paganism – Page 16

Holy Well of Isle Maree, Loch Maree, Ross & Cromarty

12/09/200810/11/2025 megalithix

Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – NG 9310 7236

Also known as:

Canmore ID 12049
Mourie
St. Maelrubha’s Well

Getting Here

Loch Maree, looking south. Painting © Bryan Islip — Loch Maree, looking S. Painting © Bryan Islip

We were up here again in July 2009, but I’ve still not been across onto the island itself — just stared from the lochside, dying to swim across and spend a night or three alone on the island amidst this legendary landscape. Basically, get to Talladale on the A832 (halfway between Gairloch and Kinlochewe), then walk up to the loch-side to your right (east) for a mile till you reach the small wooded outcrop. Look north, betwixt the two isles and its the one in the middle with the Crag of the Bull and Maire’s Cairn rising up the mountain face behind. But you can reach it via a boat trip from one of the local harbours. Staying there overnight however, would seem more troublesome. It seems that a winter visit seems best!

Folklore

This ‘holy well’ has a prodigious occult history which, sez my nose, is still maintained by one or two old Highland folk up here. This small island (one of many in this long loch) was the Isle of the Druids in old days: legend telling it to be the teaching ground of these shady priests. Even the Iona druids came here. The main relics on on the island are the old holy well, accompanied by an old legendary tree into which all local people flocked and wedged coins at least once in their life. This devotional rite eventually took its toll, with so many of the coins covering the old tree with metallic scales to a height of nine feet, eventually killing it.

The well itself was said to cure insanity — no doubt the remedial quality given to the waters after neophyte druids had spent many days of ritual solitude here, eventually sipping its life-giving fluid to revive them from their ordeal.

It eventually became sanctified by the Church: legend saying it was St. Maelrubha (the same dood who turned the healthy Applecross heathens into church-goers) who was the guilty party. Indeed, the name Maree itself, was proclaimed as deriving from this old saint, though local lore tells it to derive from the pagan ‘ane god Mourie.’

Elizabeth Sutherland (1985) reported that remains of the sacred tree were still visible. It is also said that no-one makes ritual commemmoration here anymore. Hmmmm… don’t always believe what you read.

In the 18th century, when Thomas Pennant visited this sacred well, he described that,

“in the midst is a circular dike of stones… I expect the dike to have originally been druidical, and that the ancient superstition of paganism had been taken up by the saint (Maelrubha) as the readiest method of making a conquest over the minds of the inhabitants.”

References:

Dixon, John, Gairloch in North-west Ross-Shire, Co-op: Edinburgh 1886.
MacKenzie, Kenneth C., Loch Maree: The Jewel in the Crown, privately printed 2002.
MacKinlay, James M., Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, William Hodge: Glasgow 1893.
Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.
Pennant, Thomas, A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, MDCCLXXII, John Monk: Chester 1774.
Polson, Alexander, Gairloch, George Souter: Dingwall 1920.
Sutherland, Elizabeth, Ravens and Black Rain, Constable: London 1985.
Watson, W.J., Place-Names of Ross and Cromarty, Northern Counties Printing: Inverness 1904.

* This beautiful painting is one of many done by local artist, Bryan Islip. It is taken from his 2010 Calendar, Scotland’s Wester Ross, and is available direct from him. If you’d like to know more, or want copies of his calendar or other artworks, email him at: pico555@btopenworld.com – or check his website at www.picturesandpoems.co.uk

Painting © Bryan Islip

Devil’s Apronful, Pendle Hill, Lancashire

12/09/200831/08/2019 megalithix

Cairn: OS Grid Reference – SD 77907 39357

Also known as:

Apronful of Stones

Getting Here

The much-denuded Devil's Apronful giant cairn — The much-denuded Devil’s Apronful giant cairn

Many ways to get here, but the easiest for those with cars to is park up on the southeast edge of the hill, at the various scruffy parking bits beside the road at the Nick of Pendle. The view from here is enough to get you going! Walk onto the great hill up to the rounded pap of Apronfull Hill (rather gives it away really!). It’s only a few hundred yards up – about 10 mins up the slope from the road, with awesome views all round once you get there. Tis the small guidance cairn you’re looking at just on the level. You’re there!

