The Devil's Chair

This is an image from a current series of drawings about the Devil's Chair, a rocky outcrop of the Stiperstones ridge in Shropshire, a area of Victorian tin mines rich in myth and legend.

'Around the chair lie scattered boulders which, it is said, fell from the Devil's apron when its strings broke one day as he seated himself there to rest; he had carried them all the way from Ireland, to block up the ravine called Hell Gutter. Yes he often sits there, hoping his weight will drive the rock into the ground, for if that should happen it would spell disaster for England; anyone who climbs up to the chair in hot weather can smell brimstone round it.'
The Lore of the Land, A Guide to England's Legends (Westwood & Simpson, Penguin, 2005)

'It drew the thunder, people said.'
Mary Webb, The Golden Arrow (1916)