healingwords: poetry for the soul

The Three Fairies Dancing sculpture at the Rollright stones is the work of environmental sculptor David Gosling and his son Adam and reflects one of the legends associated with the stones. It is said that fairies live beneath the Kings stone and come out at night to dance around the stone circle. The sculpture is inspired by William Blake's painting 'Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing' from A Midsummer night's dream. It is a nice thought that Shakespeare may have known the Stones as they lie close to the old Stratford to London road. The dancing fairies have an amazing energy, they seemed semi real on a windy, grey day and were perfectly at home next to the Stone Circle and near the beautiful wood sculptures in the Whispering Knight's wood project a few hundred yards from the stones.   © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

The Whispering Knights project is in the wood next to the Whispering Knights Dolman at the Rollright stones in Oxfordshire. The labyrinth at the heart of the project is called 'Neolithic Echoes' and is part of a project filling the word with artworks made from the brush and wood from the management of the area. I walked the labyrinth on a damp September morning with sun filtering through the trees. After visiting the stones, coming across the woodland art was a beautiful and moving experience. There is more information about the project on the website below, I would recommend a visit.  https://www.whisperingknights.org/ © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

The King's Men  is a stone circle near the village of Great Rollright in Oxfordshire. It is one of three megalithic monuments known as the Rollright Stones which also feature a single standing stone, the King Stone and a group of stones thought to be a burial chamber called The Whispering Knights. The monuments are from three different time periods, the oldest being The Whispering Knights from the early Neolithic, about 3,500 to 3,800 BC. The stone circle dates to the late Neolithic, circa 2,500 years BC and the King's Stone from the early Bronze age, approximately 1,500 BC. More information on the archaeological investigation of the stones is given on the Rollright website,  https://www.rollrightstones.co.uk/ A number of myths have grown up to explain the sites. One describes how a witch  challenged a King and his army saying 'Seven long strides shalt thou take and if Long Compton thou canst see, King of England thou shalt be'. As he took his seventh stride the...