The Wissen Sisters

"Ask me where I would send a Fellow Traveller looking for the most intriguing Stones in the land and I could answer only one place - The Haunted Hare, an Inn of much Fame and Repute.

Standing in the field behind the Inn, a short distance from the Ancient Oak tree Herne’s Spear, stand The Wissen Sisters.

Legend states that three Sisters (Triplets and Spinsters all) lived deep in the Forest. They left this Forest only once a year on the Dawn after the Winter Solstice to collect the Dew that formed around Herne’s Spear. Fate had it that the last Morning they ever ventured out they encountered Frantic Jack, the trickiest Sprite of those parts. The same as every night Frantic Jack and his band of Imps had long caroused in the fields, and the Music and Singing had not abated when the three Sisters arrived. With no little harshness the Sisters bade them silent, and broke across their bony knees Jack’s Fiddles and Pipes. With a lazy swipe of his hand Frantic Jack turned the Sisters into Stones, laughing “No wonder the Crones do not dance, they are too heavy!”

To this day the Stones have the feel of cold leathery Skin (for this we must trust the word of Women, as no Man or Boy will touch The Wissen Sisters - he who does will sire only Girls)

During the building of The Haunted Hare one of the Sister Stones was taken and placed as the Hearth for the great Fireplace. It is said that each night the other two Stones move closer to the Inn, but anyone trying to pace out the distance finds themselves weaving wildly toward the Forest, along the route taken many moons ago by Frantic Jack and his Imps."

Excerpt from ‘Stones, and Those who Seek Them’ by Oliver Putling, 1743