The Folklore Of Ancient Wiltshire: Katharine Jordan

The landscape of Wiltshire is an ancient one. The burial mounds of kings and chieftains overlook the land; trackways that are millennia old wind through lonely places; the defensive ditches of forts can be seen on the brows of many hills. Overshadowing all are the ancient monuments of Avebury and Stonehenge and the awe-inspiring man-made mound of Silbury Hill. It's no wonder that those who succeeded the vanished races who built this landscape came to regard these works with a superstitious reverence. Surely, such structures could only have been built by giants or wizards; the magnificent burial mounds must cover the earthly bodies of legendary beings - or do they hide the entrance to the underworld? And only the Devil could have been capable of carrying such large, heavy stones. This volume covers the folklore of round barrows, long barrows, barrow hills, earthworks, standing stones and henges. Illustrated with maps and black and white photographs.