from Haseler (but within the same Parish) is a Coppice wood, and in it a notable Hill, which is of such a steep and equall ascent from every side, as if it had been artificially made, so that it is a very eminent mark over all that part of the Country, and by the common people called Alcocks Arbour. Towards the foot whereof is a hole, now almost filled up, having been the entrance into a Cave, as the Inhabitants report: of which Cave there is an old wives story, that passes for current amongst the people of the adjacent Towns;

viz. that one Alcock, a great Robber, used to lodge therein, and having got much mony by that course of life, hid it in an iron-bound Chest, whereunto were three Keys; which Chest, they say, is still there, but guarded by a Cock that continually sits upon it: And that on a time, an Oxford-Schollar came thither, with a Key that opened two of the Locks; but as he was attempting to open the third, the Cock seized on him. To all which they adde, that if one Bone of the partie, who set the Cock there, could be brought, he would yield up the Chest.

There’s another strange small hill not a few hundred metres down the road, and this is called ‘The Night Cap’ on modern maps.

The other hill has been known as either the “Devil’s Bag of Nuts” or “the Devil’s Night-cap.” The former name is part of a well-known group of legends clustering round September 21st, the devil’s nutting day. And in the local form it ran somewhat thus.

The Blessed Virgin Mary took shelter beneath a hazel bush, somewhere near this spot, and the bush spread a thick shelter over her so that she was not the least inconvenienced by the rain. She accordingly blessed the bush, so that it should bear specially good nuts. Now the devil was anxious, as usual, to undo any good that might be done, so he came nutting this way, but was very soon detected. In order to escape he flung down the troublesome bag of nuts, which grew into this hill.

In the ‘Stratford upon Avon Herald’, 4th July 1913.

Rumours of underground tunnels always count as folklore don’t they. (It reminded me of that at Fiddler’s Hill in Norfolk).

Arbury Hill is an ancient encampment. The great earthwork was thrown up by the Romans and the whole was surrounded by a wide ditch 20 feet deep enclosing about 10 acres. There are subterranean passages which were discovered a few years ago when a dog disappeared after a rabbit, in, it was thought, a rabbit hole. The dog was called, but never came back, though it was heard barking under the ground a long distance away. Digging operations revealed an underground passage with foul air in it. The dog was never recovered.

From the ‘Northampton Mercury’, 20th October 1933.

Also (I have not read it) John Walbridge’s article in ‘Mercian Mysteries’ (1991) suggests Arbury Hill is the ‘omphalos of England’ being further from the sea than anywhere else in the country. Which could be a fun fact.

Bygone Ashwell. Interesting lecture by Mr H.W. Bowman.

{...} The next object to arrest attention was Pancake Hill upon Highly Hill, the legendary voice of the old woman therein rewarding with a pancake all those who could complete the circuit of this old mound three times without drawing breath {sic ...}

Herts and Cambs Reporter, 27th March 1914.

The Supposed Tumulus In Parliament Hill Fields.
Nothing has come of the excavations undertaken by the County Council on the supposed tumulus in Parliament-hill fields. The result is exactly what many persons expected, for the legend connecting the British warrior queen with the mound is of the vaguest possible character. There are not wanting old inhabitants of the neighbourhood who assert that this particular mound has only attained to notoriety as “Boadicea’s Grave” within their own time, and that it was so christened by some practical joker who wished to impose upon the learned. Others of an antiquarian turn believe that genuine tumuli exist in the higher regions of Hampstead, bordering the Mansfield estates, but certainly not in Parliament-hill fields, which were in old times the dumping grounds for all sorts of rubbish. Anyhow the digging of the authorities has come to nought.

London Daily Chronicle, 5th November 1894.

Last week The Bedfordshire Times published a picture of Marston Church and with it a story of certain alleged exploits of the Evil One. Mr F.W. Marsom, of Northill, has some more stories to tell about the athletic prowess of Mephistopheles round and about Northill:

In Northill two versions of the story of the jumping powers of the devil are told, and both in connexion with Marston. The first is the same as that told before, but with the addition that when he took his leap he landed on Moxhill near Northill in a field called Hopper’s Hole.

The other version is that the devil took a hop, step, and a jump from Marston. His hop brought him to Hopper’s Hole, he stepped across Northill parish to Caesar’s Camp, Sandy, and from here he jumped and disappeared.

( Mr Marson then goes on to connect the story to leylines, an idea Alfred Watkins had in the early 1920s. ...) Applying these theories to the one-inch ordnance survey map we find that a straight line from Moat Farm, Marston, passes through the moat of Manor Farm, Cotton End, across Moxhill, Northill, to Caesar’s Camp, Sandy, which is the site of a prehistoric camp. This seems to fit the trackway theory, but the trouble is that so many lines can be found that the map soon begins to look like a spider’s web gone crazy.

Well I’m sold anyway :) From the Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 18th September 1936.

