Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep70: Loremen S3 Ep 70 - The Hoar Stone of Enstone

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

James takes Alasdair on a guided tour of the Cotswolds’ less famous standing stones. This episode is hot, hot, hot, in many senses of the word. Is it the sultry ambience of a summer evening in James’s shed? Is it the phallic power of these B-list monoliths? Or is it... Swede dreams? Hopefully, we will never find out. Loreboys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And Alistair, this week I got out and about. Oh yeah? And had a real up-close look at some stones. You got out on the road? And as a cheeky bonus, when we recorded this episode,

I accidentally recorded it through a poor quality microphone. Yeah, that's a little fun treat for eagle-eared listeners. A phrase which we use quite a lot. What would be better than eagle-eared though? Elephant-eared? Dog-eared? But dog-eared's seen as a bad thing, but they've got very good quality ears. So this is a live episode. James, what's it called?

It's called The Whorestone of Enston. James, how are you feeling? Hot? Tired? I'm a little tired. A little tired. A little low energy, I apologise. I've been busy acting. Acting? Yeah. Tell me about it, please. I didn't know this. I've been appearing in a bunch of sketches. I've played a greengrocer. Right. In all of them. I think technically I played a bunch of different greengroci. Is that the plural? So hold on, they cast you as multiple greengrocers. Full range. What range they must have seen in your acting ability

that they thought you could plausibly be more than one greengrocer. Yeah, from confused greengrocer to paranoid greengrocer to angry greengrocer. And then one last sketch, market trader. Who's a fruit and veg stall though, obviously. But to be able to sell market trader who specialises in fruit and veg rather than green grocer, not everyone can do that. There's some chat in the chat about what's a green grocer.

How do you not know what a green grocer... It's like, imagine a grocer, but they're green. It's someone who sells fruit and vegetables. It's the name of that shop. Maybe in other countries they're called things like the vegetable store man. The plant monger. Veg vendor. That's a good one.

Veg vendor. Yes. One of my favourite actors, veg vendor. Fantastic German arthouse cinema star. Veg vendors. He can do them all. He can do greengrocers. He can do market traders who specialise in fruit and veg.

Yeah. He can do a lot. He can do that person that's got the thing outside the front of their house that says, eggs, £1.50. Yes, he can. He can nail it. All of them. I don't know if you've ever been up to those people. You live in the countryside.

So sometimes they'll say, like, cup of tea, £1. And you think, this is not... There's no way this is registered with HMRC. There's no way they're paying tax. But you think, well, you know, come on, a pound. But whenever I've been in that situation and knocked on the door the person has reacted with utter surprise as if the sign saying eggs raspberries or tea was planted there as a prank like a kick me sticker on someone's back but on a house yes exactly like the rural version of a kick me sticker i've never seen cup

of tea you've never seen you've never bought a cup of tea for a pound from an old lady who looks like she does not sell cups of tea for a pound? I think you've frightened an old lady, really. I think you've hallucinated that pound thing and you've just bullied an old lady and given her a pound to keep her quiet. We're happy to pay, of course. A pound for a cup of tea is reasonable, James. You've lived in the South East for too long.

It's hot water and... I want to say a beanbag, but the phrase is teabag. I'm also a little tired. How much is hot water and a beanbag? How much is that going to cost you? It's a pound. That's got to be more than a pound. Beanbags are big. But before we get on with the story... Welcome.

Welcome, everyone. We've received some correspondence, Alistair. To the old lawmen PO box? Yes, and it's come all the way from Sweden. People say, oh, it's boring to hear about people's dreams, but this really rewrites that rulebook. I think that rulebook doesn't apply when you're talking about Swede dreams. Swede dreams.

Swedes have dreams. They dream of living out in the middle of the countryside with unnecessarily large windows that a sniper is watching them through. I've seen television. And then does the sniper say, just before he takes the shot, sweet dreams. I didn't even notice that sweet dreams was a pun.

