Perthshire – Page 24

Trysting Stone, Doune, Perthshire

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Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 7256 0182

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 24761
Deil’s Head
Devil’s Head
Fairy Stone
Gold Stone

From the old cross in the middle of the village, walk along the A820 Balkerach Street main road (NOT down George Street) until you reach Station Wynd on your right. Walk up here for 100 yards towards the new housing estate (don’t buy these places – they’re dreadful quality beneath the veneers) and there, on a small grassy rise on the left just before the car park, stands our stone!

Archaeology & History

This little-known monolith on the northern edge of little Doune village, was recently moved a short distance from its original position thanks to another one of those sad Barratt housing estates being built here; but at least it has received protection with the surrounding fence and notice board telling its brief history and folklore (better than being destroyed I s’ppose).

Stone marked on 1866 OS map — Stone on 1866 OS map

Standing less than five feet tall, local lore tells that it has been moved around close to this spot several times in the last couple of centuries. Although not mentioned in Hutchinson’s (1893) essay on local megaliths, the stone was highlighted on the 1866 Ordnance Survey of Doune, where the non-antiquated lettering showed how it was thought to be Roman in origin, not prehistoric.

Folklore

The name of the stone comes from it being used as a place where deeds were sworn, with the stone as witness to the words proclaimed by both parties (implying a living presence, or animistic formula of great age). This activity was continued in the local ‘trysts’ or cattle fairs held a mile away, where buyers swore the sale of cattle at this stone—again with the stone being ‘witness’ to the spoken deals. It was also used as a counter where gold was exchanged for cattle bought and sold during the Michaelmas and Martinmas Fairs. Sue Harvey (2006) told that this standing stone,

“was called the Devil’s Head and was used during past Doune fairs to count gold on when cattle were being bought and sold.”

In local newspaper accounts from the 1950s, local historian Moray S. Mackay (1984) told how the children of the village used to gather round the stone, holding hands, and sing,

Olie Olie, peep, peep, peep,
Here’s the man with the cloven feet,
Here’s his head, but where’s his feet?
Olie Olie, peep, peep, peep.

Notice board telling its tale... — Notice board telling its tale…

This implies the stone once possessed a myth relating to a petrified ancestral deity of animistic (pre-christian) origin, but as yet we have found no additional information allowing us a confirmation of this probability. A correlate of this theme—i.e., of the stone being the head of a deity—is found in West Yorkshire (amongst many other places), where one of the little known Cuckoo Stones was once known to be a local giant until a hero-figure appeared and cut off his head, leaving only his body which was then turned to stone. Mircea Eliade (1958; 1963) cites examples of animistic religious rites and events explaining this early petrification formula via creation myths, etc. (we find very clear evidences of animistic worldviews and practices still prevailing in the mountains just a few miles north and west, still enacted by local people)

Folklore also alleged that the stone was Roman in nature, but neither archaeology nor the architectural form of the stone implies this. Roman stones were cut and dressed—unlike the traditional looking Bronze Age, rough, uncut fella standing here.

References:

Eliade, Mircea, Patterns in Comparative Religion, Sheed & Ward: London 1958.
Eliade, Mircea, Myth and Reality, Harper & Row: San Francisco 1963.
Harvey, Sue, Doune and Deanston, Kilmadock Development Centre 2006.
Hutchinson, A.F., “The Standing Stones of Stirling District,” in The Stirling Antiquary, volume 1, 1893.
Mackay, Moray S., Doune – Historical Notes, Forth Naturalist: Stirling 1984.

Mid Lix, Killin, Perthshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 5513 2987

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 24093

Getting Here

As you go along the road between Lochearnhead and Crianlarich, about 200 yards before reaching the turning to Killin, stop at the Mid Lix dirt-track. Cross the road and walk back uphill for about 75 yards, then walk into the denuded remains of the forest. There are several notable rocks peeking up from the wood, one of which has many well-formed cup-markings on, about 25 yards from the roadside. If you look around here, you’ll find it.

