Tag: legends

Hitching Stone, Keighley Moor, West Yorkshire

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Legendary Rock:  OS Grid Reference – SD 98665 41698

Getting Here

Hitching Stone through fog and snow
Hitching Stone through fog & snow

The easiest way to get here is via Cowling – though you can approach the place via moorland roads from Sutton-in-Craven, Oakworth and Keighley, but Cowling’s the closest place (so we’ll take it from there).  Turn east off the A6068 up Old Lane at the Ickornshaw side of town and go up the steep and winding road until you hit the moors.  Just as the road levels out with walling on either side of the road, there’s some rough ground to your left.  You can park here.  You’ll blatantly see our Hitching Stone on the moorland a few hundred yards above you on the other side of the road.  Walk up the usually boggy footpath straight to it!

Archaeology & History

For me, this is a superb place! Each time I come here the place becomes even more and more attractive — it’s like it’s calling me with greater strength with each visit.  But that aside…

Supposedly the largest single boulder in Yorkshire, it possesses several legends, aligns with the sacred Pendle Hill in Lancashire, is an omphalos (centre of the universe spot) and has other good points too! My first visit here was near the end of the Great Drought of 1995.  All of the streams and springs had dried up on the moors but, on the very top of this huge rock, measuring at least 8 feet by 4 feet across (and 3 feet deep) was a large pool of water, not unlike a bath, in which a couple of you could easily bathe (and do more besides, if the fancy takes you!).  It was surreal!  Water-boatmen and other insects were living in this curious pool on top of the rock.  Yet all other water supplies for miles around had long since dried-up.  It didn’t really seem to make sense.

Crystalline tunnel in the Hitching Stone
Crystalline tunnel in the Hitching Stone

On the west-facing side of the boulder, about 8 feet up, is a curious deep recess known as the Druid’s or Priest’s Chair, into which initiates were sat (facing Pendle Hill, down which it seems the equinox sun “rolls”) and is believed, said Harry Speight, “to have some connection with Druidical worship, to which tradition assigns a place on these moors.” If you climb up and inside the Priest’s Chair section you’ll notice a curious “tunnel” that runs down through the boulder, about 12 feet long, emerging near the northern base of the rock and out onto the moor itself.  This curious tunnel through the rock is due to the softer rock of a fossilised tree (Lepidodendron) crumbling away — and not, as Will Keighley (1858) believed, “the mould or matrix of a great fish.” When we visited the stone the other day in the snow, we noticed how the inner surface of this tunnel was shimmering throughout its length as if coated in a beautiful crystalline lattice (you can sort-of make this out in the image here, where the numerous bright spots on the photo are where the rock was lit up). Twas gorgeous!

The Hitching Stone, looking north
The Hitching Stone, looking north

The boulder lies at the meeting of five boundaries, and was the starting point for horse-racing event until the end of the 19th century.  A short distance away “are two smaller stones, the one on the east called ‘Kidstone’, the other ‘Navaxstone’, which stands at the terminus of the race-course.” (Keighley 1858)  Lammas fairs were also held here, though were stopped in 1870.

The cup-marked Winter Hill Stone a few hundred yards to the northeast, which I previously thought aligned with this site around winter solstice, but which happens to be a few degrees of arc off-line, would have indicated a very early mythic relationship, but this thought may now have to be put to bed.  I’ve not checked whether the winter solstice alignment shown in the photo below (with the Hitching Stone being shown on the near-horizon as the sun rose on winter solstice, 2010, from Winter Hill Stone) would have been closer in neolithic times or not.  Summat to check out sometime in the future maybe…

This aside, there is little doubt that this was an important sacred site to our ancestors.

Folklore

Winter Solstice sunrise, 2010 (from Winter Hill Stone)

Legend has it that the Hitching Stone used to sit on Ilkley Moor. But it was outside the rocky house of a great witch who, fed up by the constant intrusion the boulder made to her life, tried all sorts of ways to move it, but without success. So one day, using magick, she stuck her wand (or broomstick) into the very rock itself and threw it several miles from one side of the valley to the other until it landed where it still sits, on Keighley Moor.

A variation on the same tale tells that she pushed it up the hill from the Aire valley bottom. The “hole” running through the stone is supposed to be where our old witch shoved her broomstick!

