The unfortunate king, although within a few paces of a spot from which he might have viewed Long Compton and so become ruler of this realm, was unable to move a step further. His joints became stiff, his energy left him, and in a few minutes he had turned into stone. And there you may see him to-day as “the King Stone,” a grey weathered monolith standing stark in a field, but in a place from which Long Compton is invisible. But his treacherous supporters who had hindered him from success did not escape. The old story tells that there were five knights who led the company. Seeing their leader’s strange fate, they tried to escape. But the same doom overtook them. A few hundred yards from the “King Stone” is a group of five large upright slabs. These are the “Whispering Knights,” turned to stone in the very act of conspiring against their king. Nearer to the silent king is a circle of stones, once his faithless soldiers, and all about grow elder trees, said to be descendants of that witch who was herself transformed into an elder after her magic spell had worked upon the king and his men. They tell you that if you stick a knife into these elders you will sometimes draw blood. The Rollright Stones form a weird relic of some long forgotten time. Men have written of their strange appearance throughout many centuries. Bede called them the second wonder of the kingdom. Whether the legend of their formation be true or not, it must have been some very important event that caused them to be erected. You may best reach them from Rollright station on the line between Banbury and Chipping Norton, and if you dare venture up to visit them on a moonlight night, they say you may find the fairies at their revels, dancing all about. This is a peaceful English country of hill and vale, fine country estates--Compton Winyates with its matchless Tudor mansion is near at hand--and little churches, rich in architecture, that will repay a visit. Here you are on the outskirts of Shakespeare’s land, real generous England, full of history, that has not changed so very much since the spacious days of Elizabeth--the England that the English tourist all too seldom sees. [Illustration: _The King Stone._] [Illustration: Man in monk’s robes crawling up a hill-side on a blustery day.] THE SHADOW CURSE OF THE RAGGEDSTONE. Near the middle of England, where the Malvern Hills rise abruptly to a height of nearly 1,400 feet above the sea, is the double-peaked rugged Raggedstone hill about which several strange old legends centre. A restless spirit is said to haunt the bleaker portions of the summit, but a stranger legend is that of the Shadow Curse, called down upon this hill by a monk of Little Malvern in the olden time.