Well done. So this dream, I've just got to warn you, it's a little bit spicy, saucy. It's a spicy sauce. Okay. Are we talking one little cartoon jalapeno next to it on the menu? Or... I think it will turn out to be

one little cartoon jalapeno with a dotted line emanating from the end. Okay. Wow. The dream starts as a sitcom show with recorded laughter. Alistair Beckett King is standing in front of some sort of reception slash medical facility talking to a nurse and filling out

a form. He's there to donate his health insurance. So, James, I've interrupted the edit at this point. Thanks very much. Because you and I both know that that letter got pretty steamy. It was too hot for podcast. It was too rude for the internet. Which was basically invented for rudeness. Yeah, I mean, we might be slightly exaggerating

how rude it was. We just don't want to put it out into your ears. You might be going for a jog or be washing up and unable to press pause. People do all sorts of things while they listen to this. They shouldn't have Swedish filth foisted upon them. So for the purposes of understanding the rest of the podcast,

imagine a saucy story had been told. Don't spend too long doing that, though. Come on, we've still got a podcast to get through. Let's get back to it. Yeah. What? James, that is extraordinary. Terrifying, isn't it? Completely inappropriate, I think. Did we get permission

to read that out on the livestream? I did ask, and they're yet to get back to me our podcast is not normally as saucy as this swedish listeners i just wanted to get people off on the i just get people started no i just wanted to share that because it had been frightening me and that's what they say isn't it a? A problem shared is a problem halved. But what I actually want to tell you about... Lay it on me. I've been helped out by a special deputy law person,

a member of the public, an innocent bystander who has stepped in. Justin Hyde helped me out on this one. Oh, thank you very much, Justin. Very brave of you. Yeah, and he's helped me out because I was looking up the Enston Whorestone. The what? The Enston, that's a place name the enston okay whore stone i think you're gonna need to spell this h-o-a-r okay as in the sense of old yeah like hoary and old yes i always would it's whore frost called that because it looks all

makes everything look all gray and grizzled and old are our old people described as hoary because we look like we've gone frosty when we get gray in our beards oh i think it's because the grain is because they're limestone so when they get wet they go kind of quite grey oh okay if hoary means frosty then frosties could be called hoaries i don't think anybody wants that for breakfast with tony the tiger yeah that doesn't sound great to me a delicious bowl of hoaries yeah so the whore stone in enston it's a dolman it's believed to be as old as the oldest bit of the roll right stones oh if you remember friend of the podcast friend of the podcast the roll right stones that's older than beekeeping oh i do remember now i forgot you'd contextualized it for me yeah so it's around 3500 bc and it's believed to

have been at the front of like a long barrow but that's that's no longer there in fact behind it though there is a peculiar man-made hill but it's much more modern it's the one that our camera operator kian had done an art project in when he was at school. In it? In it. So there were hatches on the top and a ladder going down and you could get in and they did an art project which was he spray painted on the cover of a rapper, the GZA, G-Z-A. Oh. Yeah, I never realised at the time what it sounds like his name is. His solo album, Liquid Swords. Oh. Yeah, he spray painted the cover of that on there because he was a teenager in the Cotswolds and that really spoke to him.

Naturally, yes. I can imagine. I think he nearly... They might have nearly died because they didn't really think through using spray paint in a very sealed off, underground, enclosed space. There is a warning on the can

telling you to make sure that the area is properly ventilated. But I there is a warning on the can telling you to make sure that the area is properly ventilated but i guess when you live on the edge and you live for art i guess you don't always read warnings no i don't know much about art but i know what i like and it's nearly passing out in an enclosed space yes yeah yeah and it's fainting so we'd always kind of known about this this weird bunker but it's not it doesn't really turn up anywhere i think it might be a reservoir or something but it's definitely in the place where the old long barrow would have been there are many theories about what this what this whore stone is and i actually went with kian and i made a little field report there and this over here is the Enston Whorestone. Some say it's an old soldier

died at Ditchley and then was brought over here through Dead Man's Riding Wood and that was the grave of it. Other people say it was a guy called General Whore and that's why it's called the Whorestone. Some people think it's named after the goddess Hyr. Some people think that whore stone is a corruption of war stone and this is meant to signify a battle other people think it was a stone put up for a french wedding so they don't know there's stories about this whore stone it could be a marker there was a battle between enston and lidydston. I don't know if you remember Lydston. Lydston being the home of the Snuffling Beast of Lydston. Okay, yes, yes.

And the Harding Grows. I'm going to forget it, yeah. So Enston and Lydston clashed. Yeah. How large are these places? There's about ten houses in Lydston. Okay, so battle might be a bit strong. It sounds more like something that I would class as maybe a fight or a rumble.

