"Well, then," said Oswy, "these were not once stones at all, but living
men--a king, five knights, and sixty soldiers--who came to take Long
Compton, the town down there, in the valley; but it so happened that a
great enchanter dwelt there, and being out that morning he saw them
coming, muttered his spells, and while the king--that stone yonder--
was in front looking down on his prey, the five knights all whispering
together, and the sixty soldiers behind in a circle, they were all
suddenly changed into stone."

They all laughed heartily at this, and leaving the Rholdrwyg Stones,
turned aside to the hospitable hall where they ought to have spent the
previous night. So delighted was the Thane of Rholdrwyg or Rollrich to
receive his guests that he detained them almost by force all that day,
and it was only on the morrow that he permitted them to continue their
journey.

They joined the Foss Way again after a few miles at Stow on the Wold;
the road was so good that they succeeded in reaching Cirencester, the
ancient Corinium, that night, a distance of nearly thirty miles. Here
they found a considerable population, for the town had been one of great
importance, and was still one of the chief cities of southern Mercia,
full of the remains of her departed Roman greatness, with shattered
column and shapely arch yet diversifying the thatched hovels of the
Mercians.

Two more days brought them to Bath, but the old Roman city had been
utterly destroyed, and long subsequently the English town had been
founded upon its site, so that there seemed no identity between Bath and
Aqua Solis, such as prevailed between Cirencester and Corinium.