Archaeology & History

Mr Cash's 1912 drawing — Mr Cash’s 1912 drawing

This seemingly isolated petroglyph, still in a very good state of preservation, was first reported in the 19th century by a Mr Haggart (1883), who described it in a letter to the late great J. Romilly Allen. He wrote:

“I have also, since you last wrote to me, discovered another cup-marked stone at the farm of Mid Lix, near Killin. It is a very good specimen, with between sixteen and twenty marks, well cut and distinct. I was passing the farm three weeks ago, and I thought, from the name Lix — which is a Gaelic word corrupted from Lie, the plural of Leac, a tomb-stone or flagstone — that it was very likely to have stones with marks, and I asked John Little, farmer, to keep a look out for such. He did so, and found the one mentioned within twenty yards or so of the road leading to Killin Railway Station, and between the farm and the roadway, due west of the farm-house.”

Subsequently, thirty years later Mr Cash (1912) visited and described the petroglyph in more detail in his survey of sites around Killin. He told that,

“In 1882 or 1883 this was reported to Mr Allen by Mr Haggart; it was shown to me by Mr Haggart. It lies about 100 yards south of the railway, and 20 yards east of the Glen Ogle road. It is a low triangular pyramid; the cups are on the west face, which lies at an angle of about 35°, and measures 5 feet across its base, and just over 3 feet along its median line. It carries twenty-one cups, as shown in the figure. One cup has round it a ring 6½ inches in diameter. The cups vary in diameter from 2¼ to 3 inches, and in depth from ¼ to ¾ inch. In his paper on “Cup-marked Stones near Aberfeldy,” read in 1884, Dr Macmillan said that he did not know a single example of a concentric ring round a cup on the stones found on the shores of Loch Tay or in Glendochart or Glen Lochay.”

When we visited the site earlier, the grey clouds prevented us getting good images of the carving and made visibility of the design more troublesome (typical rock art dilemma!); but we counted a minimum of 23 cup-marks on the stone. There is a small cluster of small rounded stones around the west and north-western base of the stone, but whether these are collected rubble or the denuded remains of a cairn could not be discerned upon our visit.

References:

Cash, C.G., “Archaeological Gleanings from Killin,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 46, 1912.
Gillies, William A., In Famed Breadalbane, Munro Press: Perth 1938.
Haggart, D, ‘Notice of the Discovery of Cup-Marked Stones near Killin, Perthshire‘, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 17, 1883.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR 86: Oxford 1981.
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Stirling District, Central Region, HMSO: Edinburgh 1979.

Ballachraggan, Callander, Perthshire

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Chambered Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NN 6805 0650

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 73674

Getting Here

The mound of Ballachraggan tomb — The Ballachraggan tomb

Along the A84 road between Doune and Callander, take the tiny country lane up to your right to Drumloist (if you’re coming from Doune) or up the tiny unmarked road past Keltie Bridge on your left (if you’re coming from Callander). Uphill for several miles, you eventually emerge from the trees and are on the top of the tiny road. Once here, keep your eyes peeled for Drumloist farm. Best thing to do is walk up the track and ask at the farm. The fella there is a superb old Highlander who’ll point you to the place on the hill above.

Archaeology & History

A site that was never explored by that giant of chambered tomb research, Audrey Henshall. A pity, as it has a lot of potential and seems to have a lot more to say about itself than the meagre findings reported by the Scottish Royal Commission doods.

Although there’s a very notable “fairy hill” eminence close by which strongly draws your attention, the actual hillock upon which this chambered tomb was constructed is in front of this, closer to the farm. A couple of rows of ancient walling—Iron Age by the look o’things—run up the hillside, with one of them running into the eastern sides of the huge mound which this tomb plays a part in. The mound itself is about a hundred feet across, although seems to have been damaged over the centuries. Although it is probably neolithic in origin, sections of the monument seem to have been altered and re-used for other purposes, giving it that distinctly multi-period look.

