CurseFamous
The Nine Ladies
Dance on the Sabbath and the moor will keep you.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A small ring of low stones among birch and heather
- Legend from
- Folk tradition
- Best time
- Summer solstice
- Tone
- Curious
Nine women danced here on a Sunday. Their fiddler still stands apart, turned to stone like them.
In a clearing on Stanton Moor stands the Nine Ladies, a small Bronze Age stone circle, with a single stone called the King Stone about 40 metres away. Folk tradition says nine women were dancing on the Sabbath to a fiddler and were all turned to stone, the King Stone being the fiddler. English Heritage notes there are in fact ten stones, the tenth found lying flat in 1977, and that graffiti on the King Stone reading 'Bill Stumps' is mentioned in Dickens's Pickwick Papers. Today the circle draws Pagans and visitors at the summer solstice.