Stocktarn Drown

A sunken steading-chapel beneath the upland tarn, swallowed by the rising water generations past — you swim it: surface to breathe, dive under the low roof to the drowned altar where the Kneeling Drowned have left their mark.

The hamlet around Stocktarn was modest and old. When the tarn rose — a slow season, not a flood — the people moved the livestock uphill and left the chapel, believing it temporary. It was not. The bell-tower tip still breaks the surface on still days; you can dive from it to reach the nave. The Kneeling Drowned have marked the altar with their signs, and the shepherds swear the bell rings on windless nights even though the clapper is underwater. Hollowfold has been losing ewes to the bog at its edge, and the blame has found its way to the drowned chapel's bell.