The farmer informed us how some of the stones from the mound had been robbed and used in some of the walling in the past. He also told us how there are so many other archaeological features upon the moors above here that remain to be “officially” recorded, despite the efforts of some who swept the region for remains a few decades ago.

The main prehistoric section of the tomb that can be seen are the two opened cists, or stone-lined graves, to the top north-western edges of the mound. They align together, NE to SW, with a gap of about three yards between the two open tombs. The more northerly of the two is much more overgrown; whilst the southwestern grave comprises of three large flat upright stones, forming a traditional ‘box’ with smaller flat stones lining the floor. But these two separate tombs (if indeed they were originally separated) point directly to the large, very prominent “fairy mound” about 100 yards north-east, on the north side of the Drumloist Burn. The alignment seems very deliberate.

Walking over the boggy ground to the (unnamed) fairy mound, a natural ‘platform’ of rocks sticks out on its south-easterly side, and upon this are what I initially thought were two cup-markings, with the more easterly one of the two seeming to have a carved arc along its edge; but subsequent visits here at different times of day has shown that they are Nature’s handiwork. Anyhow, looking from this mound, back across to the Ballachraggan tomb, the open flat landscape heading south-west is held where the sunset falls. Sadly on the day we visited, Nature greeted us with grey cloud and the drizzle of light rain all afternoon, so we couldn’t make out if there was something, far away, which the tomb was truly aligned with… A damn good site though!

Four Stanes, Glendevon, Perthshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed?): OS Grid Reference – NN 95294 05196

Getting Here

Take the A823 road up from Gleneagles to Glendevon and at the top of the long hill, where the road starts to level out and slightly drop, where the two glens meet up, take the right turn (west) and park up by the cattle-grid. Walk back onto the A823 and walk about 200 yards south towards Glendevon, to the small copse of trees past the cottage. As you get to the trees, look by the fencing and you’ll see one archetypal rounded standing stone, with another one next to it. You’re here!

Archaeology & History

Remains of stones at Fourstanes — Stones by the roadside at Fourstanes

At long last my huge nose is twitching back to its authentic sniffing-out lost sites in the landscape. During a visit to the St. Mungo’s Well a few days ago, on the way back to the car I kept saying to my fellow antiquarian Paul Hornby that “there’s something missing round here.”

“Wotcha mean?” he said.

“Summat missing Paul. It feels there should be a four-poster or summat like that here — where the two glens meet up. I can smell it. Summat should be here, or was here in the past.”

I said it several times as we walked back along the old track to the car. We took the photos and he set off to give me a grateful lift back home. But as we got back onto the road, we noticed a couple of upright stones just set back at the edge of a small copse of trees. One was very rounded and about four-feet tall, with a smaller companion next to it. But we didn’t stop to check them out as it was getting late.

A few days later Paul rang me to ask if I’d had a look at the old maps of the region where we’d visited and seen the old place-name where we’d been.

“No, why?”

“It’s known as the ‘Four Stanes’,” he said. “And right where those stones were standing by the trees!”

A few happy expletives came out, as usual for me. So I sought out the map he was talking about and, as we can see above, the “Fourstanes” (or Stones) are right where my ‘feelings’ and the stones were seen.

On the 1860 Ordnance Survey map of the area, a small building is shown and named as ‘Fourstanes’ right by the roadside, on the south side. It was also named as such in an earlier account of 1851 and was told to be inhabited by a Mrs Foote in 1866. Sometime after this the cottage appears to have been left to neglect and no trace of it now remains. According to evidences of the place-name societies in England and Scotland and the studies of Smith (1956), Scott (2004) and others, unless the term derives from the Gaelic fuar, meaning cold or chilly, it is usually evidence of ‘four stones’ in relation to megalithic remains like those found from Shetland to the more southerly counties in England. Dr Aubrey Burl (1988) shows clearly in his textbook of the same name, that “four poster stone circles” are common megalithic architectural features in the Perthshire landscape — where this happens to be! He also states that such place-names should be listed and checked as possible “sites of destroyed four posters.” So we did just that!

