LegendHidden
The Bridestones
Wed among stones the wind has carved.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Wind-carved gritstone outcrops on a high moor
- Legend from
- Calder Valley tradition
- Best time
- Any
- Tone
- Eerie
Brides and grooms were once married among the stones, or so the tale goes.
The Bridestones are weathered gritstone outcrops on Bridestones Moor above Todmorden in the Calder Valley. Visit Calderdale says they are thought to have been worshipped by Ancient Britons, in veneration of the spirits living within them. The name may come from Brigantia, goddess of the Brigantes tribe of northern England, or from bride as in bride and groom, as weddings supposedly took place on the moor in times gone by. The Great Bridestone, a fifteen-foot oval boulder, looks so precariously balanced that it might topple at any moment. The poet Ted Hughes made the landscape famous in his poem Bridestones, in Remains of Elmet.
One sourceOnly one written account of this legend has been found so far.