Loremen Podcast - Shakeover Minisode

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Due to an administrative error - this is a solely Shakeshaft minisode. But he gets through a LOT of admin. In the end. Stone Stakeout Quantum Mechanics Episode https://thequantummechanics.podbean.com/e/midsummer-moving-stones/ Video version... https://youtu.be/iYlYc8fig9A Join... Us... https://www.patreon.com/loremenpod Alasdair Crystal Palace Field Report https://youtu.be/UbZkMMsvnBY NextUp https://nextupcomedy.com/loremen/

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft, and thanks to an administrative error on my part, I'm recording this solo. It's a Shakeshaft takeover, or shakeover. Oh, I'm recording this in the shed. I'm beshedded, if anyone can hear. The Bloomin' Wood Pigeon. Now, if you're here for alistair because of his appearance on telly or his youtube videos or other podcasts he's not in this episode literally listen to any other episode he's in it this one if you're after alistair beckett king it's not for you

and if you've listened to all those episodes and you still want more, then check out our YouTube, which is youtube.com forward slash lawmen podcast. And there, what you'll find is not only extended live streams or the full versions of live streams that we edit down into the shows and make ourselves look a lot funnier.

You also get field reports, other bits and bobs, in particular, ABk's field report from crystal palace i would highly recommend ever so funny it is ever so funny on the topic of live streams thanks to everyone who came to the recording at the bill murray on monday the 27th of june 2021 no 2022 2022 i was very tired the next day, though. And when I was walking my son to school, I sort of mentioned that I was a bit tired

because the previous night I'd been up late recording a podcast in front of people, telling them jokes, making them laugh. And he asked me for some examples. And he was very kind. Yeah. And the edited version of that is going to be out in the podcast feed next week um for those of you that didn't uh manage to attend or or watch the live stream uh if you want to do any homework it's going to be about the american war of independence uh if you're english you'll need to look up who benedict arnold is if you're american we don't

know who he is i've got i've got american friends and whenever fourth of july comes up sometimes there's kind of a little embarrassment it feels like they sort of feel a little bit like oh they're embarrassed because they're celebrating basically becoming not british anymore that they're celebrating america's independence from us, the British. I find an easy way to break detention is to say, oh, yes, the 4th of July. Yeah, we celebrate that too. Thank you very much to all the lovely law folk that were there.

Thanks to the Bill Murray for having us. And thanks to NextUp for live streaming it. And they're putting it out as an on-demand, which you can see if you subscribe and patreons of us get 10 pounds off that subscription with a special subscription code that you'll find in patreon if you would like to become a patreon go to patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod sign yourselves up not only will you get that discount there's also all sorts of extras there's little bits of behind the scenes some bonus bits extended

interviews with our various guests oh and you get access to the law folk discord there have been all sorts of chats in there recently let me just literally i will oh oh there's a lovely bit of humor in there so related to the live stream uh someone managed to find the grave of uh benedict arnold and he's actually buried in london and an excellent joke here lies ex benedict that is why we set up the discord in, I've got half a mind to shut everything down now. That we've peaked. Well done, Axolotl Pete. So, oh, what else have I got to tell you about? Okay, if you still just want more content, the other day was Midsummer's Eve,

which, eagle-eared listeners will remember, is the night that the Enston Whorestone is supposed to leave its place and go for a drink. You know, go for a wander like stones do. So I decided to stake it out. And I enlisted the presenters of the Quantum Mechanics podcast, Ben and Pete, an excellent podcast. And we literally just sat around and watched to see if a stone would move at midnight.

I'm going to play a little. They recorded it audibly. Audibly? Audibly. They recorded it in an audio format, and I've put that out as their podcast episode. I'll play a little bit at the end. It was really fun. Check out their full episode. I'll put the link in the show notes.

Did actually do some filming on YouTube, did a few little live streams, which you can relive on our YouTube channel, which is that address that I said earlier. And yes, I will also put that in the show notes. I'm thinking I'm going to do some more stuff like that. And thank you very much to the Quantum Mechanics for joining me and the people in the chat on the live stream.

That was really great, as ever, hilarious and fun. If you've got any ideas of things that I could do for that, based on previous episodes, or even things we've not yet done, let me know. I want to do more lore stuff on location, or lawcation, if you will. Ah, this has been a very admin-heavy podcast.

Genuinely, this is not a normal episode i i think this is a one-of-a-kind episode it's a shakeover okay uh what else i'm gonna say um uh give us a nice review where you can if you want the bonus episodes check out the patreon if you really like us recommend us to a friend if you really like us recommend us to a friend if you really hate us recommend us to an enemy that's an incredibly passive aggressive move and enjoy this excerpt of me and the quantum mechanics literally sitting around looking at a stone it is more fun than it sounds it's but it is as fun as the episode sounds. I hope that hasn't undersold it. Okay.

See you next week. What is quite amazing is that these things are in kind of the middle of nowhere. We're kind of in a forest. You would drive past this and not even know that it's here. Is that a clown? James has just uncovered some toys. Yeah. The man stone seems to have a sort of cup holder in it.

