Illustrated Tales of Wiltshire

Wiltshire’s very landscape is steeped in folklore and mythology, with almost every hill, standing stone and barrow having its own stories and legends. With so much of this history still visible on the land it is no wonder that the county has more than its fair share of mysterious happenings and strange tales from ancient times to the modern day. This book will explore a multitude of these tales, from how locals earned nicknames such as Moonrakers, Dabchicks, Snuffy, Gudgeons and Knobs, to tales of buried treasure and origin myths of the county’s stone circles. It will look at the folklore around sites such as Oliver’s Castle, Hackpen Hill, Old Sarum, Collingbourne Wood and, not least, Stonehenge and Avebury. Folk tales have developed around the county’s personalities, such as the ‘flying’ monk of Malmesbury, the Devizes Wizard, the Seend Giant and the wonderful oddities of Jack Spratt’s amazing clocks at Wootton Rivers. Other unusual aspects of Wiltshire’s history and traditional