2. THE ROLLRIGHT CIRCLE, AKA THE "KING'S MEN."
Reconstructed into a perfect circle some years ago, it bears little resemblance to its original form. In fact, it is nothing like the original.
One of the oldest surveys, conducted in 1840, reveals it to be egg-shaped, much like Woodhenge near Stonehenge. But was it an egg when it was first built, circa 2500 BC, or was it something else? Read on to find out.
3. Professor Alexander Thom's survey of the King's Men was measured inaccurately through the centre of the stones, yielding a diameter of 38 Megalithic yards. However, upon measuring the circle internally, we found a diameter of 37 Megalithic yards.
4. THE KING'S MEN.
The image above is from: THE LONG BARROWS OF THE COTSWOLDS, BY O.G.S. CRAWFORD, B.A., F.S.A. NOVEMBER 24, 1920.
"The stones are situated on the south side of the road, which forms the boundary between Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. The earliest mention of the stones is quoted in T. Hearne’s edition of Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (1724, Vol. 11, 578)."
"There are large stones near the village of Oxford, placed by the hands of men as if under a certain connection, but it is unknown at what time, by what nation, or for what purpose they were made to commemorate or mark. But the locals call that place Rollendrych.”
Pessimists often assert that Britain's stone circles are too severely damaged for anyone to uncover the original geometry on which they were based. Too few stones remain standing in their original locations; many lie scattered about as if they have been attacked by vandals, and well-meaning restorers of the stone circles incorrectly place others.
Nonetheless, having started by focusing on the best-preserved circles, we have developed a dependable system that often indicates which stones are most likely to be in their original positions and which have been misplaced or fallen.
Drawing on our experiences with the complexities of timber and stone circles, we will unveil the true nature of the so-called “King's Men” circle and reveal it as a circle of handmaidens.
5. The method. Our system for resolving the underlying geometry of stone circles begins with a transparent printout, which we fold in half to ascertain, as best we can, a monument's true axis of symmetry.
Our folded transparency of Dryden's and Lukis's survey reveals that the Rollright circle was oval, with its axis aligned between the points where the northernmost sun and moon set behind the nine-mile distant Nebsworth and Ebrington Hill.
6. An oval is a combination of two circles.
Stonehenge features two of them: one aligned with the sun and the other aligned with the moon. Stone Age people regarded ovals and geometry in general as a language. This language was crafted to unite the sun and moon in astronomical intercourse.
7. Imagine my surprise while waiting for the winter sunset that I should turn round and find the humanoid Stone 13 reflecting sunlight like a mirror. This stone has never been disturbed. It therefore helped in determining the ring as oval with an axis. It also proves that Stone Age folks used the stones to reflect sunlight into the middle of the oval.
8. The concave shape of the inner face of Stone 13. This stone alone proves that all stones of the Rollright Circle were meant to reflect sunlight into the middle of the ring.
9. The poorest face of Stone 13 is outward.
We also need to consider whether this stone was intended to depict a mother and child, and if so, does this oval of stones symbolise pregnancy as a whole?
A few years ago, scientists contemplated what would happen if light were to bounce between two mirrors. The result was the invention of lasers. People from 5,000 years ago also pondered what might occur.
I'm reminded of a young lady I spoke to while discussing Stone 13. I remarked how the circle was designed to collect light like a laser. Her response was to whirl her forefinger toward the sky as if to take off. "Exactly," I said.
10. Observe the sun nestled between the stones known as the Whispering Knights in this picture. It appears so small that some early folk believed they could catch it. Some thought they could replicate it! If so, they might bask in warm winters and cultivate fruits, vegetables, and grains all year round!
11. The humanoid family of stones is wrongly described as the Whispering Knights. We will prove this statement later!
12. From the circle, we cross the road to view the Queen Stone, which sneakily peers over the mound. Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age peoples regarded this mound as a gift from the gods. This natural mound is undeniably the precursor to the long mounds known as long barrows, attracting Mesolithic people to this site. Although no longer visible today, a circular cairn rests atop the mound. At the tail end of the mound, an individual was interred with Mesolithic flint, likely sourced from Norfolk.
13. A cairn atop the mound near the Queen Stone provides further evidence of the Megalithic Yard.
This mound comprises two circles, each measuring twenty megalithic yards in diameter, with centres spaced half a megalithic yard apart.
Our best estimate of its alignment suggests an azimuth of 50 degrees, similar to Stonehenge. The alignment of the cairn during the summer solstice enhances the ‘circle of countless stones,’ which we have already dealt with.
Source of image: An Illustrated Guide to the Rollright Stones. By George Lambrick.
