“Oh, be their tombs as lead to lead!”
We walked across the top to Stain-Ray, or Stone Raise, a great cromlech or cairn 360 feet in circumference. You would perhaps regard it as nothing more than a huge irregular mound of lumps of gritstone bleached by the weather, with ferns and moss growing in the interstices, but within there are to be seen the remains of three cysts, of which only one retains a definite form. It is said that a skeleton was discovered therein. Tradition tells of a giant who once travelling with a chest of gold on his back from Skipton Castle to Pendragon, felt weary while crossing Addleborough, and let his burden slip, but recovering himself, he cried,
“Spite of either God or man,
To Pendragon castle thou shalt gang.”
when it fell from his shoulders, sank into the earth, and the stones rose over it. There the chest remained, and still remains, only to be recovered by the fortunate mortal to whom the fairy may appear in the form of a hen or an ape. He has then but to stretch forth his arm, seize the chest, and drag it out, in silence if he can, at all events without swearing, or he will fail, as did that unfortunate wight, who, uttering an oath in the moment of success, lost his hold of the treasure, and saw the fairy no more as long as he lived.
We descended into the hollow between Addleborough and Stake Fell, crossing on the way the natural terrace that runs along the southern and western sides of the hill, to look at a cluster of heaps of stone, and low, irregular walls or fences, the plan of which appears to show a series of enclosures opening one into the other. My friend had long made up his mind that these were the remains of an ancient British village. For my part, I could not believe that a village old as the Roman conquest would leave vestiges of such magnitude after the lapse of nearly two thousand years; whereupon, arguments, and learned ones, were adduced, until I half admitted the origin assigned. But a few days later I saw an enclosure in Wharfedale identical in form with any one of these, used as a sheepfold, and all my doubts came back with renewed force. In the ordnance maps, the description is “ancient enclosures;” and, to give an off-hand opinion, it appears to me probable that this outlying hollow may have been chosen as a safe place for the flocks in the troublous days of old.
Stake Fell is 1843 feet in height, rising proudly on our left. Beneath us, in the valley Ray or Roedale, a branch of Wensleydale, spreads Simmer Water, a lake of one hundred and five acres. Shut in by hills, and sprinkled with wood around its margin, it beautifies and enlivens the landscape. It abounds in trout, moreover, and bream and grayling, and any one who chooses may fish therein, as well as in the Ure, all the way down to Bainbridge, and farther. The river trout are considered far superior to those of the lake. We made haste down, after a pause to observe the view, for dinner awaited us in a pleasant villa overlooking the bright rippling expanse.
When we started anew, some two hours later, our hospitable entertainer would accompany us. We walked round the foot of the lake, and saw on the margin, near the break where the Bain flows out, two big stones which have lain in their present position ever since the devil and a giant pelted one another from hill to hill across the water. To corroborate the legend, there yet remain on the stones the marks—and prodigious ones they are—of the Evil One’s hands. To me the marks appeared more like the claws of an enormous bird, compared with which Dr. Mantell’s Dinornis would be but a chicken.
Long, long ago, while the Apostles still walked the earth, a poor old man wandered into Raydale, where a large city then stood, and besought alms from house to house. Every door was shut against him, save one, an humble cot without the city wall, where the inmates bade him welcome, and set oaten bread and milk cheese before him, and prepared him a pallet whereon to sleep. On the morrow the old man pronounced a blessing on the house and departed; but as he went forth, he turned, and looking on the city, thus spake:
“Semer Water rise, Semer Water sink,
And swallow all the town
Save this little house
Where they gave me meat and drink.”
Whereupon followed the roar of an earthquake, and the rush of water; the city sank down and a broad lake rolled over its site; but the charitable couple who lodged the stranger were preserved, and soon by some miraculous means they found themselves rich, and a blessing rested on them and their posterity.