Dead easy to find. Get into the centre of the lovely little town centre of Kincardine, down High Street, and there upon its steps at the roadside, you can’t miss the it!
Archaeology & History
A few days ago when I came to have a look at this old cross (17th century according to the Royal Commission) it was surrounded by protective railings while some work was being done in the town centre. Thankfully it was a glorious bright day and allowed for some good photos!
It is a typical mercat cross, as Mair (1988) called them: a stone pillar, mounted on steps, with some sort of crowning edifice on top. The monument was described in the Royal Commission (1933) report of the region, where they wrote:
“The market cross stands at the southern end of High Street and consists of an octagonal shaft with moulded base and capital, placed on a rise of six octagonal steps, having a spread of 14½ feet. Above the square abacus is a stone sculptured with the arms of the Earls of Kincardine on the one side and a thistle ornament on the other. The arms are: Quarterly, 1st and 4th, a lion rampart; 2nd and 3rd, a saltire and chief. The shield is flanked by two men in armour as supporters, is surmounted by a coronet and helm, mantled and wreathed, and has for crest a naked arm, flexed, issuing out of a cloud and holding a man’s heart. The cross must be later than 26 December, 1647, when the Earldom was created.”
References:
Beveridge, David, Culross and Tulliallan: Its History and Antiquities – 2 volumes, William Blackwood: Edinburgh 1885.
Mair, Craig, Mercat Cross and Tolbooth, John Donald: Edinburgh 1988.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
Small, John W., Scottish Market Crosses, Eneas Mackay: Stirling 1900.
Go west out of Dunfermline on the A994 till you hit the Torryburn roundabout, taking the A985 Kincardine road. Barely a half-mile along, stop at the first parking layby at the roadside – and there, over the barbed wire fence, you’ll see your standing stones right in front of you.
Archaeology & History
The Tuilyies standing stones
Overlooking the northern shores of the Firth of Forth is this fascinating group of standing stones which, old lore told, was once an old stone circle. You can see what they meant. The Tuilyies consists of a small group of three stones, between 3 and 7 feet tall, arranged in the form of a scalene triangle; and about 20 yards away stands the more impressive outlying 8 foot tall upright stone, somewhat akin to a petrified ancestor, with both natural and man-made cup-markings on at least two sides of its slim body. This outlying stone is of a very different character to that of its close neighbours—and a different type of stone as well—and is very similar in both size and appearance to the Robin Hood Stone at Allerton, near Liverpool. Curious…
The east-facing cup-marked Tuilyies stoneNatural ridges on its west-face
Whether the stones here were part of a stone circle we don’t know for sure. It was suggested as such in 1793 and Aubrey Burl (2000) includes them in his primary survey, but we have little evidence to prove as such nowadays. The parish of Torryburn not only had to contend with industrial agriculture knocking down any stones that may once have stood here, but in the 17th century the village also had to tolerate the psychiatric delusions of one reverend Allan Logan: one of the many deranged priests who saw witchcraft and demons in everything natural or animistic, persecuting local people for their old traditions, herbalism and peasant-lore. (Beveridge 1885; Cunningham 1902; Webster 1820, etc) These old stones were unlikely not to have received his depraved attention. But thankfully, some remain standing…
The Tuilyies seem to have been described first of all in the 1793 Old Statistical Account of Scotland—and in that narrative we find one of the earliest descriptions of cup-markings. It told that,
“In a pretty extensive plain field NE of the village of Torryburn, there is a flat stone, raised upon one end, of a shape nearly oblong and measuring, from the surface to the top, about 8 feet, and about 4½ in breadth, Round the edge of it there is a deep circle, and on each of the sides a number of ridges, all of which wear the appearance of art and antiquity. At about 18 or 20 paces from this stone, there is a number of smaller ones, which, from their present position, seemed to have formed part of a circle.”
Many years were to pass before these old stones heard from the men of words again. This time it was the renaissance of cup-and-ring designs that brought them back to light, when Sir James Simpson (1866), in his massive precursory essay to British Archaic Sculpturings (1867) talked about them:
“The stone at Torrie, Fifeshire…is a flattened sandstone flag, deeply guttered in longitudinal lines, and presenting cup- markings on its eastern side. It has been attempted to be made “a holed stone,” like (the) this block at Ballymeanoch (Argyll), but the artificially splayed perforations from the opposite sides do not meet in the middle. About fifty paces from it are the remains of a small circle of stones.”
