When the stones were laid at the close of the day

And the time and the tide began to turn

From the northern seas came fire and sword

To pillage, plunder, raze and burn.

On the ravaged earth they laid their feast

Pain and sinew , blood and bone

They took the land and the silver cross

But never did find the black lodestone.

Years went by and others came, Angle, Saxon, Norman, Dane

Knight and Lord and peasant man

Tilled the soil where the lines once ran.

Took to the road the Caesars made, cut my flesh with a ploughshare blade,

When they saw the places I had been

They called me the man in Lincoln Green.

At Kirkley Hall my end was brave Every standing stone became my grave

They took the stones from the bridestones ring

In churches prayed where I used to sing

My work was done and there came the day

When men could find their own pathway

And in the end they broke my back

With the metalled road and the railway track..

But on the hills in the mud and rain

My lines of force they still remain

To the end of time you still may roam

If you can find the travellers stone

If you can find the travellers stone

The black lodestone my mother made

Not made of jet, not made of jade

But made of a rock of a different grade..

Now where can I find the black lodestone

Now the winter days are gone?

Is it in the cairn on the distant moor?

Or the donkey stone by the cottage door?

The black jack stone in the childrens game

It lies in the earth from whence it came On a distant shore..