The Rollrights
The Whispering Men is a dolmen located close to the main circle, The King's Men, and there's also the King Stone which sits nearby. According to legend, they were an army who were transformed into stone when they were cursed by a witch. I doubt that story is particularly novel, really. It seems like it would be a pretty common idea in later epochs, one concocted to explain their presence at a time when "humans dragged stones for miles to build something" was probably an alien concept, and when the predominant thoughts about time was that the Earth was less than 4000 years old. I suspect the idea that when you count the stones you never reach the same number twice (and that bad things happen if you manage to get the same number three times) might be unique though.
As things stand today, we know the Whispering Knights and the King's Men stones are at least Neolithic with their ages ranging from 38,00 BCE to 2,500 BCE. The King Stone dates from around 1,500 BCE. This means the Whispering Knights are older than Stonehenge, with the King's Men being constructed about a century after the main stone circle was made at Stonehenge.
I visited them as a kid, and my Dad did the counting part. A friend I've not spoken to for years said she and some friends visited at night and something unseen chased them off. I don't know about that - though it wouldn't surprise me if the stones were central to some modern pagans' ritual practice.
They've always stayed in my imagination, for reasons I'm not really certain of. I suspect it's actually the story about them being soldiers that I find compelling, rather than the physical structure of the stones, even though that's fascinating. The idea that one day the knights might escape and we'd discover what sort of warriors needed to be imprisoned in stone because they were so terrible is an interesting one.
Today, it's something that makes me wish I knew how to drive - because it would be cool to visit them again and see if I could find a connection to something, well, older. As I grow older, I become more conscious of these markers of previous civilisations and I find myself wanting to mark them and help to preserve them as signs of life in these isles but also as part of our heritage. In the same way, my pagan practice is starting to cleave more towards the Earth not only in an environmental sense but in the sense of ancient British figures and sites - with a particular focus on seeking things that pre-date the various invasions by Rome, the Saxons and the Vikings. I'm even sketchy about the "Celts" - as much as they ever existed as a race outside of the romantic imagination instead of being a large collection of tribes with just enough similarities (if you squint) to provide connective tissue between them). I've always been struck too that Julius Caesar never refers to the Ancient Britons as "Celts" which feels a little significant - even though we know Caesar was an opportunistic liar at times.
Within The Story
As you may be able to tell by this point, I lifted the story about the stones being transformed soldiers wholesale, though it's twisted to be "Dvernings" who transform the army into standing stones. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to slip this piece of really cool English lore into the story and who am I to turn that down. So, Elna gets grabbed by a Fae warrior, and I get to play around with the diversity of the Fae, which makes me happy. (Their diversity is one of the things that really attracts me to faeries, as it feels like you can find any sort of monster you want among their ranks).
As soon as I figured out that this was a story about two kings unwittingly clashing through the shadow wars they were both fighting for freedom and power, I knew I had to add the legend of the Rollrights to the tale. Honestly, I'll probably use it somewhere else, as well if I get the chance.
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