The triangle of standing stones
Unusually, J. Romilly Allen only mentioned the stones in passing, simply repeating Simpson’s earlier words. Even local historians gave the site scant attention. In David Beveridge’s (1885) magnum opus he gave only a brief mention of the stones; and A.S. Cunningham (1902) did likewise. Thankfully after a visit to the stones by the Royal Commission lads in May 1925, a more detailed description was given. They wrote:
“The site of the cup-marked standing stone…is a plateau, 150 feet above sea level, in a field on Torrie Estate about half a mile to the northeast of the village of Torryburn, and on the north side of the drive to Torrie House. At a distance of 60 feet from it are three huge boulders, and the four are said to be the remains of a circle, although that idea is not borne out by their present disposition.
“The cup-marked stone rises to a height of 8 feet above the ground and has its narrow faces to the north-east and south-west. It is of irregular form, narrowing somewhat at 7 inches from the base, expanding outwards at the middle, and contracting again to a roughly convex top. On the east face the lower portion is covered with cup-marks. which vary from 1½ to 5 inches in diameter and from 1½ to 2 inches in depth. At a height of 6 feet from ground level, in the south-west angle of the stone, is a cavity 7 inches in depth, while there is a similar cavity of like depth opposite to it on the west face. The stone is also marked on the east and west faces, as well as on the top and down the narrow sides, with a series of perpendicular grooves of varying depth, but all these channels are due to weathering. Its measurements are: north face, 1 foot 3 inches; south face, 1 foot 4 inches; east face, 4 feet 4 inches; west face, 4 feet 3 inches; girth at base, 10 feet 8 inches; at 7 inches up, 8 feet 10 inches; at middle, 10 feet 5 inches.
“The three other boulders are set in the form of a triangle immediately to the south of this cup-marked stone, at intervals of 12, 15 and 16 feet apart. One has evidently fallen from an upright position and now lies with its major axis north and south. None of the three shows any markings. They are of whinstone, while the cup-marked standing stone is of grey sandstone.”
But as for the lack of cup-markings on the outlying smaller stones, when Ron Morris (1973) examined the site in the ’70s, he found what seemed to be some cup-marks on the largest of the group of three stones, as shown in the photos. On this he reported,
“25yds S of the well-known cup-marked standing stone are 3 large boulders. The W of these, measuring 7′ x 4½’ x 3½’ high, bears on its slightly W-sloping top surface 7 cups cup to 2″ diameter and ½” deep.”
When I visited the site the other day, these were difficult to see—cos as the photos here show, Nature gave us a bittova dark grey day and such carvings are notoriously temperamental when weather conditions aren’t to the stone’s liking!
Folklore
The Old Statistical Account of 1793 told that the stones were supposed to have “been the scene of a battle in some former period, and these stones…mark the graves of some of the chiefs, who had fallen in the engagement.” The lore was echoed in David Beveridge’s (1885) huge local history work, where he informed the reader that many standing stones along the Forth,
“are all connected with the Danish incursions. One specially may be mentioned, standing near Torryburn, the parish adjoining Culross, in a field which is still known by the name of the Tuilzie, or Battle Park.”
Morris, Ronald W.B., “Torryburn, Torry – Cup-Marked Rock’, in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, 1973.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
Simpson, James, Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., Upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and other Countries, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1867.
Webster, David, A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and Second Sight, D. Webster: Edinburgh 1820.
Balbirnie stone circle – with Marion checking it out!
Take the A92 road running north out of Glenrothes towards Freuchie and, after a couple of miles out of town, you’ll hit the B969 road on your left. Across from here on the other side of the road, you’ve just passed a small B-road that takes you to Markinch. That’s where you need to be! Go along there for less than 100 yards and turn first right, swerving along the tree-lined road for 200 yards or so. Watch out, just before the first house on your left, for a footpath which leads into the woods. Walk down it, barely 10 yards!
