Transcriber's Note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including some inconsistencies of hyphenation. Some changes of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are listed at the end of the text. The errors listed in the Errata have been fixed.

ANCIENT BATTLE-FIELDS.

ON SOME ANCIENT
BATTLE-FIELDS IN LANCASHIRE
and their
Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.

BY

CHARLES HARDWICK,

Author of a "History of Preston and its Environs," "Traditions, Superstitions and Folk-Lore," "Manual for Patrons and Members of Friendly Societies," &c.

MANCHESTER:
ABEL HEYWOOD & SON, OLDHAM STREET.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
1882.

TO

GEORGE MILNER, Esq., President,

AND TO THE COUNCIL AND MEMBERS OF THE

MANCHESTER LITERARY CLUB,

THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY ONE OF ITS FOUNDERS.

CHARLES HARDWICK.

[PREFACE.]

To the transactions of the Manchester Literary Club (1875-8) I contributed four papers on "Some Ancient Battle-fields in Lancashire." These essays form the nuclei of the four chapters of the present volume. Their original scope, however, has been much extended, and the evidences there adduced largely augmented. I have likewise endeavoured to still further fortify and illustrate my several positions, by citations from well-known, and many recent, labourers in similar or cognate fields of enquiry.

I am aware that the precise locality of any given battle-field is of relatively little interest to the general historian, the causes of the conflict and its political results demanding the largest share of his attention. Consequently, doubtful topographical features are often either completely ignored, or but slightly referred to. Such a course, however, is not permissible to the local student. Scarcely anything can be too trifling, in a certain sense, to be unworthy of some investigation on his part. This is especially the case with respect to legendary stories, and traditional beliefs. Their interest is intensified, it is true, to the local reader or student, but the lessons they teach, on patient enquiry, will often be found in harmony with larger or more general truths, and of which truths they often form apt illustrations. "Alas!" truly exclaimed "Verax," in one of his recent letters in the Manchester Weekly Times, "it is hard to disengage ourselves from inherited illusions. They become a part of our being, and falsify the standard of comparison." Modern science may be able to demonstrate that many of the conceptions respecting physical phenomena dealt with in these legendary stories are utterly at variance with now well-known facts. This may be perfectly true, but human nature is influenced in its action, quite as much by its faiths, beliefs, and superstitions, as by the more exact knowledge it may have acquired. Subjective truths are as true, as mere facts or actualities, as objective ones. Thomas Carlyle forcibly expresses this when he asks—"Was Luther's picture of the devil less a reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye, or without it?" Mr. J. R. Green, in his "Making of England," says—"Legend, if it distorts facts, preserves accurately enough the impressions of a vanished time." And these impressions being emotionally true, whether scientifically correct or not, have ever been, and will continue to be, powerful factors in the formation of character, and in the progressive development of humanity,—morally, socially, and politically. Our predecessors felt their influence and acted accordingly, and many of the presumedly exploded old superstitions survive amongst the mass of mankind to a much greater degree than we often acknowledge or even suspect; although many of their more repulsive forms may have undergone superficial transformation amongst the more educated classes.

Referring to superstitious legendary reverence as a marked feature in the religious characteristics of the seventeenth century, the author of "John Inglesant, a Romance," places in the mouth of the rector of the English College, at Rome, in the seventeenth century, the following words:—"These things are true to each of us according as we see them; they are, in fact, but shadows and likenesses of the absolute truth that reveals itself to man in different ways, but always imperfectly, as in a glass."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that, in the year 685, "it rained blood in Britain, and milk and butter were turned into blood." Of course, educated persons do not believe this now; but our conventionally educated predecessors did, and their conduct was sensibly influenced by such belief. The Chinese think themselves much superior personages, in very many respects, to the "barbarian" European, yet the following paragraph "went the round of the papers" during May, in the present year:—"The Kaiping coal mines have been closed in deference to the opinion expressed by the Censor, that the continued working of them would release the earth dragon, disturb the manes of the empress, and bring trouble upon the imperial family."

From the very nature of many of the subjects investigated, and the character of the only available evidence, some of the inferences drawn in the following pages can only be regarded as probabilities, and others as merely possibilities, and they are put forth with no higher pretensions. In such matters dogmatical insistence is out of place, and I have studiously endeavoured to avoid it.

C. H.

72, Talbot Street, Moss Side, Manchester.
August, 1882.

[CONTENTS.]

[CHAPTER I].—Early Historical and Legendary Battles.

The Arthur of History and Legend. King Arthur's presumed Victories on the Douglas, near Wigan and Blackrod.

Historical works are chiefly records of battles, squabbles and intrigues of diplomatists and politicians. More details now required as to the domestic habits and conditions of the people, and the degree and kind of intellectual and moral culture which obtained at any given period of their history. Progress of man from the savage to a more civilized condition. Records of many battles survive, the sites of which are either unknown or involved in the greatest obscurity. Many genuine historical events are inextricably interwoven with mythical and traditionary legends. The Roman conquest of the Brigantes. Remains of some of these conflicts in Lancashire. The narratives of Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and some others, combinations of historic truths with a mass of tradition, superstition, and artistic fiction. Wales the birthplace of much of European mediæval fiction. Views of Sig. Panizzi, Professor Henry Morley, Mr. E. B. Tylor, and Mr. Fiske. The Arthurian legends the "source of one of the purest streams of English poetry." Notwithstanding untrustworthy strictly historical elements, they enshrine much genuine legendary national faith as well as superstition. The Rev. John Whitaker's belief in Arthur's historical verity. Other advocates of this view: Mr. Haigh, Henry of Huntingdon and Professor Fergusson. Arthur's traditionary tomb at Glastonbury, opened A.D. 1189. Mr. Haigh's exposition of the fraud then practised. Welsh traditions thereon. The Rev. R. W. Morgan's views. William of Newbury's contempt for Geoffrey's fictions. Shakspere's almost total absence of reference to Arthur. Sir Edward Strachey's comments on the erroneous geography in Sir Thomas Malory's work. Mr. J. R. Green's views. Sir G. W. Dasent, on the paucity of trustworthy historic record from about A.D. 420 to A.D. 730. The deeds of other heroes, especially those of Urien, of Rheged, assigned to Arthur by the mediæval romance writers. Doubts as to the authenticity of the authorship and dates of the composition of the works of Gildas and Nennius discussed. No mention of Arthur by either Gildas or the Venerable Bede. Mr. Haigh's defence of the old histories, and his conjectures as to the authors. Nennius says the second, third, fourth, and fifth of Arthur's twelve great victories were gained on the banks "of a river called Duglas, in the region Linuis." The Rev. John Whitaker's contention that these battles were fought on the Douglas, near Wigan and Blackrod. The archæological and traditional details advanced in support thereof. Opening of the huge barrow "Hasty Knoll," and excavations at Parson's Meadow and Pool Bridge, in the last century, where remains were found, which Whitaker and others regarded as conclusive evidence that some ancient battles had been fought in the localities. Derivation of the word Wigan. Geoffrey's single battle on the Douglas, in which Arthur defeated Colgrin. Mr. Haigh's arguments respecting the dates of these conflicts. His advocacy of the Wigan sites, and identification of another battle on "the river Bassas," i.e., Bashall Brook, near Clitheroe. His hypothesis that Ince is a corruption of Linuis. Probability of the exploits of Cadwallon or Cadwalla, king of the Western Britons, being inextricably interwoven with the legendary ones of the heroes of the Arthurian romances. Views of Lappenberg. Mr. H. H. Howorth and Mr. Haigh on the appropriation by the Britons and Danes of the deeds and heroes of their enemies or neighbours. Hollingworth, in his "Mancuniensis," refers to the Roman conquests in the district by Petilius Cerealis, and afterwards speaks of Arthur's great victory near Wigan, and gives credence to the legends about the giant Tarquin, his castle at Manchester, and his combats with some of Arthur's knights. Bishop Percy on the historical truth underlying legend in such ancient ballads as "Chevy Chase," and the confusion of incidents and heroes. Professor Boyd Dawkins on "the date of the conquest of South Lancashire by the English." Mr. J. R. Green's views. During the seventh century many sanguinary battles were fought, the sites of which are now unascertainable. Ethelfirth's great victory at Bangor-Iscoed. Some of the struggles of this period may have been absorbed by the romance writers into their stock of Arthurian legends. The Rev. John Whitaker and Tarquin's castle at Manchester. Sir "Launcelot du Lake." Martin Mere. Gradual growth of legendary heroic fiction. Mr. Tylor's view. The Arthurian legends enshrine some of the oldest Aryan myths, and are the source of some of our noblest poetry. Sir George Ellis on the foundation of mythic legends. Mr. Fiske on artistic legendary development. Mr. E. A. Freeman and Mr. Fiske on the historical and legendary Charlemagne. Some of the deeds of Charlemagne, probably absorbed into the latter Arthurian legends. Mr. H. H. Howorth on Saxo-Grammaticus. Historical and legendary Cromwells, Alexanders, and Taliesens. Mr. Kains-Jackson on Arthurian accretions. Mr. F. Metcalfe on Alfred the Great and trial by jury. "The famous story of Theophilus." The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox on the distribution of ancient Aryan mythic heroes. Historical novels. Opinions thereon of Sir Francis Palgrave, Dean Milman, Arminius Vámbéry, and Leslie Stephen. Historic and æsthetic truth distinct but not antagonistic. The ideal and the real, or subjective and objective truths. Shakspere's treatment in the character of Macbeth. Artistic truths not necessarily individual or strictly biographical or historical facts, but result from wider generalisation, and possess an inherent or subjective vitality of their own. Views of Thos. Carlyle, Gervinus, R. N. Wornum, Dr. Dickson White, M. Mallet, and Tennyson. Nennius's tenth battle, said by some, but on very inconclusive evidence, to have been fought on the Ribble.

