We are today largely an urban population, whereas our anees-tors were country dwellers, many people never travelling far from home throughout the whole of their lives. Today we are also a shifting population, moving temporarily or permanently from one area to another without much concern. In the past the people were rooted in their local environment almost as firmly as the trees in the ground, and it would need a great upheaval to move them away to another district. They also moved around largely on foot, and in that way acquired a far more intimate knowledge of their own locality than we can today, travelling in cars which effectively cut us off from the outside world. Every tree, stone, mound, stream, river, pool, hill, had its place in their environment, and the most unusual features became the focus of tales ‘explaining’ how they came to be there. We have already written about Rudston monolith (Humberside) being thrown at the church by the Devil (Chapter 4), and some sites, like the Devil’s Arrows (North Yorkshire), carry the outline of their story in their name. Many standing stones were given ‘Devil’ names, perhaps at a time when Christianity became the predominant religion and many of the earlier sacred sites came to be regarded as the haunt of the Devil. In areas of Scandinavian and Saxon influence, names like Grim, Thor and Woden were sometimes used, as in Grimes Graves (Norfolk).
Most Devil sites are in England, particularly the south, with a few in Wales and Scotland, whereas places attributed to giants are largely in the west, with very few in central and eastern England but many in Cornwall and north Wales. Many standing stones were traditionally attributed to giants, also sizeable burial chambers, and earthworks which had obviously needed great earth-moving efforts in their construction. The name of the hillfort Tre’r Ceiri (Gwynedd) translates as ‘town of the giants’, and Barclodiad-y-Gawres, a passage-grave on Anglesey (Gwynedd), means ‘the giantess’s apronful’, referring to her having collected an apronful of stones to build the mound.
The Giant's Grave in Penrith churchyard (Cumbria), in reality tivo Korn crosses dating from around 1000 and some hogback gravestones. In the same churchyard is a wheel-headed cross called the Giant’s Thumb. These names are thought to commemorate a tenth-century king who became a legendary hero or giant in local lore.
Since the twelfth century, Stonehenge has also been called the Giants’ Dance in some quarters, and the mighty stones of Callanish (Western Isles) were said to be giants turned to stone for refusing to embrace the Christian religion.
Ancient sites (usually cairns or barrows) were often believed to be fairy haunts, and they were said to danee or make musie there. Willy IIowx* (Humberside) is a prominent round barrow which housed a fairy dwelling, seen by a drunken villager late one night. He heard people singing and went to see who it was. Through an open door in the side of the mound he could see people banqueting at large tables. One of the people saw him and offered him a cup. He took it but threw away the contents, not wishing to come under the spell of the fairies, and ran off with the goblet, which was made of an unknown material. This tale was recorded by William of Newburgh in the twelfth century. Another tale told of people digging into the mound and finding a golden chest. They tried to pull it out with horses.
But it sank back into the mound and no one has ever been able to recover it.
D'he fairies would sometimes help people by mending broken tools, or would give a reward when helped by humans. In W elsh folklore stories telling of people who saw the fairies are very common and some are presented as factual rather than fictional. Indeed, people still claim to see the fairies, or ‘Little People’, and these witnesses appear to be neither liars nor insane! Perhaps the Little People do still live among us, like the monsters and ghosts we shall describe in Chap')ter 20.
Famous people, both real and imaginary, were sometimes associated with ancient sites. W’e have already described in Chapiter 14 the use of King. Arthur’s name at places said to have been visited by him. Other heroes similarly remembered include Sir Bevisof Hampton in southern England (e. g. Bevis’s Thumb long barrow in W est Sussex), W'ayland the Smith (e. g. W’ayland’s Smithy, Oxfordshire - see Chapter 2), Jack o’ Kent in Herefordshire and Gwent, Michael Scot in northern England and southern Scotland, Robin Hood and Little John in Nottinghamshire, and Oliver Cromwell (e. g. Oliver Cromwell’s Hill at Eye in Suffolk).
