проектная работа “STONE LEGENDS” The role of stone sites in forming of British folklore.

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Contain: Introduction Objects of the work Symbolic meaning of the stone. “ Stone” legends Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland. The Merry Maidens, England (Cornwall) The Rollright Stones, England. Stonehenge, England. The Stone of Odin, Orkney Islands Conclusion Next

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Introduction. Great Britain is a country, where the most popular sights are stone sites. So, we decided to identify why stone cromlechs attract tourists and explorers from all the world. But people are attracted not only by stone sights, but by legends and myth connected with them. Because of hard structure stones employed power and strength from ancient times. We may put forward a working hypothesis to explain the meaning of ancient stone sites for the folk mentality of British people. Our hypothesis is in the idea that all legends connected with the stones agree in symbolic meaning of power, strength and inviolability. Back

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Objects of the work are: To analyze all accessible printed and electronic sources; To search for as many stone legends as possible in British folklore; To find out common features in all ancient legends about stone sites; To make a conclusion about the meaning of stone sites Back

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The symbolic meaning of the stones. For all the peoples of the world stones often embody strength, force, power and inviolability. At the ancient primordial societies rocks had their own symbolic meaning: they were often considered like places of inhabitance of spirits and gods. At the medieval epos walls and towers, which were made of stones, embodied inviolability: during wars conquerors destroyed towers of the castles to show their strength. At the literature stone hasn’t lost his symbolic meaning, it embodies strength and power as before. At the lyric poetry of many poets stones became not only symbol of power, but a symbol of eternity. Back

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Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland. Giant's Causeway promontory of basalt columns along 4 miles (6 km) of the northern coast of Northern Ireland. It lies on the edge of the Antrim plateau between Causeway Head and Benbane Head, some 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Londonderry. There are approximately 40,000 of these stone pillars, each typically with five to seven irregular sides, jutting out of the cliff faces as if they were steps creeping into the sea. Deriving its name from local folklore, it is fabled to be the work of giants. According to one version, a giant, waiting for his sweetheart, made for her stone path. But another legend said once two giants wanted to measure swords with each other. So they began to throw stones, and made this causeway.

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The Merry Maidens, England (Cornwall) The Merry Maidens lie in a field adjacent to the Newlyn-to-Land's End road. Its nineteen granite stones are not large (the tallest, 1.4m high, is in the south west, and the shortest directly opposite), but neat and regular, and form a perfect circle of 23.8m diameter. The Merry Maidens are also called Stone Dance : a story of nineteen maidens dancing on a Sunday who were transformed into stones. The pipers that had played for them were petrified too: the two standing stones called the Pipers are in a field to the north-east of the circle.

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The Rollright Stones, England. Not far from the borders of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire is village of Rollright and near stands a cromlech, which has a form of circle of 31.4m diameter and consists of 77 stones. It also includes menhir King’s stone and barrow Whispering Knight. The legend says the stones were once a king and his knights, who were going to make war on the king of England. According to old prophecies, had they ever reached Long Compton, the king of England must inevitably have been dethroned, and this king would have reigned in his place. But when they came to the village of Rollright and there were only a few steps to the place from where that king could see Long Compton, the magician appeared. “Disappear man, become a stone! You will never become the king! ” – he cried, and they were suddenly turned into stones in the place where they now stand.

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Stonehenge, England. Stonehenge is archaeological site located about 18.5 miles (30 km) south of the Avebury site and 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Salisbury, in Wiltshire, England. Built in prehistoric times beginning about 3100 BC, it is a monumental circular setting of large standing stones surrounded by an earthwork. And there are some legends connected with Stonehenge. According to one legend, stones were transferred there by magician Merlin; another one tells that once giants were singing and dancing in a ring and suddenly turned to stones. The third legend says structure was raised by Satan ! Putting the stones he decided no one could count them. But there was a monk who dared to answer: “There are more rocks than you can just imagine”. Incensed Satan hurled a stone at the monk, but he beat it off with his heel. Since that time the stone began to called Heel’s.

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The Stone of Odin, Orkney Islands The Stone of Odin was a monolith with a round hole below. Till winter of 1814 it was standing at 140 metres distance from Standing Stones. It is supposed the Stone of Odin was erected in prehistoric times beginning about 3000 BC, it had about 2.5 metres at height and 1 metre at thickness. This stone was a focus of inhabitants’ magic traditions. There was a custom to leave some offering on visiting the stone. Children were passed through the hole to never shake with palsy in old age. Yong men and women went to the stone to become engaged, and their union began to consider sacred. There was a legend about some farmer who wanted to get magic strength. One night he crawled round the stone asking for opportunity to see the Helga land. Then he found that strength and drove the elves, which lived at that island, away. Farmer devoted it to the Christian God and named it Holy Island. Back

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Conclusions: for all the peoples of the world stones often embody strings, force, power and inviolability. all legends, connected with the stones, told as about somebody’s power. perfecting all the materials we can say that there are many legends about the stone sites and every one of them connected with the mention about somebody’s power. Many poets used images of the rocks in their lyric poetry and there often are some quotations where we can find mention about stones. So, taking into consideration all aforesaid, we can say that images of the stones took active part in forming of British folklore. Back

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Thank you for your attention!