Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/360

 338 Collectanea.

Selsley Hill is a small enclosed piece known as " Kill Devil Acre." An old farmer accounted to me for the name by the story of a man who was promised that he should have as much land as he could fence round in a day. He fenced in this piece (no doubt with a dry wall, as is usual here), and then fell down dead of overwork. Another version of the story was given me in these words by Miss Fennemore, of Randwick : — "Some man, having taken a fancy to this piece, determined to enclose it for his own use. To ensure safety and success, he determined to do this by night, so that he might not be disturbed, as his success depended upon his being able to build a row of stones round it, make a rough chimney, and light a fire therein, after which no one dared molest him. He worked all through the night, but died as he finished the task."

About two miles south-west of Minchinhampton, in Horsley parish, is Letchmore (or Ledgemoor) Bottom, which has "soldiers' graves " and a " Bloody Field." The name Letchmore is signi- ficant, and the place is said to be "queer." Horsley Common Fields once ran down to the Bottom, which adjoins Longtree Bottom, whence the Hundred took its name. It is a lonely, eerie spot. Above it is a small field called " Dead Woman's Acre," because a woman once said that she would reap the piece in one day or die ; she did reap it, but dropped down dead as soon as the task was finished. An old woman at Avening told me this story by the roadside, when I asked her the way to Letchmore Bottom.6

Cromlechs. — Until early in the nineteenth century there was a stone circle just beyond the unenclosed "Hampton Field," on the extreme east of Minchinhampton parish. The rector carted away all the stones, and set them up against his stable wall, where they are now to be seen.'^ The site of this cromlech, a lonely dip between low hills, but still on high ground, is "The Devil's Churchyard," the scene of the church-removal tradition already mentioned. There are two other stories concerning it. A lad in

^ Both tales bear a family likeness to the subject of Tolstoy's short story Hoto Muck Land Does a Man Want? and it would be interesting to know if he based it upon a local folk-tale of Russian or Tartar origin.

"Not at the present rectory, but at the house called "The Lammas."