Because of their air of mystery, and there being no obvious reason for their construction, prehistoric sites have become a focus for a rich and varied folklore. Standing stones and stone circles were sometimes said to be people turned to stone, often for dancing on a Sunday, such as the. Merry. Maidens stone circle (Cornwall) with the Pipers standing stones close by, and the stone circles at Stanton Drew (.Avon); or for working in the fields on a Sunday (the Duddo Stones, Northumberland), or for playing the game of hurling on a Sunday (the Hurlers stone circles, Cornwall), and other similar religious transgressions. Some stones were said to move or go to a nearby stream to drink when they heard the clock strike twelve, or the cock crow, or sometimes on a special day in the year, like the Hoar Stone at Enstone (Oxfordshire) which goes to drink on. Midsummer Eve. Some stones were believed to have the power to return if taken away from their rightful place, like a stone on Cefn Cam Cafall (Powys), said to bear the hoofmark of King. Arthur’s horse Cafall, and which would come back of its own accord if carried away. .At a number of stone cireles the stones were believed to be uncountable - this was said of Stonehenge, the Rollright Stones, Long. Meg and Her Daughters, the Callanish Stones. I’he same story was told of a few chambered tombs, and when folklorist Leslie Grinsell visited the Countless Stones near Aylesford (Kent) in the late 1940s, he found numbers chalked on to the stones, showing that the tradition was still alive.
Prehistoric sites were often believed to have healing properties and these sites were regularly visited bv the sick who performed the necessary rituals and thus hoped to be cured. Stonehenge was one such site, as recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century:
For in these stones is a mystery, and a healing virtue against many ailments... for they washed the stones and poured the water into baths, whereby those who were sick were cured. Moreover, they mixed confections of herbs with the water, whereby those who were wounded were healed, for not a stone is there that is wanting in virtue or leech-craft.
People would crawl through holed stones like the Men-an-Tol (Cornwall), or pass clothing through smaller holes in stones, as pregnant women did in Ireland in order to ensure a safe childbirth. At the Toothie Stane in Argyll, people with toothache would go and knock a nail or screw into one of the stones of this chambered tomb and expect to gain relief from their pain.
Such practices may have developed as a result of people’s awe at these strange monuments, but there are other customs which strongly suggest that the rituals originally performed at prehistoric sites had been handed down through the generations, although in a greatly degenerate form. On Orkney sick people would walk round the Stones of Stenness three times with the sun (deasil) and such circumambulation rituals were practised elsewhere, for example at holy wells (as described in more detail in our hooV. Sacred Waters), and sometimes even at Christian churches! In 1650 the Synod of Argyll was trying to stop people walking ‘sungates’ around the church before going in for divine service.
Whether or not these customs were derived from prehistoric rituals, it is clear that the people of later centuries were much in awe of the prehistoric remains, so much so that they believed it was dangerous to interfere with them, and this belief may well have helped to preserve them to the present day. Anyone digging into a barrow could expect retribution of some kind, and it often came in the form of a thunderstorm, or a ghost, or ill health or bad luck thereafter following the offender and his family. In 1859 a farmer on the Isle of Man opened a barrow on his land and then sacrificed a heifer in order to prevent the retribution which he clearly expected.
Apart from prehistoric sites, other landscape features were also rich in folklore, such as hills (see the W’rekin in ‘Places to V isit’) and bridges (see the Devil’s Bridge in ‘Places to Visit’), and the lore even extended offshore, in those areas where the sea has in previous centuries inundated the land. This has happened within living memory at Dunwich on the Suffolk coast, and indeed is still happening. The church bells are said to be heard ringing from time to time, from beneath the waves. Off the west and north coasts of Wales are said to be areas where the sea has drowned the land, such as Cantre ’r Gwaelod, a fertile stretch of land 40 miles long between the Teifi and Bardsey Island, which was defended from the sea by an embankment and sluices. .According to the legend, one night in the fifth century when the keeper of the embankment was drunk, he left the sluices open and the sea broke through, only a few inhabitants of the sixteen cities surviving. When the sea is still, it is said that the remains of buildings can be seen through the clear water, and in rough weather the church bells can be heard. Most famous of these sunken lands is of course Lyonesse, said to have extended west from Cornwall as far as the Scilly Isles. It was drowned by the sea in an immense cataclysm in the distant past, a few projecting rocks being all that can now be seen above the surface.
The Cornish coast at LancTs End, tchere once lay the note-legendary land of Lyonesse.
Phis brief introduction hardly does justice to the wealth of
Folklore throughout Britain and Ireland. .A much more detailed coverage of the folklore of ancient sites will be found in our earlier book The Secret Country, and also in Leslie V. Grinsell’s comprehensive gazetteer, Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain.
World History
