Mystery
The Queen's Bull Hide
One hide, cut thin enough, can hold an army.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A grassy Norman castle mound on a chalk hill
- Legend from
- Recorded 1801
- Tone
- Light-hearted
On the hill ahead is Totternhoe's castle mound, said to have been marked out with one bull's hide cut into a very long string.
On the chalk spur of Totternhoe Knolls stand the earthworks of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle, raised on top of an older enclosure. A late 18th-century traveller recorded what local people called the Castle, and the tale they told about it: a queen wagered a king that she could fit a great army inside a single bull's hide. She had the hide cut into the thinnest of strips and laid them end to end in a vast circle, and the camp was built inside it. The Beauties of England and Wales printed the story in 1801 but attached it to the wrong earthwork; later readers showed it was told of the mound near Totternhoe.