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There are several local traditional stories about the megalithic complex. The best known
tells how a wedding party was turned to stone: the party was held throughout Saturday, but a man clothed in black (the Devil
in disguise) came and started to play his violin for the merrymakers after midnight, continuing into holy Sunday morning.
When dawn broke, everybody had been turned to stone by the Demon: so the stone circles are the dancers, the avenues are the
fiddlers and the Cove is the bride and the groom with the drunken churchman at their feet. They are still awaiting the Devil
who promised to come back someday and play again for them. Another legend, shared with Long Meg and Her Daughters and many
other megalithic monuments says that the Stanton Drew's stones are uncountable. John Wood reported this story in 1750; when
he tried to count the stones, a thunderstorm broke out.
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. Stoney Littleton
A fine fossil ammonite decorates the left-hand door jamb
with a spiral; the spiral is a symbol used by various cultures to represent the passage through life and death. There are
also a stump of a closing slab at the entrance and a septal slab before the central pair of side-chambers. Excavation by John
Skinner in 1816-17 gained the entry through a hole originally made about 1760 by a farmer who took stone for road mending.
The excavation revealed the bones (some burned) of several individuals.
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