[CHAPTER II].—The Defeat and Death of King Oswald, of Northumbria, by the Pagan Mercian King, Penda, at Maserfeld (A.D. 642.)

The Legend of the Wild Boar, "the Monster in former ages which prowled over the neighbourhood of Winwick, inflicting injury on Man and Beast."

The Venerable Bede and the Saxon Chronicle's account of the battle. The site disputed. Some suggest Winwick, in Lancashire, others Oswestry, in Shropshire. Dean Howson's suggestion. Different orthographies and etymologies of the name Maserfeld. The subject phonetically and topographically considered. Views of Mr. Roberts and Mr. Howell W. Lloyd. St. Oswald's Well, at Winwick. Its sanctity and legendary connection with the death of St. Oswald. The inscription on the church dedicated to St. Oswald. Hollingworth's view, in "Mancuniensis." Geoffrey of Monmouth's statement that the battle was fought at a place called Burne. Oswald's previous victory over Cadwalla at Heavenfield. Bede's narrative, and his relation of the miracles performed by the Saint's bones, and even the earth taken from the spot on which he fell. Curious coincidence revealed during the excavations at "Castle Hill," Penworthan, in 1856. Penda, not Oswald, the aggressor, consequently the site of the battle-field may be presumed to be within the Northumbrian rather than the Mercian territory. Bryn, Brun, or Burne in the Fee of Makerfield. The great barrow or tumulus called "Castle Hill," near Newton. Nennius says the battle was fought at Cocboy. Cockedge. Latchford. Probable etymology. Professor Dwight Whitney on the difficulties inherent in topographical etymology. Winwick, a place of victory. At "Winfield" Herman defeated Varus, A.D. 10. Present appearance of the "Castle Hill." Mr. Baines and Dr. Kendrick's descriptions. Opening of the tumulus in 1843. Description of its contents by the Rev. Mr. Sibson and Dr. Kendrick. A burial mound haunted by the ghost of a "White Lady." Traditionary burial-place of Alfred the Great. Professor Fergusson and B. E. Hildebrand on the contents of Odin and Frey's "howes," near Upsala, opened in 1846-7. Similarity to those found at "Castle Hill." Dr. Robson's description of two burial mounds opened at Arbury, in 1859-60. The contents consisted of burnt bones and wood, rude pottery, a stone hammer-head, and a bronze dart. Etymology of Arbury. The "Mote Hill," at Warrington, removed in 1852. Opinions respecting the date of this tumulus of Pennant, Ormerod, W. T. Watkin, and John Whitaker. The Rev. Mr. Sibson thought it a "tumulus or burial-place, raised after the battle fought at Winwick." Dr. Kendrick's description of its contents. Christian and Pagan modes of sepulture contrasted. Description of the latter in "Beowulf," the oldest Anglo-Saxon poem extant. Date of first erection of a church at Winwick unknown. The date of the erection of the church at Oswestry. St. Oswald's church, according to Domesday book held "two carucates of land exempt from all taxation." In 1828, three large human skeletons found eight or ten feet below the floor of the chancel, uncoffined, and covered with a heap of large stones. St. Oswald's Well. Opinions of Baines respecting the saint's wells at Winwick and Oswestry. "Cae Naef," or "Heaven's Field," site of Oswald's previous victory over Cadwalla. Dennis-brook. Sharon-Turner, Camden and Dr. Smith's views of this site. Some of the Oswestry traditions evidently have reference to Oswald's previous victory. The dedication of the church to St. Oswald could not have proceeded from the then British Christians. Contests between the disciples of Augustine and Paulinus, and the earlier British Church. The Welsh word "tre" means simply hamlet, homestead. Penda's defeat in the following year near the river Vinwid. Mr. T. Baines's conjecture as to the site being near Winwick. The evidence, however, conclusive as to Winwidfield, near Leeds. Mr. J. R. Green on Oswald's and Penda's policy. Cromwell's victory at "Red Bank," near Winwick, in 1648. Supposed crest of Oswald. Rude sculpture of a "chained hog." Baines's legend of a "monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood inflicting injury on man and beast." Other demon-hogs. Mythical monsters, "harvest-blasters," huge worms, serpents, dragons, and wild boars, common in the North of England. Several instances cited. Mr. Haigh's argument as to the site of the poem Beowulf being near Hartlepool, Durham. Dr. Phene on Scandinavian and Pictish customs on the Anglo-Scottish Border. Aryan myths of the lightning and the storm cloud. Mr. Walter Kelly on ancient Aryan personifications of natural phenomena. Stormy winds, howling dogs or wolves. The ravages of the whirlwind that tore up the earth, the "work of a wild boar." Lancashire superstition that pigs can "see the wind." Monstrous boar slain in the Greek legend of the Kalydonian hunt. Origin of modern heraldry. Totems or beast symbols amongst many ancient as well as modern nations or tribes. Instances. Views of Mr. E. B. Tylor, the Rev. Isaac Taylor, and others. The boar favourite helmet crest or totem amongst the Teutonic invaders. Sacred to the goddess Freya. The "boar of war." Illustrations from the Anglo-Saxon poems Beowulf, the Battle of Finsburgh, the Scandinavian Edda, and the ancient British poem Gododin. The boar probably the crest of Penda. St. Anthony's pig. Re-crystallisation of ancient myths around relatively more modern nuclei. Illustrations from the works of Keightley, Mackenzie, Wallace, Bishop Percy, Sir John Lubbock, Arminius Vámbéry, John Fiske, and the Vedic hymns. Origin of modern surnames. Many beast, bird, or flower symbols. Examples. Shakspere's reference to the bear symbol of the Earl of Warwick and the boar of Richard III. "Pitris," or ancestral spirits. Their supposed action in the storm and the battle-field. Icelandic kindred customs and superstitions. Professor Gervinus on the importance and conditions of such critical enquiry. Views of Professor Tyndall and Mr. J. A. Farrar.

