The Magic Stone

A pre-Christian monument

‘The Magic Stone’ is a name given in church records to the prostrate stone lying just inside the western gate to the churchyard, a few feet from the Round Tower. 

It’s a ‘glacial erratic’, a boulder deposited by melting glaciers. It’s not a gravestone but a pre-Christian marker, with a characteristic pointed top. The Magic Stone has shared the fate of many such pagan era monuments and been pushed over, supposedly robbing it of its magical powers.

Many British churches are built on pre-Christian worship sites. The nature of pre-Christian religion is generally termed ‘Druidic’ and was built around the natural landscape as well as the seasonal cycles written in both farming and the stars.

Certain groves of trees were held sacred by Druidic priests as were sources of water.  When Saint Augustine of Canterbury was chosen by Pope Gregory to convert the British in 595AD, the Pope’s final advice was not to destroy the temples of the Druids but to consecrate them. Does this give us an insight into the earliest origin of St Mary the Virgin?