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My sister recounted how her dreams the previous night took a 'strange turn'. In her words she 'took a step back in her dream state and saw something unpleasant'. Awake, she opened her eyes and in a waking state she saw an image with open eyes. Praying, she removed the entity and then, turning over troubled by the experience, she saw a second albeit weaker entity. Again she prayed to remove all such spirits (as opposed to one!) and returned to sleep. Typically this was about 4am.

Basically the question was: where had she encountered these spirits? It's always a who, where, why question? How did they come to her?

Quickly we established the most likely answer. She was riding her horse across moor land yesterday. As it happened I had a local map out on a desk in my office; we unfolded it to trace her ride and found, as she recalled, she had indeed passed a set of standing stones. These were called Willycock Stones — you couldn't make this up!

Aerial view of a small white building in green fields on rolling moorland near Crosby Garrett, surrounded by dry stone walls, scattered trees and hills. This remote countryside is the location of the ancient Willycock Stones. — The moor near Crosby Garrett — Willycock Stones and the remote landscape where the unsettling experience occurred.

The Pagan beliefs associated with these type megaliths don't require any great elaboration — the name says it all. To this day people still remember, regard and use standing stones superstitiously as fertility symbols, even more so with the reemergence of paganism as a religion.

It's worth noting the village of Crosby Garret is near by — its ancient church is built on an earlier site, in all probability a Stone Circle or similar, as it is sited on a hill. And like almost all old churches in this area, it is outside the village proper. It is safe to say if the church is old and the village surrounds it, then the village isn't old.

Ancient stone parish church with square tower and rooster weather vane, built on a grassy hill above the village. Old gravestones stand in the foreground beside a dirt path leading to the dark arched door. Blue sky with white clouds and green trees frame the scene. — Crosby Garrett church — the ancient church on the hill. Legend says the stones and timber kept moving themselves here from the valley during the night, until the villagers built it on this spot.

Crosby Garret's church, according to legend, was to be built in the valley, and the materials were placed on site during the day. But during the night some unseen force (sometimes attributed to the devil) carried the stones and timber to the hill top. The villagers, in some accounts, return the materials to the original site, only to awake to find the process has repeated. In any event they gave up and built the church on the hill!

Stone Circles are always built on "high places" — i.e. open land with elevated views, usually surrounded by even higher hills (e.g. Crosby Garrett Church).