[CHAPTER III].—Battles in the Valley of the Ribble near Whalley and Clitheroe.

Wada's Defeat by King Eardulph, at Billangahoh (Langho,) A.D. 798, and Contemporary Prophetic Superstitions. The Victory of the Scots at Edisford Bridge in 1138. Civil War Incidents during the struggle between Charles I. and the English Parliament.

Wada's defeat recorded in the Saxon Chronicle and by Simeon of Durham. The Murder of Ethelred (A.D. 794) by Wada and other conspirators. The murderous and lawless characteristics of the age illustrated. Sharon-Turner's summary of these characteristics. Superstitious forewarnings: whirlwinds, lightnings, and fiery dragons. Ravages of Danish pirates. Treasons and civil wars. The locality of Wada's defeat undisputed. The names of places still retained, with only such phonetic changes as philologists anticipate. A probable ancestor of Wada mentioned in the "Traveller's Tale." The Legend of St. Christopher. Other chieftains referred to in the same poem: "Hwala, once the best." and Billing who "ruled the Wœrns." Watling-street. Wade and his boats. Beautiful scenery in the Ribble valley around the battle-field. Tumuli. One superficially opened by Dr. Whitaker, without result. When the mound was entirely removed in 1836, the remains of a buried chieftain (probably Alric son of Herbert) were discovered. Tradition concerning the battle. Two other "lowes" or "mounds," apparently tumuli, on the opposite bank of the river. Some confusion in the descriptive references to these mounds. Observations of Dr. Whitaker, Canon Raines, Mr. Abram and others. Second visit of the present writer to the locality in 1876. Curious circular agger. Supposed ancient artificial grout at "Brockhole Wood-end." Geological phenomena. Possibly the "lowes" outliers of the partially denuded glacial "drift." Further excavations necessary. Probable direction of the battle. Dr. Whitaker's argument as to the southern boundary of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria discussed. Mr. J. R. Green on Anglo-Saxon bishoprics. King Eardulph dethroned. Other superstitious warnings attendant thereon. Patriotism and rebellion. The fight at Edisford Bridge in 1138. The Bashall Brook the "Bassus" according to Mr. Haigh. Bungerley "hyppingstones." Capture of Henry VI., after the battle of Hexham in 1464, by the Talbots of Bashall and Salesbury. Civil war incidents during the struggle between Charles I. and the English Parliament. Cromwellian traditions respecting the destruction of Clitheroe and Bury castles. Captain John Hodgson's details of Cromwell's march by Clitheroe and Stonyhurst to the great battle at Preston.

[CHAPTER IV].—Athelstan's great Victory at Brunanburh, A.D. 937, and its connection with the great Anglo-Saxon and Danish Hoard, discovered at Cuerdale in 1840.

Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian invasions of Britain. First arrival of the Danes, A.D. 787. The Anglo-Saxons and Ancient British inhabitants Christians, the Scandinavians Pagans. Savage warfare of the period. Progress of the invasion. Ella, king of Northumbria and Ragnar Lodbrog. The real and mythic Ragnar. Halfden's settlements in Northumbria. Athelstan succeeds to the throne of Wessex and its dependencies. Submission of the Welsh and Scots. Marriage of Editha, Athelstan's sister, to Sihtric, king of Northumbria. Sihtric's relapse into paganism and repudiation of his queen. Sudden death of Sihtric. Athelstan's vengeance falls upon his sons by a former wife, Anlaf and Godefrid, the former of whom fled to Ireland, and the latter sought refuge with Constantine, king of the Scots. Athelstan dominant king of all Britain. Revolt of the Scottish king and his defeat. Powerful combination of Athelstan's enemies. Their defeat and rout at Brunanburh. Difficulty as to the exact date of the battle. British Christian chiefs, as on previous occasions, espoused the cause of the pagan invaders, and fought against their hated rivals of the party of St. Augustine. Defeat of Athelstan's two governors, Gudrekir and Alfgeirr. Athelstan's arrival at Brunanburh. Anlaf's stratagem in the guise of a harper. Similar story related of King Alfred. Improbability of both being historically true. Mr. T. Metcalfe's doubts on the subject. Anlaf's midnight assault of Athelstan's camp frustrated. Details of the great battle. Total rout of Anlaf and his allies. Five "youthful kings" and seven of Anlaf's earls slain. Flight of Anlaf to Dublin. Importance of the victory. The famous Anglo-Saxon poem. Claims to the title of first king of England discussed. The causes of the site of the battle being at the present day merely conjectural. The influence of the battle after Danish and Norman-French conquests. Suppression of evidence. Henry of Huntingdon's views on the subject. Mr. D. Haigh on the destruction of ancient Runic inscriptions by the disciples of Augustine and other Christian missionaries. Archbishop Parker's labours in the saving of Anglo-Saxon MSS. from destruction in the sixteenth century. John Bale's account in 1549 of the wholesale destruction of MSS. during his day. Thorpe, Dr. Grundtvig, and J. M. Kemble's testimony to the ignorance of the Anglo-Norman copyists. The great "Cuerdale find" in May, 1840. Mr. Hawkins's description of the treasure. Its great value at the time of its deposit. The latest coins minted a short time previously to the great battle of Brunanburh. Dr. Worsaae's analysis of the "hoard." Various places suggested as the probable site of the battle: Colecroft, near Axminster, Devonshire; near Beverley, and at Aldborough, Yorkshire; Ford, near Bromeridge, Northumberland; Banbury, Oxfordshire; Bourne, Brumby, and the neighbourhood of Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire. A Bambro', a Bambury, and some other places have likewise found advocates. Their respective claims discussed. The present writer's position that the Cuerdale hoard was buried owing to the disastrous defeat of the allies under Anlaf near the "pass of the Ribble." The tradition respecting its burial and non-disinterment. The three fords at the "pass," at Cuerdale, Walton, and Penwortham, opposite Preston. Evidence of the coins. Discovery of Roman remains at Walton, in 1855. Revival of the tradition. The hoard at Cuerdale all silver. Finds of Roman hoards not uncommon in the county. Other battles known to have been fought in the neighbourhood. Two great Roman roads, and some vicinal ways pass near the locality. From the positions of the belligerents, the "pass of the Ribble" a very probable site of the conflict. The certainty of its having taken place in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Anlaf, the Dane, ruling chief of Dublin, head of the Confederacy. The ports of Ribble and Wyre suitable for the landing of his vessels, and for his after escape to Dublin. From a topographical and military point of view, "the pass of the Ribble" a very probable site of the conflict. The name Brunanburh, in some presumedly corrupted form, very common. Examples. Name of place of conflict variously written by the older historians. Doomsday book defective in South Lancashire, in consequence of its ravaged condition; still many corrupted names remain to furnish important etymological evidence in favour of the author's position. These evidences and readings in old maps and deeds discussed in detail. Origin of the names Brindle (Brunhull, in Saxton's map); Bamber (Brunber), Brownedge (Brunedge). Mr. Weddle's view that Weondune is a mistake for Weordune. Origin of the names Wearden and Cuerden. Etymological and philological evidence considered. Probable modern remains of Ethrunnanwerch in Etherington and Rothelsworth. Other names of places in Lancashire which require consideration. Proofs that the battle was fought not far from the sea shore and not in the interior of the country. Other evidence of Athelstan's connection with the district. His grant of Amounderness to the Cathedral church at York, A.D. 930. The Harleian MSS. "Mundana Mutabilia," of the early part of the seventeenth century. Tumulus named "Pickering Castle," near Roman vicinal way. Etymological origin of the word "Pickering" discussed. "Pickering Castle," a probable corruption of "Bickering Castle," or the castle or tumulus of the battle-field. Ancient stone coffin in Brindle church-yard. Discovery of Ancient British burial urns at "Low Hill," near Over Darwen, in 1867. Ancient traditions respecting a battle in the neighbourhood of Tockholes in Roddlesworth valley. Concluding remarks in support of the view that the country south of the "Pass of the Ribble" is the most probable site of Athelstan's great victory. More recent battles in the neighbourhood. Bruce's foray in 1323, Cromwell's victory in 1648, and Milton's sonnet thereon. The number of troops engaged. Legends connected with the battle. The Siege of Preston under Wells and Carpenter in 1715. March of the "Young Pretender," in 1745. Doggrel ballad: "Long Preston Peggy to Proud Preston went."

