THE EVIL WEDDING OF STANTON DREW.
Under the southern slopes of bold Dundry Hill in North Somersetshire you will find the queerly named little river Chew, on the banks of which is the village of Stanton Drew. Nowadays it is an out-of-the-way little spot, but far back in history it must have been a place of considerable importance, for close to its church are the remains of what was once a gigantic building—some call it a Druid temple—of a very early race of men.
There are the relics of at least three stone circles, and about the smallest of these a strange story is told. It is the story of the Evil Wedding, and it explains why the stones came there.
Long, long ago, as the tale goes, there had been a marriage at Stanton Drew, and the wedding party met on the place where now the stone circle stands to indulge in feasting and dancing. It was on a Saturday, and the festivities were at their height when midnight struck. Then the harpist, a pious old man, who was playing for the dancing merry-makers, refused to continue any longer, saying that he would not profane the Sabbath.
Each member of the party tried to persuade the aged musician to continue, and chief among the suppliants was the bride, who grew very angry at the harpist’s continual refusals. She would go on with the dance for all his obstinate ways, she said, and she would find another musician even if she had to go to the nether world in search of him.
At that moment a venerable old man with a long grey beard wandered out of the night and asked what all the altercations was about.
When they told him, he gave a merry laugh and said that he would play for them; so the pious old harpist departed, and the dance began again.
The new musician, playing on a pipe, started off with rather a doleful air, but he soon livened up, and very quickly the dancers were whirling round and round in the maddest abandon. But to their consternation as they grew tired, and wished to stop, they found they were unable to do so. The more weary they became, the harder the piper played, and when they begged him to cease he merely laughed at them and changed his tune to one yet more lively.
At last dawn began to show in the sky, and the now frenzied and terrified dancers saw their musician remove the pipe from his mouth. But they saw, too, when he got up, that he had a club foot, and that beneath his long gown a tail showed.
The moment he ceased to play, the dancers remained fixed in strange attitudes, quite unable to move. “I will return later and play for you again,” said the Fiend as he walked away, uttering horrible laughter. But he has not yet returned, and later that morning the villagers found the fields, where the wedding party had been held, strewn with huge upright stones, many of which remain to this day. And they say that there they will stand until the devil returns to play his evil tune; then the stones will become men and women again and will take up once more their mad dance.
If you doubt this moral story, go to Stanton Drew and see the strange stones for yourself—and suggest in what other way they could have come there. You may reach Stanton Drew from Pensford station on the line between Bristol and Frome. You will find it in a pleasant little valley in a hilly upland country, and not far away Maensknoll Tump, nearly 700 feet high, the loftiest point of Dundry Hill, surrounded by the grim earthworks of some of our earliest ancestors.
Bristol, that great city of the west, with its centuries of history and romance, its memories of the daring Merchant Adventurers and its fine churches, is a good centre from which to reach this district. Or you may go from Frome, that queer busy little town with its narrow medieval streets straggling up and down hill.
All the country round here is full of interest to the lover of nature or antiquity. It is a country of mild airs, where in the sheltered valleys the flowers bloom amazingly early. Yet the average tourist seldom wanders off the beaten track to enjoy this pleasing stretch of rural England.
