On the highest part of Sutton Common, in Craven, is a huge block of
solid granite, of about fifty yards in circumference, and about ten
yards high. It is regarded as a great natural curiosity, and has for
generations been a prominent feature in the legends and old wife’s tales
of the neighbourhood. On the west side is an artificial excavation,
called “The Chair,” capable of containing six persons comfortably,
though I remember it once, at a pinch, in a tremendous thunder shower,
containing eight. On the north side is a similar excavation, called “The
Churn,” from its resemblance to that domestic utensil; on the top is a
natural basin, fourteen yards in circumference. This stone is the
boundary-mark for three townships and two parishes, viz. the townships
of Sutton, Cowling, and Laycock, and the parishes of Kildwick and
Keighley. From time immemorial it has been customary to hold a feast
round Hitchingstone on the 1st of August, the amusements at which are of
a similar nature with those of the village feasts and tides (as they are
called in some places) in the vicinity, as dancing, racing, &c. At a
short distance from Hitchingstone are two smaller stones, one on the
east, called Kidstone, the other on the north-east, called Navaxstone;
whence the three names are derived I am ignorant.
The inhabitants of Cowling, or Cowling-head, the village from which the
township takes its name, are known in Craven as “Moons;” an epithet of
derision, which is said to have had its origin from the following
circumstance:--Cowling-head is a wild mountain village, and the
inhabitants are not famed for travelling much; but it is told, that once
upon a time, a Cowling shepherd got so far from home as Skipton, (six
miles;) on entering Skipton it was a fine moonlight night, and the
shepherd is said to have made this sagacious remark: “How like your
Skipton moon is to our Cowling-head moon.” Be the story true or not, the
inhabitants are called “Moons;” and in the vulgar vocabulary of Craven a
silly fellow is called a “Cowling moon.” Not knowing a single inhabitant
of Cowling I cannot speak of their civilization; but it does not say
much for their advancement in knowledge, that the Joannites have a
chapel amongst them, and remain true to their _prophetess_; who, as they
suppose,
------is but vanish’d from the earth awhile,
To come again with bright unclouded smile.
While residing a few days at a gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood, I
frequently observed the Cowling Joannites, with their long beards,
rambling up and down the fells. A friend likened them to the ancient
Druid priests, but I thought they more resembled goats, and formed no
bad substitute for that animal, which is almost wholly banished from the
fells of the district.