[1] The route by Overborough, Borough Bridge and Kirkby Thore was the Maiden Way; but it is probable that Agricola's first advance to this district was made along the coast.
[2] For full details of the most recent excavations and finds, with plans, see reports on "A Romano-British settlement at Ewe Close, Crosby Ravensworth," by W. G. Collingwood, F.S.A., (1907-8) Transactions, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archæological Society, N.S., vols. viii. and ix.
[3] The exact wording is:--"Near the head of which (the Lowther) is a well which, like Euripus, ebbs and flows several times in a day," a much less remarkable thing. Apparently Mr. Bland's informant has misquoted in conversation. The second edition of Camden's _Britannia_ (1723) comments that this phenomenon is not infrequent in rocky country, and not usually lasting; and that there was then no ebbing fountain to be heard of near Shap.
[4] This idea is that of Stukeley; it had, at the time, a very large following, but is now rejected.
[5] More probably both are pre-Roman. They are now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries.
[6] Canon Weston gave as a possible meaning of the puzzling word Ravensworth, "Hill of the Standard of the Raven," with the reservation that this failed if the Danes did not reach here. Others think the name is corrupted from Ravensthwaite, Raven's clearing. But far more interesting than the meaning is the pains with which the author traces out the historical steps by which the name, as he understands it, was built up.
[7] According to Stubbs, the belief that Theodore was the founder of the parochial system is mistaken; but his legislation aided its development.
[8] The authority for this sentence is not clear, as the charter granting Hardendale to Byland Abbey is not forthcoming. Perhaps Mr. Bland has been misinformed by some one who had read the charter of Thomas son of Gospatric granting to Shap Abbey the land on which the abbey stood; here a "great stone" is mentioned, but this is between Raset and the Lowther, quite a different spot. Mr. Bland is certainly not responsible for the confusion.
[9] Prof. Boyd Dawkins relates a remarkable instance of this feeling within living memory. About 1859 a Manx farmer offered up a calf as a burnt sacrifice, to appease the spirits of the tumuli, disturbed by archæological spade-work!
[10] Straked, levelled off at the top, as opposed to heaped measure.