A "a ring of standing stones in a field of long, rank grass" near Carmarthenshire, Wales used in a bizarre witchcraft ceremony to alter the weather patterns [The Dark Secret of Weatherend, 79-80].
According to legend, "somebody drilled holes in them and inserted little packets of beeswax wrapped in paper. Imbedded in the wax were clots of human blood, fingernail pairings, snippets of hair, and little pieces of bone. The packets were inserted in the stones to setup magical lines of force, influences stronger than the strongest electrical field. Then, I imagine, some rather picturesque rituals were performed, and incarnations were chanted. The result was that certain things started to happen." Hail, severe winds, blizzards, colored lightning and mysterious underground rumblings began shortly thereafter - until "the angry townsfolk tipped over the stones, extracted the little packets, and burned them" [79-80].
Emerson Eells finds an old engraving of the stones and hypothesizes that what happened in Wales is happening to the weather in Hoosac.
There are no stones in Wales that are identified as the Weird Sisters, in reality an allusion to the three witches found in Shakespeare's Macbeth. There are, however, many rings of stones in the Carmarthenshire area and Bellairs may have seen such stones (or even Stonehenge) during his overseas visits.
Frank Olding, the assistant Inspector of Welsh Historic Monuments, says the two better-known sets of rings in Carmarthenshire are Meini Gwyr ("the Crooked Stones") and Pen y Raglan Gwynt ("the End of the Wind-break").
Phil Dunn notes that the rituals Bellairs wrote of may well be based on local folklore from various parts of the British Isles. "Holes in standing stones are fairly common. Whether they were drilled or have just formed over time is debatable but it's certainly true to say that where holes do occur they are often used as receptacles for offerings. On visits to a range of circles I have often found offerings of fresh woodland flowers or grain left by practicing pagans to this day." He adds, since no written records exist, it's impossible to confirm whether or not stones were used with the aim of controlling the weather.