Or a feud. Yeah. A Barney. Would you say we were in Barney territory? I think so, yeah. But it involved a general. So one of them has brought in a general for what is essentially a fight between 20 guys. Yeah, yeah, basically. It's like getting Gareth Southgate to come and manage your

five-a-side squad. Then there was this other one, I don't know if you heard in the video, that some people say is put up there for a French wedding. Now, is that a euphemism? I googled French wedding euphemism. Because the word French, if it precedes any noun, basically it means something sexy. French letters, sexy. French kissing, sexy. Sexy is kind of kissing. french toast sexy toast that's some sexy toast it's a lot sexier than eggy bread it really is isn't it put eggy in front of any of those things it makes them a lot less sexual eggy kissing eggy letters eggy knickers so a french wedding i looked up there's such thing as a blanc wedding or a wedding blanc

which is a wedding that's not consummated. And that's what a French wedding could maybe refer to. That's the least sexy type of wedding. That's all I found. Did you know, talking about the blanc wedding, did you know that black and blank have

the same etymological origin, even though they mean kind of the opposite thing. That's a very good one. Etymology corner for you there. And in a way, they are both an absence. But what are they an absence of? An absence of light or an absence of pigment? Very good.

Crazy old language that we call English. My little friend, I like to call the English language and French. Friend of the show, the English language with some French words. So there's other stones in the area oh yeah not only the royal white stones we kind of gone royal white stones is the biggest then whore stones second biggest and then there's the hawk stone which is over near dean which is uh where the tip was famously so that's that is in a beautiful location that's in a field and the stories are

that it was dragged there by a witch and the top of it has kind of got a big cleft in it oh so is that the hawk shape i guess so and they say that that was where witches were chained when they were burned but then people sort of more modern times say well we didn't burn any witches yeah you get the feeling that's what people would say nowadays oh no no no no no didn't burn any witches. Yeah, you get the feeling that's what people would say nowadays. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Didn't burn any witches. James, are you a witch-burning truther? Maybe. So if the Rollwright stones are the Rolling Stones,

what is the Hawkstone Donovan? Where does it stand in the Pantheon? It might be a bit of a Neil Young. Oh, really? Yeah. I think Thorstone might be like a bit of a Bowie figure. Yeah. It changed from a lightning bolt into

a stone, as David Bowie famously did. He had a lightning bolt on his face. And then there's another stone, Alistair, in a place called Taston or Tarston. Tarston, which is very... T-A... T-A-S-T-O-N. Ah. But with a sort of local name, it's called Tarston.

I would have said Taston. And there is another stone, and it's kind of lent up against a wall, and that's called the Thor Stone. That's supposed to have been Thor, the god, Thor, threw a thunderbolt, and it turned into a stone. Ooh, that's quite cool. Yeah, it's kind of cool. It's not really how thunderbolts work, I don't think.

But the people of that town also built a cross, a stone cross cross across the road from it a stone cross and apparently this thor stone is meant to be evil it's got an evil vibe around it apparently and well yeah yeah yeah they built a cross to kind of ward off the evil but i've also read that the thor stone used to be part of a bigger stone circle and they used the stones from that stone circle to build the cross ah sort of stealing its power as it were maybe or maybe they just thought there was just one bad stone i think the biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the people of torsten that only one of their

stones was inherently evil you think you think all of the stones are yes and i think he's tricked them into making because the cross has fallen down now. James, I'm going to put something out there. Go on. And, you know, shoot me down if you must. Could the origin of the name Tarstan, with its invisible R, be Thorstone? Yes. Could the village be named for the stone? I think that it is, actually.

I think so. Not to put my detective's waistcoat on, but... Get it right on. Get it right on. It's too warm. There's another stone as well down by linum and i think this may be called a horse stone as well but it's down by linum which is named after a load of ham in a line yeah yeah line of ham let's wait and see if a line

of ham appears later in the story unfortunately not just as a warning there's no lines of ham or lined ham oh which would be sort of corduroy of the ham world. As ham is to denim, so lined ham is to corduroy. They all seem to have the ability to go down to the river to drink at night. And it's said that, I think it was the Thorstone or the Hawkstone, a group of people from Chipping Norton were coming back from the pub at night in the past. Why does every story from your region involve people coming home from the pub?

