Legends

(This is a summary of a talk given by Ianto Wain to the 2000 AGM of the Friends of The Ridgeway. See also Leslie Grinsell's Folklore of Prehistoric Britain 1976.)

See separate section with detail on Weland the Smith.

On the Western Ridgeway itself, though there a number of barrow tales and six legends concerning Silbury, stories are surprisingly thin. A couple of spiritual armies (Arthur's and Alfred's).  And of course there is Wayland Smithy. No-one knew whether this story is  widespread or whether Kipling relocated it to Sussex to fit it into Puck of Pook's Hill.

The Icknield Way has a more varied tradition. On the Icknield Way at Tring, legionaries clear up after a battle. Boudicea in her  chariot careers towards St Albans. The Way itself  leads to the end of the world and points beyond.

At Berkhamstead, a phantom Cromwellian army manoeuvres on Wigginton Common. Tring is thoroughly haunted with phantom black dogs, the Devil in chains, Sir Simon Harcourt's  coach and horses on the roads and a necromancer revisiting the railway station annually. Leather Jack, a highwayman, haunts Inkpen Beacon, where he was hanged.

Lady Ferrers, the highwaywoman of Hertfordshire, can be heard and sometimes seen, riding the roads near her home at Ashridge. She also haunts the house on the site of her mansion. One owner was on  speaking terms. On the other hand, she appeared at a parish tea and swung from the branch of a tree in broad day light, grinning horribly.

Legend has it that if you run  seven times round  Cymbeline's Castle on the Chequers  Estate, the devil will appear.

Elsewhere there is a sufficiency of witches, cunning men, and monks.