Stonehenge Stone Circle News and Information

The Friar’s Heel and the Heelstone

The Devil (it’s always the Devil) was arranging the stones – presumably after bringing them back from Ireland in his apron, having swindled the owner out of them for a paltry sum, but that’s another story – and chortled to himself that no-one would ever know how they came to be there.

“That’s more than thee canst tell!” came a voice from behind a nearby bush.

The Devil whipped round and spotted a Friar who’d been hiding and watching him all this time. The Friar realised that giving himself away to Old Nick like this wasn’t perhaps the best idea, and took to his heels.

As he was running away, the Devil – furious that his plan had been thwarted – flung the rock he was holding at the retreating figure. And it hit him on the foot.

But the Friar, being a pious man, wasn’t damaged by the impact. Instead the imprint of his heel was left in the rock for all time.

The stone that the Devil threw is often said to be the Heelstone, and people point to the fact that it bears the imprint of a heel on its face (the smooth curve just inside the red dotted line in this photo).

Trouble is, this is a HUGE feature, so unless the Friar’s also a giant (and that’s yet another story), then something’s not right.

John Aubrey wrote in his famous Monumenta Britannica in the mid 17^th century:

“One of the great Stones that lies downe, on the west side, hath a cavity something resembling the

print of a mans foot; concerning which, the Shepherds and countrey people have a Tradition (which many of them doe stedfastly believe) that when Merlin conveyed these Stones from Ireland by Art Magick, the Devill hitt him in the heele with that stone, and so left the print there.”

Hang on – the Heelstone is on the northeast side of Stonehenge not the west. And the Heelstone is upright not lying down. Clearly Aubrey’s talking about an entirely different stone.

Aubrey is repeating the story of Merlin’s involvement, which was originally set down by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12^th Century and subsequently embellished to include the Devil by later medieval re-tellers.

By the 18^th Century, John Wood (of Bath architecture renown) had further reinforced the Merlin + Devil + thrown stone tale in his 1747 book, which included the first accurate plan of the monument, but he didn’t associate the Friar’s Heel imprint or name with the Heelstone.

The guilty party is one Dr John Smith in his 1771 book “Choir Gaur: the Grand Orrery of the Ancient Druids, Commonly Called Stonehenge” where he confidently, and completely wrongly writes:

“As the spectator advances, from the valley, up the grand avenue to the temple, the first stone, that offers to his view, is called the Friar’s Heel, and stands two hundred and ten feet from the body of the structure”

Incidentally, Smith also gave us the incorrect information that the Heelstone was designed to mark the position of the rising summer solstice Sun. It wasn’t and doesn’t, but that’s still yet another story.

Smith had got himself confused, having plagiarised William Stukeley’s earlier work – but his misidentification of the Heelstone as the Friar’s Heel stuck, to the extent that even the Ordnance Survey fell for it in their mapping of the site.

So which stone, I can almost hear you ask, is really the Friar’s Heel? It’s this one – Stone 14.

Lying down on the southwest side of the circle it’s got a wide, thick, end that tapers away to a thin base.

And on the upper surface is a very human-foot-sized, and human-foot-shaped, hollow.

Poor old Lucifer – he’s forever chucking rocks at things and people and he’s usually a rotten shot – he’s as bad as a Star Wars Stormtrooper in that regard.

The one time he does actually manage to hit his target, it does no damage to the intended victim but scars the missile instead.

If this was a musical medium, I’d want to end with Sympathy for the Devil, by the Rolling Stones – seems appropriate, somehow.

Article by guest blogger and local Stonehenge historian Simon Banton

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