By: Blonde One
You might think that once you’ve seen one stone circle, you’ve seen them all, and for some people that might be true I suppose. But for me, I never tire of finding the antiquities that Dartmoor does so well. The recent stone circle that I found was just outside Belstone village and is marked on the Ordnance Survey maps as Nine Stones a cairn circle.
According to the most excellent Legendary Dartmoor website if you visit the Nine Maidens site at noon you will see the stones swaying! We didn’t visit until the end of the day so I can’t verify this claim, but I’m absolutely sure that it must be true! The stones are said to have been nine maidens from the village who broke the sabbath and were dancing on a Sunday. They were turned to stone as their punishment and forced to dance every day at noon.
Apparently if you try to count the stones you get to a different total each time as they keep moving and prevent an accurate count. I’ll leave that to you to see how many you get, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get nine!
It seems to be a theme; the number nine and stone circles as there’s a Nine Ladies Circle in Derbyshire with exactly the same legendary story behind it. I’m sure there are many more. I share your interest in these enigmatic formations, mainly because no-one really knows precisely what they were built for.
It’s a lovely legend. Have you been on Nine Standards Rigg, on Hartley Fell in the Pennines? It’s between Kirkby Stephen and Keld. (Loved Kirkby Stephen – dogs welcome, walkers welcome, and a road sign giving the distance in furlongs and chains!)
Yes, visited the impressive Nine Standards Rigg when I did the Coast to Coast walk many years ago. I backpacked and wild camped each night – that night I pitched near Keld.
It is fascinating isn’t it? Like you say Paul, all the better for not quite knowing the truth behind them!