[APPENDIX].

The disposal of St. Oswald's remains. The dun bull, the badge of the Nevilles. The Genesis of Myths. Anglo-Saxon Helmet.

[ERRATA.]

On page 51, line 21, insert marks of quotation (") after—"or without it."

Transpose the note on page 65, beginning—"Bosworth, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary," to page 64, and place the * after "massacre, etc.," at the end of the sixth line from the bottom of the text.

Transpose the note commencing on page 64 to page 65.

For "Downham IN Yorkshire" (page 143, fourteenth line from the bottom), read "Downham INTO Yorkshire."

[CHAPTER I.]

EARLY HISTORICAL AND LEGENDARY BATTLES.

THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, LEGEND, AND ART. KING ARTHUR'S PRESUMED VICTORIES ON THE DOUGLAS, NEAR WIGAN AND BLACKROD.

t has often been remarked, and with some truth, that our standard historical works, until very recent times at least, contained little more than the details of battles, the squabbles and intrigues of diplomatists and politicians, and the pedigrees of potentates, imperial or otherwise. Now-a-days we seek to know more of the domestic habits and conditions of the mass of the population, and the degree and kind of intellectual and moral culture which obtained amongst a people at any given period of their history. But man's advance from the savage to his present relatively civilized condition has been one of fierce and sanguinary strife, and the piratical and freebooting instincts which he inherited, along with some of his nobler attributes and aspirations, from his remote ancestors, are by no means extinguished at the present time, although, in their practical exhibition, they may generally assume a somewhat more decorous exterior. Still, courage and physical endurance, however rude and uncouth in outward aspect, as well as heroism of a higher mental or moral order, ever possessed, and ever will possess, a strange and uncontrollable fascination; and the associations, social, political, or religious, attendant upon the more prominent of the bloody struggles of the past, excite, in a most powerful degree, the emotional as well as the imaginative elements of our being. This is notoriously the case when any special interest is superinduced, national or provincial. "All men naturally feel more interested in the historical associations of their own race than they do in those of any other portion of mankind. The soil daily trodden by the foot of any reflecting being,—the locality with whose present struggles, progress or decay, he is practically acquainted,—whose traditions and folk-lore were first fixed in his memory and his heart, long before more exact knowledge or cultivated judgment enabled him to test their accuracy or correctly weigh their value,—must possess historic reminiscences not only capable of commanding his attention, by exciting in the imaginative faculty agreeable and healthy sensations, but of teaching him valuable lessons in profound practical wisdom."[1]

It might be said, without much exaggeration, that if the soil could be endowed with vocal utterance, we might learn that the surface area of the earth which has not sustained the shock of battle at some period of the world's history is not very much greater than that which has felt the tread of armed men in deadly conflict. In the early historic and pre-historic times, when clan or sept fought, as a matter of course, against clan or sept, for the privilege of existence or the means to secure it; or when baron or other chieftain "levied private war" against his neighbour, from ambition, passion or greed, numberless fierce and bloody struggles must have taken place of which no record has been preserved.

The names of many important ancient battle-fields have been handed down to the present time, the sites of which are either utterly unknown or involved in great obscurity. Some genuine historical events have been so inextricably interwoven with the mythical and traditionary legends of our forefathers, that it is now impossible to detect with exactness the residuum of historical truth therein contained. The battle-fields and all authentic record of the battles themselves amongst the inhabitants of Britain prior to the Roman conquest are, of course, utterly lost in the gloom of the past. Nay, we know, with certainty, very few even of the sites of the struggles of the Britons with the victorious Roman legions. The locality we now denominate Lancashire was, at that time, inhabited by the Volantii and the Sistuntii, Setantii, or Segantii, and was included in the "country of the Brigantes," a numerous and warlike tribe which frequently "measured blades" with the imperial troops. There exists, however, no record to inform us where any specific conflict took place, notwithstanding the numerous archæological remains which attest the after-presence of the conquerors. Yet we know on the best authority that the Brigantes espoused the cause of the Iceni, who inhabited the Norfolk of the present day, and were defeated by Ostorius Scapula, in the reign of Claudius. Soon after the death of Galba, an insurrection broke out amongst them, headed by a chief named Venutius, who had married the Brigantine queen, Cartismandua, a woman infamous in British history as the betrayer of the brave but unfortunate Caractacus. This royal lady likewise played false with her husband, but Fortune refused to smile on her second perfidy. She escaped with difficulty to the territory occupied by her Roman allies, and Venutius remained master of the "country of the Brigantes," and for a considerable time successfully resisted the progress of the imperial arms. Petilius Cerealis, however, in the reign of Vespatian, after a sanguinary conflict, added the greater portion of the Brigantine territory to the Roman province. The final conquest was effected about the year 79, by Julius Agricola, in the reign of Domitian. Remains of stations established by him are numerous in Lancashire. On Extwistle Moor, about five miles to the east of Burnley, and about the same distance south of Caster-cliff, a Roman station, near Colne, are the remains of two Roman camps and three tumuli. The sites are marked in the ordnance map. A few years ago, in company with my friend, the late T. T. Wilkinson, I visited this locality and inspected the remains. In the transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire, for 1865-6, I described and figured an ancient British urn, taken from one of these tumuli. It was in the possession of the late Mr. R. Townley Parker, of Cuerden, the owner of the estate. In the same paper I have described and figured British remains, including about ten cremated interments and a bronze spear-head, found in a mound on the Whitehall estate, contiguous to Low Hill House, near Over Darwen, the property of Mr. Ellis Shorrock. Similar tumuli have been opened in several other places in the county, to which further reference will be made. From these remains it is not improbable some of the struggles of the Brigantes with the imperial legions took place in these localities, or they may have been ordinary burial places of distinguished chieftains and their relatives.

After the departure of the Roman legions and their attendant auxiliaries, history becomes inextricably allied to, and interwoven with, legend and romance. The marvellous narratives of the elder "historians," such as Gildas, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, may have some substratum of fact underlying an immense mass of tradition, superstition, and artistic fiction. In the endeavour to unravel this complicated web, much ingenuity and valuable time have been expended, with but relatively barren results, at least so far as the so-called "strictly historical element" is concerned. Mr. E. B. Tylor, in his "Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization," referring to the value of "Historical Traditions and Myths of Observation" to the ethnologist, says—"His great difficulty in dealing with them is to separate the fact and the fiction, which are both so valuable in their different ways; and this difficulty is aggravated by the circumstance that these two elements are often mixed up in a most complex manner, myths presenting themselves in the dress of historical narrative, and historical facts growing into the wildest myths." The reputed deeds of Arthur and his "Knights of the Round Table" have not only given birth to our most famous mediæval romances, but they have furnished the laureate with themes for several of his more delightful poetic effusions. Professor Henry Morley, in his "English Writers," regards Geoffrey's work as "a natural issue of its time, and the source of one of the purest streams of English poetry." Indeed, it appears to be the opinion of many scholars, including Mr. J. D. Harding, Rev. T. Price, and Sig. Panizzi, late chief librarian of the British Museum, that the entire European cycle of romance "originated in Welsh invention or tradition." The last named, in his "Essay on the Narrative Poetry of the Italians," prefixed to his edition of Boiardo and Ariosto, distinctly states that "all the chivalrous fictions since spread through Europe appear to have had their birth in Wales." Mr. Fiske, of Harvard University, in his "Myths and Myth-makers," referring to the Greek tradition concerning the "Return of the Herakleids," says "it is undoubtedly as unworthy of credit as the legend of Hengist and Horsa; yet, like the latter, it doubtless embodies a historical occurrence." Such may likewise be the case with some of the battles known from tradition to the early story-tellers, poets, or romance writers, who crystallized, as it were, all their floating warlike legends around the names of Arthur and his knights. Our mediæval ancestors, with very few isolated exceptions, innocently accepted Geoffrey's wild assertions as sober historical facts, notwithstanding the gross ignorance and falsehood patent in many passages, and the childish superstition and credulity which characterise others. Indeed, only about a century ago, the Rev. Jno. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, placed so much faith in the statements of Nennius and Geoffrey, that he regarded their Arthur as a really historical personage, and he fixed the sites of several of his presumed exploits in the county of Lancaster. There may undoubtedly have existed, nay, there probably did exist, a British chieftain who fought against Teutonic invaders during some portion of the two or three centuries occupied in the Anglo-Saxon conquest, whose name was Arthur, but his deeds, whatever may have been their extent or character, have been so exaggerated and interwoven with far more ancient mythical stories, and confounded with those of other warriors, that his individuality or personality, in a truly historical sense, is apparently lost.

