Monday, 21 July 2014








The Rollright Stones.
A Bronze Age site, the stones are widely believed to be a King and his Army that were turned to stone by a local Witch.
The circle of stones is a 100 ft in diameter, to one side stands the King stone.
This was a conquering  army that marched as far north as Little Rollright until the King came upon a local wise woman.
She told the King that if he could see Long Compton within seven strides he would be King of the whole country.
Taking the seven steps up the hill his view was obscured by a mound, jubilant, the Witch turned the King and all his men to stone.
And there they still stand waiting for somebody who has enough strong magic to break the spell.

The Witch then turned herself into an Elder tree  close to the stones to stand guard against the spell being broken.

There was once a farmer who wished to use one of the Whispering Knights in the construction of a new barn, ignoring his neighbours warnings that nothing good would come of disturbing the stones, he yoked up his best oxen to his strongest wagon and set to work moving it. The stone was very heavy but they managed to get it onto the wagon and started for home. The beasts struggled all the way back to the farm and as soon as the three oxen reached the yard they all fell dead and the wagon crumbled to pieces. But the farmer carried on despite this and built the stone into the wall of the barn and from that day forward he never had a moments peace and misfortune after misfortune occurred to him and his family. He had to mortgage his farm and sell his stock until all he had left was one poor old shaky horse and a ricketty cart that he could not sell. He carried on struggling in this way until one day it dawned on him that it was, as everybody had warned him, the stone that had brought this misfortune. He dragged the stone from the wall and levered it onto the cart and then hitched the poor old horse to the front. It stepped out like a young horse and dragged the cart briskly back up the hill to the site of the Rollright Stone, The farmer dropped it back into it's original position and set off for home with a light heart. Within a few days his luck changed and he soon became as wealthy as he had been before, but he had learned his lesson, he never meddled with the Rollright Stones again.

This site is also a favourite spot of the Oxfordshire Faeries. 
At certain times of the year ,at the full moon, the stones will come to life and perform strange dances with the Faeries . Then they will dance down to a nearby spring for a drink to quench their thirst.

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