TINKINSWOOD

Tinkinswood is situated approx 12 miles west of Cardiff in S.Wales (UK) It can be easily found by following the signposted lane from the village of St Nicholas on the A40. St Nicholas can be easily found by following the signs for the nearby Welsh Folk Museum in St Fagans. The capstone is massive, one of the biggest in Europe. It has been estimated at weighing over 40 tons.
One of the most noticeable features of the site is a well preserved dry stone horned forecourt. The stones are laid in a herringbone pattern which still looks like new. (You can just see some of this in the photograph on the bottom right.)

Folk tales associated with Tinkinswood
Many of the folk tales associated with Tinkinswood are inseparable from those of the nearby St Lythan's monument. The best known of these is that anyone spending the night there would either go mad, become a poet or die. This is similar to a general legend about mountain tops, which are supposed to be the haunt of the Tylywth Teg or "Fair Folk". A group of boulders to the south of the monument is said to be women who turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath day, another common legend associated with dolmens. The old name for the fields in which it stands is Castell Corrig or "The dwarves castle". This may refer to the beings who supposed to have made dolmens and might be similar to the Kored of Armorica (Brittany).

The massive capstone

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