Indeed, Mr. Haigh expressly says—"There was another Arthur, a son of Mouric, king of Glamorgan, mentioned in the register of Llandaff." In his "History of the Conquest of Britain by the Saxons," by altering the time of the "coming of the Angles" to A.D. 428, "in accordance with a date supplied by the earliest authority," and of the accession of Arthur to A.D. 467, "in accordance with a date given by other authorities," he contends that "all anachronisms—involved in the system which is based upon the dates in the Saxon Chronicle and the Annals of Cambria,—have disappeared one after another; every successive event has fallen into its proper place; the Saxon Chronicle and the Brut have been proved accordant; and the result is a perfectly connected and consistent history, such as has never yet been expected, vindicating the truth of our early historians, and showing that authentic materials formed the substance of their Chronicles." In another place he contends that, by adapting his chronology, "a foundation of historic truth" is discovered "in stories which have hitherto been looked upon as mere romances."[2]

Notwithstanding this conviction, Mr. Haigh does not assume that all the legendary lore which has attached itself to the name of Arthur is of this character. Referring to the traditionary tomb of the hero, he thus fearlessly exposes the mediæval imposture which sought to demonstrate the truth of the legend:—"An ancient sepulchre, intended by those who were interested in the search to prove itself the sepulchre of Arthur, was opened in A.D. 1189 (the last year of Henry II. and most probably the first of Abbot Henry de Soilly, under whom the search was made), in the cemetery at Glastonbury. There was on the one hand a superstition that he was not dead, and on the other a tradition that he was buried at Glastonbury; and it was the policy of Henry II. to establish the truth of the latter; and a search was ordered to be made in a spot which was sure to be crowned with success by the discovery of an interment. It was recognized as a sepulchre; indeed, distinctly marked as such by the pyramids (tapering pillar-stones), one at either end,—objects of curious interest on account of their venerable antiquity; and William of Malmsbury, thirty years before, (at a time when no suspicion that Arthur was buried there existed at Glastonbury), had recorded his belief that the bodies of those whose names were written on the monuments were contained in stone coffins within. To prove that this was the sepulchre of Arthur, nothing more was necessary than to forge an inscription, which might impose upon the credulity of the twelfth century, but which the archæological science of the nineteenth must condemn. The cross of lead, which served to identify the remains of Arthur and his queen is lost, but a representation of it has been preserved, sufficiently to show that its form and character were precisely such as were usual in the twelfth century, such as those discovered in the coffins of Prior Aylmer (who died A.D. 1137), and of Archbishop Theobald (who died A.D. 1161), and in the cemetery of Bouteilles, near Dieppe, present. The pyramids appear to have resembled the Bewcastle and Ruthwell monuments; their age is determined by the names of King Centwine and Bishop Hedde,[3] inscribed on the smaller one; to have been the close of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth century; and as the skeleton of a man and a woman were found in coffins hollowed out of the trunks of oak trees, it is probable that they were those of Wulfred and Eanfled, whose names occur in the inscription on the larger one."

Welsh traditions and writers ignore the Glastonbury legend, and regard, in some way or other, Arthur as a being exempt from ordinary mortality. The Rev. R. W. Morgan, in his "Cambrian History," says,—"His farewell words to his knights—'I go hence in God's time, and in God's time I shall return,' created an invincible belief that God had removed him, like Enoch and Elijah, to Paradise without passing through the gate of death; and that he would at a certain period return, re-ascend the British throne, and subdue the whole world to Christ. The effects of this persuasion were as extraordinary as the persuasion itself, sustaining his countrymen under all reverses, and ultimately enabling them to realise its spirit by placing their own line of the Tudors on the throne. As late as A.D. 1492, it pervaded both England and Wales. 'Of the death of Arthur, men yet have doubt,' writes Wynkyn de Worde, in his chronicle, 'and shall have for evermore, for as men say none wot whether he be alive or dead.' The aphanismus or disappearance of Arthur is a cardinal event in British history. The pretended discovery of his body and that of his queen Ginevra, at Glastonbury, was justly ridiculed by the Kymri as a Norman invention. Arthur has left his name to above six hundred localities in Britain."

Mr. Haigh, whilst maintaining the substantial historical veracity of Arthur's invasion of France, nevertheless adds: "When we consider how miserably the history of the Britons has been corrupted, in the several editions through which it has passed, we cannot expect otherwise than that the Brut should have suffered through the blunders of scribes, and the occasional introduction of marginal notes, and even of extraneous matter into the text, in the course of six centuries. Such an interpolation, I believe, is the story of an adventure with a giant, with which Arthur is said to have occupied his leisure, whilst waiting for his allies at Barbefleur; and I think the reference to another giant-story (not in the Brut), with which it concludes, marks it as such. But I am convinced that the story of the Gallic campaign is a part of the original Brut, and is substantially true."

Dr. James Fergusson, in his learned and elaborate work on the "Rude Stone Monuments of all Countries," although stoutly contending for the historical verity of the victories ascribed to Arthur by Nennius, somewhat brusquely rejects the Lancashire sites, because, on his visit to the localities indicated by Whitaker and others, he found no megalithic remains to support his ingenious hypothesis respecting battle-field memorials. He says "I am much more inclined to believe that Linnuis is only a barbarous Latinization of Linn, which in Gaelic and Irish means sea or lake. In Welsh it is Lyn, and in Anglo-Saxon Lin, and if this is so, 'In regione Linnuis' may mean in the Lake Country." However, he confesses he can find no river Duglas in that district, and in another sentence he regards the nearness of the sea to Wigan as an objectionable element on military grounds. I hold a contrary view. A defeated commander near Wigan had the great Roman road for retreat either to the north or south, besides the vicinal ways to Manchester and Ribchester. The objection, moreover, is valueless, from the simple fact that battles have been fought in the localities, as is attested both by historic records and discovered remains.

Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote in the earlier portion of the twelfth century, regarded Arthur as a genuine historical character, and attributed the then ignorance of precise localities of the twelve battles described by Nennius to "the Providence of God having so ordered it that popular applause and flattery, and transitory glory, might be of no account."

William of Malmsbury, in the twelfth century, although evidently aware of the legendary character of the mass of the Arthurian stories, seems, however, to have had some confidence that a substratum of historic truth underlying or permeating the mass, might, with skill and diligence, eventually be extracted. Probably a few years before Geoffrey's work appeared, he writes—"That Arthur, about whom the idle tales of the Bretons (nugæ Britonum) craze to this day, one worthy not to have misleading fables dreamed about him, but to be celebrated in true history, since he sustained for a long time his tottering country, and sharpened for war the broken spirit of his people."