No. hang on. They’re not in a straight line at all.

Bear with me. It’s for your own good so you know how not to behave.

One day the Devil spied a man playing jumps or leapfrog in his own field upon the Sabbath. By this monstrous crime the Devil recognised him as one of his own. With one jump from the (church) tower he seized him and by another jump bore him to Hell. On the spot where he met his fate there is a stone known as the Devil’s toe-nail. It is a round stump about three feet high.

Miss D.B. Ward writing on Country Legends in the Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 16th July 1965.

At Marston Mortaine, Bedfordshire, one Sunday morning several boys played truant from church and wandered about the fields. A man dressed in black joined them, and proposed a game of hop-skip-and-jump. The boys acceded to the proposal, and commenced the sport, and when his turn came, the man in black took such an extraordinary hop-skip-and-jump, and cleared so much ground that the boys became excessively frightened, and concluded he was the devil. They ran home, and took care never to absent themselves from the services at church ever after; and the inhabitants of the village had stones placed on the spots where the devil’s feet came down to commemorate the event. And these stones remain to this day a testimony against Sabbath-breaking, and a witness of the devil’s prowess at hop-skip-and-jump.

Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 8th March 1873,

If you ask Marston people about the “Jumps” you are fairly certain to get widely-varying accounts of some legendary happenings. At least, when I passed through Marston the other day the stories I had heard came to my mind and I inquired about the legends. Older folk told some hair-raising yarns – in fact, the more the versions recounted, the more hair-raising they became and the more they differed in detail.

Of course this is nothing to complain about. It is a necessary stage in the building of a legend. Various accounts which come to us through the ages are gradually combined into one story, but the process is never completed, for by their very nature the stories acquire new details; generations of people see them in differing lights and read new meanings into them. And so it goes on.

The meanings of such inn signs as “Chequers”, “Rose and Crown”, “Three Horseshoes”, and “Bell” are fairly easy to trace, but the “Jumps” is local to Marston, though the legend of the devil’s leaps appears in various forms and in various districts. My authority tells me that at Marston the devil once appeared to a number of lads who were playing in the fields instead of going to church. After offering them money for jumping the devil is alleged to have exhibited his own agility by making two long jumps of about forty yards each. He then bounded over the church tower and vanished in a blue flame. Presumably there was also a smell of sulphur, but we are not told about that.

The incident caused so much dismay that the venerable Abbot of Woburn had to visit Marston and, with solemn ceremony, “disinfect” the place. Three stone crosses were placed where the devil jumped: the part of an octagonal shaft in the field opposite the inn years ago was said to be one of them. Local imagination long saw the impressions of the devil’s foot on the stone. Has this stone survived Marston’s mechanical navvies?

Marston Church tower stands about fifty feet from the church, the reason for this being wrapped in obscurity. Fanciful minds insist that the devil attempted to carry it away from the church, found it too heavy, and dropped it where it now stands. Apparently Satan is not so accomplished as a strong man as he is in other athletic directions.

Ernest Milton writing in the Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 10th December 1937.

The Principal Meeting of the Bedfordshire Licensing Committee {...} was held at the Shire Hall on Wednesday. Mr Eales represented the Justices, and applications for the renewal of the license of the “Jumps” Inn, Marston Morteyne, was made, on behalf of the owners, Messrs. Charles Wells, Ltd., and the tenant, Alfred Jackson, by Mr C.E. Dyer, instructed by Messrs. H. Tebbs and Son.

Against the renewal it was submitted that the house was isolated, with only a farmhouse and two cottages in its vicinity, and that the trade was small. When Mr Henry Swaffield was giving professional evicence, the Chairman (Mr Harter) said he believed the house obtained its name because the Devil was supposed to have jumped from a certain stone to the house, or from the house to the stone – which was it? – Witness: From the stone to the house. Mr Warren: And has not been seen since, I think? – Mr Swaffield: Not in that locality (laughter).

Mr Dyer pointed out that the trade of the house during the war was no criterion, and to take away this license would leave his client’s competitors in a majority of 2 to 1 in that parish. The house had been lately restored and was in excellent condition. During the last 20 years there had been only 3 transfers. The Bench declined to renew the licence.

Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 31st May 1918.

To the Editor of the Walsall Observer.
Sir, – I have been rather interested in your notes and the correspondence about Henry VIII and Sutton Coldfield. I shall be much obliged if you, or any of your correspondents, can clear up a certain puzzle about the origin of the name, or place, called King’s Standing. By the way, is this the place where King Henry was supposed to be standing when he was said to be attacked by a wild boar?

I have been told two quite different versions about the origin of the name King’s Standing. First, I was informed that this was the place where the Tudor Monarch used to stand to watch the hunting, or that he started the hunt from this spot, and this was one reason why Sutton was allowed to use the Tudor Rose on its coat of arms, etc.

