Long Meg and Her Daughters

Long Meg and Her Daughters - the southern arc of the circle and the monolith, viewed from the east.

Long Meg and Her Daughters, photographed at 19:37 on 14th May 2005

One of three 'Cup and Ring' markings on the Long Meg stone.

Long Meg and Her Daughters, also known as Maughanby Circle, is a Bronze Age stone circle near Penrith in Cumbria, North West England. One of around 1,300 stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany, it was constructed as a part of a megalithic tradition that lasted from 3,300 to 900 BCE, during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

The stone circle is the sixth-biggest example known from this part of north-western Europe, being slightly smaller than the rings at Stanton Drew in Somerset, the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney and Newgrange in County Meath.

It primarily consists of 51 stones (of which 27 remain upright) set in an oval shape measuring 100 m on its long axis. There may originally have been as many as 70 stones. Long Meg herself is a 3.6 m high monolith of red sandstone 18 m to the southwest of the circle made by her Daughters. Long Meg is marked with examples of megalithic art including a cup and ring mark, a spiral and rings of concentric circles.^{[citation needed]}

Aerial photography has identified several undated enclosures in the area and the smaller stone circle of Little Meg is close nearby.^{[citation needed]}

Folklore

The most famous of the many legends that surround the stones is that they were once a coven of witches who were turned to stone by a wizard from Scotland named Michael Scot. It is said the stones cannot be counted - but, if anyone is able to count them twice and come to the same total - the spell will be broken or it will bring very bad luck. Another legend states that if you walk round the circles and count the number of stones correctly, then put your ear to Long Meg, you will hear her whisper. The name itself is said to come from a local witch, Meg of Meldon, who was alive in the early 17th century.^{[citation needed]}

References

Bibliography

Academic Books

• Burl, Aubrey (2000). The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300083477. 
• Burl, Aubrey (2005). A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 
• Bradley, Richard (1998). The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415152044. 
• Waterhouse, John (1985). The Stone Circles of Cumbria. Chichester: Phillimore. 

• Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, "Meg and Her Daughters: Some Traces of Goddess Beliefs in Megalithic Folklore," in Sandra Billington and Miranda Green eds., The Concept of the Goddess (1996): pp. 78–90.

External links

• Photos of Long Meg on the Ancient Scotland site
• Long Meg and her daughters
• The Megalithic Portal
• Photos of Long Meg and other stone circles
• Myths and Legends of Long Meg and Her Daughters
• 360 Panoramic view of Long Meg

• Map sources for Long Meg and Her Daughters