It is a remarkable circumstance that Shakspere, who has availed himself so profusely of the old historic and legendary records, as well as of the popular superstitions, with two trivial exceptions, which merely prove his acquaintance with the traditional hero, never refers to Arthur. The exceptions are so slight and even casual that they seem rather to confirm the probability that the great poet, in the main, endorsed the opinion of William of Newbury as to Geoffrey's presumed historical verities. This critical monk, in the latter portion of the twelfth century, indignantly exclaims: "Moreover, in his book, that he calls the 'History of the Britons,' how saucily and how shamelessly he lies almost throughout, no one, unless ignorant of the old histories, when he falls upon that book can doubt. Therefore in all things we trust Bede, whose wisdom and sincerity are beyond doubt, so that fabler with his fables shall be straightway spat out by us all." The fact that the story of "Lear" is given pretty fully in Geoffrey's work in no way affects this conclusion, as Shakspere, in the construction of his plot, has followed an older drama and a ballad rather than the soi-disant Welsh historian. One allusion by Shakspere to Arthur is in the second part of "Henry IV." (Act 3, Scene 2), where Justice Shallow says: "I remember at Mile-end Green (when I lay at Clement's Inn, I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's Show)," &c. The other is in Act 2, Scene 4, of the second part of King Henry IV., when Falstaff enters the tavern in Eastcheap singing a scrap of an old ballad, as follows: "'When Arthur first in court'—Empty the jordan—'And was a worthy king'—[Exit Drawer.]—How now, Mistress Doll?"

Sir Edward Strachey, in his introduction to the Globe edition of Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte D'Arthur," confesses that it is impossible to harmonise the geography of the work. This, however, is a very ordinary condition in most legendary stories, literary or otherwise. Speaking of the renowned Caerleon on Usk, he says—"It seems through this, as in other romances, to be inter-changeable in the author's mind with Carlisle, or (as written in its Anglo-Norman form) Cardoile, which latter, in the History of Merlin, is said to be in Wales, whilst elsewhere Wales and Cumberland are confounded in like manner. So of Camelot, where Arthur chiefly held his court, Caxton in his preface speaks as though it were in Wales, probably meaning Caerleon, where the Roman amphitheatre is still called Arthur's Round Table." Other geographical elements in the work are even more unsatisfactory. There is, indeed, a Carlion and a Cærwent referred to in the Breton lai d'Ywenec, and the latter is said to be "on the Doglas," and was the capital city of Avoez, "lord of the surrounding country." Even, if the scene of the Breton romance be presumed to be in the present Monmouthshire, where we yet find the names Caerleon and Caerwint, still we have a claimant in the Scottish Douglas, as well as in the Lancashire river of that name.

Mr. J. R. Green, in his recently published work, "The Making of England," says, "Mr. Skene, who has done much to elucidate these early struggles, has identified the sites of" (Arthurian) "battles with spots in the north (see his 'Celtic Scotland,' i. 153-154, and more at large his 'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' i. 55-58); but as Dr. Guest has equally identified them with districts in the south, the matter must still be looked upon as somewhat doubtful." The doubt is increased by the fact that Hollingworth, Mr. Haigh, the Rev. John Whitaker, and others, as well as local tradition, with equal confidence have identified some of the struggles with the Lancashire battle-fields now under consideration.

Dr. Sir G. Webbe Dasent, in his review of Dr. Latham's Johnson's Dictionary, referring to the struggles of the ancient Britons with their Anglo-Saxon invaders, has the following very pertinent observations:—

"After the Roman legions left the Britons to themselves, there is darkness over the face of the land from the fifth to the eighth century. Those are really our dark ages. From 420, when it is supposed that Honorius withdrew his troops, to 730, when Bede wrote his history, we see nothing of British history. Afar off we hear the shock of arms, but all is dim, as it were, when two mighty hosts do battle in the dead of night. When the dawn comes and the black veil is lifted, we find that Britain has passed away. The land is now England; the Britons themselves, though still strong in many parts of the country, have been generally worsted by their foes; they have lost that great battle which has lasted through three centuries. Their Arthur has come and gone, never again to turn the heady fight. Henceforth Britain has no hero, and merely consoles herself with the hope that he will one day rise and restore the fortunes of his race. But, though there were many battles in that dreary time, and many Arthurs, it was rather in the every day battle of life, in that long unceasing struggle which race wages with race, not sword in hand alone, but by brain and will and feeling, that the Saxons won the mastery of the land. Little by little, more by stubbornness and energy than by bloodshed, they spread themselves over the country, working towards a common unity, from every shore.... Certain it is that for a long time after the time of Bede, and therefore undoubtedly before his day, the Celtic and Saxon kings in various parts of the island lived together on terms of perfect equality, and gave and took their respective sons and daughters to one another in marriage."

The Arthur of romance is, in fact, the artistic creation of writers of a later age, or, indeed, of later ages, than the conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, and not of contemporary historians, bardic or otherwise. The British chieftain who fought against Ida and his Angles in the north of England, and whose territory, including that of subordinate chieftains or allies, is believed at one time to have extended from the Clyde to the Ribble, or even the Dee, with an uncertain boundary on the east, is named Urien of Rheged, the district north of the Solway estuary, including the modern Annandale. He is the great hero of the Welsh bard Taliesin. Amongst his other qualities the poet enumerates the following: "Protector of the land, usual with thee is headlong activity and the drinking of ale, and ale for drinking, and fair dwelling and beautiful raiment." Llywarch Hen, or the Old, another Keltic poet, who lived between A.D. 550-640, incidentally mentions Arthur as a chief of the Kymri of the South, thus, as Professor Henry Morley puts it: "What Urien was in the north Arthur was in the south." This may well account for the geographical discrepancies referred to by Sir Edward Strachey. Llywarch Hen was present at the bloody battle in which his lord, Geraint (one of the knights introduced into the succeeding romances), and a whole host of British warriors perished. The said bard likewise brought away the head of Urien in his mantle, after his decapitation by the sword of an assassin. In the early English metrical romance, "Merlin," a Urien, King of Scherham, father of the celebrated Ywain, is mentioned as the husband of Igerna's third daughter by her first husband, Hoel. Urien, of Rheged, is mentioned, however, in the same romance as one of the competitors with Arthur for the crown of Britain. In Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte D'Arthur," a "King Uriens of Gore" is introduced. "Gore" is evidently the Peninsula of Gower, in Glamorganshire, South Wales. These, however, are merely some of the geographical discrepancies referred to by Sir Edward Strachey; but such discrepancies, owing to the intermixture of several legends, under the circumstances, are inevitable, and are in themselves evidences of the lack of unity in the original sources from which the romance writers drew their materials.

Nennius's "History of Britain" was written, according to some authorities, at the end of the eighth century. Others ascribe it, in the condition at least in which we have it at present, with more probability, to the end of the tenth. Geoffrey of Monmouth's work was published in the twelfth. He professes, indeed, to have, to some extent, translated from an ancient manuscript, brought by "Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford," out of Brittany. This, however, notwithstanding Geoffrey's deliberate assertion, is doubted and even flatly denied by many competent judges. Be this as it may, no such document is otherwise known or indeed referred to by any reliable authority. If it ever existed, from its inherent defects, it can to us possess little strictly historical value, whatever amount of truthful legendary or traditional matter it may have furnished to the author of the so-called "Historia Britonum." Referring to the too common habit of regarding mere tradition as reliable history, Mr. Fiske, in his review of Mr. Gladstone's "Juventus Mundi," justly exclaims: "One begins to wonder how many more times it will be necessary to prove that dates and events are of no historical value unless attested by nearly contemporary evidence."

Now, one of the most significant facts in connection with this investigation is that neither Bede nor Gildas makes any mention of Arthur. Mr. Stevenson, in the preface to his edition of Gildas's work, in the original Latin, says, "We are unable to speak with certainty as to his parentage, his country, or even his name, or of the works of which he was the author." The title of the old English translation, however, is as follows: "The Epistle of Gildas, the most ancient British author: who flourished in the yeere of our Lord, 546. And who, by his great erudition, sanctitie, and wisdome, acquired the name of Sapiens." Bede was born in the year 673, and died in 735. The Rev. R. W. Morgan (Cambrian History) says, "The genuine works of Aneurin—his 'British History,' and 'Life of Arthur,'—are lost; the work of Gildas, which at one time passed for the former is a forgery by Aldhelm, the Roman Catholic monk of Malmesbury." If ever Arthur lived in the flesh it must have been in the fifth or sixth centuries, and yet, as I have previously observed, these writers make no reference whatever to the renowned king and warrior. So that, even if we grant the earlier assumed date to the work of Nennius, about three centuries must have elapsed between the performance of his deeds and their earliest known record! In Geoffrey of Monmouth's case the interval is no less than seven hundred years! Mr. John R. Green ("The Making of England") says: "The genuineness of Gildas, which has been doubted, may now be looked upon as established (see Stubbs and Haddan, 'Councils of Britain,' i. p. 44). Skene ('Celtic Scotland,' i. 116, note) gives a critical account of the various biographies of Gildas. He seems to have been born in 516, probably in the north Welsh valley of the Clwyd; to have left Britain for Armorica when thirty years old, or in 546; to have written his history there about 556 or 560; to have crossed to Ireland between 566-569; and to have died there in 570.... Little, however, is to be gleaned from the confused rhetoric of Gildas; and it is only here and there that we can use the earlier facts which seem to be embedded among the later legends of Nennius." Mr. Haigh, however, contends that an "earlier S. Gildas" was a relative of Arthur, and was born about A.D. 425. He says—"He had written, so a British tradition preserved by Giraldus Cambrensis" [twelfth century] "informs us, noble books about the acts of Arthur and his race, but threw them into the sea when he heard of his brother's death;" [at the hands of Arthur] "and this tradition he says satisfactorily explains—what has been made the ground of an argument against the genuineness of the works ascribed to him—his studied silence with regard to Arthur." Mr. Haigh likewise conjectures that "Nennius's History of the Britons" was written by St. Albinus, from contemporary records which had been carried to Armorica (Brittany), and subsequently lost. However, neither traditions first recorded seven centuries after the events transpired, nor "lives" of early British saints, are considered very trustworthy historical authorities. It requires very little knowledge of the state of literature, either in England or elsewhere, during these long periods of time, to remove any lingering doubt as to the purely legendary character of much of the contents of these books, even if we grant, as in the case of the Venerable Bede, that the authors themselves honestly related that which they honestly, however foolishly, believed to be true. Singularly enough, according to Spurrell's dictionary, the modern Welsh word aruthr signifies "marvellous, wonderful, prodigious, strange, dire," which is not without significance.

Nennius says:—"A.D. 452. Then it was that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror." He then informs us that the second, third, fourth, and fifth of these battles were fought on the banks of a "river by the Britons called Duglas, in the region Linuis." Some copies give "Dubglas," which has been identified with the little stream Dunglas, which formed the southern boundary of Lothian. The Rev. John Whitaker, however, contends that the Douglas, in Lancashire, is the stream referred to. He advances, amongst much conjectural matter, the following archæological and traditional details, in support of his position:—

"The name of the river concurs with the tradition, and three battles prove the notice true.[4] On the traditionary scene of this engagement remained till the year 1770 a considerable British barrow, popularly denominated Hasty Knoll. It was originally a vast collection of small stones taken from the bed of the Douglas, and great quantities had been successively carried away by the neighbouring inhabitants. Many fragments of iron had been also occasionally discovered in it, together with the remains of those military weapons which the Britons interred with their heroes at death. On finally levelling the barrow, there was found a cavity in the hungry gravel, immediately under the stones, about seven feet in length, the evident grave of the British officer, and all filled with the loose and blackish earth of his perished remains. At another place, near Wigan, was discovered about the year 1741 a large collection of horse and human bones, and an amazing quantity of horse-shoes, scattered over a large extent of ground—an evidence of some important battle upon the spot. The very appellation of Wigan is a standing memorial of more than one battle at that place.[5] According to tradition, the first battle fought near Blackrode was uncommonly bloody, and the Douglas was crimsoned with blood to Wigan. Tradition and remains concur to evince the fact that a second battle was fought near Wigan Lane, many years before the rencontre in the civil wars.... The defeated Saxons appear to have crossed the hill of Wigan, where another engagement or engagements ensued; and in forming the canal there about the year 1735, the workmen discovered evident indications of a considerable battle on the ground. All along the course of the channel, from the termination of the dock to the point at Poolbridge, from forty to fifty roods in length, and seven or eight yards in breadth, they found the ground everywhere containing the remains of men and horses. In making the excavations, a large old spur, carrying a stem four or five inches in length, and a rowel as large as a half-crown, was dug up; and five or six hundred weight of horse-shoes were collected. The point of land on the south side of the Douglas, which lies immediately fronting the scene of the last engagement, is now denominated the Parson's Meadow; and tradition very loudly reports a battle to have been fought in it."

The rev. historian of Manchester, referring to the statements in Nennius, thus sums up his argument:—

"These four battles were fought upon the river Douglas, and in the region Linuis. In this district was the whole course of the current from its source to the conclusion, and the words, 'Super flumen quod vocatur Duglas, quod est in Linuis,' shows the stream to have been less known than the region. This was therefore considerable; one of the cantreds or great divisions of the Sistuntian kingdom, and comprised, perhaps, the western half of South Lancashire. From its appellation of Linuis or the Lake, it seems to have assumed the denomination from the Mere of Marton," [Martin] "which was once the most considerable object in it."

The Rev. R. W. Morgan, in his "Cambrian History," locates the Arthurian victories as follows:—"1st, at Gloster; 2nd, at Wigan (The Combats), 10 miles from the Mersey. The battle lasted through the night. In A.D. 1780, on cutting through the tunnel, three cart loads of horse-shoes were found and removed; 3rd, at Blackrode; 4th, at Penrith, between the Loder and Elmot, on the spot still called King Arthur's Castle; 5th, on the Douglas, in Douglas Vale; 6th, at Lincoln; 7th, on the edge of the Forest of Celidon (Ettrick Forest) at Melrose; 8th, at Cær Gwynion; 9th, between Edinburgh and Leith; 10th, at Dumbarton; 11th, at Brixham, Torbay; 12th, at Mont Baden, above Bath."

Geoffrey of Monmouth refers but to one battle on the banks of the "Duglas." This he fixes at about the year 500. He tells us that "the Saxons had invited over their countrymen from Germany, and, under the command of Colgrin, were attempting to exterminate the whole British race.... Hereupon, assembling the youth under his command, he marched to" [towards] "York, of which when Colgrin had intelligence, he met him with a very great army, composed of Saxons, Scots, and Picts, by the river Duglas, where a battle happened, with the loss of the greater part of both armies. Notwithstanding, the victory fell to Arthur, who pursued Colgrin to York, and there besieged him."

Mr. Daniel H. Haigh, one of the latest advocates of the genuine historical veracity which underlies much of the Arthurian traditions, places, as we have previously observed, Arthur's coronation A.D. 467, or about 32 years earlier than the usually received date. He says—"The river Douglas, which falls into the estuary of the Ribble, is certainly that which is indicated here;" [the second, third, fourth, and fifth victories referred to by Nennius] "and although it was one of Arthur's tactics to get round his adversaries, so as to be able to attack them when least expected (which will account for the scene of this conflict being considerably to the west of the direct line from London to York), it is extremely improbable that he would have gone so far north as the Douglas in Lothian, when his object was to attack Colgrin at York. The reading which the Paris MS. and Henry of Huntington give is, I believe, correct, and represents Ince, a name which is retained to this day by a township near to this river, a little more than a mile to the south-west of Wigan, and by another about fifteen miles to the west, and which may possibly have belonged to a considerable tract of country.[6]... Neither the Brut nor Boece mention more than one battle at this time; but the latter says that Arthur 'pursued the Saxons, continually slaughtering them, until they took refuge in York,' and that 'having had so frequent victories he there besieged them;' and these expressions may well imply the four victories, gained in one prolonged contest on the Douglas, and another on the river Bassas, i.e., Bashall brook, which falls into the Ribble near Clithero, in the direct line of Colgrin's flight to York."

