Folklore & legend

The Haltadans, the Trows Turned to Stone

Also known as: Haltadans; Limping Dance

Haltadans stone circle, Fetlar

Neolithic monument; legend undated

The Haltadans, the name meaning the limping or lame dance, is a ring of 38 stones about 11 metres across with two rectangular pillars at the centre. Of the 38, 22 are still fixed in the ground. It is a Neolithic monument and has been a scheduled monument since 1955.

The story attached to it is a trow legend. Trows took a fiddler and his wife from the local people to play for them, and danced in a circle. They enjoyed themselves so much that they did not see the sun rise, and sunrise turned them all to stone. The two central stones are the fiddler and his wife, who kept playing through the night. Some tellers say the trows were turned to stone as a punishment, but that looks like a later addition: the turning to stone at sunrise belongs to the Scandinavian troll tradition that the trows descend from.

The Fetlar Interpretive Centre at Houbie is said to play a tune taken to be one the trows taught. The name was explained by the Faroese scholar Jakob Jakobsen in 1897.

Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
60.610, -0.864 (Sited to the building or field)

Sources: Wikipedia, "Haltadans" [other]; Promote Shetland, "Fetlar" [other]

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