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Stone Circle
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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. This 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.
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Posted by Rhiannon
30th September 2006ce
Edited 13th April 2007ce
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