Later on, I was informed that this was the place where Charles I stood to watch one of the battles between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians.

It is quite obvious that both these accounts of the origin of the name of King’s Standing cannot be true. Can anyone say which is the correct version of this interesting bit of local history. – Yours, etc., G.M Wood.

The newspaper (dully?) replies that Duignan says in ‘Staffordshire Place Names’ that it’s about Charles I, and that he didn’t have any evidence that the area was known as King’s Standing before 1642.

From the Walsall Observer, 9th August 1941.

There is a fine menhir at Lizerea Farm, Burhos, Wendron, which had fallen down, and was re-erected some fifty years ago by the then tenants of the farm – the three Pearce brothers. They were enormously strong men – one of them being the redoubtable champion wrestler, John “the Samson of Wendron.” It is said that these young men performed this tremendous task in order to leave a lasting memorial of their herculean strength.

Folklore in action by the sound of it. From an article on ‘Antiquities of the Helston District’ by A.S. Oates, in the West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser on the 20th May 1948.

In a field, not far from Booker’s Cottages, there exists, or did so until a year or two ago, direct evidence of local archery in the shape of a large sandstone, almost five feet in height and eight feet in circumference, grooved and worn in an extraordinary manner, some of the grooves being eight inches deep and extending the entire length of the stone.

These dents or grooves were caused by the sharpening of arrows, the stone being fixed in the ground for that purpose. This was probably the site of the local butts, and the very worn condition of the stone indicates its use over a very long period or by a very large number of men.

In Henry the Eighth’s reign it was enacted that all male subjects, except judges and the clergy, were to practice archery, and butts were to be set up in every township. Similar to modern rifle butts, these old time butts were merely mounds of sod and earth, with targets affixed, the arrows being sharpened upon a fixed stone near at hand.

It may thus be safe to conjecture that the Allerton stone was used by Sir Richard Molyneux’s retainers before proceeding to Agincourt, where their skill and prowess gained the King’s favour for their master and the chief forestership of the Royal parks.

The stone is known as “Robin Hood’s Stone,” local tradition maintaining that the famous outlaw once sharpened his arrows here, but perhaps this is stretching credulity too far.

Hmm yes maybe. And how do you explain that the whole country isn’t full of these stones. Never mind. It’s a good story. Taken from the Liverpool Evening Express of 10th December 1930, in an article about the ‘Romance of Allerton and Calderstones’ by ‘Gradivus.‘

This features the stones as a place of ill reputation, the type of place you’d find a bad-tempered witch throwing about curses to do with big subjects like sex and death. You’d imagine the stones’ towering presence helped the curse on a bit too – it certainly required very elaborate countermeasures.

An old dame gave me the following as having occurred years ago at Kirby Hill, near Boroughbridge. A young couple, recently married, met the witch (Sally Carey) near the Devil’s Arrows. What they had done to gain Sally’s displeasure, legend does not say, but as they passed the old lady she shook her stick, and almost screamed, “Ya want a lad, bud Ah’ll mak it a lass”; and sure enough, when the baby arrived, it was a girl. They had hoped it would be a boy, for much future fortune depended upon their having a son and heir. Still they hoped, should they be blest with a further addition, that the next arrival would be a boy. Three or four months after the birth of their daughter, the husband was thrown off his horse and killed.

Some time after the sad event, and late in the evening, Sally knocked at the widow’s door, on its being opened, the old hag screamed, brandishing her stick in the widow’s face, “It shan’t be a lad this tahm, nowther.” So terrified was her victim that she fainted, and was found some time afterwards in a doubled-up position and unable to rise. By-and-by, when sufficiently recovered, her friends strongly urged her to pay a visit to the wise man of Aldborough.

At last she was prevailed upon to do so, when a supreme effort on his part was made to break the witch’s power. Much of what the wise man did, the old lady had forgotten. All she remembered was that at midnight, with closed doors and windows, a black cat and a black cock bird were roasted to a cinder, on a fire made from boughs of the rowan tree; a long incantation was also pronounced, of which she could not call to mind a single word, for as she put it, ‘wa war all ti freetened.’ The ‘all’ consisted of the widow, my informant – then a maiden – and a mother of seven sons, the trio being necessary for the working of the charm.

When the baby was born, it was a boy, but a cripple. Once again the wise man was visited. This time the almost heart-broken mother was assured that, if she remained unwedded for seven years, her son would outlive his weakness, his back would grow straight, and all would be well. This demand was readily complied with. “But,” added the old dame, “t’ au’d witch tried all maks an’ manders o’ waays ti git her ti wed. Ah nivver knaw’d a lass seea pesthered wi’ chaps for ti ‘tice her, bud sha kept single, and bested t’ au’d witch i’ t’ end, fer t’ bairn grew up ti be ez straight an’ strang a chap ez yan need wish ti clap yan’s e’es on. Ah mahnd him weel, an’ ther’s nowt aboot that.”