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Gray, Johnnie, Through Airedale form Goole to Malham, G.F. Sewell: Bradford 1891.
  3. Keighley, William, Keighley, Past and Present, R. Aked: Keighley 1858.
  4. Wood, Eric, Cowling: A Moorland Parish, Cowling Local History Society 1980.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Old Wife’s Spring, Snaizeholme, North Yorkshire

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Sacred Well:  OS Grid Reference – SD 8344 8474

Getting Here

The ‘Spring’ atop of Old Wifes Gill, on 1853 OS-map

From Hawes, take the B6255 road west-ish to Ribblehead, but only for 1km, where there’s the Cam Road track on your left.  Walk on here, and keep going till you’re looking down the valley past the very last house (those of you who wanna take the Pennine Way from Hawes will end up in the same place).  It’s one of the springs down the steep slope on your right! (check the attached link to the OS-map to work out which one you’re heading for)

Archaeology & History

Apart from a singular mention in place-name records, I have found no historical information (yet!) about this old water supply.  It was one of the great sites of the cailleach in our Yorkshire hills: a truly ancient and heathen place, all but forgotten and lost in the mythic landscape of our past.  And it’s a bittova dodgy spot getting right up to her down the rather steep hilly slope — but it’s truly well worth the trek!

The Old Wife's Spring, Snaizeholme
The Old Wife’s Spring

When I first visited this place, we took off from Cam Fell’s western side and ambled up the tops until the land gave us the beauty of Snaizeholme valley, which had us stopping, dreaming and wanting more as we sought to find this forgotten well. Most of you would probably come from the easier side of Hawes and walk along the path on the southern-side of the valley, or p’raps even wander up Snaizeholme valley itself – but I’d recommend a walk along the tops. Tis much much better!

If you’ve got the 1:25,000-scale OS-map, you’ll see the ‘Old Wife’s Gill’ running down the hillside. Get over the wall by the track-side and stagger down the steep slope. You’ll pass a small spring about 70 yards down – but this aint the one (though I think originally the Old Wife came from much further up Dodd Fell itself). You’ve got another 75 yards to go down before you get to the main spring – but if you’re old and fragile, unfit or fat, you’ll struggle like hell here!

The waters emerge from this very steep slope, surrounded by plenty of thorns and thistles, on a part of the hill where the land itself is slowly coming away. After a long dry-spell no doubt, this might be a little more secure; but when we came here She’d been raining on-and-off like hell and the waters were a-plenty. It’s difficult to actually locate the exact spot where the water first appears – but like I said, it seems to have, long ago, come from much further up the hill. As the photos show, the water’s nice n’ clear, good-tasting, and then continues along its downward stream – known as the Old Wife’s Gill – until hitting the small river at the valley bottom.

The Old Wife's Spring from below...
The Old Wife’s Spring from below

The other site in this valley which assures us of the cailleach’s validity comes from the place-name a few hundred yards further up the valley, seemingly giving source to the valley river herself: a Lady Spring or well, whose form once emerged close to the gate of the Cold Well close by. The third part of the cailleach’s form – the maiden or virginal – has been lost as far as local myth and literary records go.  But I’ve gotta come here a few more times to get an idea as to where this ‘lost’ water-source originally appeared. A number of streams run off the hills here into the curiously-named Snaizeholme valley (which etymologists assign to nowt more than a “place where twigs are” – which seems nonsensical), and as there’s been very little by way of human habitation screwing the land up, there’s a damn good chance we’ll find and recover the mythic history of the landscape here after a few more treks and dreams…

Other sites of similar mythic relevance which need checking include Carlow Hill (SD 770 858)at Stonehouse, Dentdale; and the great valley of Carlin Gill on the North Yorkshire/Cumbria border (SD 634 993 – Gambles 1995:39).

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hawk Stone, Shipley, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 1792 4099

Getting Here

Take the road from Shipley to Guiseley, the A6038, past the turn-off to Esholt, until you get to the top of what’s locally known as Hollins Hill.  There’s a small farm-track to your leftand in the woodland here you’ll find the rocky outcrop.

Archaeology & History

Nothing has been written about this spot, but in this large wind-and-water worn rock outcrop, with its small cave, on the top part of the rock are several faint cup-markings.

