Arthur's Quoit

There are quoits all over Cornwall, chambers with walls made of huge slabs of stone with an even bigger slab as a capstone roof. Some of the quoits were made by giants playing stone throwing games. The giants used the quoits as houses or tables or hiding places.

There's a quoit near St Columb, opposite the solar park by Quoit Farm. Its fallen down now, the stones are still there, but this quoit was not built by giants. Some people call it  Devil's Quoit but we know different.. it couldn't be the Devil's Quoit as Old Nick, Old Scratch, the Devil himself never came into Cornwall....he was too much of a coward.

The Devil started on a journey to Cornwall for his holidays, got as far as the banks of the River Tamar at Torpoint, then had second devilish thoughts. He'd heard a rumour that the people in Cornwall loved making pies, they put anything they could lay their hands into a pie or a pasty. They made fishy pie, star gazy pie, conger pie, pies of all the fish in the sea. They made herby pie, leeky pie, appley pie, blackberry pie, pies of all that grew in their gardens. They made piggy pie, lamby pie, veggie pie, pies without number and that's not counting the pasties. What if they made him into a devily pie? The devil turned round on his heels and went back into Devon, where he stayed – he never set foot into Cornwall for fear of being baked into a pie.

So if you ever smell a whiff of sulphur and fear the devil is about, just shout PIE, or PASTY, as loud as you can and he will disappear back to Devon in a cloud of smoke , and St Dennis will be safe again.

So the quoit at Quoit could not be Devil's Quoit. Some say King Aurthur was born at Castle an Dinas, not Tintagel , and that he often returned and went hunting over Goss Moor to St Columb. An old man who lived at Quoit remembered seeing King Aurthur's army drilling nearby, the moonlight glinting off their weapons. Arthur's Quoit it is.

Retold by Sue Field

Source Robert Hunt Popular Romances from the West of England

 Jenner, Henry (1922). "Castle-an-Dinas and King Arthur". Annual Report of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. New Series. 4. Plymouth and Falmouth: 100–101

The Quoit is not in its original location - it was moved for a road to be built. Only the capstone is left by the side of the busy road. .