The "Druidical" stones at Rollright, Oxfordshire, are said to have been
originally a general and his army who were transformed into stones by a
magician. The tradition runs that there was a prophecy or oracle which
told the general,—
If Long Compton thou canst see,
King of England thou shalt be.
He was within a few yards of the spot whence that town could be
observed, when his progress was stopped by the magician's
transformation,—
Sink down man, and rise up stone!
King of England thou shalt be none.
The general was transformed into a large stone which stands on a spot
from which Long Compton is not visible, but on ascending a slight rise
close to it, the town is revealed to view. Roger Gale, writing in 1719,
says that whoever dared to contradict this story was regarded "as a most
audacious freethinker." It is said that no man could ever count these
stones, and that a baker once attempted it by placing a penny loaf on
each of them, but somehow or other he failed in counting his own bread.
A similar tale is related of Stonehenge.