67. Look at the sun trapped between the stones in this picture. It's so small you might think you could catch it. Better still, find some way to reproduce it! Then, you might enjoy warm winters and grow fruit, vegetables and grain all year long!
The Whispering Knights are placed a little below the top of the rise on which they stand. There are three possible reasons for this. One is to hide peaks south that would otherwise spoil the near horizon. This reason can be discounted since no peaks in the south break up the horizon.
Increasing altitude creates a brighter sun and gives a clearer view of rising and setting stars.
The extinction angle of a star or stars. When viewed over level horizons, stars disappear as they approach ground level due to having to pass through several layers of the atmosphere. Placing the Knights below the peak means that this family of stones in humanoid form were positioned to view everything that rises and sets in the south. It also proves that the circle, known as the King Men, placed on top of the ridge, prioritises the northern aspects.
68. The humanoid family of stones known as the Whispering Knights
69. The Rollright Circle seen from the south
70. MY SURVEY OF THE CIRCLE
William Stukeley was the first to note that stone circles were internal devices when realising that the best faces of Avebury's stones were placed facing inward. And despite looking worm-ridden, most professionals agree that the best faces of the stones in the Rollright circle were likely placed facing inward, just like Stonehenge and Avebury.
So, measuring the circle internally, we find 37 Megalithic Yards in diameter - one megalithic yard bigger than Stonehenge's 36 MY.
71. Alexander Thom's Rollright Circle survey.
Ever since Stukeley entered Avebury in 1720, it's been known that all stone rings- perfect circles, flatted circles, egg shapes, or odd shapes like Avebury's outer circuit - are all internal devices.
Yet Professor Thom, who claims to have surveyed over 500 stone rings, including Avebury and Stonehenge, to determine the length of the megalithic yard, never adopted internal measurements. We are left to wonder why he failed to do so.
As you can see, Thom made the circle 38 MY when taken through the centre of the stones.
This image is taken from "Megalithic Sites in Britain. Oxford University Press 1967 by A Thom."
72. A photo taken from the centre of the Rollright Circle to show where the sun sets in mid-December. But we must pass through the trees and enter the field beyond to view the horizon.
Well, that was then. Sometime before March 20th 2025, the trees were felled, and a new fence prevents visitors from entering the adjoining field.
73. And what an eye-opener it is. Whilst the far horizon might have been visible in the Stone Age with clearer skies and people's excellent eyesight, it takes a setting sun to expose the eight-mile distant Icomb Hill.
74. 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.
Stone 13 is one of the few Rollright stones known to be undisturbed since new. We hardly need further proof that Stone Age folk reflected sunlight off them and into the middle of the circle where four timber posts once stood.
75. 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.
76. The poorest face of Stone 13 is outward.
Facing outwards proves that the Rollright Circle was an internal device for collecting sunlight.
Scientists today wondered what would happen if light was bounced between two mirrors. The outcome was the invention of lasers.
I'm reminded of a young lady I talked to whilst discussing Stone 13. I mentioned 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.
77. From the circle, we cross the road to see the natural mound that Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age folks thought of as a gift from the gods. This natural mound is undoubtedly the progenitor of the long mounds known as long barrows and is what drew Mesolithic people to this place.
78. A cairn on the top of the mound Beyond that cairn, and at the other end of the mound, someone was buried along with Mesolithic flint, most likely collected from Norfolk.
More proof of the Megalithic Yard.
The cairn on top of the Rollright mound consists of two circles of twenty megalithic yards in diameter, with centres spaced half a megalithic yard apart.
The alignment of this oval is hard to predict. Our best guess is for azimuth 50 degrees. This is towards the summer solstice (northeast) versus the winter sunset in the southwest.
Source of image: An illustrated Guide to the Rollright Stones. By George Lambrick.
Update 20 March 2025: Originally, The King Stone was female and should be renamed the "Queen Stone."
How come? Drawings made in 1804 by Thomas Fisher show this stone as female and pregnant. Fisher's version was graced with a hole below the belly which some might regard as a vagina. If so, not only will this have connotations with other holed stones, like at the entrances to some burial chambers and long barrows. Unfortunately, the aperture in the Queen Stone gave ample reason to Puritans, antiquarians and those of the cloth to have the Queen's Belly removed.
The Queen Stone was placed to sneakily peer over the mound to where the mid-June sunset and northernmost moonset enter the wonderful notches in the nine-mile-distant Nebsworth and Ebrington Hills. So, why would a standing stone symbolising a pregnant girl be interested in where the sun and moon enter the ground unless that girl wants the sun and moon to copulate as she has?
Source: An illustrated guide to the Rollright stones by George Lambrick. The image of the Queen stone can be found on page 10 of the guide.
It is commonplace to prevent the sale of books that provide the answers. This is called protectionism. Lambrick doesn't offer a hypothesis for the Rollrights or the Queen stone.
79. 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.
80. 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 canst 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).
81. Returning to Avebury, this is what the Beckhampton Avenue of stone (where it passes through the ovary) is aligned on.
My review of Avebury is now complete.
Coming next: Three corrected stone circle surveys made by Professor Thom.
84. 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. 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.