²⁰“The stone that came back."
A recent item in PostNews…illustrates that the traditional folklore about Irish field monuments which helped so much up to very recent times to protect them is still alive, at least in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. An American tourist from that city during a visit to Ireland took a stone from the large cairn on top of Knocknarea just to the south-west of Sligo town…
“After her return to Madison the American visitor realised her mistake and in apparent fear of the consequences she sent the stone, three dollars and some instructions, all wrapped in a shoe box, to Sligo Post Office. The note read as follows: 'Enclosed is a rock plus three dollars, please hire a boy to return the rock to Queen Maeve's cairn atop the hill.’
If only all the depradations to archaeological monuments could be so easily put right!”
Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Sep., 1987), pp. 3-4.