The Grey Geese of Addlestrop Hill

On a hill in the parish of Addlestrop stood a group of stone blocks known from time immemorial as the Grey Geese of Addlestrop Hill, until Warren Hastings, who died on 22 August 1818, carried them off for a rockery in his grounds at Daylesford. A ballad written for his circle told how Dame Alice, driving her fine grey geese to the common one Friday, refused a weird woman a bird and was struck senseless in the storm the hag raised, waking by moonlight to find her whole flock turned to stone, never to fly till the Evenlode flowed up to the steeple at Stow. Chambers notes the likeness to the Grey Geese of Mucklestane Moor, said to be a witch and her geese turned to stone, with which Scott opened The Black Dwarf.