14. The prospect, northward from Rowldrich stones. By Dr William Stukeley.
Interpretation: A. The King Stone. B. The Archdruids Barrow. C. King barrows or round barrows. D. Long Compton.
Drawn sometime around 1730, this image, made by Stukeley, shows the King Stone in its original form with a fat belly.
15. The King Stone takes a crafty peek over Stukeley's "Archdruid's barrow" (the mound). Some say the belly was broken off by entrepreneurs and sold in pieces at a nearby market, or by visitors collecting souvenirs.
Yet, this stone was a source of embarrassment for all who beheld it, particularly for the fair sex and the clergy. If we examine it from the other side, we shall uncover why!
16. This is no king stone. It’s not even a queen stone. It’s a pregnant female with a child, depicted in stone!
Thomas Fisher painted this stone in 1804, depicting it as female and pregnant. Fisher's version features a hole beneath the belly, which some may interpret as a vulva. This not only carries connotations with other holed stones, such as those found at the entrances of certain burial chambers and long barrows, but also provides significant reason for Puritans, antiquarians and the clergy to remove the belly with child. Searching to rename this stone, we will call it the "Matriarch Stone".
The Matriarch is placed to sneakily peer over the mound to where the mid-June sunset and northernmost moonset enter the incredible gorges in the nine-mile-distant Nebsworth and Ebrington Hills. So, why would a standing stone symbolising a pregnant woman be interested in where the sun and moon enter the ground unless that woman or girl wants the sun and moon to copulate like her?
Source: An illustrated guide to the Rollright stones by George Lambrick, 2022. The image of the Queen stone can be found on page 10 of the guide.
17. A view from on top of the Rollright Mound. This is one of many alignments on the sun, moon and stars that benevolent nature gave to early man at Rollright some 9,000 years ago.
This is where the major moon will set in the Foxcote Gorge sometime in 2024/5, through a deep gorge forming a notch between Nebsworth and Ebrington Hill, some nine miles distant.
18. Also seen from the top of the mound. Summer solstice sunset on the evening of the 20th of June 2020.
The sun sinks into Nebsworth Hill at one end, and the major moon sets at the other, just like Woodhenge, near Stonehenge, where the sun and moon scan both sides of Sidbury Hill.
There is an old fable about a witch who turned the king's men to stone because the King couldn't see the village of Long Compton in the valley below. Nor can you see it in this picture because it's too far to the right.
This Fable was written by a certain Evans, who in 1895 failed to realise that Long Compton did not exist when the stones were set up.
So, bringing things up to date, I have rewritten Evan's poem to incorporate where the northernmost moon will set and will set again in 2024/25 through a couple of notches in the nine-mile-distant Nebsworth and Ebrington Hill seen above.
"Seven long strides shalt thou take, and if Nebsworth Hill and moon thou can see,
King of England shalt thou be."
The exultant King cried
"Stick, stock, stone
As King of England, I shall be known."
But on his seventh stride, the ground before him rose up in a long mound obscuring his view, and the witch cackled.
"As long as Nebsworth Hill and moon thou canst not see
King of England, thou shalt not be.
Rise up, stick, and stand still, stone,
For King of England thou shalt be none:
Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be
And I an eldern tree."
This fable is another Red Herring that misdirects us from the facts.
Some go looking for the elderberry tree the witch said she would turn herself into, but no elderberry trees are found at Rollright. (Perhaps the trees are being cut down around the circle to plant elderberries).
84. More corrupt work from Professor Alexander Thom, corrected.
Measured internally, this is the actual geometry on which the stone circle of Dinnever Hill was set.
Draw a 50-megalithic yard diameter circle and four sides of a hexagon from it. Next, draw a half-size circle (25 My) in the middle of the 50 My circle, which will determine the centre points of a further pair of 25 My circles. Finally, draw a 45.57 arc to close the profile. This 45.57 arc was thought by Stone Age folk to be 45.5 MY, for they would not have known the difference.
85. Rough Tor is similar to Dinnever Hill, except that the centre of a pair of 35.023 circles (35) is placed on where an axis, 5-megalithic yards away from the centreline of the outer circle, intersects with the line made between the centre of the outer circle and that of the hexagon.
86. BURNMORE It is quite enough to expect Stone Age folks to have come up with geometric rings based on hexagons without expecting them to have concerned themselves with perimeter lengths in whole numbers, as Alexander Thom tried to do.
It is simpler to accept that Stonehenge is based on a 36 megalithic yard diameter circle, the Rollright circle to measure 37, Burnmoor 38, and Avebury's Sanctuary 47, all of which makes it likely that the design of Avebury and Stonehenge came under the influence of visitors from Cumberland.