From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’ by Richard Blakeborough (1898).

One for folklore quibblers. All you have to do is Believe these stories, you don’t actually have to believe them.
The author is talking to an old lady of his acquaintance.

“Why,” said I, “when you were a girl there would be witches, or was that before your time?”
“No,” said she, “that it is not. There was one Dolly Makin; I once saw her myself, but she will be dead now, for she was over a hundred then; but my aunt once had a strange bout with her.”
“And where did Dolly live?” I asked, for I had years before heard of this same Dolly Makin.
“Nay, that’s mair ‘an Ah can tell ya,” said she.

“And what did she do to your aunt?” I inquired.
“Nothing; she only tried to. It was like this. There was one Tom Pickles wanted to keep company with my aunt, but he found out that she had a liking for one William Purkis. It was always thought, that when Tommy found this out, that he went to the witch and gave her something to work a spell on my aunt. Anyhow, one night when she had just finished milking, a fortune-teller came up and took hold of her hand, and told her a long story about the carryings-on of William Purkis and another lass, and she advised my aunt to take up with Tommy, telling her that things looked very black for her if she did anything else.

“But my aunt said that she would wed who she liked, and it would not be Tommy. At that the fortune-teller struck the cow with her stick; the cow lashed out and knocked the milk-pail over; my aunt flung the milk-stool at the fortune-teller’s head, but she ducked, and it missed her, and next moment they were one grappling with the other like all that. My aunt, however, was a well-built, strong lass, and after they had fought for a long time, neither gaining an advantage, the fortune-teller screamed out that my aunt had something about her that belonged to the unburied dead, or otherwise she would have mastered her, and had her in her power for ever. ‘But,’ said she, as she walked away, ‘I have not done with you yet;’ and then my aunt saw it was the old witch.

“My aunt did not know what the witch meant by saying she had something about her that belonged to the unburied dead; but news came next morning that her uncle had died the day before, and it happened that a brooch she was wearing had a bit of his hair in it. It was that which had saved her.

“It would have been useless trying to overtake the witch when she left her, even on horseback, for she once went from the top of Ingleborough to the top of Whernside at one stride.”

“But,” I ventured to say, “it is a long way, that.” I was not quite sure of the distance, but I knew I was within bounds when I added, “It will be quite nine miles.”

For a moment the old lady hesitated; even to her, after making all allowance for the witch’s marvellous power, it did seem a prodigious stride. “Well,” she said, with a sigh of relief, as an idea struck her, “maybe I am wrong; it would be a leap;” (or, as she put it, ‘mebbe Ah’s wrang; sha wad loup it.’) Again I pointed out that it was an enormous leap. “Deean’t ya want her ti ‘a’e deean’t?” (i.e. ‘Don’t you want her to have done it?’) she questioned, losing her temper. And then I had to smooth her ruffled feelings.

From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’, by Richard Blakeborough (1898).

Flint arrow-heads were for ages looked upon as elf-stones, and are to-day worn as charms against unseen evils. They also possess healing power in certain diseases. So, too, do the belemnites – a fossilized portion of an extinct cuttle-fish. These, in the hand of a skilled person, work wonders in the case of sore eyes and ringworm. Unfortunately, though belemnites are common enough, the skilled hands are rare, and so their virtue in thousands of instances lie dormant. The belemnites are supposed to fall from the clouds during a thunderstorm; the same is said of rounded pieces of quartz or flints, one and all being called thunder-bolts, or ‘thunner-steeans.‘

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. 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 their elf-stones at them. He further informed me that when the elves got them from the whirlpools, they had much longer shanks than was on 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’beasts 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 ever worn it, and they were also a potent love-charm if worn so that they rested near the heart.

From ‘Wit, character, folklore and customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire’ by Richard Blakeborough (1898). I’m not really moaning but it is quite laborious typing out (let alone reading) the ‘humorous’ renditions of common folk’s accents from these books :)

This isn’t so much a folklore post as proof that cutting remarks have not been invented by the users of social media. Or at least that’s the way I’m interpreting it (I think you can’t help but hear it read in a pompous voice, and I think things like ‘to whom we are, no doubt, indebted’ and ‘expressly stated’ are not kindly phrases. And I think confounding placenames in Wales is probably quite easy especially if you aren’t Welsh):

I am indebted to Professor J.E. Lloyd for most kindly furnishing me with the following note with reference to the name of the camp:-

“It was Pennant who first, in his Tour of North Wales in 1773, took note of the remarkable hill-fort above Llanbedr-y-Cennin. He understood it to be known in the district as ‘Pen Caer Helen,’ and scaled the height in the hope of finding some traces of the Roman road style ‘Sarn Helen’. In this respect he was disappointed, though the discovery of the fort was ample compensation.

