Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/311

Rh Com. (i.e., Compton), and the people were so miserable, they were obliged to bring him back; but the eight horses could not move him; they tried more, but could not succeed, till they brought a white one, and then he was brought back.

[A variant of this story is as follows]: The stone was taken to Long Compton to form a bridge over a stream; but they could not rest, and were obliged to bring him back; but when they got to where he is, they were so frightened, they ran away, and left him standing.

[The following story does not relate to the "King Stone," but apparently to one of the "Knights"; Evans, l.c. p. 27]: They took one large flat stone to Long Com. (i.e., Long Compton), to put over a ditch, and had to bring it back; but no amount of horses could do it, so they left it in the field at the bottom of the hill.

[The following relates to the difficulty of counting the stones in the circle twice alike; Evans, l.c. p. 26]: A Charlbury man told me about a baker, who tried to count those stones at Long Com.; he got over the difficulty by placing a loaf on each stone, and then counted the stones, and found seventy-two.

[Bad luck would come to anyone who injured the stones; Evans, l.c. p. 23]: A friend of mine, some years ago, broke a piece off one of the stones, and called at Chapel House (near Chipping Norton) to have some beer; he showed the stone, when the landlady begged him to take it back, as there would sure to be something bad happen to him.—(1894.)

[The Devil's Quoits at Stanton Harcourt are three large standing stones, which are all that remain of what was probably a circle considerably larger than that at Avebury, and which doubtless gave their name to the neighbouring village (Stanton = A.S. Stán-tún, the stone enclosure). Beacon Hill is a very conspicuous landmark, just above Eynsham Bridge, on the Berkshire side of the Thames, about two and a half miles in a straight line from the "Quoits." It is very steeply scarped on three sides, and it has been suggested that it was the British fortress of Egonesham, captured by the Saxons under Cuthwulf in 571. ]