The image 'Two Giants' has been awarded 'Photo of the Week' at Your Photo Tips.

Saddleworth Moor is such a wild and beautiful place. The Moors Murders and countless newspaper articles have for years cast a dark shadow over it, portraying it as a bleak and barren nightmare of a place. Douglas Hurd described the moor as, "featurless". This however couldn't be further from the truth, as it is littered with a rich history and folklore and has some of the most wonderful views.

This view is from near the summit of Alderman's Hill looking across Greenfield to Alphin Pike. Folklore tells the tale of two giants, Alphin and Alder who lived on their respective hills. Both sought the affections of Rimmon, a water nymph who lived in the waters of Chew Beck below. Rimmon chose Alphin, which infuriated Alder and the two giants fought, hurling rocks at each other until Alphin was struck and killed. In her grief, Rimmon cast herself from rocks into the valley below and joined Alphin in death.

There is a strong likelihood that this tale is the mythologisation of a Dark Ages battle that could well have taken place here, between the advancing Angles of Northumbria and the Celts of Southern Rheged. Anyone familiar with the tale of the battle of Win Hill, will remember that in c.626AD, the Northumbians defeated the Mercians by rolling boulders down the hillside. The Northumbians had taken Elmet (modern day West Yorkshire) in the early part of the 7th C and advanced on Rheged, which itself fell sometime before 730AD. There are a number of pointers in the landscape to this area being an ancient boarder and even the place names leave clues. Alder being of German origin, Al being a Celtic word for a rock or a hill.

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