Whispering Knights (4000-3500 BC)
The Whispering Knights, a tight cluster of four stones; a fifth, probably the capstone, has fallen. The stones are part of a portal dolmen-type burial chamber dating from about 4000-3500 BC, and originally projected out of a low, flat-topped platform that surrounded them. Dismembered bodies were placed in the chamber for burial. Human remains were place in the chamber for over a thousand years, well into the Bronze Age. The Whispering Knights are named for the conspiratorial way in which they lean in towards each other. Local legend has it that they were plotting against their king when they were turned into stone by a witch, along with the other monuments at Rollright. Another legend says that on New Year's Eve, at the tolling of the bells of Long Compton church, the stones go down to the valley to drink. Rollright Stones, Oxfordshire, England.