Folklore

Legend tells that a man on horseback jumped from the top of here and landed safely at Low Hall, Yeadon, 2500 yards away to the east. (probably some sort of solar lore)

References:

  1. Gray, Johnnie, Through Airedale, from Goole to Malham, 1891.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Garrywhin Fort, Ulbster, Caithness

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Hillfort:  OS Grid Reference – ND 312 414

Getting Here

Going up the A99, just as your approaching Ulbster, take the left turn where the phone box is and go up the track for about a mile towards Watenan house.  A few hundred yards before here, three walls meet: follow the walling to the NW, past the nearby Cairn of Get and Garrywhin Stone Rows.  You’ll walk right into the fort!

Archaeology & History

This is a gigantic old hillfort, surrounded on all sides by a mass of prehistoric remains from the neolithic and Bronze Age periods.  But the fort itself is mainly Iron Age.  It occupies the summit of a broad ridge of land with 3, possibly 4 entrances and surrounded by bog-land.  It measures 590 feet north-to-south and up to 200 feet wide at its greatest diameter.  The stone walling averages some 8 feet wide around the fort and its entrances are lined with large slabs of stone.

Folklore

The local folklore writer George Sutherland (1937) told that the cliffs on the western edge of this large hillfort were haunted and under the protection of supernatural guardians.  One tale he narrated told of,

“a young man (who) happened to be at Garrywhin one day. He met a mysterious stranger there. The stranger asked him to look at the cliff and to tell him if he saw anything unusual. He looked and saw nothing unusual in the cliff. The stranger then gave him a pencil with a small glass in one end…and bade him look at the cliff through the glass. He did so, and to his horror he saw a large hairy beast slowly climbing up the perpendicular face of rock as a fly would walk up a pane of glass in a window. He got frightened and fled. To his dying day he believed that the strange man and the big hairy beast were creatures not of this world.”

There is also the curious folktale about powerful whisky attached to some characters by the Garrywhin Fort!

Many years after the fort had been constructed, a man and his son came to live on the southern end of the hill. They made a living selling their own brand of whisky, and a special kind of beer to local people. Local people were perplexed as to how the two could make such drinks, as they grew no barley or any other kind of grain, so the reputation soon gathered that they used supernatural means. The two men declared simply that their drinks were made from simple plants, but kept their methods secret. But the local folk wanted to know just how they made it so strong and so ended up threatening them for their secrets.

As George Sutherland wrote:

“It was known to everyone that dealt with them that they had a cave in the face of precipice in which they did their work unseen by any eyes but their own, and in which they stored their goods. Owing to some magical contrivance, no one – apart from the old man and his son – could find the entrance into the cave. Every device that ingenuity could suggest was tried on the old man and his son to induce them to reveal their secret, but in vain. At last they threatened them with death. The old man said to them, “If I should tell you, my son would kill me for doing so; kill my son and then I shall think over the matter.” They killed his son. The old man then said to them, “Now, kill me also; no on else knows our secret, and it will die with me.” They killed him, and so the secret remained a secret.

“Every inch of the face of the precipice, and of the adjacent ground, was scrutinised and tested over and over again, but no trace of the cave, or of the heather whisky and the heather ale stored in it, was ever found.”

References:

  1. Sutherland, George, Folklore Gleanings and Character Sketches from the Far North, John o’ Groats Journal: Wick 1937.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Dun Mac Sniachan, Benderloch, Argyll

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Hillfort:  OS Grid Reference – NM 9032 3822

Also Known as:

  1. Dun mac Uisneachan
  2. Dun Uisnach
  3. Beregonium

Early plan of the Fort, 1885

Archaeology & History

This is a fine-looking monument amidst a fine piece of landscape!  The site was constructed over various centuries, beginning in the Iron Age, with the earliest parts being the traces of walling on the outer edges.  This first section of the fort “measures about 245m in length by a maximum of 50m in width internally,” and much of it can still be traced all along the full length and breath of the geological ridge upon which it sits.  However, the timber-laced walls that stood all round the edges have, obviously, all but disintegrated.  This earlier part of the fort, wrote Richard Feacham (1977),

“was superceded by a small subrectangular, now vitrified fort, about 170 feet long by 60 feet wide, and by a circular and probably vitrified dun measuring about 60 feet in diameter.”