Because that's all there is to do is to go to the pub. Every story in the North East is like a family of farmers were starving to death and every story in Oxfordshire is like three absolute lads were smashing it on a night out.

When? This is unfair. What happens is the stones go down to drink from the stream, the local stream at night, and these people from Chippenot and saw the stone drinking. Now, I don't know how that would have actually worked. If I saw a stone in a stream, I would think there's a stone in that stream.

I wouldn't think, I think that stone's having a little drink, because I'm not three. Having a little drink of the stream. The whore stone in Enston is meant to be a horse, a man and his dog, and he's meant to go down to drink from the stream, either on Midsummer or every night. I see. I mean, there's quite a big difference between on Midsummer's night and every night.

If that's your drinking schedule, either once a year or every single night you really need to know the difference yeah pace yourself because you're going to need to take a big gulp if it's just once a year but the thing is they're all supposed to go like the enston one is the roll right stones i think the whispering knights were supposed to go down to the river to drink i'm sure i've heard that before and the only place I would have heard it was on this podcast. I think maybe they just saw one stone and it's kind of... Oh, I see. Yeah, because you think all stones look the same. Exactly.

Is that what you're saying? Exactly. Right, OK. Is it possible that the stones looked at the people of Oxfordshire, constantly going out and getting smashed and then coming home and having visions and thought, I want a little bit of that too? Well, if you're a stone, the last thing little bit of that too. Whoa, whoa, whoa. If you're a stone, the last thing you want to do is get smashed.

It's true. So I've told you a lot of rambling little stories about stones. You have indeed. That much is established. But I think I've come up with a theory that ties it all together. A grand unifying theory. Of stone. I don't think we've ever attempted anything this ambitious on Lawmen before.

So, whore stone. Yeah. Hawk stone. Thor stone. I don't think we've ever attempted anything this ambitious on Lawmen before. So, Horstone. Yeah. Hawkstone. Mm-hmm. Thorstone. Oh, yeah. They're all called Horstone. They're all the same.

Aren't they? Orstone. Yeah. Orstone, Orkstone, Thorstone. Yeah. You know, that legend, I think it's not actually true, but the story of kangaroo getting its name, the idea is that Captain Cook and all that mob went over there and they saw these kangaroos bouncing around

and they asked the locals, what's that? And they said kangaroo. And that's menamine. I don't know. That is the story as I've heard it. I don't think it's true. I don't think it's true. So you think we're in a kangaroo scenario?

We're in a false kangaroo story scenario. An apocryphal kangaroo situation. Because in the countryside, people go, who are? They genuinely do. And I think all it was, was locals agreeing that that was a stone. What's that stone? Who are stone? Who are stone?

I can't believe you sucked me in, James. I genuinely thought you'd done serious original research for the podcast there. Well, I have got some real research from the Folklore of the Cotswolds by Catherine M. Briggs. She was talking to a man who said he'd seen two ghost men going along Dead Man's Ride near the whore stone at Enston. Oh, yeah? And they passed straight through a wire netting fence. And his dogs were scared of them. But she points out that Mr Abbott,

when pointing out a large slab of stone lying undressed in a disused quarry, called it an ore stone. So probably the word just means a big stone. A big slab of stone lying undressed in a quarry? Yeah, it's naked. Is that... What is that? It's a nuddy stone what a

beautiful story about some great big stones that are naked so maybe the dream did tie into it actually yeah it was an unexpectedly sexy episode let's move on to the scores then james what is your first category the first category is naming names i feel pretty good about this one okay well you've got a lot of names all of them or so far yeah they're all quite similar okay dead man's riding wood dead man's riding wood wonderful yes um um why were you so confident about names james because the names was the thing that it all hinged on but then as i said it i realized that i just boiled down the names to make an espresso of names yeah you've been hoist by your own petard and you hate that i really do that's the last thing you want to be hoist by so what are you going to give me it's a two one for all of the whores

and one for whatever that is dead man's riding dead man riding wood wait a minute don't google it no second. Second category, supernatural. Supernatural. Well, stones can't drink from rivers, can they? No. They can't move around? Not once a year, not once a night. They can't be evil like the Thor stone?

