Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/125

Rh "The Dolmen on Blackdown is called the Hell-stone. Folks say that the devil chucked it across from Portland—nine miles or so."

[It may not be out of place to observe that this interesting megalithic monument has been lately "restored" by Mr. Manfield, assisted by Mr. M. Tupper of "Proverbial" celebrity, who have rearranged the stones (for there are seven in all, the largest being about eight feet square, of very hard conglomerate), according to their own sweet will!

Mr. Moule may have told us something about "The Devil's Night-cap," or Agglestone (Saxon, Halig-stan=Holy-stone).

This is a block of ferruginous sandstone, nearly 17 feet high and 35 feet in diameter, computed to weigh some 400 tons. It stands on a moor near Poole harbour; and Dorset folk say that the devil, being one day seated on the Needles, "chucked" this stone at the towers of Corfe Castle, but it fell short, and has remained on the Purbeck heath to this day. Its name of "Night-cap," I may add, is probably derived from its shape, viz. an inverted cone. It is figured in Hutchins's Dorset.]

"Folks say that no man ever saw a 'winter-borne' break. It is dry one day and running the next, but its first downpour was never beheld. Many years ago watch was kept day and night for a fortnight for the breaking of Winterborne Abbas stream. One night the watchman on duty found that his pipe had gone out. 'Bridehead-lodge—he bean't 'bove hundred or two yard—can't do any harm to get light there.' But in those three minutes the winter-borne broke unseen."

[There are or were no less than seventeen villages in Dorset whose names are compounds of Winterbourne.]

"Folks seem to have an odd belief in good luck coming with remnants of antiquity, judging from what a Dorchester antiquary tells me, and has recorded in the Archæologia. Some years ago several metal objects were found buried in a Keltic earthwork. Among them was a curious little grotesque bull, with a quaint tail curled up, which makes it somewhat like a dog. My friend heard that these things were in the hands of a certain old woman, and