View of the Dun (Smith 1885)
Looking out from the dun

There was ample water supply for the people who may have lived on this ridged fortress, as there is still a fresh water spring on the southeast edge of the hill.  And it seems pretty obvious that this fort was occupied for some considerable time into the Common Era, as material remains found amidst excavation work here at the end of the 19th century, “including metalwork of Roman date…suggests an occupation in the early first millenium AD.” (Harding 1997)

Folklore

The folklore and legends of this site (aswell as the surrounding district) are considerable, and for now I must refrain from writing all there is (it’d take me ages!). Needless to say, R. Angus Smith’s (1885) fine old history and folklore work  is the source of much material.  Smith told us that,

“There are many stories about it.  It has been called the beginning of the kingdom of Scotland, the palace of a long race of kings; also the Halls of Selma, in which Fingal lived; the stately capital of of a Queen Hynde, having towers and halls and much civilization, with a christianity before Ireland; whilst it has also been considered to be that which the native name implies, simply the fort of the sons of Uisnach, who came from Ireland, and whose names are found all over the district, and who in the legend are reported to have come to a wild part of Alban.”

References:

  1. Feacham, Richard, Guide to Prehistoric Scotland, Batsford: London 1977.
  2. Harding, D.W., “Forts, Duns, Brochs and Crannogs,” in The Archaeology of Argyll (edited by Graham Ritchie[Edinburgh University Press 1997]).
  3. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Argyll- volume 2, HMSO: 1974.
  4. Smith, R. Angus, Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisnach, Alexander Gardner: London & Paisley 1885.

Links:

  1. PSAS: Dun mac Sniachan & other Local Antiquities

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Dun Gallain, Colonsay, Argyll

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Hillfort:  OS Grid Reference – NR 3486 9314

Getting Here

Dun Gallain on 1878 map

Bittova trek this one.  Once on Colonsay, head out onto the B8086 road west of Scalasaig until you, past Machrins, and onto the gold course. Take the footpath across it (south), until you hit the little airstrip where you need to veer right (west) right onto the spur of the coast about 800 yards away.  Your damn close!

Archaeology & History

Highlighted on the 1878 OS-map of the region, this site occupies a prominent position.  Its summit is surrounded by a line of oval walling enclosing an area of about 90 square yards.  There are also remains of of outer walling to the eastern and southern sides.  The ‘cairn’ on the highest spot in the middle of the hillfort is a modern construction.

Folklore

The great Scottish folklorist A.A. MacGregor (1947) narrated the tale behind this denuded fort on the western edge of the island. According to the islanders who told him the tale, they alleged it Norwegian in origin, though the fortress is much older than that. MacGregor told that, “in this fort there once lived an elderly and voluptuous tyrant named Grey Somerled, who is said to have been related to the first of the Lords of the Isles.

“Grey Somerled came to Colonsay, they say, in the capacity of factor. But he neglected his duties, imposed penalties and hardships on the innocent and defenceless tenants, and generally made himself so disagreeable that at last it was decided to take revenge upon him, previous warnings having been no deterrent.

“Like Rory Mor of Dunvegan, who slept best when he was within hearing of his ‘nurse’, the waterfall, Grey Somerled was wont to be lulled to sleep by the grinding noise of a quern placed near his head. When he retired for the night, one of the servants had to turn the quern-stone by his pillow, and keep on turning it, lest he woke.

“It was recognised that any attempt to surprise Grey Somerled during daylight was foredoomed to failure. So, a plot was laid to circumvent him during the night-time. His enemies entered into a conspiracy with one of the servants that she should allow them to invade Dun Gallain after he had fallen asleep. When they arrived, one of their number relieved the woman at the quern, and proceeded to turn the stone without intermission. But he was not too skillful at the turning; and his harsh and irregular grinding soon woke the sleeper. Ere Gey Somerled had had time to consider the matter of resistance, his foes were upon him. They carried him away from Dun Gallain; and tradition in the islands of Argyll has it that, in great privation, he spent the remainder of his days in a bee-hive house of stone, situated on the farmlands of Machrins.