Although the stones look very good contenders in the photos and also when you first see them close up, there are some elements here that need highlighting that throw a more sceptical view of them as authentic megaliths. The larger of the two stones—very rounded and worn, typical of other four-poster remains—is three feet high. The lichen vegetation covering it on all sides is old—except on its back (northern) upright face, where there is almost no vegetation at all. Indeed, this face is almost entirely clear of any natural plant growth, showing it was moved into this position from a lower horizontal level and pushed upright, I would say within the last century. The smaller, lower stone next to this upright oddity, is laid down and covered on all sides by an excess of vegetation expected of a monolith that has been in this position for several centuries at least. The lichen growth on this stone is very old.

Both of these stones occur along the line of an old wall and may have originally been a part of such a structure, instead of any four poster megalithic feature. However, the road that runs past here replaced the earlier track (which you can still walk along on the other side of the river 100 yards away) running through Glen Devon and into Glen Eagles. This “new road” as it was then, was made sometime in the 19th century. It may be that, upon the construction of the new road, the ‘fourstanes’ themselves were “in the way of Progress” (as they like to say) and so were rolled down the side of the new road and into the position they now occupy. It’s difficult to say.

There is one additional element that needs exploring. The hill immediately above Fourstanes is called ‘The Law.’ Although this word can be a simple “hill”, there are additional historical factors to a place-name. In Laurence Gomme’s (1880: 260-77) excellent work on the subject, he illustrates time and again across Scotland that heathen gatherings, tribal meetings and early court sessions or ‘moots’ were held at places with this place-name element. It should come as no surprise then, that at other megalithic sites in Britain called the Four Stones, ancient pagan moot were also held there. (Gomme 1880; Grinsell 1936, 1976)

We’re going back onto The Law itself in the next week or two, just to see if these ‘fourstanes’ are hiding away in the heather on the tops, where oh so many megalithic rings tend to be found….

…to be continued…

References:

Burl, Aubrey, Four Posters: Bronze Age Stone Circles of Western Europe, BAR 195: Oxford 1988.
Dwelly, Edward, The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary, Gairm: Glasgow 1973.
Gomme, Laurence, Primitive Folk Moots, Sampson Low: London 1880.
Grinsell, Leslie V., The Ancient Burial Mounds of England, Methuen: London 1936.
Grinsell, Leslie V., Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain, David & Charles: London 1976.
Scott, Margaret Rachel, The Germanic Toponymicon of Southern Scotland: Place-Name Elements, Glasgow University Press 2004.
Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press 1956.
Watson, Alexander, The Ochils – Placenames, History, Tradition, Perth & Kinross District Libraries 1995.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Paul Hornby for considerable help in checking out the maps and helping in the rediscovery of this site.

St. Mungo’s Well, Gleneagles, Perthshire

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – NN 9376 0719

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 25905

Getting Here

St Mungo's Well, Gleneagles — St Mungo’s Well, Gleneagles

The best way here is to walk a mile to find it. All the way up the road from Gleneagles Standing Stones to Glendevon, right at the very top where the two glens meet, there’s a small road heading to the Fishery. 100 yards along, park up. Then take the old green road back down the Glen, north towards Gleneagles, parallel with the new road. A mile or so down you’ll reach the farmhouse, but a coupla hundred yards before this, in a wooden gap in the electric fence, you can walk straight downhill to the large pool below you. Y’ can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

The strong cold spring of water known as St Mungo’s Well, now gathers into a large crystal clear pool and is gorgeous to drink and very refreshing! All around the edges are the brilliant yellow masses of gorse, held amidst widespread vivid hues of green in this most rocky of landscapes. Tis a gorgeous setting here….