‘Pen Caer Helen’, we are assured in the Gossiping Guide to Wales was a mispronunciation of the actual name, ‘Pen Caer Llin’; Mr Egerton Phillimore, to whom we are, no doubt, indebted for the correction (Y Cymmrodor, xi, 54) does not mention his authority.

The ordinary form is the shortened one – ‘Pen y Gaer’ – under which the place appears in the old one-inch Ordnance Survy Map of the district (engraved in 1841).

In the notes to Lady Charlotte Guest’s edition of the Mabinogion, Pen y Gaer is identified with the ‘Kaer Dathal (or Dathyl)’ of theRed Book text. In order to dispose of this conjecture, it is enough to point out, as Mr Phillimore has done, that Caer Dathal is expressly stated to be in Arfon (Rhys and Evans’s text), while Pen y Gaer is in Arllechwedd Isaf – two districts which a mediaeval writer was not in the least likely to confound.

Moreover, Caer Dathal was near the sea, and not far from Aber Menai, Dinas Dinlle and Caer Arianrhod, as may be seen from the references to it in the Mabinogion.”

From ‘The Exploration of Pen-y-Gaer above Llanbedr-y-Cenin’ by Harold Hughes, in the 1906 volume of Archaeologia Cambrensis.

Should you wish to know who ‘Ronald’ is (although he’s a bit of a latecomer in TMA terms:

The next important personage to appear in Galloway history is Ronald the Dane, titular King of Northumbria, styled also Duke of the Glaswegians, in right of the ancient superiority of the Saxon kings over the Picts.
With Olaf of the Brogues (Anlaf Cuaran), grandson of Olaf the White, as his lieutenant, he drove the Saxons before him as far south as Tamworth. This was in 937, but in 944 the tide of victory rolled north again. King Eadmund drove Ronald out of Northumbria to take refuge in Galloway. Of this province he and his sons continued rulers till the close of the tenth century.

‘A History of Dumfries and Galloway’ by Herbert Maxwell (1896).

Also I noticed that the cairn is on the side of ‘Crotteagh Hill’ – this could come from ‘cruiteach’, meaning lumpy and uneven (spotted in ‘Studies in the topography of Galloway’, also by Sir Maxwell, 1887).

An interesting standing stone is to be seen on the southern slope of the Chevin above the town of Guiseley in the valley of the Aire (...). This stone is well-known to the small number of people who live near at hand. A similar stone is said to have stood at the head of Occupation Lane on the western end of the Chevin, and to have been broken up when the cottage was erected at that place. It is always called the “Bull Stone” and is said to be “lucky.”

Editorial Notes in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 34 (1938).

Also, I read in ‘The English Dialect Dictionary’ (Joseph Wright, 1898) that a bullstone is a West Yorkshire word for a whetstone – which makes sense maybe as an explanation for (or even genuine use of) the grooves?

Another gravestone of interest [in the churchyard at Llansantffraid-Yn-Mechain] is the one on moulded pillars at the east end of the church, and was pointed out to us as being the stone marking the resting-place of the body of “David Maurice, the Suicide.” Tradition is a little at fault, as this is not the grave; but, for all that, Maurice or Morris may have been buried here in preference (under the circumstance) to the family vault at Llansilin. (...) The story touching David Maurice’s grave is that the entombed committed suicide in the river Tannatt, near to his father’s house, Penybont or Glan Cynlleth. The pool till lately was called “Llyn Dafydd Morris.”

Tradition asserts that D. Maurice, of Penybont, caused the “Carreg y big,” or “stone of contention,” to be removed from the centre of Llanrhaiadr village, in consequence of the great fighting caused by the assumption of the prize-fighter of the neighbourhood of the title of “Captain,” by leaping on the stone and proclaiming himself “Captain Carreg y big.” This was carried to such a pitch that the vicar of Llanrhaiadr begged David Maurice to remove the stone, which he did with a team of oxen, and placed it in his farm-yard; when, lo! and behold! the cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs, like maddened creatures, danced and pranced about the stone, and ending their joust with horning, biting, and eventually killing each other at the shrine of the “stone of contention.”

David Maurice, thinking the place haunted because of the stone, caused it to be rolled into the river near at hand, thinking the “charm would be thereby broken,” but, sad to relate, one morning he himself was found drowned in the pool which was called until lately “Llyn Dafydd Morris.”

The country people look at the death of David Maurice as a just retribution because he had removed the “Carreg y big,” which was said to be a boundary stone, and should not have been disturbed. This story received general credence.

In ‘A History of the Parish of Llansantffraid-Yn-Mechain’ by Thomas Griffiths Jones, in ‘Collections, historical and archaeological, relating to Montgomeryshire’ (1868).

The Foel Camp is situated on the summit of a commanding eminence, of a conoid form, close in the rear of the village. The internal area covers nearly two acres; its shape following, as most ancient camps do, the conformation of the ground. It has all the marks of a British post. The lines of defence around it partake more of the character of terraces than ditches, (but there are traces in two places of parts having been sunken), and make up one spiral road of access to the great arena.