“One night – so the story concludes – a huge boulder from the roof of the bee-hive fell in, killing its unhappy inmate. So as to identify the spot where this tragedy happened, the islanders raised on it the cairn now indicated on the Ordnance Survey Map as Carn Shomhairle Liath – that is to say, Grey Somerled’s Cairn.”

Interestingly, there is a long-cist burial at Machrins (plus small settlement) a few hundred yards east of the fort, and excavations here found them to date from the Viking period; though the Scottish Royal Commission thought that although the “small finds associated with the burial suggest that it is Viking, the plan-form of the houses is perhaps more likely to indicate a native tradition.”

References:

  1. MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin, The Peat-Fire Flame, Ettrick Press: Edinburgh 1947.
  2. Royal Commission of Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Argyll – volume 5, HMSO: Edinburgh 1984.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Druid’s Stone, Bungay, Suffolk

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Legendary Rock:  OS Grid Reference – TM 337 898

Folklore

Described in 1926 by local antiquarian and early ley-hunter, W.A.  (1926), as “a fallen monolith” — this old stone is probably just a glacial erratic.  Found in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, tradition tells that in ages past young girls danced twelve times around this old stone, then placed their ears upon it to hear the answers to their questions and wishes. A similar legend tells how children danced around the stone seven times on a certain day of the year to conjure up the devil.  Mr Dutt thought the great rock may have been “a ley or direction stone.”

References:

  1. Dutt, W.A., The Ancient Mark-Stones of East Anglia, Flood & Sons: Lowestoft 1926.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian



Druid’s Altar, Bingley, West Yorkshire

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Legendary Rocks: OS Grid Reference – SE 0924 3994

Getting There

Druid’s Altar, sitting with mist

Pretty easy to get to. Best thing to do really, is ask a local and they’ll send you in the right direction. From Bingley, take the Harden road (B6429) across the river. As it bends sharply left, note there’s a track going up into the woods to the right. Walk up it! Keep going and, unless you take a detour, you’ll end up at the rock outcrop eventually (where the woods come to an end, Druid’s Altar appears before you with the track running along its top-side).

Archaeology & History

Mentioned in the Tithe Awards of 1849, this lovely outcrop of rocks looking down the Aire Valley on the southern edge of Bingley has “an immemorial tradition” of druidic worship, said Harry Speight in 1898 – though quite when it first acquired such repute is outside of any literary record.  In Sidney Greenbank’s (1929) rare book on this place, he could find little by way of archaeological data to affirm the old tradition, save the odd prehistoric find of flints here and there; though it is said that Beltane fires were burned upon the crags here in bygone centuries.

1894 photo of Druid's Altar (courtesy Clive Hardy)
1894 photo of Druid’s Altar (courtesy Clive Hardy)

There was a 19th century account from the Ilkley Scientific Club where a member described there being a cup-and-ring carving “near the so-called Druid’s Altar, at Bingley,” but I’m unaware of the whereabouts of this carving and Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) said nothing about it in their survey; though a possible cup-marking can be seen on one rock less than 100 yards west, which might account for the report. (a bit dodgy though!)

Folklore

Harry Speight (1898) makes what sounds like a rare flight of fancy when he described faerie being seen atop of the many oaks beneath the Druid’s Altar.  In Clive Hardy’s (2002) work (from whence the old photo of the Altar is taken), he tells how “local antiquarians say that the cobbled way running from the Brown Cow Inn towards the site, is an old processional route walked by the druids.”

One, possibly two wells, each beneath the Altar rocks, are also reputed to have been associated with the old pagan priests, as their names tell: the Altar Well and the Druid’s Well – though the Altar Well has seemingly fallen back to Earth in recent years.