Archaeology & History
This is a lovely megalithic ring in a lovely setting – albeit a new one. The circle was originally positioned some 125 yards northwest of here and would have been destroyed, but was thankfully reconstructed by Fife Council before road-widening of the A92 was done. And the job’s a good one! But as Burl (2005) tells, this wasn’t the first time Balbirnie had been threatened with damage:
The southeastern stones & cistsBalbirnie from the roadside, looking southeast
“With some stones removed in the eighteenth century, dug into in 1883 when bones and sherds were found, damaged by trees, it was finally excavated and restored in 1970-71,” before the main road was built. Thankfully it’s still here – and an excellent stone circle it is! However, the reconstructed site here doesn’t show the circle in its entirety. Originally there were ten standing stones making up the ring, as opposed to the seven you can see today.
Royal Commission ground-plan, c.1933
The site was built amidst the scatter of other larger, and once more impressive, mythically important monuments than the circle – but it’s as likely that the circle added more to the sacred dimensions of the region as a whole when it first came to be built. For on the other side of the A92 we can still see the denuded remains of the Balfarg Riding School Henge, with imitations of its internal upright posts resurrected into position to give an idea of what once stood inside the sacred enclosure. And then about 200 yards west of that, the gigantic Balfarg Henge is impressively surrounded by a modern housing estate, built with the henge in mind, with its outlying megaliths and internal level surface area graciously intact. It’s a truly impressive prehistoric area all round, although the Balbirnie stone circle was built some considerable time after the two henges had been done, many centuries later…
Before the circle was moved, the consensus profile of the site was that given by the Royal Commission (1933) lads following their visit here in June 1925, when they told it looked like this:
“At the southern end of a small wood on the east side of the main road from Kirkcaldy to Falkland, about 180 yards south of Balbirnie Lodge, are the remains of a large circular cairn and of the setting of standing stones by which it was once surrounded… The circle, which has had a diameter of some 48 feet, has been composed of sandstone boulders. Four of these are still in place, but one other on the southeast has been slightly displaced, while against the stone on the northeast lie two large boulders, which apparently have been transferred to this position. Any other stones that may once have existed have been removed or destroyed. The greatest height above ground of any of those that survive is 5 feet 6 inches, while one, which rises no more than 2 feet, measures in circumference as much as 9 feet 9 inches at the base. The cairn itself seems to have been broken into at two points. No record of these excavations appears to be extant, but a number of fragments of cinerary urns from the site are preserved in the National Museum. These indicate that, as might have been inferred from its general character, the monument was sepulchral and dates from the Bronze Age.”
Sepulchral indeed. When the stone circle was excavated at the beginning of the 1970s by J.N.G. Ritchie (1974) and his mates, it was discovered this was a primary function of the site. As Burl (2000) wrote:
“At Balbirnie patches of cremated bone lay underneath some circle-stones. Whatever the ceremonies here they were interrupted when the site was converted into a cemetery. Four or five cists associated with a late beaker and a jet button were constructed within the ring. The date of about 1650 BC came from wood alongside the beaker. Stretches of low walling were put up between the stones forming a continuous barrier…analogous to the embanked stone circles elsewhere in Britain that seem generally to belong to a period in the mid-second millennium… But the first cists did not long remain undisturbed and were seemingly rifled when later cists were built that contained the cremations of women and children… One of these later cists held a food-vessel and a flint knife.
“The stone circle was further abused. A low cairn was piled over all the cists. Sherds of deliberately broken urns, one with barley impressions, were scattered amongst the boulders, intermingled with small coagulations of burnt human bone. This last phase at Balbirnie occurred late in the second millennium BC, for a C-14 determination of…1200 to 900 BC came from the land surface that had built up within the ring during the centuries while the stone circle remained open to the weather.”
Measuring 49 feet across at the widest, this flattened ellipse also possessed a curious rectangular section of laid stone, near the middle of this circle, almost ‘Roman-road’ like in appearance and covering about a quarter of the internal arena. It’s visible today at the reconstructed site and looks almost intrusive! Measuring some 11 feet by 9 feet, the flat stone surface has been suggested as a place where corpses were rested.