St Mungo's Well, 1860 map — St Mungo’s Well, 1860 map

Unfortunately there is no literary information that tells us why this spring of water, amongst the many others all around these hills, gained the ‘blessing’ of one of those roaming christians and was deemed to be ‘holy’. The greatest likelihood, as usual, is that the waters had some important heathen association which our peasant ancestors would have been able to tell us about if their animistic tales hadn’t been outlawed and demonized by the incoming cult — but we’ll probably never know for sure. As a result, we know nothing now of its medicinal qualities or old stories.

The transference of its old name (whatever it may have been) to their ‘St. Mungo’ may date from when the character was wandering with his christians in the 7th century, but we have no literary account proving as such. The name ‘St Mungo’ was an alternative name (a nickname if y’ like) of St. Kentigern — or at least that’s what the church historians tell us. There is no history of Kentigern or St Mungo up the glen, but we do have a more prosaic account that tells of a Mr Mungo Haldane of Gleneagles, a member of the Scottish parliament in 1673 onwards; he was succeeded by another Mungo Haldane MP in 1755. However, it’s highly unlikely that these political characters gave their name to the well.

Even the Scottish holy wells surveys are pretty silent on this beautiful site. It was mentioned in Morris’ (1981) survey, but with no real information. The earliest account seems to come from an article written in the Perthshire Advertiser in 1856, and thankfully reproduced in the otherwise tedious genealogical history of the Haldane (1880) family; but even here, the narrative simply mentions the presence of the well and no more. Described in a walk up Gleneagles, it told:

“Journeying westward along the desolate moor…we soon came in front of Gleneagles, a narrow picturesque glen in the Ochils, through which the old road from Crieff leads into Kinross-shire. The hills here, as throughout the whole range, are strictly pastoral, but in no place more so than Gleneagles. Crowning the heights on both sides of the glen, we have craigs ragged and bare enough; but their show of beetling hard sterility is as nothing to the winding receding mass of grassy heights that bound the view. In looking on that quiet, sunny, Sabbath-like retreat, one would be apt to deem the name a misnomer, and yet it is not much above a hundred years since the monarch of birds had a home among its cliffs. There, too, the Ruthven Water that dashes past Auchterarder has its rise — not in a scarcely seen bubbling spring almost covered with moss, but issuing at once into daylight at the bottom of yonder steep in volume sufficient to drive a mill. In ancient times, as now, it must have been an object of mark, as it is called St. Mungo’s Well; but who this St. Mungo or St. Magnus was — whether the ghostly patron of Glasgow, Auchterarder old chapel, or the guardian saint of this particular spot, we cannot tell. But he seems to have relished cold water; and it is satisfactory to know that he must have got his fill of it there, if his cell happened to be in the vicinity.”

The well was mentioned in passing in the Object Name Book in 1860 and shown on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps.

Folklore

Apart from the fact that the waters here never run dry, we have no other folklore. However it should be noted that St. Mungo’s Day was January 14th — which may have been when the qualities of the spring were deemed most efficacious, or when olde rites were enacted here. However, a hundred yards down we pass the stream known as Bride’s Burn, probably in honour of the heathen Queen St. Brigit, whose name and myths are integral to our great Earth goddess, the Cailleach and whose celebration date is only two weeks later than that of Mungo. Hmmmmmmm…..

References:

Attwater, Donald, Penguin Dictionary of Saints, Penguin: Harmondsworth 1965.
Haldane, Alexander, Memoranda Relating to the Family of Haldane of Gleneagles, C.A. MacKintosh: London 1880.
MacKinlay, James M., Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, William Hodge: Glasgow 1893.
Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.
Watson, Alexander, The Ochils – Placenames, History, Tradition, Perth & Kinross District Libraries 1995.

Dalchirla (east), Muthill, Perthshire

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