Tag: Kilmahog

Tombea God, Callander, Perthshire

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Legendary Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NN 595 068 (approximation)

Archaeology & History

It’s difficult to know what to make of this, seemingly lost ancient site.  It’s exact nature is difficult to assess based on the limited information we have of it, although the title it was given—Tombea God—by a local lady in the 19th Century suggests (albeit tentatively), that it may have been an early cross.  It was first described, briefly, in one of the 19th Century travelogue’s of the Scottish Highlands.  The wanderer, John Leighton (1836), was fortunate to engage with some local folk who informed him that,

“Some years ago, several stones with rude images engraven on them, resembling the upper part of the human body, were found on the farm of Coillinteogle.”

Little seemed to be known of the nature of the finds and, for a while, they disappeared from their original locale.  Some years later, the widow of the Rev. McDiarmaid of Callander, Christina MacDiarmaid, wrote a letter to the Stirling Field Club in 1879 outlining what had become of them—or one of them at least!  She told:

“A very curious stone, placed formerly, according to old records, somewhere near the Farm of Coilantogle at the foot of Ben Ledi, but now found on the Farm of Annie, and almost sunk in the soil, but still called the ‘Tombea God,’ is a curious relic of this remote age (of Druidism).  The rude blocking of seeming head and portion of neck being all now visible, though if exhumed, it might be found of colossal dimensions.”

The Farm of Annie—or Anie, as it’s now known (NN 5887 1021)—is more than 2 miles north of Coilantogle, above the rise beyond St. Bride’s Chapel.  The place-name Anie has a debatable origin.  The place-name writer Angus Watson thinks it derives from annaid, being the ‘(old) church, mother church’, the earliest of Christian sites; whereas Peter McNiven thinks it “more likely that we are looking at ‘ford of the deer’ rather than ‘mother church’.” Mrs MacDiarmaid told no more about it, nor how it had a acquired its name Tombea God.  So, what has become of this old stone?  Was it a cup-and-ring stone?  Or the head of a cross?  Or simply an early gravestone?

References:

  1. Leighton, John M.,  Swan’s Views of the Lakes of Scotland – volume 1, Joseph Swan: Glasgow 1836.
  2. MacDiarmid, Christina B., “Letter on Callander Antiquities,” in Stirling Field Club Transactions, 1878-1879, Stirling Journal Office: Stirling 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Samson Stone, Callander, Perthshire

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Legendary Rock:  OS Grid Reference – NN 60399 07820

Also Known as:

  1. Samson’s Putting Stone

Getting Here

Samson Stone on Bochastle Hill

Go west out of Callander on the A84 road and after a mile or so turn left at Kilmahog, down the A821.  After a few hundred yards, past the parking spot by the roadside, look up the small Bochastle Hill on your right and you’ll see a large singular boulder resting on top.  That’s it!

Archaeology & History

When I first wandered up to this giant rock, I was hoping there may have been cup-markings on its surface, but none could be found.  The stone is a glacial erratic.  The Iron Age hillfort of Dunmore is 370 yards (338m) to the southwest.

Folklore

Samson Stone, close-up

In Mr Rogers’ (1853) fine historical tour of the region, he notes the Samson Stone “on the summit of one of the eminences of Bochastle,” a couple of miles west of Callander, but wondered “how it came to occupy this remarkable position.”  If he’d have asked some of the old locals they may have told him what Rennie McOwan (1996) came across and described in his excellent work on the folklore of Scottish mountains.  For the Samson Stone was traditionally thrown here by one of the Fingalian giants in ancient times.  It was originally located upon Ben Ledi, nearly 3 miles northwest, and was one of several stones being thrown in a competition to see who was the strongest of the giants — and Samson was the name of the one who threw this huge rock.  Another version of the same legend tells that the stone was originally thrown from Ben Lawers, 21 miles (34km) to the north.

References:

  1. Bain, William, Around and about Callander, Callander & District Round Table n.d. (c.1978).
  2. McOwan, Rennie, Magic Mountains, Mainstream: Edinburgh 1996.
  3. Roger, Charles, A Week at Bridge of Allan, Adam & Charles Black: Edinburgh 1853.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Ben Ledi, Callander, Stirlingshire

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Sacred Mountain:  OS Grid Reference – NN 562 097

Getting Here

The hazy peak of Ben Ledi

From the tourist-infested (but lovely) town of Callander, look west to the largest of the nearby mountains — that’s where you’re heading!  You can keep along the A84 road out of the town for 4-5 miles (past the Falls and Pass of Leny) till you reach the parking spot on your left.  Cross the river and go up into the signposted woodland.  Keep walking up thru the trees until the rocky mass emerges above you.  You can either keep to the path and follow the long walk round the mountain, or go straight up the crags above you.  The top’s in sight!

Folklore

Getting up here is no easy task if you’re unfit — but it’s well worth the effort for the journey alone!  And in bygone centuries it seems, local people made it a particular pilgrimage at specific times during the year.  Even the name of this great hill has some supposed affinity with holy issues; though some modern english etymologists put a dampener on such things.  In Charles Rogers’ (1853) excellent Victorian exposition, he told that,

“Benledi is an abbreviation of the Celtic Ben-le-dia, signifying the hill of God.”

But whether the old heathens who named most of these ancient mountains would echo his oft-repeated derivation is another thing altogether!  However, there are other decidedly pre-christian events that used to be enacted here, for the summit of Ben Ledi was, tradition tells, where the sun god was worshipped.  It would seem, however, that this tradition is a somewhat watered-down version of it as a site of cosmological and social renewal. (see Eliade 1974) For akin to the annual pilgrimage that happens upon Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, Ireland, here upon Ben Ledi,

“For three days and three nights…the inhabitants of the district in those primitive times convened, at the period of summer solstice, on the summit of the mountain, to join in the rites of heathen worship.”

More recent lore tells the date of such sacred gatherings was Beltane.  Also a short distance to the north of the summit of Ben Ledi is a small loch known as Lochan-nan-corp.  Mr Rogers again tells us that,

“Here two hundred persons, who were accompanying a funeral from Glenfinglas to the churchyard of St. Bride, suddenly perished; the ground had been covered with snow and the company were crossing the lake on the ice, when it at once gave way.”

It seems a most unusual event.  But the tale itself implies that a corpse route passed by the way of this high summit, down to the heathen chapel of St. Bride at the bottom of its eastern face: a huge undertaking in itself with probably archaic origins.  Does anyone know owt more about this?

References:

  1. Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return, Princeton University Press 1974.
  2. Eliade, Mircea, Patterns in Comparative Religion, Sheed & Ward: London 1958.
  3. Roger, Charles, A Week at Bridge of Allan, Adam & Charles Black: Edinburgh 1853.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian