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moss wrote:
But what about Tolkien..

"You'd forgotten Barrow-wight dwelling in the old mound
Up there on the hill top with the ring of stones around"

So, what colours our imagination, fictional reading or actuality of the stones?

Oh, definately the fiction - mind it's pretty much all fiction isn't it?!

Yes, there's masses of stuff in LOTR isn't there?
But it was written before the period covered as, just, was 'Marianne Dreams' which was made into the British TV series 'Escape into Night' featuring the terrifying ring of stones advancing onto a little boy alone in a house.

Also a stone (probably pre-historic) features heavily in Alan Garner's The Owl Service, lots of mounds in his The Moon of Gomrath and an iron age fort in his Red Shift (although it is debatable whether that is a children's book).

Btw. there is a sequel to the actual TV series 'Children of the Stones' in production. Don't know if that is a good thing or not. And it has probably already been mentioned but Stewart Lee did a nice program on Radio Four about it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n1rbx

Craig yr Aderyn ("Bird Rock") in North Wales, which is also an Iron Age fort, features in Susan Cooper's "The Grey King". Standing stones on the headland of her fictional Cornish village of Trewissick (apparently based in part on Mevagissey) provide a moonlight shadow "pointer" in "Over Sea, Under Stone":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SusanCooper_OverSeaUnderStone.jpg

A stone circle and a barrow feature strongly in Alan Garners Elidor, the pinnacle of this kind of children's fiction in my opinion. Constantly surprised that it was never made into a film (and relieved after the mess they made of The Dark is Rising).

Recently read it to my 8 year old. It really is a scary book, was worrying that it might be a bit strong in this pasteurized present but it captivated him - scared him in all the right ways.