The Whispering Knights

It is a story expanded upon by Arthur J. Evens in 'The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore.' (Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. Mar., 1895, p25 in pp. 6-53.): "The 'Whispering Knights' are traitors who, when the King with his army hard by were about to engage with the enemy, withdrew themselves privily apart, and were plotting treason together, when they were turned into stone by the Witch. Some, however, say that they are at prayer. I was told that once upon a time the big flat stone (the capstone) was taken away to make a bridge across the brook at Little Rollright. It took a score of horses to drag it down the hill, for at first it would not move, and they had to strain and strain to get it along till every bit of the harness was broken. At last they got it to the brook by Rollright Farm, and with great difficulty laid it across to serve as a bridge. Butevery night the stone turned over back again and was found in the morning lying on the grass. So when this had happened three nights running they saw that the stone must be taken back to whence it came. This time they set a single horse to it, and the single horse took it up the hill quite easily, though it had taken twenty times that number to drag it down, and that they could hardly doWith regard to this tale, I found generally the most absolute belief among the country people, one man going so far as to say that there were those now living who had spoken to men who had helped to bring the stone down and up again, and "that it was done in Farmer Baker's day, who was not so very long dead."

Today the the 'Whispering Knights' stand huddled behind a black iron fence, this only seemingly adding to their sense of drama and sense of monument. From the 'Whispering Knights' you can see across the field to the 'King's Men' and imagine processions of shamen and druids as they carry out their rites. It's a quiet spot away from the busier 'King's Men' and 'King Stone', somewhere to sit in the sun, to strain your ears and listen to the conspiratorial knights whisper....."the dolmen has become to the young girls of the neighbourhood a kind of primitive oracle. At least it has been so used within the memory of man. Old Betsy Hughes.. informed me that years ago, at the time of the barley harvest, when they were often out till dusk in the fields near the 'Whispering Knights,' one of the girls would say to another, "Let us go and hear them whisper." Then they would go to the stones, and one at a time would put her ear to one of the crevices. But "first one would laugh and then another," and she herself never heard any whispering.

Another old crone told me that the stones were thought to tell of the future. "When I was a girl we used to go up at certain seasons to the 'Whispering Knights' and climb up on to one of the stones to hear them whisper. Time and again I have heard them whisper - but perhaps, after all, it was only the wind." - From: The Rollright Stones and Their Folk-Lore, by Arthur J. Evans. Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Mar., 1895), p25 in pp. 6-53.