Long ago, the Devil stood on Howe Hill and hurled giant stones towards the town of Aldborough, roaring:

“Borobrigg keep out o’ way, for Auldbro’ town I’ll ding down!”

Fortunately for Aldborough, his aim was poor. The stones fell short, landing outside Boroughbridge instead, where they became known as the Devil’s Arrows. Or so an old Yorkshire legend tells us.

It is a dramatic explanation for one of Britain’s most extraordinary prehistoric monuments: three enormous megaliths, rising to seven metres high and weighing about 25 tonnes each. Together, they form the tallest surviving stone alignment in Britain.

More than 300 years after this legend was first recorded, new evidence points to a rather different explanation for where the stones came from. In research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, we traced the geological source of the Devil’s Arrows to an unexpected place about 18 kilometres west of Boroughbridge.

Geologists had long recognised the Arrows as being Millstone Grit, a tough sandstone that forms dramatic outcrops across the nearby Pennine Hills. But the rocks beneath Boroughbridge are completely different, so the Arrows must have come from elsewhere.

Plumpton Rocks seemed the obvious source: just 13 kilometres away, its weathered Millstone Grit bears a........

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