Auld Wives' Lift, a famous cromlech in Baldernock parish, SW Stirlingshire, 1 mile NNE of the church, and 3 miles WSW of Lennoxtown. A trilith or complete cromlech, it consists of three stones only-two of nearly equal length Supporting the huge capstone, a block of basalt 18 feet long, 11 broad, and 7 thick. Through the narrow triangular space between the three stones every stranger must creep, if, runs the rustic creed, he would not die childless; and those stones, he is told, were brought hither by three old women in their aprons, for a wager which should bear the heaviest load. Then from the top, though barely 400 feet above sea-level, he may look right across the island from firth to firth, see the smoke of one steamer entering the Clyde, and of another below Grangemouth in the Forth. See Wilson's Prehistoric Annals of Scotland (2d ed. 1863), and Nimmo's Stirlingshire (3d ed. 1880).

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)