| WAYLANDS SMITHY is not a
blacksmiths shop.
It is a Neolithic long barrow approx 5000 years old with 4
large standing stones at the entrance, and marker stones along the sides of the
barrow. It is surrounded by a ring of beech trees. It is situated off a
short track on the north side of the ridgeway overlooking the Vale of the White
Horse. (see area map)
The mound was excavated in 1919, and again in 1962-3. The
excavations, revealed, under a cairn of stones beneath an earlier mound, a
burial place. The evidence sugested that there were bones from at least
fourteen burials
Eventually, a myth grew up around the mysterous site, long
since bereft of its original ritual significance
Wayland, the smith, was a god in Saxon folk lore. He
excelled at metal craft and the Saxon poets claimed that Gods and Kings were
proud to possess his work. Wayland was captured by Niduth, a Swedish King, and
imprisoned in a deep cave. He escaped on wings he had fashioned, after killing
the king’s two sons. He then disappeared, but was reported as living in
caves and burial mounds in Western Europe.
A prettier story is of an invisible smith who will repair
the shoes of a traveller’s horse- ‘if a traveller’s horse had
lost a shoe, he had no more to do, than to bring his horse, with a piece of
money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and
find the money gone, but the horse reshod’ |
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