The King's Men

To this end the number of existing stones are said to be uncountable, I have read of estimates as low as 50 and as high as 100, my own count revealed 77 stones. Had I counted the stones three times and came to the same number each time then as local tradition holds, I would be granted a single wish! (I wish I knew how many stones there are?) There is a story of a nineteenth century baker who was determined to count the stones accurately, with him to the ring he bought a basket containing a number of pre-counted loaves and he put one on each stone. When he gathered the loaves back in for a final count he discovered some were missing, they had mysteriously vanished. I believe the fairies ate them as they are said to visit this place and dance about it at certain times of the year.

As if the shattered and disrupted nature of the 'Kings Men' makes them difficult enough to count then the difficulty doubles when one learns that the stones have a habit of moving about under their own volition. In the book 'Ghosts and Witches of the Cotswolds' J A Brooks tells how the Stones are supposed to go down to the stream to drink on New Year's Eve. These thirsty stones are also said to make the jopurney to sate their thirsts as the church clock at Long Compton strikes midnight. Indeed at midnight the King and his men are said to be returned to flesh and bone so that they might dance and feast. Anyone who gazes upon their midnight glee are themselves damned to die or be turned to stone. J. Harvey Bloom's book 'Folk-Lore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeare's Land' recalls how a farmer would shut his gates around the stones and would find them open the next day, even if fastened by padlocks and chains.

"Beneath Einsham, Evenlode a little river, arising likewise out of Cotteswald speedeth him into Isis: which riveret on the very border of the shire passeth by an ancient Monument standing not farre from his bank, to wit, certaine large stones placed in a round circle (the common people usually call them 'Rolle-rich' stones, and dreameth that they were sometimes men by a wonderfull Metamorphosis turned into hard stones). The draught of them, such as it is, portrayed long since, heere I represent unto your view. For, without all form and shape they bee, unequall, and by long continuance of time much impaired. The highest of them all, which without the circle looketh into the earth, they use to call 'the King', because hee should have beene King of England (forsooth) if hee had once seene 'Long Compton', a little towne so called lying beneath and which a man if he goe some few paces forward may see: other five standing on the other side, touching as it were one another, they imagine to have been knights mounted on horsebacke and the rest the Army. But loe the foresaid portraiture. These would I verily thinke to have beene the Monument of some Victory and haply erected by Rollo the Dane who afterwards conquered Normandy." - From 'Philemon Holland's Translation [of Camden], 1637, p374' and quoted in The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore, by Arthur J. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), pp. 6-53.

Folklore, myth and dreaming overlap one another at these stones. There is another version of the witches tale involing a Danish General which Christine Bloxham records in her book 'Folklore of Oxfordshire' (published by Tempus 2005):

Said the Danish General
If Long Compton I cou'd see
Then King of England I shou'd be
But replied the British General,
Then rise up hill and stand fast Stone
for Kind of England thou'lt be none

There were dowsers at work amongst the stones on the fine April day of my visit, they stood about the stones feeling and reading the energy present. Another tale in Bloxham's book tells of the Dowser Enid Smithett, who when dowsing at the site of the Rollrights, felt faint and dropped her pendulum in the long grass. Instead of flopping to the ground, it stood rigidly, for some time! In a dowsing survey carried out in 1973 by Tom Graves, he found abundant evidence of 'overground energy' operating between all the Rollright Stones and even being 'transmitted' from them across country to other sites. In the early 1980's members of the Dragon Project using dowsing techniques discovered spiral 'lines of force' along the surfaces of the stones. Charles Brooker, in a report published in New Scientist in January 1983, told of an experiment in which he had used a gaussmeter to confirm the existance of 'lines of force' spiralling outwards from the centre, sensed by a dowser. Brooker was surprised to find that a local dowser 'reported tingling sensations exactly where a recording magnetometer produced blips on the chart'. Brooker and the Dragon Project then conducted a more detailed survey and discovered that the 'magnetic pattern inside the stone circle forms a seven ring spiral, broadening as it moves outward until it leaves the circle.....'