The sides of the hill, excepting one, are very steep, and this steepness would be a great defence. The entrance is at the east end, where the sides are more approachable. There are no historical records concerning this, but tradition relates that there have been terrible combats about the foot of the mountain.

The spot on top of the Foel is called by the people “Soldiers’ Mount,” and it is said that the soldiers shot at each other from the Ffridd, (an opposite hill to the west), to the Foel, and from the Foel to the Ffridd, with bows and arrows.

It is of a spiral form, and has three ditches winding spirally one above the other. Some say that it was Caradog (Caractacus) ab Bran Fendigaid who encamped his left wing here while defending his country against the invasion of the Romans under Publius Ostorius, about the year of our Lord 51, his centre being on the Brewer. But all is conjectural.

Sul y Pys, or Pea Sunday (the Fourth* Sunday in Lent).

A custom prevailed among the old inhabitants of this parish of roasting peas or wheat grains, and then taking them to the top of the Foel, there to be eaten with very great ceremony, and drinking water out of the well on the Foel. This was done near the spot where the church was to have been built.

It is probable also that our forefathers sent presents to each other on this day, for it was an old saying with our mothers when asked for a gift, “You shall have it on Pea Sunday.”

The custom of eating peas was part of the Lent fasting, and the old people believed that they would be choked if they ate peas before Lent!

*Actually the fifth Sunday? This pea-eating event is known as Carlin Sunday in the north of England.

The Church stands on a piece of ground above the village, from which a fine view may be had of the vale below. Our ancestors delighted in building their temples on slightly elevated ground, that they might worship their God according to the fashion of their forefathers, the Druids, “in the face of the sun and the eye of light,” and this feeling was so strong in them that they had determined (so tradition relates), to build their temple on the Foel, on the opposite side of the hill facing the village; but neither peace nor prosperity attended the work, for all done during the day was removed in the night to the spot where the church now stands; therefore the church was built on its present site, because it was believed to be the spot where God desired to be worshipped.

Formerly the rejected site on the Foel was distinguished by a yew tree which grew there. This yew tree was accidentally burnt at the roasting of a kid on celebrating the jubilee of George the Third’s accession, and it is worth mentioning that the kid was taken out of a herd of goats that were depasturing on the side of the Ffridd.

In ‘A History of the Parish of Llansantffraid-Yn-Mechain’ by Thomas Griffiths Jones, in ‘Collections, historical and archaeological, relating to Montgomeryshire’ (1868).

The Dog.

Mrs Pembro, of Bridgnorth, remembers her mother telling her a story about Titterstone Clee. Her mother was born on Titterstone Clee and one day, when she was a child of about eight or nine, she was walking, with her sister, to her uncle’s house, which was about five or six miles from her home. On their journey back home it was dark. They met a huge black dog. The thing they most remembered about it was the beautiful red and green collar with jewels on it which it was wearing. They thought about approaching the dog but it would not let them go near it. Then, suddenly, it disappeared.

They mentioned the dog to their family but nothing else was said about the incident until the children were grown up. Their father then revealed that someone had been murdered at that spot and other people had seen the dog.

I do like a nice Black Dog (one of our great spooky animals). This one’s mentioned in ‘Some Ghostly Tales of Shropshire’ by Christine McCarthy (1988).

An alternative explanation of the grooves...

So far as I can make out, for I have been unable to refer to the original, Hollinshed in his Chronicle came to the conclusion that these stones were erected as memorials to the Scots who fell in a skirmish with the two Percies and their followers at Grindonmarsh in the year 1558; and this rather strange opinion has been copied from one book to another, down almost to the present time; though how those useful persons who compile county histories, and so forth, have been able to reconcile the deep weathering to which these stones have been subjected with so comparatively recent a date as 1558 (to say nothing of the further anomaly of funeral monoliths in Tudor times) it is difficulty to see. The probability is, however, that these good people have never seen the stones in question, for even Kelly’s Directory of Northumberland for 1902 seems to be unaware of the existence of the fifth stone in this group.

Tradition, however, gives an even more interesting origin for the Duddo cromlech. Among the field workers on the neighbouring farm of Grindon it is, or used recently to be, told that these stones are five men who not so very long ago – for tradition pays no regard to such trifles as a matter of centuries, and, as Chesterton says, it is the essence of a legend to be vague – brought down divine vengeance on themselves by godless behaviour which had culminated one day in going out into the fields and singling, or thinning out, a crop of turnips on the Sabbath.

Not merely were they turned into stones as they stood together on the top of the little eminence in the field where they were working, becoming a memorial for all time, somewhat after the manner of Lot’s wife, but the ringleader in this desecration was knocked flat on his back, where he lies to the present day. And if you don’t believe it, go and look for yourself and you’ll see the cording of their trousers running in stripes down the stones!