Also found within two of the tombs inside the circle were the cup-and-ring marked stones of Balbirnie 1 and Balbirnie 2, showing yet again the relationship that some of these carvings have with spirits of the dead.
…to be continued…
References:
Burl, Aubrey, “Intimations of Numeracy in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Societies of the British Isles (c.3200-1200 BC),” in Archaeological Journal, volume 133, 1976.
Burl, Aubrey, Rings of Stone, BCA: London 1979.
Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
Burl, Aubrey, A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2005.
Denston, C.B., “The Cremated Remains from Balbirnie, Fife,” in Archaeological Journal, volume 131, 1974.
Ritchie, J.N.G., “Excavation of the Stone Circle and Cairn at Balbirnie, Fife,” in Archaeological Journal, volume 131, 1974.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Marion Woolley for getting us out to see this and the related neolithic monuments. Cheers m’ dears!
Take the A907 road between Clackmannan and Comrie and, close to Bogside Farm at the roadside, but on the other side of the road where the bridge crosses a burn, take the dirt-track uphill and into the woodland. About 300 yards up (before you hit the signs pointing you to the farm) , walk uphill into the trees on your left until the ground levels out. Look around! (and best visited between December and May, before the bracken covers the place)
Archaeology & History
Visiting this site is pleasure in itself. Situated in an open forest, with traditional pine trees in abundance, there are scattered amidst the edges of this large oval-shaped Iron Age structure, the aged boughs of ash and beech, centuries old, along its edges and throughout the woods. It is a truly superb setting! When visited by the Royal Commission lads in April, 1925, they found the remains here in good condition. A few years later in their impressive Inventory, they told:
“In Castlehill Wood, about 250 yards to the southwest of Bogside Railway Station, and at an elevation of 200 feet above sea-level, is a small plateau of very regular oval form with its major axis northwest and southeast. It is surrounded by a single ditch, the well-marked enclosure thus produced having a maximum measurement of 185 by 135 feet. At the southeast the ditch has been left uncut in order to provide a passage for entrance. This passage has been about 20 feet wide, and at its inner end there are on either side faint traces of a low mound, which in all probability once ran right round the edge of the enclosure and which may have been palisaded.”
RCHAMS 1933 plan of site
Sadly when I came here a few days ago, much of the was very overgrown with bracken and other vegetation, making it impossible to see the site properly and preventing any decent photos. We’ll go back here in a few months time to get better images!
Folklore
This site was mentioned, albeit briefly, in David Beveridge’s (1885) magnum opus on the history of Culross. With equal brevity he noted several standing stones in the region, saying how tradition afforded them a Danish origin. This site was the same for
“a tradition prevails that after the battle of Inverkeithing the Danish army or a portion of it retreated to a station in the north of Culross parish, where they erected the earthwork or camp of Castlehill, still existing near the Burrowine Farm.”
References:
Beveridge, David, Culross and Tulliallan: Its History and Antiquities – volume 1, William Blackwood: Edinburgh 1885.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
Follow the same directions to find the Balfarg Stone Circle. From the A92 going north from Glenrothes, turn E onto the country lane to Star and Kennoway. 100 yards on there’s a sign for Balbirnie; turn right here and about 200 yards on, where the road bends right, the circle’s just below you). This carving is perched on its side in one of the preserved grave cists within the circle, easily visible at ground level.
Archaeology & History
This carving (and its adjacent compatriot) was found insidethe Balbirnie stone circle when it stood in its original position more than 100 yards northwest of the place it presently occupies (at NO 2850 0304). Thankfully, when the megalithic ring was moved and reconstructed, its original status was kept, including the repositioning of this impressive small cup-and-ring stone – despite it being a copy of the original.
Early photo of the carving
Like a good number of prehistoric tombs, this small carved stone was stood on edge, facing into the stone-lined tomb (cist), obviously representative of some important element in the Land of the Ancestors: perhaps a map of the landscape therein; perhaps a personal token; perhaps indicative of the spirits of the dead; perhaps a magickal amulet for safe guidance. There are a number of ritual possibilities here, and whichever it was, we can be sure the symbols were representative of the animistic cosmology of the neolithic people living hereby, linking the living with the dead.
