Ward & Lock's descriptive and pictorial guide to the Isle of Man ...

Short Walks from Dovghifi. 47By a similar process of reasoning, as no human being wouldbe likely to use it as a saddle, stone blocks, firmly hxed m abank not being readily available for that purpose, equally ofcourse it must have been used by the fairies ;and in the oldbook already quoted, the inquisitive "Waldron wrote, Kot'•far from Ballatietcher Is the Fairy Saddle, a stone so called,I suppose, from the similitude it has to a saddle. It seemsto be loose on the edge of a small rock, and the wise nativesof Man will tell you it is every night made use of by thefairies, but on what kind of horses I could never find anyone who could inform me."'Befv '6 going down the lane leading to Kirk Braddan, ourattention will probably be directed to a little wood on theleft hand, in which are a number of rough unhewn blocksof stone, mostly scattered about, but some arranged in a moreregular manner. An island tradition asserts that one of theold Manx kings began the erection of a large tower at thisspot, and began with an outer wall of unhewn stones, enclosinga long area, but died before the w"ork was completed. Itseems more probable that some of the local antiquaries arecorrect in supposing that here we have traces of one of thosestrange circular enclosures of vast stones, with an avenue andsurrounding ditch, of which larger and more important specimensexist in Wiltshire and Brittany. Popular history creditsthe Druids with the erection of these open-air temples ; but,in truth, we know as little authentic about them as we doabout the Druids themselves.A pretty footpath leads to the gate at the western end ofKii-k Braddan churchyard. The old church, erected in 1773,on the site of a much older building, is not now used, havingbeen in its turn superseded by a new structure beyond theboundary of the churchyard. The church, as its predecessorwas, is dedicated to St. Brandon (in course of time corruptedinto Braddan), respecting whom we know little more thanthat he was, according to ecclesiastical tradition, bishop ofthe island in 1025, was much honoured in the Hebrides, andthat several churches in Britain are dedicated to him.Nathaniel Hawthorne, the gifted author of " The Houseof the Seven Gables " and several other famous novels,visited the Isle of Man when he was consul at Liverpoolfor the United States, but he only gives a brief note of whathe saw, and that note has reference to Kirk Braddan clmrchvard,the quiet rural appearance of which and the surroundingbelt of tall trees he greatly admired; and as Hawthorne wasone of those Americans w^ho found very little to admire in