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Legend

Wayland's Smithy

Near Uffington, Oxfordshire

Leave your horse and a silver coin, and it will be shod by morning.

Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow among beech trees on the Ridgeway. It is named after Wayland, the smith of Saxon legend.

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When
c. 3600 BC
Where
51.5667, -1.5955
Group
Legends

Visiting

English Heritage, free. A walk along the Ridgeway.

Cover of The Ledger of Lost Britain by Cale Mills
From the book

The Ledger of Lost Britain

Beside the Ridgeway, on the same chalk hills as the Uffington White Horse, near the village of Ashbury in Oxfordshire, there is a long barrow that is much older than the horse.

The Romans arrived in AD 43. For most people that is where the history of Britain begins. But by the time the legions landed, people had already been living on these islands for thousands of years. They had hunted, farmed, mined flint, dragged stones across the country, raised a hill by hand, and buried their dead in great tombs. They left no written words. What they left was the ground itself. Every place in this book can be visited, or has been dug up, or is in a museum.

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