In the village of Meigle in Strathmore, a low grassy mound in the old churchyard is known in local tradition as Vanora's Grave — Vanora being the Scots form of Guinevere, King Arthur's queen. The legend, attached to the place for centuries, tells that Guinevere was carried off by the Pictish king (here cast as Mordred) and held captive at the hillfort of Barry Hill nearby. When she was finally recovered, Arthur — believing she had gone willingly, or been defiled by her time among the Picts — condemned her to a horrible death: she was torn apart by wild beasts, and her remains buried beneath the mound at Meigle.
The story
The story grew up around one of the remarkable carved Pictish stones for which Meigle is famous. The great cross-slab known as Meigle 2 shows, on its reverse, the biblical scene of Daniel in the lions' den — a robed human figure flanked by four beasts. To later eyes unfamiliar with the original meaning, and standing as it did beside Vanora's mound, the carving was reinterpreted as the very moment of Guinevere's execution, the beasts rending the queen. So a Christian image of deliverance was folded into a dark Arthurian legend of jealousy and punishment.
The tradition was strong enough that, by repute, no grass would grow well on the mound, and local women were once warned against walking upon it lest they be left barren. The stones, including Meigle 2, are now preserved in the Meigle Sculptured Stone Museum, where the legend of Vanora's grave keeps a Pictish-Arthurian story alive in the heart of Perthshire.