As you can see from the original photograph, a number of cup-marks along the edges of the stone are accompanied by two or three cup-and-rings, one of which is very faint. Some carved lines run between some facets of the carving, linking one mythic element to another. Ron Morris (1981) described the carving, simplistically, as,
“Under a cairn, within a ring of stones, one of 5 cists had, carved on the inside of a side-slab (sandstone), ¾m by ½m by ¼m (2¾ft x 1¾ft x ¾ft): 2 cups-and-one-ring—one faint and incomplete—and also 8 cups, 2 with ‘tails’. Greatest diameter of ring 12cm (5in), and carving depths up to 2cm (1in).”
References:
Burl, Aubrey, Rings of Stone, BCA: London 1979.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
This carved stone is now held in one of the museums. To get a better idea of its original locale, take the directions to reach the Balfarg Stone Circle (from the A92 going north from Glenrothes, turn E onto the country lane to Star and Kennoway. 100 yards on there’s a sign for Balbirnie; turn right here and about 200 yards on, where the road bends right, the circle’s just below you) and look at the small stone-lined tombs (cists), within which this carving was first found.
Archaeology & History
This carving (and its adjacent compatriot) was first found within the Balfarg stone circle that originally stood more than 100 yards northwest of the site it now occupies (at NO 2850 0304). Found inside the edge of another prehistoric stone-lined tomb (cist) within the stone circle, the small elongated stone possessed at least 16 singular cup-marks along one flat face of the rock. Two adjacent cup-marks may be linked by a small line running between them. As you can see in the old photograph here, most of the cups run in two parallel lines, similar to the primary feature found on the more famous Idol Stone on Ilkley Moor.
Described in association with the Balbirnie 1 carving by Ronald Morris (1981) as simply, “a slab in another cist (with) cup-marks,” like its partner just a few yards away this carving was again representative of some important mythic element in the Land of the Dead to the person whose body was laid here.
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
We know very little about the site that once stood here — even Aubrey Burl (2000) found no history here. It seems that antiquarian records were never made in this outlying district and even folklore records seem to have missed this region! (surely not?) A. Lindsay Mitchell (1992) told that the circle here had been built into the church, but knew no more.
First described in the old Statistical Account of Scotland in 1794, even then it was in the past tense, as they said that “a Druidical temple is said to have stood in the vicinity of Balkethly. Not the smallest vestige can now be seen.” Balkaithly Farm is a few hundred yards east of Dunino. In the New Statistical Account of the region in 1845 it was reported that three stones close to the west wall of the minister’s garden at Dunino were said to be part of the ruined circle. The site had truly gone. By 1925 when the Royal Commission (1933) lads visited the place to look for any remains, they told:
“The stone circle which formerly existed near the church at Dunino has now been entirely destroyed, but what are believed to be portions of some of the original stones are built into the dyke on the north side of the roadway at the south-west of the churchyard, about 100 yards east of its junction with the main thoroughfare to St. Andrews.”
A few hundred yards west of the circle, “a short cist containing a fine food-vessel urn was accidentally discovered during ploughing on the farm of Beley.” This was sent to Edinburgh’s National Museum.
Folklore
Locally, there are several places alleged to have been the actual spot where the circle once stood. Several stones within nearby Dunino church have typical Mason marks carved on them which, local folklore says, identifies them as coming from the circle and then subsequently being built into the church. Also in the churchyard is a small carved upright stone, which local people visit and leave offerings upon.
References:
Batchelor, Richard A., Origin of St. Andrews: Moon, Magicians and Maidens in Fife, Shieling: St. Andrews 1997.
Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NO 379 204
Archaeology & History
The long-gone Lochmaloney carving
Here’s another old carving that has succumbed to the lack of animistic respect endemic in modern culture. Ronald Morris (1981) reported that this carved rounded boulder was “dynamited by the farmer and (is) now no longer extant.” First described in 1872 and later included in the Fife Inventory (1935), the large smooth rock used to lay within a nice copse of dense gorse, measuring 2½m x 1¾m across and about 1m high from ground level. Morris described the petroglyphs as follows:
“2 cups-and-one-complete ring (one mostly weathered off), diameters 10cm (4in) and 27 cups (carving depth and angle of slope not now known.”