Archaeology & History

This would once have been a rather huge cairn/tomb — though when I first found the remains of this place in August 2006, there were no archaeological records describing it that I could find. But there’s very little left of it. The lads who did the quarrying further downhill (where you’ve probably parked your car) are likely to have been the culprits who nicked most of the rocks that once made this huge forgotten tomb. But as you potter about here, it becomes obvious that you’re standing on the much-denuded remains of just such a monument (very similar in size and structure to the more famous Little Skirtful and Great Skirtful of Stones on Burley Moor, or Black Hill round cairn near Skipton). But the remains you can see beneath your feet still give a good idea as to how large it was.

Remnants of the cairn-spoil cover the ground where the monument once stood proud!

You’ll see once you’re stood here that there are hundreds, maybe even several thousands of stones just on and below the ground, scattering a very well-defined roughly circular area measuring at least 21 yards (east-west) by 22 yards (north-south), right by the side of the path. The edges of this ransacked cairn are pretty well defined around the north and eastern sides. Near the centre of the old structure is a very notable ‘dip’ in the ground where it looks as if something has been dug away — though this could just as well be due to the presence of underground water, as indicated by the growth of Juncus grasses. Without an excavation it’s obviously difficult to tell.

Folklore

Twas the following tale which first led my nose to explore this part of Pendle hill. It’s a tale we find at many of our upland tombs, though the record books said there was nowt here! (any myopic archaeologists out there who reckon that folklore has no relevance to their subject, educate one’s self!)

Looking from the Devil's Apronful towards Jeppe Knave's Grave — Looking from the Devil’s Apronful towards Jeppe Knave’s Grave

The Devil was having trouble with the folk at Clitheroe Castle (a few miles west) and wanted rid of it. So he picked up various large stones and put them in his apron then threw them towards the castle. Most of them missed, which made him angry and in a rage he accidentally dropped a great pile of rocks on the south side of Pendle Hill, creating the Devil’s Apronful on Apronfull Hill.

In another tale he was said to have stood at the Deer Stones a few hundred yards east of here and threw rocks from there. Perhaps a folk-remnant of where the Apronful stones once came from…? Perhaps not.

Jessica Lofthouse (1976) notes how this old spot was long known by local people as the Devil’s Apronful.

References:

Lofthouse, Jessica, North-Country Folklore, Hale: London 1976.

Maiden or Tailor’s Cross, Foulridge, Lancashire

29/07/200806/09/2019 megalithix

Cross: OS Grid Reference – SD 890 423

Getting Here

Not hard to locate. From Colne head up to Foulridge via the skipton Road and as you get to the middle of the town ask find the cenotaph just off the main road.

Archaeology & History

The Maiden or Tailor's Cross, Foulridge — The Maiden or Tailor’s Cross, Foulridge

The Maiden or Tailor’s Cross has at least two old traditions attached to the site, which local historians think originate from the Civil War period. The first tells of a Royalist tailor who – sensibly – refused to make uniforms for Oliver Cromwell’s traitorous soldiers; but as a result, the poor tailor was shot by the troops and the remains of his body were placed over the old stone cross as a warning to his fellow workers. If you look closely on the cross you can see a crude carving of what looks like a pair of scissors or shears, and it is this carved symbol which has seemingly given birth to the legend of the tailor. There may, of course, be some truth in the story; but the carved shears is more likely an old Masonic carving – though quite who did it and when isn’t known.

The other legend is the one which apparently gave birth to the title of the Maiden’s Cross. It tells of a certain Margaret Burnard whose husband went into battle (on the side of the treacherous Cromwell), but who agreed before he set out that she should wait for him for to return by the side of the old cross; and this she did each and every day, waiting for her husband, Robert, to come back from the Civil War. But he was one of the many who died in the Battle of Marston Moor. However, Margaret refused to accept his death and returned to the cross each evening to their agreed meeting place. The story goes that Margaret herself herself was eventually killed by Royalist soldiers – and her body was buried at the cross where she had so often waited in vain.

It seems likely that this old cross originally replaced an old ‘heathen’ site in Foulridge. Several such spots were known here, though virtually nothing now remains. But notices of these sites will appear on TNA in the near future.

References:

Oldland, F., The Story of Foulridge, PHCL: Pendle 1990.