Dun the robber and the king's ring

You're coming into Dunstable, a town that, legend says, is named after the robber who stole a king's ring from a post here.

Dunstable grew up where Watling Street crosses the ancient Icknield Way, and tradition says Henry I founded the town to tame a stretch of road plagued by robbers. The most notorious was a thief called Dun. To test him, a ring was fixed to a post at the crossroads, and it soon vanished. It was traced to the house of a widow named Dun, whose son was caught and hanged, and the new town, the story goes, took his name: Dun's staple. The Victorian Dictionary of Phrase and Fable reported the story with some doubt and offered a duller origin in the downs nearby.