St Lythans stands in a field on the slope below Dyffryn, three big upright stones with a sloping capstone and none of its covering mound left. It is one of the most photographed prehistoric sites in the Vale, and its folklore is short but vivid.
The main legend is that on Midsummer's Eve the capstone turns round three times, and then all the stones get up and go down to the nearby river to bathe, returning to their places before anyone can see them empty. Stones that walk to water on a special night are a common theme in British megalith lore, told of standing stones in Oxfordshire, Brittany and elsewhere.
The tomb has several names. Gwâl y Filiast means the Greyhound Bitch's Kennel or lair, a name given to more than one Welsh cromlech and linked by some writers to the great hunts in the medieval tale of Culhwch and Olwen. Wikipedia says it was actually used as a shelter for animals in the early nineteenth century. It is also called Maes y Felin, the Mill Field, and the spinning legend may have grown out of that name, the capstone turning like a millstone.
The field itself was known as the Accursed Field, supposedly because nothing would grow in it. Julian Cope, in his guide to British megaliths, suggested the name might be a corruption of an older field name, so the curse may have been invented to explain the words rather than the other way round.
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