There are many myths and legends surrounding Stonehenge, with many of these stories attempting to explain its origin. Most of these stories involve the devil, gods, giants or wizards. One such tale tells of giants holding hands, dancing in a circle on Salisbury Plain, before being turned to stone.
Another yarn describes the Devil disguising himself as a man to broker a deal with an old Irish lady who owned the stones. In return for them, he agreed to give her as a any gold coins as she could count before he finished moving them. She thought she was on to a winner with the time it would take to do this, but the Devil cheated the old woman out of a princely sum by using his powers to instantly move the stones to England, the site of Stonehenge.
After the Devil created Stonehenge he claimed that no-one could successfully count the number of stones. The antiquarian William Stukeley was quite fascinated by this story; he managed to count to 140 before stating:
"Behold the solution of the mighty problem, the magical spell is broke, which has so long perplexed the vulgar. They think 'tis an ominous thing to count the true number of the stones and whoever does so, shall certainly die after it."
Other folklore states that Merlin brought the stones over from Ireland to mark the graves of British nobles slaughtered by the Saxons and erected them on Salisbury Plain using magick.
What stories have you heard?
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