And the cross that's there to protect it. Yeah, that's also magic. I forgot to mention there used to be an elm tree in between whose allegiance was unspecified. What else have you got for me which is which is either drag bringing the stone there or getting burned out the stone they're still witches that's supernatural okay two ghosts walk through a fence two ghosts walk through a fence instead of an excellent joke i think it is uh i think it's a three out of five for Supernatural, because most of it was just stunts. Next category.

It's a punning category. Generally Unknown. Can you see that I'm folding my arms? Can you see that I'm doing jazz hands? Generally Unknown. Because he was the general. Okay. No one knows what they're for.

And everyone's got an idea, from Petrified General, to Bolt of Lightning from a god to disuse part of a marquee from a french wedding yeah that one's the worst yeah i mean it's a vague category james it's a category extremely lacking in substance and i would argue also to a great extent lacking in valid pun yeah that's true It just has a word that sounds like another word. Yeah, and as a consequence, I have no choice but to give you five out of five. Yes. Because it was vague and confusing.

It's one of the vaguest and most confusing episodes we've ever done. It's going to be a real one to edit. What's the final category, James? It's sexy stones. Sexy stones. Oh. Sexy stones.

Mm. Okay. We've got the bare naked quarry stone. Yeah. Very sexy. Mm-hmm. Thor from... Thor in the Marvel films.

He's very sexy. Yes. All right. Yep. You're getting there. Hawk. Hawks. Probably one of the sexier birds.

Yeah. They're pretty sexy for a bird. Yes. Yeah. Some of this mostly beaks and talons and generals. They wear a uniform. And if I've learned anything from the 1980s, wearing a uniform was considered sexy.

It was considered sexy, wasn't it? And actually the early 2000s, because the dating website uniform.com. I always find who's attractive in sitcoms confusing, like in American sitcoms. Because they always have to do, like when someone puts on a uniform, they have to sort of do like a special cut to the uniform to let you know that now that person's really sexy. Because everyone in American sitcoms is really attractive. So it's weird when narratively they have to establish that one character is particularly attractive because everyone in the show is attractive so a lot of the time it's just like it's weirdly like radio the attractive person walks in and all of the six other attractive people have to go look an attractive person has arrived just so that you understand the story they're no longer short-sighted they must be attractive so that is basically what i think

is happening here with the stones these stones they're so hot they're igneous oh i'd like a hot stone massage. That's my type. So, hot stones. Obviously, there's you and me, a couple of stone-cold hotties. So that's two. Plus, at least three of the stones sounded pretty sexy. So it's five points for the sexy old war stones. Well, this has been a disgusting episode of Lawmen.

Yeah, I didn't mean for it to be so grim. I thought I was going to tell some nice stories about actual sort of folklore stuff. I blame that, Swede. You know, we need a little bit more British repression in the podcast. I blame myself for reading out an email that contained the words robust. Yeah, if there was a turning point, it was that. Sorry, everyone. I've let us all down. So thank you to one Swedish listener with a fertile imagination. You've been listening to Lawmen with me, Alistair Beckett-King.

And me, James Shakeshaft. You can support the Lawmen at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. Also, thank you to Justin Hyde for pointers on the stones. Thank you. And to Kian of Negative Space Design for helping us with the field reports, which you'll also be able to find on our YouTube channel. And, of course, to everybody who joined in the live and heckled and corrected us helping us with the field reports which you'll also be able to find on our youtube channel and of course to everybody who joined in the live and heckled and corrected us when we just i think at

one point fell asleep yes thank you very much for that i've been trying to make some stickers for instagram so i was trying to make some stickers for Instagram. So I was trying to think of all the catchphrases. And it's basically the C, the C and proof. And just the year that it currently is. Yeah, 2021. Maybe we need to hold a catchphrase competition for people to suggest new catchphrases. Yeah, that's a good idea. Tweet us with ideas for catchphrases and we'll just try and slip them into future episodes.

That won't backfire. To be clear, we're not legally obliged to include any suggestion in an episode. We have the final say. Or share any royalties based off monies acquired by using said catchphrase. Yeah, any word we say on the podcast, we own that word.

Forever. In perpetuity. Yes. Quaz. Fourstone. Noel Edmonds. We own all of those phrases hot law boys hot law boys nobody else can say that the idea of going more like yeah the concept of similes we invented that we're all over it like a cheap rash what soup cheap soup right stop we're

gonna have to stop the podcast and check whether you know what similes are