I'll move from a spiral to an 'old straight track'! The 'Rollright Ley' extends from an earthwork near Chipping Warden in Northamptonshire and runs for almost 17 miles to the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire. The Ley begins at Arbury Hill, (SP540587), a disputed Iron Age hill fort and at 735ft (225m) it is the highest point in the county of Northamptonshire. Next is the ancient river crossing of Cropredy Bridge beside the upper reaches of the River Cherwell. A plaque explains that it was built by the Bishop of Lincoln in 1314, altered three times between 1691 and 1886, and rebuilt in 1937. A second plaque on the opposite parapet recalls it was the site of a noteable battle in 1644, and observes piously: 'From Civil War Good Lord Deliver Us.' The ley just misses Hanwell Castle before reaching Wroxton Church (SP4141). The present church, All Saints, is 14th century and stands on the site of an earlier church of which nothing now remains. The next marker is Castle Bank Camp where the earthworks are low and the nature of the site uncertain. The ley continues over the curiously named Jester's Hill and towards Madmarston Hill Camp, (SP386389). Here have been found numerous pits containing animal bones, pottery and grain in addition to a spring. The now fairly low earthworks enclose 7 acres. The 'Rollright Ley' concludes at the 'Kings Men,' (SP295309).

Visiting on a sunny Easter weekend I found the the 'King's Men' to be a welcoming, open, place. It appeared an unhidden and unashamed area where you could spend some time simply doing what you wanted or having a picnic with the family. Being Easter people had placed decorated eggs in the branches of nearby trees whilst others had tied rags and 'clouties' - a hope of healing, of a better time to come. Perhaps an elder tree, traditionally supposed to ward against evil influence and give protection from witches, could be found or planted to better suit this purpose. In 'The Stone Circles of The British Isles' Aubrey Burl has written: "If a young wife were infertile she would visit the circle at midnight and press the tips of her breasts against the stone just as women did at Carnac 300 miles away across the English Channel."

"Not far from the borders of Gloucestershire and Oxford-shire, and within the latter county, is the pretty village of Rollright, and near the village, up a hill, stands a circle of small stones, and one larger stone, such as our Celtic antiquaries say were raised by the Druids. As soon as the Druids left them, the fairies, who never failed to take possession of their deserted shrines, seemed to have had an especial care over these stones, and any one who ventures to meddle with them Is sure to meet with some very great misfortune. The old people of the village, however, who generally know most about these matters, say the stones were once a king and his knights, who were going to make war on the king of England; and they assert that, according to old prophecies, had they ever reached Long Compton, the king of England must inevitably have been dethroned, and this king would have reigned in his place, but when they came to the village of Rollright they were suddenly turned into stones in the place where they now stand. Be this as it may, there was once a farmer in the village who wanted a large stone to put in a particular position in an outhouse he was building in his farmyard, and he thought that one of the old knights would be just the thing for him. In spite of all the warnings of his neighbours he determined to have the stone he wanted, and he put four horses to his best waggon and proceeded up the hill. With much labour he succeeded in getting the stone into his waggon, and though the road lay down hill, it was so heavy that his waggon was broken and his horses were killed by the labour of drawing it home. Nothing daunted by all these mishaps, the farmer raised the stone to the place it was to occupy in his new building. From this moment everything went wrong with him, his crops failed year after year, his cattle died one after another, he was obliged to mortgage his land and to sell his waggons and horses, till at last he had left only one poor broken-down horse which nobody would buy, and one old broken-down cart. Suddenly the thought came into his head that all his misfortunes might be owing to the identical stone which be had brought from the circle at the top of the hill. He thought he would try to get it back again, and his only horse was put to the cart. To his surprise he got the stone down and lifted it into the cart with very little trouble, and, as soon as it was in, the horse, which could scarcely bear along its own limbs, now drew it up the hill of its own accord with as little trouble as another horse would draw an empty cart on level ground, until it came to the very spot where the stone had formerly stood beside its companions. The stone was soon in its place, and the horse and cart returned borne, and from that moment the farmer's affairs began to improve, till in a short time he was a richer and more substantial man than he had ever been before." - English Fairy and Other Folk Tales, by Edwin Sidney Hartland [1890].