The Grey Mare and her Colts

Long ago, when the stones in the circles all stood tall and proud, the farmer who owned the land would go out on Midsummer’s Eve to count his animals and count his stones. That year, when he went down to count the stones, there was an extra stone, standing tall and grey. As he watched a figure dressed in long robes stepped out of it – the wizard of the stones!  He gave the farmer a key, telling him, ‘Each stone is a portal to another land – some full of golden treasure, others deadly peril. Take what you must, but tell no one, as what comes from stone, goes back to stone.’ Inside the first stone he found a king who gifted him gold – but so much he could not carry it. So the king sent a grey mare to bear it. The farmer sold the gold and did all the things on the farm he’d always wanted to do. But the grey mare he kept, and loved. Even more so when she gave birth to a fine colt each year. News spread of the farmer’s wealth, and one midsummer, a man came to buy his grey mare. The farmer refused, but the man pestered him until he blurted out where she had come from – through the stone, under the hill. At once, the grey mare and her colts were transformed to stone! He ran around his stone circle, trying to find the wizard, but all the stones had fallen and his key no longer worked. There was nothing to be done, but the grey mare and colts are still there, as is the story.