References:

  1. Greenbank, Sidney, The Druid’s Altar, Bingley, R.G. Preston: Bingley 1929.
  2. Hardy, Clive, Around Bradford, Frith Book Ltd: Salisbury 2002.
  3. Moores, Les, Ancient Monuments and Stone Circles, Francis Frith Collection: Salisbury 2005.
  4. Speight, Harry, Chronicles and Stories of Bingley and District, Elliott Stock: London 1898.
  5. Turner, J. Horsfall, Ancient Bingley, Thomas Harrison: Bingley 1897.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Dove Stones, Widdop Moor, West Yorkshire

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Legendary Rocks:  OS Grid Reference – SD 9333 3479

Also Known as:

  1. Dew Stones

Getting Here

Dove Stones (after ‘QDanT’)

Get to Widdop reservoir in the hills west of Hebden Bridge and park up. The great rock faces to your right (north) is where you’re going. Clamber to the top until the moor levels out, making sure you head NNW for less than a mile. The moors you’re now on are supposed to be private – but folk like me pay no attention!  There are no footpaths to this great outcrop, only the heathlands and scattered stones – but keep walking for a half-mile north and you’ll get to them!

Archaeology & History

Erroneously ascribed by the place-name masters Eilert Ekwall and A.H. Smith (1961) as being ‘a place where doves gathered,’ this gigantic rock outcrop on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border — as shown on early maps — is actually the Dew or Black Stones (from the Gaelic, dubh).  It’s an awesome place!  Takes a bitta getting to, but it’s well worth the venture.

Dove Stones on 1848 map
Dove Stones on 1848 map

This long geological ridge, rising higher as you walk along it to the north, has the occasional cup-mark on it, with the giant Dove Stone at the very end having a cup-and-half-ring on its crown (be careful not to fall off). From here, you look across a huge, desolate, U-shaped valley, the far side of which we rise to 1700 feet and the grand setting of the Lad Law.

Folklore

The folklorists Harland and Wilkinson (1882) included this in their survey of druidical sites, mentioning the several cup-markings, or druid basins as they called them. (though most of ’em on here are Nature’s handiwork)

For me, this is an incredible place – full of raw power and magick. It has a curious geomantic relationship with the Whinberry Stones, a couple of miles to the south, around which should be a ring of stones…though none can be found.

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Chieveley 2001.
  2. Harland, John & Wilkinson, T.T., Lancashire Folk-lore, John Heywood: Manchester 1882.
  3. Smith, A.H., Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 3, CUP 1961.

Links:

  1. More images of the Dove Stones

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Devil’s Apronful, Appletreewick, North Yorkshire

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Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SE 07485 59355

Getting Here

Devils Apronful on 1853 map
Devils Apronful on 1853 map

An excellent spot with fantastic views. There’s many ways to approach the place, but a good one is from the roadside by Howgill, then following the track uphill until you reach the moor, then head towards the spectacular and legendary, Simon’s Seat (which folklore ascribes to be named after the great druid, Simon Magus). You’ll pass an old Grey Stone (two large rocks) from which you can espy the old tomb if you stand on top of ’em. Keep walking uphill and it’s about 100 yards off the footpath to your right. A large boulder is nestled just beneath the tomb itself, which stands out on a ridge.

Archaeology & History

When Harry Speight visited here (1900) he described it as being 40 yards in circumference. He also described “an upright stone below the cairn” with apparent cup-markings on the west-side.  I’m not quite sure where this has got to – but the site has shrunk somewhat since Speight’s day.  It’s only about 20 feet across now, and the middle of it has been hollowed into a grouse-shooting butt for the toffs!

About 100 yards southeast (towards the Truckle Stones) are the remains of some neolithic walling in a straight line.

Folklore

One of many old tombs in our northern hills said to have been created by the devil who, as usual, accidentally dropped some stones he was carrying. The old folklorist Thomas Parkinson (1888) said the following of this place:

“The Apronful of Stones is a group of rocks heaped together in delightful confusion, their disorder and name being thus explained:  Once upon a time—whether when he built the bridge over the valley, or at some other time, the record saith not—the Devil was determined to fill up the ravine, or gill, of the Dibble. For this purpose he was carrying these enormous crags in his apron, when, too intent upon his object to properly observe where he placed his feet, he caught with one foot upon the top of Nursa Knott, and, stumbling, the strings of the apron broke, and the contents were thrown upon the ground as they now appear. It is also said of them that if any of them, even now, were to be removed, they would certainly be brought back to their original place during the succeeding night.”

Another legend tells that the Devil’s Apronful is also the grave of some local unnamed hero.

References:

  1. Parkinson, Thomas, Yorkshire Legends and Traditions – volume 1, Elliott Stock: London 1888.
  2. Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian