Holed Megaliths are rare survivors in the UK, much more so than in Ireland, France or even Denmark. This little-known pair of megaliths are situated on the Staffordshire/Shropshire border some 18km ESE of Stoke-on-Trent.
The Devil’s Ring and Finger,
originally called the Whirl Stones. Photographed by the author 29th
June 2021.
Research revealed that
antiquaries of early last century, knew of the stones:
Devil’s Ring and Finger,
Photograph by Williams (1912). Original caption reads: “The Devil’s Ring and
Finger, North Staffordshire, looking towards the equinoctial sunset.”
Historic England (2021) states: “Despite
being removed from their original positions, the two stones standing 200m east
of Norton Forge Farm known as The Devil’s Ring and Finger represent an
evocative reminder of Neolithic society and ritual. In particular, the holed
stone represents a very rare survival with only a handful of similar stones
currently known in England. Both stones were likely to have been upstanding as
part of an arrangement of stones such as a stone alignment, circle, or
chambered tomb within the nearby vicinity. Monuments containing holed stones
are known from the Neolithic period but a Bronze Age date is also possible. The
monument includes two stones to the south-east of Norton in Hales situated on a
gentle slope running down to the River Tern. The stones stand adjacent to each
other at the edge of a field boundary. The northern stone is grooved and
measures 1.8m high and 1m by 0.6m wide. The southern stone is holed and
measures 1.5m high and 1.9m by 0.5m wide. The aperture in the holed stone is
0.45m in diameter and large enough for a person to pass through.”
In Barns’ (1909) exposition on
the site of the Roman camp Mediomanum, states “The element “man” in Mediomanum
may be traced to the Celtic word “maen” stone, and possibly refers to some prominent
menhir near this site. There are still remains of this character in the
immediate neighbourhood. The Devil’s Ring and Finger is an interesting group
close to the Arbour Farm. The Bradling stone at Norton-in-Hales has the
appearance of a cromlech. Mucklestone almost certainly derives its name from
some prominent stone; so also in all probability Bearstone. The holed stone of the
Devil’s Ring did not probably stand alone.”
Barns then references Waring
(1864). Whilst Waring does not specifically mention the Devil’s Ring and Finger
he does offer an opinion as to the significance of holed stones to Neolithic
people: “Thus where pairs (of Dolmen)
occurred, one of each pair was perforated, and in any arrangement or collection
of stones, this recognition of the supposed female creative principle is also
to be found. The signification attached to this perforation was of the most
sacred nature, and oaths and promises were made by hands being clasped through
such; when found larger as at Madron and Crendi (see plate 1), the body of a
person might be passed through, either for healing purposes or as a symbol of
regeneration, and in a small objects (such as figure 16) the recognition was
deferentially made to one nature of the creative power as a sign of respect and
remembrance; and coins &c, having holes in them were held in later times to
have some peculiar virtue about them. This may be the meaning of the hole in
the Trevithy capstone. Mr Brash and Mr Blight, who have both paid special
attention to this subject of perforated stones, are agreed that where single stones occur they are probably
only the remnant of a destroyed grave; if so, we may reasonably suppose that,
besides the meaning we have alluded to above, these orifices may have been made
either to ascertain the state of the dead, for the introduction of food. Or for
the exit and entrance of the departed spirit. The first would be natural for
anxious relatives, the second is still in practice amongst the Esquimaux, as
described by Mr Hall, who states that the relatives never pass the graves of
the deceased without placing the best food and drink in or by the grave: and
the third custom is common in Syria to this day, according to the Rev. S. Lyde
(the Asiatic Mystery), who informs us that similar holes are made in the doors
of all the houses for the free entrance and exit of unseen spirits.”
Thus we see the need of Victorian
antiquaries to assign meaning to the
erection of these holed stones by Neolithic peoples. It is however, somewhat
surprising, that Waring does not discuss the obvious possibility that two
stones, one holed and the other erect and slender represented to ancient
people, the dual nature of the procreative process, namely the male phallus and
the female vagina. Perhaps this obvious explanation was too crass for Victorian
sensibilities to bare mentioning?
Another more plausible explanation
by Bottrell (1873), is this: “Some have
thought that these stones, in common with the Men-an-Tol at Lanyon, the Tolmen
in Constantine, and many others, might have served the same important purpose
as the menheres — to fix the proper time for the celebration of the autumnal
equinox, by the stones being so placed that the sacred index of the seasons on
rising above the horizon would be seen through the perforation, at a right
angle to the face of the stone, and that the triangular head of the stone formed
such an angle that when the sun was on the meridian, (at certain periods of the
year, which were required to be known,) its altitude would denote the time, by
its place in the heavens being in a line with the slope of the primitive
time-piece, which would then cast no shadow on the ground at mid-day If these
monuments were intended for stone calendars, and any can be found in their
original position, it might be possible, at least approximately, to fix the
time of their erection, by their present variation from true east and west. If
the deviation is in the direction demanded by the precession of the equinoxial
points, the difference might be calculated at the allowed rate of fifty seconds
a year.”
While giving no evidence for his
supposition, Botrell’s comment chimes well with the caption attached to the
Williams (1912) photograph, namely, “The Devil’s Ring and Finger, North
Staffordshire, looking towards the equinoctial sunset.” While this snippet of
information is interesting, it is not expanded upon in the volumes of the
Transactions of the North Staffordshire Field Club referenced above. Although
it is tempting to accept this prosaic ‘calendar’ explanation of the meaning and
usage of holed stones to Neolithic peoples, I lean toward a deeper, more spiritual
or religious significance in their creation and erection.
On this theme, I turn back to
Waring (1864) and his comment “this perforation was of the most sacred nature,
and oaths and promises were made by hands being clasped through such; when
found larger as at Madron and Crendi , the body of a person might be passed
through, either for healing purposes or as a symbol of regeneration”. While
Waring does not reference him, this authoritative statement is almost certainly
drawn from Borlase (1754), who records: “When I was last at this Monument, (Men an Tol) in the year 1749, a very
intelligent farmer of the neighbourhood assured me that he had known many
persons who had crept through this holed stone for pains in their back and
limbs; and that fanciful parents, at certain times of the year, do customarily
draw their young children through, in order to cure them of rickets. He showed
me also two brass pins carefully laid across each other, on the top edge of the
holed stone. This is the way of the Over-curious, even at this time; and by
recurring to these pins, and observing their direction to be the same; or
different from what they left them in, or by their being left or gone, they are
informed of some material incident of Love or Fortune."
Bottrell (1873), also records a
similar tradition attached to the holed, Tolven of Constantine, at the head of
the Lizard peninsula: “I was told that some remarkable cures had been effected
there only a few weeks since. The ceremony consists of passing the child nine
times through the hole, alternately from one side to the other; and it is
essential to success that the operation should finish on that side where there
is a little grassy mound, recently made, on which the patient must sleep, with
a six-pence under his head. A trough-like stone, called the 'cradle,' on the
eastern side of the barrow, was formerly used for this purpose. This stone,
unfortunately, has long been destroyed. That holed stones were not originally
constructed for the observance of this peculiar custom is evident, for in some
instances the holes are not more than five or six inches in diameter.”
There is one other, earlier
reference to the healing powers of holed stones by Thomas Tonkin of St Agnes
about the year 1700, but I have been unable to trace what he had to say on the
subject.
Thus the beliefs of the local
population in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while almost certainly,
founded on folk-memory of the usage of the holed stones for healing purposes,
are strongly evocative of a possible Neolithic, ritual use. Whether this was in
fact the case, is now, impossible to gauge.
As a pertinent reminder of not crediting
one’s own assessment of the (limited) facts with too much weight, I will now
turn to Brash (1864). This treatment of holed stones is much more extensive
than any of the others and describes known examples from Ireland, Scotland,
Cornwall, Yorkshire (discounted as it is based on an account of Brimham Rocks,
by Hayman Rooke where no holed stones, other than natural, exist) and as far
afield as Circassia (eastern end of the Black Sea, still part of the Russian
state) and India.
Brash states: “I think a few
inferences may be drawn from the facts already stated. First, that the
superstition of the holed stone seems peculiar to the “Goadhal" or Irish
Celts, as the examples existing are almost exclusively found in Ireland ,
Scotland ,and Cornwall , which two latter districts were largely colonized by
the Goadhal . Secondly , that the virtues attributed to its use are found
either traditionally or in actual existence in the countries whence I have
drawn my examples, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, India, and those are , the
binding nature of contracts made through them, but more particularly the
regenerative power supposed to be communicated by passing through the orifice,
whether it be a diseased limb, or the weakly and rickety infant, or the linen
about to be used in childbirth. In India it undoubtedly was a Phallic emblem,
with a two-fold symbolism, representing in the one monument the reciprocal
principles. I am equally certain, that among our Celtic progenitors it had a
similar signification, of which the existing myths have a faint shadowing. In
Ireland ample evidences are not wanting to shew that Phallic dogmas and rites
were very extensively known and practised in ancient times. It is patent in the
existing folk-lore of the country, in some everyday customs of the peasantry,
and in the remains of midnight plays and ceremonies, practised still in remote
districts at wakes and such-like occasions. Thirdly, Mr. Blight has before
alluded to the triangular arrangement of the stones at Madron, and to the
triangular stone at Tolven Cross , Constantine, and hints that the coincidence
is worthy of consideration. To these I would add, the triangular arrangement at
Applecross, Ross-shire, the triangular arrangement of the aperture on the cross
at Eilean Rona, and the thrice-repeated aperture on the supporting slab of the
cromlech on Gafr-Inis, Brittany. The coincidence of the holed cromlechs in
Ireland, Yorkshire, Brittany, Circassia, and India, is certainly very
remarkable, and cannot by any possibility be accidental, but was evidently the
work of design resulting from some prevalent religious or social principle;
what the nature of it was is now hidden, and will in all probability be for
ever hidden from us.”
In Brash’s treatise on the
meaning/usage of the holed stones by ancient peoples there are several
incorrect assumptions, that today have been thoroughly discounted.
Chief amongst these is the
assignment of their age as Celtic. The Celts migrated to the British Isles
about 1000B.C., thus post-dating the Bronze Age. Most archaeologists now favour
a late Neolithic or very early Bronze Age date of erection. Indeed, the central
stone settings at Stonehenge, with their astronomical alignment date from ca. 2500B.C.
Thus, Neolithic people are almost certainly the builders of monuments, not the
Celts. While Brash’s assertion that holed stones are only found where Celtic
tribes established themselves is coincidentally true, it seems just that: a
coincidence.
In his excavation of the Men an
Tol, Borlase found a worked flint which would certainly lend more weight to a
Neolithic date of construction of this type of monument.
Incidentally, the Heritage
Gateway website (2012) list the Devil’s Ring and Finger, definitively as
Neolithic “4000 to 2351BC”.
Next we come to Brash’s fixation
on triangular arrangements. While fanciful, and his list of instances clearly a
confabulation of unrelated facts, it does actually hold a grain of truth. An early
representation and modern research on the Men an Tol stones do seem to point to
a different arrangement of the extant stones. Careful examination of the area
surrounding them has shown that they were once part of a stone circle, with the
stones in question originally lying on an arc of the circle. Thus they once
stood in a broad-based triangular alignment.
The Devil’s Ring and Finger may
once have stood elsewhere. Natural England (2021) again: “There is no evidence
to confirm they are in their original position and their leaning nature against
a field boundary wall indicates they have been moved. They are likely to be
from a chambered tomb or stone setting. There are currently no known associated
monuments of the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods within the vicinity, however,
the site of a possible Bronze Age disc barrow lies 350m to the south-west.”
Being the son of a farmer and well used to enclosing fields or removing objects
in the way of cultivation, find the suggestion that a farmer moved the stones
350m laughable – the effort required, over that sort of distance would, have
been enormous even given a cart team of oxen and large gang of farm labourers!
The supposition that they have
been moved, seems to go back to Barns (1909) referencing Waring (1864). In fact
the suggestion by Natural England that the Devil’s Ring and Finger may have
formed part of a ‘stone setting’ i.e. a stone circle or chambered tomb is
followed by their caveat that the nearest known ancient monument (an unlikely
Bronze Age ring barrow) is 350m away.
An alternate suggestion comes
from Morgan (2009). He found mound material found in the same wood at SJ70703776.
