Wayland's
Smithy is one of the
finest chambered long barrows in Britain and lies a short hike away -along
the Ridgeway- from Uffington White Horse and Uffington Castle. Excavations
in 1962-63 proved that it had been built in two different periods, around
3,700 and 3,400 BC. In the first period, a wooden mortuary chamber was
constructed, where fourteen articulated and disarticulated bodies have
been found. Then the burial chamber was surrounded by some sarsen boulders
and covered with a mound of chalk taken from two flanking ditches. This
first mound and its ditches are not visible now, covered by the following
long barrow.
In the second period the trapezoidal chalk mound
that we see today was built, measuring
60m (196ft) in length and from 6 to 15m (19 to 50ft) in width. The chalk
was held in place by a kerb of stones. At the south end of this barrow,
there were once six large slabs. Now only four survive: they are 3m (10ft)
high and they flank the entrance of a cruciform tomb formed by a passage
6.6m (21ft) long with one chamber at either side. The passage is 1.8m
(6ft) and the chambers 1.3m (4ft) high. In excavations in 1919, eight
skeletons, one of a child, were found in the long barrow.
Wayland's Smithy got its name long
after its construction
(First recorded in a charter of
King Edred dated AD 955), when Saxon settlers came across the
tomb. Not knowing who had built it, they imagined it was the work of one
of their gods, Wayland the Smith. Later, a legend grew that Wayland would
re-shoe any passing traveller's horse left along with a silver penny
beside the tomb.
The most striking feature of Wayland's Smithy are the four great
sarsens that stand either side of the entrancegiving the structure a
superficial resemblance to the
West-Kennet long-barrow. Originally there were six of these, but
only four were recovered during the excavations of the 1960's:
having fallen over, they were subsequently restored to their upright
positions. Standing directly in front of the barrow it is easy to
see where the missing ones once stood; obvious gaps are evident on
the extreme left and between the two existing stones on the right
Peet
(1)
says of 'The Cave of Wayland the Smith' that it was a tradition
that when a horse lost a shoe in the area:
'the rider must leave it
in front of the dolmen.....placing at the same time a coin on the cover
stone. He must then retire for a suitable period, after which he returns
to find the horse shod and the money gone
Another local tale says that
Wayland had an apprentice called Flibbertigibbet who greatly
exasperated his master. Eventually Wayland lifted the boy and
hurled him as far away as he could, down into the Vale. Where
Flibbertigibbet landed he remained, petrified. The stone became
a boundary marker and remains to this day in a field called
Snivelling Corner by Odstone Farm.
Waylands Smithy:
