[APPENDIX I]
“HERICIO, ERICIO, HERITO, HERISSON”
This is derived from the French word hérisson, a hedgehog, and should mean something bristling, perhaps with thorns or osiers. Several passages show that it was a defence on the counterscarp of the ditch, and it may sometimes have been a hedge. Cohausen, Befestigungen der Vorzeit, shows that hedges were frequently used in early fortifications (pp. 8-13). The following passages seem to show clearly that it was on the counterscarp of the ditch: “[Montreuil] il a bien clos, esforce e ferme de pel e hericon.” (Wace, 107.) “Reparato exterioris Ardensis munitionis valli fossato et amplificato, et sepibus et ericiis consepto et constipato.” (Lambert of Ardres, 623, circa 1117.) The French poem of Jordan Fantosme, describing the siege of Wark by the Scots in 1174, says the Scots attacked and carried the hericon, and got into the ditch, but they could not take the bayle, i.e., they could not get over the palicium.
[APPENDIX K]
THE CASTLE OF YALE
In the year 1693, the antiquary Edward Llwyd was sitting on the motte of Tomen y Rhoddwy engaged in making a very bad plan of the castle [published in Arch. Camb., N.S., ii., 57]. His guide told him that he had heard his grandfather say that two earls used to live there. Llwyd called the guide an ignorant fellow. Modern traditions are generally the work of some antiquary who has succeeded in planting his theories locally; but here we have a tradition of much earlier date than the time when antiquaries began to sow tares, and such traditions have usually a shred of truth in them. Is it possible that this castle of Tomen y Rhoddwy and the neighbouring one of Llanarmon were built by the earls of Chester and Shrewsbury, who certainly went on expeditions together against Wales, and appear to have divided their conquests? It is to be noted that the township is called Bodigre yr Yarll, the township of the earls.
[APPENDIX L]
THE CASTLE OF TULLOW OR “COLLACHT,” [p. 335]
This information is kindly supplied by Mr Goddard H. Orpen, who writes to me: “I visited Tullow lately, and asked myself where would a Norman erect a mote, and I had no difficulty in answering: on the high ground near where the Protestant church stands. When I got up there the first thing that I noticed was that the church stood on a platform of earth 10 to 14 feet higher than the road, and that this platform was held in position by a strong retaining wall, well battered towards the bottom on one side. I then found on enquiry that the hill on which it stood and the place to the N.W. of it was called the ‘Castle Hill.’ On going round to the N.W. of the church I found a horseshoe-shaped space, scarped all round to a height of 6 to 10 feet, and rising to about 16 feet above the adjoining fields. There is no doubt that this was the site of the castle, and that it was artificially raised. To my mind there was further little doubt that it represented an earlier mote. In a field adjoining on the W. I could detect a platform of about 50 to 70 paces, with traces of a fosse round the three outer sides.... This was certainly the Castellum de Tulach mentioned in the deeds concerning Raymond le Gros’ grant to the Abbey of St Thomas.—Dublin Reg. St Thomas, pp. 111, 113.”