Carbuncle of Ward Hill (The)

A mysterious carbuncle visible enough to those who stand at the foot of the hill in May, June or July; but never beheld by anyone who has succeeded in reaching the hill top.

“I have distinguished, among the dark rocks, that wonderful carbuncle, which gleams ruddy as a furnace to them who view it from beneath, but has ever become invisible to him whose daring foot has scaled the precipice from which it darts its splendour,”—Sir W. Scott: The Pirate, chap. xix.

⁂ Dr. Wallace thinks it is water trickling from a rock, and reddened by the sun.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.