Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 88, July 5, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 88, July 5, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
_Stanton Drew and its Tradition._--At the little village of Stanton
Drew, in the county of Somerset, east of the road between Bristol and
Wells, stands a well-known Druidical monument, which, in the opinion of
Dr. Stukeley, was more ancient than that at Abury. It consists
(according to a recent writer) of four groups of stones, forming (or,
rather, having formed when complete) two circles; and two other figures,
one an ellipse. Although the largest stones are much inferior in their
dimensions to those at Stonehenge and Abury, they are by no means
contemptible; some of them being nine feet in height and twenty-two feet
in girth. There is a curious tradition very prevalent amongst the
country people, respecting the origin of these remains, which they
designate the "Evil Wedding," for the following good and substantial
reasons:--Many hundred years ago (on a Saturday evening), a newly
married couple, with their relatives and friends, met on the spot now
covered by these ruins, to celebrate their nuptials. Here they feasted
and danced right merrily, until the clock tolled the hour of midnight,
when the piper (a pious man) refused to play any longer: this was much
against the wish of the guests, and so exasperated the bride (who was
fond of dancing), that she swore with an oath, she would not be baulked
in her enjoyment by a beggarly piper, but would find a substitute, if
she went to h-ll to fetch one. She had scarcely uttered the words, when
a venerable old man, with a long beard, made his appearance, and having
listened to their request, proffered his services, which were right
gladly accepted. The old gentleman (who was no other than the Arch-fiend
himself) having taken the seat vacated by the godly piper, commenced
playing a slow and solemn air, which on the guests remonstrating he
changed into one more lively and rapid. The company now began to dance,
but soon found themselves impelled round the performer so rapidly and
mysteriously, that they would all fain have rested. But when they
essayed to retire, they found, to their consternation, that they were
moving faster and faster round their diabolical musician, who had now
resumed his original shape. Their cries for mercy were unheeded, until
the first glimmering of day warned the fiend that he must depart. With
such rapidity had they moved, that the gay and sportive assembly were
now reduced to a ghastly troop of skeletons. "I leave you," said the
fiend, "a monument of my power and your wickedness to the end of time:"
which saying, he vanished. The villagers, on rising in the morning,
found the meadow strewn with large pieces of stone, and the pious piper
lying under a hedge, half dead with fright, he having been a witness to
the whole transaction.
DAVID STEVENS.
Godalming, May 10. 1851.
Minor Notes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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