At Grievestead farm, alongside Grindon, this tale is told too; but there they were sheep shearers who were turned into stone for working Sunday.

In ‘A Border Myth – the standing stones at Duddo’ by Captain W.J. Rutherfurd, in the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club vol. XXIV (1919) p.98.

Pembrokeshire – in common with several other districts in Great Britain and Ireland – possesses a good phantom coach legend, localised in the southern part of the county, at a place where four roads meet, called Sampson Cross.

In old days, the belated farmer, driving home in his gig from market, was apt to cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as his pony slowly climbed the last steep pitch leading up to the Cross. For he remembered the story connected with that dark bit of road, that told how every night a certain Lady Z. (who lived in the seventeenth century, and whose monument is in the church close by) drives over from Tenby, ten miles distant, in a coach drawn by headless horses, guided by a headless coachman. She also has no head; and arriving by midnight at Sampson Cross, the whole equipage is said to disappear in a flame of fire, with a loud noise of explosion.

A clergyman living in the immediate neighbourhood, who told me the story, said that some people believed the ghostly traveller had been safely “laid” many years ago, in the waters of a lake not far distant. He added, however that might be, it was an odd fact that his sedate and elderly cob, when driven past the Cross after nightfall, would invariably start as if frightened there, a thing which never happened by daylight.

I think all that universal headlessness happening every night is a mite ostentatious. But you can’t be too careful at prehistoric stones especially at liminal places like crossroads. So be careful.
From ‘Stranger than fiction, being tales from the byways of ghosts and folk-lore’ by Mary Lewes, 1911 (p.24).

There is one institution connected with Dartmoor that must not be passed over – Bellever Day. When hare-hunting is over in the low country, then, some week or two after Easter, the packs that surround Dartmoor assemble on it, and a week is given up to hare-hunting. On the last day, Friday, there is a grand gathering on Bellever Tor.

All the towns and villages neighbouring on Dartmoor send out carriages, traps, carts, riders; the roads are full of men and women, ay, and children hurrying to Bellever.

Little girls with their baskets stuffed with saffron cake for lunch desert school and trudge to the tor. Ladies go out with champagne luncheons ready. Whether a hare be found and coursed that day matters little. It is given up to merriment in the fresh air and sparkling sun.

And the roads that lead from Bellever in the afternon are careered over by riders, whose horses are so exhilerated that they race, and the riders have a difficulty in keeping their seats. Their faces are red, not those of the horses, but their riders – from the sun and air – and they are so averse to leave the moor, that they sometimes desert their saddles to roll on the soft and springy turf.

‘A Book of the West’ by Sabine Baring-Gould (1899).

... Craigshowe cave was at length reached. Some recent visitors assured us that the cave had no end, and that they had been told that it took a turn and came out at Loch Lundy on the other side of the hill.

Going in as far as we could without stooping, the rock dipped downward, and there seemed nothing but black darkness beyond; and over us came a creepy feeling lest we should be disturbing some sleeping goblin or fairy within its depths. However, doubling ourselves until our heads and knees almost met, a few yards’ crawling enabled us to pass the turn and stand once more, while behind us was the light trying to pierce the gloom. A matchbox proved a handy companion, but, do what we could, the matches would not burn, but flickered and died out almost immediately, and even the attempts to obtain light by igniting the matchbox failed, so damp was the atmosphere. We managed, however, to see that we were at the end of the cave, and that the water was trickling very slowly from the rocky ceiling.

Returning to the beach, we inspected the well at the mouth of the cave, into which the water is said to fall at the rate of one drop a minute. This well is also stated to possess virtues which are said to have been proved by visitors who suffer from deafness, and instances are given where the observance of the rites have resulted in an absolute relief to the victims of this most trying complaint. One must visit the well at midnight; and, having secured a mussel shell, hold it to the drop until it has been filled, thereafter pouring it into the ear, and – well, faith does the rest.

A few paces from the cave there stands the Wishing Tree, a very flourishing and luxuriant rose tree bristling with thorns. Each visitor to this shrine of hope and fear, if desirous of obtaining some good or ill omen, ties a rag upon one of its branches, and the wish is said to be thereupon granted. It is indeed a curious sight to see the many coloured ribbons fluttering in the breeze, some of them having maybe stood the storm and sunshine more bravely than has done the faint heart that fluttered like a frightened bird as the trembling hands tied firmly to the thorny tree the little bit of gay ribbon that a minute before may have adorned the hair of a fair vision, and who may have come there to charm away the evil spirits, because -’My fause lover pa’d the rose; And, ah, he’s left the thorn wi’ me.‘

Then, if it is felt that the tree has not yielded the desired fruit, there remaineth the wishing well, just behind, in a recess of the rock, into which one must drop a penny in order to tempt the fairies to give the donors what they sigh for. Someone must reap the benefit of this simple faith, as the clear depths of the well did not show that even the latest copper had been allowed to rust in fairyland.