Its isolation from any other known petroglyphs is a little odd and there is every possibility is accompanied a prehistoric burial of some sort; although from the attitude of the farmer, all trace of that would have gone too.
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Eleventh Report with Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1935.
Legendary Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 058 865
Archaeology & History
Travelling along the old road between Crossford and towards Cairneyhill, on the right-hand (north) side, there was until recently a huge boulder, described by the folklorist J.E. Simpkins (1914),
“Its horizontal dimensions above ground are diagonally 18 feet by 21 feet; its vertical height above ground 5 feet… I estimate its weight at nearly 200 tons.”
The stone was proclaimed by 19th century geologists to be a glacial deposit from the upper region of the Forth (the nearest mountain region possessed of this type of stone); although our old petroglyph writer, Sir James Simpson, postulated the Witch’s Stone to be “of meteoric origin.”
But like oh so many old sites with heathen tales attached, the stone was destroyed by a local farmer on 7 February, 1972. The following interesting notes were made in a Crossford & Cairneyhill School log-book, describing its destruction:
“The local farmer blasted the “Witch’s Stone”, situated about 300m East of school at 2.30 this afternoon. Children vacated both buildings and sheltered at West End of main building. All windows were opened. Police informed that further operations of this nature will be carried out at weekend.”
A week later on February 14, all “remains of “Witch’s Stone” removed by blasting at 3pm today.”
On the other side of the road from our Witch’s Stone was another boulder, this time known as the Cadger’s Stone, said by Beveridge (1888) to have got its name,
“from the circumstance of its having formed a landmark for the ‘cadgers’, or itinerant merchants, who were wont to rest themselves and their ponies whilst they deposited for a short while their burdens on the stone.”
The earliest OS-map of the region in 1856 shows neither of these stones, but does highlight a Capel Stane, or Stone of the Horse, very close by.
Folklore
The stone was obviously of some traditional importance to local people in pre-christian times. David Beveridge (1888) described the position and creation myth of the Witch’s Stone as follows:
“On our right a singular-looking stone of blue limestone appears in a field, and is known as the Witch’s Stone, the popular legend being that a notable witch in this neighbourhood found it on the seashore, and that after she carried it some distance in her apron, the string of the latter broke, and the stone has since continued to lie in the place where it fell. “
A few years after this, the folklorist J.E. Simpkins (1914) wrote:
“The legend connected with this boulder is, that a witch wishing to bestow a valuable gift on the Pitfirrane family, resolved to present to them a cheese-press. With that view, she lifted this boulder and carried it some distance in her apron, but owing to its excessive weight the apron-strings broke and the stone fell to the ground, where it has remained ever since.”
If anyone knows anything more about this old stone, or has any old photos of the fella, please let us know!
References:
Beveridge, David, Between the Ochils and Forth, William Blackwood: Edinburgh 1888.
Simpkins, John Ewart, Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning Fife, with some Notes on Clackmannan and Kinross-shires, Sidgwick & Jackson: London 1914.
This curious rounded boulder sitting outside the parish church was described by Alexander Polson in his survey of witch-lore. He told us that “when the old church was being built, the devil, as a mason out of work, came here and was employed.” But it wasn’t long before a local christian discovered his disguise and, uttering some magickal biblical words, the devil became furious.
“Immediately he heard this there was a clap of thunder and the fiend flew away to the Isle of May,” about five miles away to the south. “Here in his anger he seized a huge rock and hurled it at the church. It fell quite near, did no harm, and a part of it lay at the church’s door, with the mark of the devil’s thumb on it.”
On the north end of the Isle of May are the Altar Stanes (NT 652 997), thought to have been where the devil stood (close to the holy well of St. Andrew [NT 652 994]) and threw this stone at Crail several miles north. In pre-christian mythic terms, north is the direction or airt of greatest symbolic darkness. A variation on the creation myth for this stone tells that when it was thrown from the island, one half of it split off and it fell by the coast in Balcombie, Fife.
References:
Polson, Alexander, Scottish Witchcraft Lore, W. Alexander: Inverness 1932.
