Bullaun

Introduction

A Bullaun is the term used for the depression in which a free standing rounded boulder sits within a water filled natural cavity or 'rock basin' in a stream or river. Bullauns are frequently found in rocky streams and rivers, sometimes identified as petrosomatoglyphs, such as the knee prints, elbow prints, etc. of saints, etc.

Men-an-tol and the 'holed stone' which may have been a bullaun.

Formation

Bullauns are formed by the action of relatively fast running water currents that cause small boulders to move in a circular motion and by the friction so created they erode the natural rock substrate to create concavities that increase in depth and circumference over the years. One or more rounded stones may be found within them, often of varying sizes, for these stones also wear away with the physical abrasion effect.

The circumstances must be such that on the river bed the abrasive stones remain in approximately one area as they circle for the process of the creation of the bullaun to occur. During times of flood river currents provide considerable energy to stones lying on the bottom, as can be witnessed beside many rivers by the easily audible sounds that boulders make as they are being tumbled downstream over the bedrock or as they clash against other boulders.

Folklore

If a bullaun forms on an overhanging ledge at a waterfall or drop in the river level, then a circular holed stone may eventually form. These may have been used in the construction of megalithic monuments, especially tombs. Such holed stones are often associated with folklore as healing stones through which sick children are passed etc., as with the Mên-an-Tol in Cornwall, where the legend is that passage through the stone will cure a child of rickets (osteomalacia). For centuries, children with rickets were passed naked through the hole in the middle stone nine times.

"Arch-Druid in his full Judicial Costume"

Below the confluence of the river Teign and the Walla brook on Dartmoor there is a large boulder covered with bullauns or water-cut rock basins, one of which has completely worn through and pierced the stone. This is called the Tolmen stone and it has, like others, been the focus for some stories of magical cures and mystical activities. It is said that passing through the hole is a cure for rheumatism or arthritis, whilst children would be cured of whooping-cough. Another legend is that if you pass through the hole you will see the future. This may be linked to the belief recorded elsewhere that looking through a holed stone is give a person 'second sight' and some later Christian pilgrim sites retain the holed stones which exist in the area so that pilgrims, may get a 'glimpse of heaven.' Connected with this was the belief by that looking through a piece of grass made into a circle one was gave second site into the land of the supernatural, making fairies visible, etc.

Marriages

Folklore connected with holed stones indicated that they were also used for a ceremony of grasping hands to form a 'Teltown' marriage, this being a marriage of a year and a day in which either party could return to the spot a year later, renounce the marriage and walk away from the stone and their partner.

Druids

Tolmen stones (said to derive from the Celtic tol (hole) maen (stone)) were thought to have been used by Druids for purification and that the wrongdoer was lowered through into the water for 'lustration', a purification rite or cleansing ritual.

Until recently the role of perforated stones may have been twofold; use in fertility or healing rites and as traditional settings for the pledging of vows between couples. The bulluan hole in the stone might also represent the female birth canal in the Druid or 'pagan' mind and by passing through it a person was symbolising the act of rebirth and therefore regaining innocence or being cleansed of post-parturition illness, etc.

External links

• A Researcher's Guide to Local History terminology