Then beside the well there is a large stone, on which are distinctly marked red spots, which are said to be the indelible traces of the blood of a child that was cruelly murdered by its mother.

From ‘Highland Superstitions (From a Correspondent)’ in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, 12th September 1895.

Below Craid Phadrie is the detached hill called Tomnahurich, or the Watchman’s Hill, some of the fields adjoining being called Balliefearie, or the Watchman’s Town, and which, besides being thus a “ward hill,” was also celebrated in the olden time, according to local belief, as the favourite and chief resort in the north of the tiny race of fairies, and was further used by grosser mortals as a great moat, or gathering hill, on various occasions of public importance. The magistrates of Inverness used also in ancient times to patronise horse-races run round its base.

Page 13 in volume 14 of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland (1845).

With Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, the period of abstinence and self-denial is brought to an end. The interrupted pleasures of life are taken up once more, this time in the pleasant setting of spring. On Easter Day itself, the celebrations of the ordinary people began at (or before) sunrise, when in many districts crowds climbed to the summit of a nearby mountain to see the sun ‘dancing’ in honour of the Resurrection of Christ.

The Rev. John Williams, Glanmor (1811-91) remembered the inhabitants of Llangollen, Denbighshire, ascending Dinas Bran on Easter Day to greet the rising sun with three somersaults, a peculiar variation on this custom {From Bye-gones, 11th December 1895}. In other districts it was usual to take a basin of water in order to see the reflection of the sun dancing on the horizon. It is almost certain that behind this observance was the widespread belief that Christ rose from the dead at dawn on Easter Day; while, further removed from medieval practice, there lurks the hint of an earlier, pagan rite. The custom is also recorded in many English counties and in the Isle of Man and Ireland.

p84 in ‘Welsh Folk Customs’ by T.M. Owen (1959).

It is unclear why the two cairns were built together, but local folklore provides its own interpretations. One tale is that one of the mounds is the burial place of a great chief who owned the surrounding land. Each summer he went on a raiding mission with his men, bringing back gold, cattle and slaves. One summer he did not return when expected, but in the autumn the ships sailed slowly into the bay. The body of the chief was carried ashore on his men’s shields to be buried in a huge grave, while in the bay below, his galley was ritually set alight.

Another legend holds that the mounds are built on the site of the last battle between the MacDonalds and the MacLeods, two rival clans in Skye. A thick mist descended during the fighting, resulting in carnage so complete that only women and old men were left to bury the dead. All that could be done was to make two piles of bodies, one for each clan, and cover them with stones.

In ‘Prehistoric Scotland’ by Ann MacSween and Mick Sharp (1989).

The Cradle Stone.

Serving as a link with the distant past, and once known to every boy and girl in Crieff, the Cradle Stone lies on the south-east shoulder of the Knock. This massive stone, believed to be of Druidical origin, at one time weighed 30 tons and had a circumference of 80 feet, but it has been suggested that during a thunderstorm it was struck by lightning and split in two.

IN days gone by the Cradle Stone was regarded with suspicion by the natives, and it was even suggested that a treasure of great value lay hidden underneath. The story is told how a simple-minded youth named James McLaren, who lived at Barnkittock, was convinced by a few wags of the immense wealth the Stone concealed. One night they persuaded him to excavate beneath the boulder, and while thus engaged the miscreants, who were secretly assembled nearby, set off a number of fireworks bursting around him. Trembling like a leaf and paralysed with fear, the demented youth jumped from the trench he had dug, dashed down the hill and never stopped running until he reached his home at Barnkittock.

A story once told to the children of Crieff by their parents was that they all originated from the interior of the Cradle Stone. (This, perhaps is the reason it acquired such a fascinating name!) Such an enchanting fairy-tale, however, has long since been refuted and it would be a very talented person indeed who could convince the modern child that he or she came from the inner recesses of the Cradle Stone. In fact, I wonder how many children today know where to find it?

Viewed from the Indicator, one of the most magnificent panoramas in the country lies open to the visitor. Extending from the Sidlaw Hills in the east, it includes the full range of the Ochils in the south, and away to the west can be seen Ben Ledi and Ben Voirlich and beyond the twin peaks of Ben More and Stobinian. And to complete this comprehensive picture, the first range of the Grampians outline the northern horizon. On a plateau at the end of the road leading to the “View of Monzie,” once stood the “Wishing Tree.” Very little is known of this legendary tree, which stood in absolute isolation at one of the highest points of the Knock. In days not so very long ago it became the object of veneration by the maidens of Crieff imbued with the spirit of romance, who would secretly reveal their innermost thoughts in the ardent hope that their longed-for “wish” would be speedily granted.

From ‘The Knock of Crieff and its Environs’ by J.B. Paterson, in the Strathearn Herald, 7th August 1965.