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THEIR ORIGIN AND FOLKLORE
by
W. A. DUTT
author of “highways and byways of east anglia”;
“wild life in east anglia,” etc., etc.
Lowestoft
Flood & Son, Limited
1926
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“Whilst toiling along these wild wastes, I observed … a pile of stones of rather a singular appearance and rode up to it. … I gazed with reverence and awe upon the pile where the first colonies of Europe offered their worship to the unknown God. The temples of the mighty and skilful Roman … have crumbled to dust in its neighbourhood. The churches of the Aryan Goth, his successor in power, have sunk beneath the earth, and are not to be found; and the mosques of the Moor, the conqueror of the Goth, where and what are they? Upon the rock, masses of hoary and vanishing ruin. Not so the Druid’s stone; there it stands on the hill of winds, as strong and as freshly new as the day, perhaps thirty centuries back, when it was first raised.”
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The aim of the writer of this monograph is to draw attention to a by-path of archaeology where the traveller with some acquaintance with the prehistory, history and folklore of the countryside through which it leads may easily become an adventurer on almost untrodden ground. No pretence is made to say anything new about the well-known megalithic monuments of other parts of the British Isles, but in referring to the race responsible for the introduction of the megalithic culture into these islands more than local significance is given to the ancient folk customs and folklore associated with these archaic monuments. What the writer tries to show is that in a part of England usually supposed to be entirely without prehistoric megaliths there are certainly some large boulders, recognized as mark-stones, that seem to have originally served like purposes to those of many of the more widely known menhirs or standing stones and probably had contemporary origin.
For assistance in obtaining information, about some of these mark-stones the writer is much indebted to the Rev. J. E. P. Bartlett, Barnham Broom; Rev. G. H. Holley, Holme-next-the-Sea ; Rev. P. Greeves, Hingham; Messrs. C. G. Chambers, Oulton Broad ; A. Watkins, Hereford; W. Fowler, Beccles; F. R. Wightman, Bungay, and the Editor of the “Here and There” column in the East Anglian Daily Times. The photographs of the Bungay and Beccles boulders were very kindly taken by Miss G. J. Wightman and Mr. W. Fowler, while the line drawings were made by Mr. F. W. Baldwin, of Lowestoft, from photographs by Miss Wightman and Mr. Chambers. The many ethnological, archaeological and other works consulted are mentioned in the text or its footnotes.
A few paragraphs, slightly altered, appeared in two articles contributed by the writer to the Eastern Daily Press.
Carlton Colville,
Lowestoft,
May, 1926.