And within that cup holder, some people have left some things. Oh, they look a bit spooky, actually. I mean, I'm not saying there's anything spooky about them, but somebody's obviously left them there to freak us out and there's a spider i think crawling over one of them which just adds to the spooky vibe oh that's just perfect one of them looks like a beefeater playing in an accordion i told you that's very scary one of the spookiest images isn't it it's up there with it from the film yeah you've obviously seen accordion beef eater too you have the you have the victorian woman in the white dress you have the monk in the kind of dark

habit and then you've got the beef eater playing an accordion they're the classics the triptych of terror now james you're clutching something there that looks intriguing what have you got i've got a dusty old tome called the history of spellsbury by e corbett now spellsbury's close by is it spellsbury is the kind of the the parish i think that we're in oh okay and it has a little this when is this book from this is a very very old book. It's from the Kingstone Press, printed in Longcompton in 1931. Longcompton,

fact fans, is near the Rollwright Stones and was famously one of the most witch-infested towns in the Cotswolds. Thick with witches, it was. Thick.

Couldn't move. Couldn't move for witches. And there's a little write-up on the stones in here. Oh, and pictures. Oh, and some lovely pictures. Yeah, there's the other stones that are around here.

There's the Thor stone at Tustin, the Hawk stone at Dean. I've actually made a few little films of these stones, which you can find on the Lawmen YouTube channel, which is youtube.com forward slash lawmen podcast. L-O-R-E.

L-O-R-E, yes. It's a pun that doesn't work in any accent. So, where's the bit where I'm going to tell you about? Okay. A curious legend is that it is impossible to move the stones so firmly are they set in the ground as a matter of fact this is far from being true as they're not at all securely embedded and the wonder is that so many of them have remained upright possibly a dim idea that it would be unlucky to uproot them and survive down the centuries long after anybody could really remember they were graves and perhaps the idea of the difficulty of moving

them was also come down from the time when our far-off ancestors when our far-off ancestors with their makeshift ropes and small oxen must have had a tremendous struggle to get them into place did you just throw something there pete no something just fell down something did just fall down although we are under trees we're beneath the tree yes but we're also next to a stone that's supposed to move so you know it doesn't seem to have shifted the uh accordion plane b feeder is remains unmoved although it is on its back it's playing a sea the most curious tale of all is one of the most common

that at midnight or at cockcrow the stones run round the field or go down to the river to drink it's sometimes added that treasure is buried under them but if you go to get it while the stone is away

on one of its midnight flittings, it returns at once and crushes you. At once. At once. So here are some of our tales. Enston was originally called Enterstan, which is Saxon for the giant stone. And the whore stone there is often called the old soldier.

Oh, and very regional. The old soldier. Miss Hollings of Charbury says a maid she had from Enston told her he was supposed to go down to the village for a drink

on Midsummer Eve. It did not seem certain that it was a drink of water it went for. So he's off down for a while. Not certain. Could be on the lash. But the pubs are shut.

Yeah, midnight as well. Does he like his drinks on the rocks? Oh, very nice. Very nice indeed, sir. That is very strong. And Mr. Oscar Hitchcock says that they kid

the boys at Lidstone, which is a little hamlet just over yonder, by telling them that when the stone hears the clock strike 12, it goes down to the water and drinks. And it's just a catch because there's no clock in Lidstone that strikes. But it is a catch tacked on to a tale that has been told in the village for many thousands of changing years. This is a work that has been in preparation for at least a thousand years.

Now, but people have been interested in these stones. As you say, it's like a rich area for, you know, these standing stones. And a lot of people think standing stones is kind of, well, everyone thinks Stonehenge. Everyone thinks Avebury. Not many people think of, well, a peculiar little side walled off area in the middle of nowhere. But there's a lot to it. There's a lot to it. I was just telling these guys before I came out, I was put onto something called the Dragon Project. i came out i was put onto something called um the dragon project right which uh it was formed in a pub in liverpool street in london in 1977 and it was a group of men who believed that there was

more to standing stones than perhaps met the eye and they actually based their investigations just up the road at the roll right stones and they they were using Geiger counters and various RF frequency devices to listen to what was happening at the stones overnight. And they claimed to have caught some things they can't explain. However, this is 1977, and these are Geiger counters that were very expensive. And all of those people who were involved in it sort of started getting quite carried away

and started believing they were seeing things that they probably weren't but they were putting it down to things like earth energies and all of the ley lines that people talk about and at one point an actual real dragon and it all became a bit ridiculous but it's a it's a way of explaining how this has caught people's imagination because they are a weird thing to see aren't they yeah they're like obviously they're not they're not as visually stunning as stonehenge but they are i think i think the roll white stones are older than stonehenge yes considerably certain parts of them are a thousand or more years older than stonehenge and you just you've got to wonder why they're here and it's just amazing the stories that people come up with but also what

were they actually for what genuinely what were they were they because railway stones weren't all a burial mound i think one part of it is potentially a dolmen or whatever. Yes. Yeah. No, we don't know. No. And that's, I guess that's the thing when people just come up with their stories.