Indeed, I myself, also found a mound directly behind the stones at a distance
of 2-3m.
Lastly, the Heritage gateway
website (2012), notes that: “It may be significant that stone quarrying has
taken place in the adjacent field.” As the stones seem to be made of the same
hard sandstone, found in road cuttings, throughout the district, and given the
locally available sandstone (less than 100m distant), it seems likely that the
stones may actually, stand in their original position. Moreover the
uninvestigated mounds observed in the woodland behind the stones by Morgan
(2009) and myself, may also indicate that the stones stand in the position that
the Neolithic people erected them in.
From my fieldnotes written
sitting against the stones: “The Finger stone is severely eroded, with numerous
vertical runnels scored down it by centuries of weather. 6’+ high. The Ring
stone is 5’ 6" high with a 20" hole, bevelled at the back as if to
admit a body passing through. Sits on an old field boundary with tumbled blocks
of sandstone of the local type and more recent barbed-wire. The large oak
growing next to the stones seems younger than the wall. It measures two full
arm spans, plus 14 inches. Sat resting my back against the inclined Ring stone
– very comforting – until I noticed the gathering numbers of Red-Tailed
bumblebees, getting irate due to me sitting on their nest hole!”
I had taken the time to roughly,
measure the circumference of the oak tree to estimate its age. Using the graph
from the WDVTA (2012) the oak is at maximum 180 years old. As it grows through
the remains of the wall, it is younger than the oldest field boundary
construction.
One then must ask, why would a
field boundary be constructed at this date - ca. 1840 (or earlier) at all. On
possible answer lies in the process of ‘enclosure’. This was the process by
which local landowners applied to parliament to inclose land. This was the
process of turning the strip-like field of medieval times into larger fields.
The process was often carried out at the bequest of the manorial landowner. The
peasantry that actually farmed the land thus lost any means of support for
their families and were reduced to beggary. Although beginning in the 12th
century, by the time of queen Anne (1702-1714) this systematic theft of common
or peasant occupied land accelerated vastly. By 1844 one third of the tillable
land in England and Wales had been enclosed.
This timescale fits nicely with
the hypothesised movement of the Devil’s Ring and Finger stones, so perhaps
they were moved after all?
Close-up of the Devil’s Ring and Finger stones. Photograph, the author.
The stones from the rear showing the bevelling at the back
of the Ring stone hole. Photograph the author.
The magnificent Hay Meadows adjacent to the footpath used to
access the stones. Photograph the author.
References
Barns, T. (1909) Suggested Site of Mediomanum. Transactions
of the North Staffordshire Field Club vol. XL1II, p133
Blight, J. T. (1864)
An Account of Barrow with Kist-Vaen in the Parish of Sancreed, Cornwall. Archaeologia
Cambrensis, p243-245. Available online at: https://journals.library.wales/view/2919943/2920139/68#?xywh=-1833%2C-103%2C5603%2C3429
accessed 03.07.2021
Borlase, W. (1754). Observations on the Antiquities,
Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall. Printed by W Jackson.
Bottrell, W. (1873) Traditions
and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Vol. 2.
Brash, R. R. (1864). On Holed Stones, The Gentlemen’s
Magazine Vol. 217 pp 686-700, available online at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.79255486&view=1up&seq=702
accessed 25/06/2021
Heritage Gate (2012). Staffordshire HER at: https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MST21&resourceID=1010
accessed 04/07/2021
Historic England. (2021). The Devil’s Ring and Finger, at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1003495
accessed 26.06.2021
Morgan, P. (2009). The Devil’s Ring and Finger from The
Megalithic Portal at: https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4985
accessed 04/07/2021
Rocker, R. (1938) Anarcho-Syndicalism. Seeker and Warburg,
London p36. Available online at: https://libcom.org/files/Rocker%20-%20Anarcho-Syndicalism%20Theory%20and%20Practice.pdf
accessed 04/07/2021.
Waring, J. B. (1864). Stone Monuments, Tumuli and Ornament
of Remote Ages with remarks on the early Architecture of Ireland and Scotland.
John B. Day, London
Williams, T. (1912). Picture of the Devil’s Ring and Finger. Transactions of the North Staffordshire Field Club vol. XLVI, Frontispiece (p2)
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