A Book of Dartmoor: Second EditionBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A Book of Dartmoor: Second Edition
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Dartmoor (England)
All this rubbish is based on supposition. There is not a particle of
evidence to support it. Toland was the first to start the theory that
logan stones were used for ordeal purposes or as oracles. He says:
"The Druids made the people believe that they alone could move these
stones, and by a miracle only, by which pretended power they condemned
or acquitted the accused, and often brought criminals to confess
what could in no other way be extorted from them." Here is a positive
statement. Toland died in 1722. Whence did Toland derive this? From his
imagination only. Then Rowe quotes him as his authority for attributing
to the logan stones this function of delivering oracular judgments.
Appeal was wont to be made to a line in Ossian as a support for the
theory, but since Ossian has been proved to be a fraud antiquaries are
chary of referring to him.
[Illustration: LOGAN ROCK. THE RUGGLESTONE, WIDDECOMBE.]
There are some really fine logan rocks on Dartmoor. Perhaps the largest
is one above the West Okement, which I remember seeing many years ago,
when a boy, rolling in a strong wind like a boat at sea. That on Rippon
Tor measures 16½ feet in length, and is about 4½ feet in thickness and
nearly the same in breadth. It still logs, but not so well as formerly,
owing to mischievous interference with it. There is a large one in
the Teign, above Fingle Bridge, that can also be made to roll with the
application of a little strength.
The Rugglestone, near Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, measures 22 feet by 14
feet in one part, and 19 feet by 17 feet in another, and is 5 feet 6
inches in mean thickness. Its computed weight is 110 tons, whereas the
celebrated logan in Cornwall weighs 90 tons. This stone is poised upon
two points.
Roos Tor, which the Ordnance surveyors playfully render Rolls Tor,
possessed two logan stones, but quarrymen have destroyed one, together
with the fine mass of rock on which it stood. Near it lay a huge
menhir, never removed till these depredators broke it up. I give an
illustration of the head of the tor with its two logans, taken in
1852; one alone remains. On Black Tor, near the road from Princetown
to Plymouth, is a small logan, with a rock basin on the top, and
with a projection like a handle. It can be made to oscillate without
difficulty. A small logan is near the stone rows on Challacombe in the
miners' workings. Its existence is purely accidental. Another is near a
collection of hut circles on the slope of Combeshead Tor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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