John Wood (the one who designed Bath’s Crescent) wrote in 1750:
“No one, say the country people about Stantondrue, was ever able to reckon the number of the metaphosed stones, or to take a draught of them, though several have attempted to do both, and proceeded till they were either struck dead upon the spot, or with such an illness as soon carried them off.”
When he tried to count them (why oh why, considering the warning) a cloudburst followed.
(quoted by J and C Bord in ‘Prehistoric Britain from the air’)