Saturday 6 September 2008

Arthurian Folktales

According to folktales based in Onomastic Arthurian places Myrddin Fardd (writing in the nineteenth century), which is worth repeating for its illustration of the local folkloric traditions surrounding these stones wherever a multitude of tales are told about him "Arthur". Sometimes, he is portrayed as a king and mighty soldier, other times like a giant huge in size, and they are found the length and breadth of the land of stones, in tons in weight, and the tradition connects them with his name, a few of them have been in his shoes time after time, bothering him, and compelling him also to pull them, and to throw them some unbelievable distance. A cromlech recognized by the name ‘Coetan Arthur’ [Arthur's Quoits] is on the land of Trefgwm, in the parish of Myllteyrn; it consists of a great stone resting on three other stones.The tradition states that ‘Arthur the Giant’ threw this coetan from Carn Fadrun, a mountain several miles from Trefgwm, and his wife took three other stones in her apron and proppedthem up under the coetan. A double megalithic chambered tomb with capstone in Llanrhidian Lower on the Gower peninsula (SS49139055): ‘Legend has it that when Arthur was walking through Carmarthenshire on his way to Camlann, he felt a pebble in his shoe and tossed it away. It flew seven miles over Burry Inlet and landed in Gower, on top of the smaller stones of Maen Cetti.The 25 ton capstone of an ancient burial chamber near Reynoldston, north of Cefn Brynis, West Glamorgan (SS490905) is called Arthur’s stone and his ghost is occasionally said to emerge from underneath it – it is explained as a stone that was tossed from Arthur’s shoe.

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