If, therefore, the historical hypothesis be accepted, the Lancashire sites for these battles would seem as probable as any of the many others suggested.

From the remains described by Whitaker, it appears certain that some great battles in early times have been fought on the banks of the Douglas, traditions concerning which may have served for the foundation of the after statements of Nennius and others. There are some recorded historical facts which countenance this view. The British warrior, king of the Western Britons, Cadwallon or Cadwalla,[7] with his ally, Penda, defeated and slew Edwin, King of Northumbria, uncle of St. Oswald, in the year 633, at Heathfield.[8] Where Heathfield is we have no perfectly satisfactory evidence.[9] The Brit-Welsh poet, Lywarch Hen, or the Old, a prince of the Cumbrian Britons, celebrated his praises in song. He says—

Fourteen great battles he fought,
For Britain the most beautiful,
And sixty skirmishes.

It is by no means improbable that some of Cadwalla's exploits, mythical as well as real, have become inextricably interwoven with the legendary ones of the heroes of the Arthurian romances. Singularly enough a paragraph in Geoffrey of Monmouth's work would seem to countenance this. In book 12, chapter 2, of his so-called "History of Britain," he refers to negotiations being entered into and afterwards broken off, in the year 630, by Cadwalla and Edwin, while their armies lay on the opposite banks of the river Douglas, the scene of the presumed Arthurian victory over Colgrin in the year 500, according to the same authority. This circumstance is not without significance, as the legendary Arthur has evidently absorbed no inconsiderable portion of the reputations, in the North of England, of Urien of Rheged, and other veritable British warriors. Indeed, Lappenberg says—"The Welsh historians adopted the policy of purloining from a successful enemy, and skilfully transferring to his British contemporaries, if not to imaginary personages, the object and reward of his battles, the glory and lastingness of his individuality in history;" and, as illustrations of this practice, Mr. Daniel H. Haigh, in his "Conquest of Britain by the Saxons," adds, "Thus, Cœdwealha, Ine, and Ivar are claimed by them as Cadwaladyr, Inyr, and Ivor." Mr. Haigh, notwithstanding his faith in the substantial accuracy of much of the contents of the works of doubtful authority, says—"The peace which Ambrosius established was broken in the following year, A.D. 444. The Brut says nothing of this affair; it rarely records the defeats of the Britons." And, similarly, the Saxon chronicle is equally reticent in the opposite direction!

Indeed, this weakness is not exclusively an attribute of either British or Anglo-Saxon historians or romance writers. Mr. H. H. Howorth, in his able essay on "The Early History of Sweden," in Vol. 9 of the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, lucidly expounds the character of the contents of the professedly Danish History by Saxo-Grammaticus. He says—"He had no scaffolding upon which to build his narrative. He had to construct one for himself in the best way he could, and to piece together the various fragments before him into a continuous patchwork. His was not a critical age, and we are not therefore surprised to find that his handiwork was exceedingly rude. A piece of the history of the Lombards by Paul and Deacon, and another taken from the Edda, are thrust in after narratives evidently relating to the ninth century, when Ireland had been more or less conquered by the Norsemen. Icelanders are introduced into the story a long time before the discovery of Iceland. Christianity is professed by Danish kings long before it had reached the borders of Denmark. The events belonging to one Harald (Harald Blatand) are transferred to another Harald who lived two or three centuries earlier, and the joints in the patchwork narrative are filled up by the introduction of plausible links." He afterwards adds—"The other important fact to remember is that our author was patriotic enough to lay under contribution, not only materials relating to Denmark, but to transfer to Denmark the history of other countries. To appropriate not only the traditions of the Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, and the common Scandinavian heritage of the Edda, but also the particular histories of Sweden and Norway, and that a good deal of what passes for Danish history in his pages is not Danish at all, but Swedish, and relates to the rulers of Upsala, and not to those of Lethra; topographical boundaries being as lightly skipped over by the patriotic old chronicler, whose home materials were so scanty, as chronological ones." It is, under such circumstances, vain to expect reliable historical evidence of the identity of locality or the names of the real warrior chiefs who commanded in many of the presumed Arthurian battles and adventures, some of them being evidently mythical or artistic creations. Whitaker's "large old spur, carrying a stem four or five inches in length, and a rowel as large as a half-crown," does not seem to indicate so early a date as the Anglo-Saxon conquests in Britain. Mr. Thomas Wright, in his "Celt, Roman and Saxon," referring to spurs of the Roman, Saxon and Norman periods, says—"Amongst the extensive Roman remains found in the camp at Hod Hill were several spurs of iron, which resembled so closely the Norman prick-spurs, that they might easily be mistaken for them. I suspect that many of the prick-spurs which have been found on or near Roman sites, and hastily judged to be Norman, are, especially when made of bronze, Roman. As far, however, as comparison has yet been made, the Roman and the Saxon spurs are shorter in the stimulus than those of the Norman." Spurs with long stimuli or large rowels do not appear to have been in use until some time after the Norman Conquest. This, however, does not necessarily affect the antiquity of the whole of the remains referred to, which, of course, may have been deposited at different periods.

Hollingworth, in his "Mancuniensis," written in the earlier portion of the seventeenth century, seems to have been aware of the existence of a tradition that referred to several bloody battles fought in Lancashire in some portion of the mysterious "olden time." He, however, assigns them to the period of the Roman conquest, to which I have previously referred. If the incidents in the Arthurian "romances" are no more historically tenable than those in the Iliad or the Odyssey, and as the Roman invasions of the Brigantine territory are undoubted, the elder Manchester historian's conjecture as to the time of the conflicts indicated by the tradition and the remains found near Wigan and Blackrod, may possibly be preferred to that of his successor, as the more probable of the two. Indeed, as has been previously observed, the romance writers and story-tellers have evidently absorbed and modified the historical traditions of many antecedent periods. Hollingworth says—

"In Vespatian's time Petilius Carealic" (Petilius Cerealis) "strooke a terror into the whole land by invading upon his first entry the Brigantes, the most populous of the whole province, many battailes, and bloody ones, were fought, and the greatest part of the Brigantes were either conquered or wasted." Hollingworth, indeed, does afterwards refer to a battle near Wigan, in which he says Arthur was victorious. His words are—"It is certaine that about Anno Domini 520, there was such a prince as King Arthur, and it is not incredible that hee or his knights might contest about this castle (Manchester) when he was in this country, and (as Nennius sayth) he put the Saxons to flight in a memorable battell neere Wigan, about twelve miles off."

Bishop Percy, in his introduction to the ancient ballad of "Chevy-Chase," says—"With regard to its subject, although it has no countenance from history, there is room to think that it had some foundation in fact.... There had long been a rivalship between the two martial families of Percy and Douglas, which, heightened by the national quarrel, must have produced frequent challenges and struggles for superiority, petty invasions of their respective domains, and sharp contests for the point of honour, which would not always be recorded in history. Something of this kind we may suppose gave rise to the ancient ballad of the Hunting o' the Cheviat." He afterwards adds "the tragical circumstances recorded in the ballad are evidently borrowed from the Battle of Otterbourn, a very different event, but which after times would easily confound with it.... Our poet has evidently jumbled the two events together."

During the seventh century many sanguinary encounters must have taken place in Lancashire, many of which are unrecorded, and the sites of others utterly forgotten. Professor Boyd-Dawkins, in a paper, entitled "On the Date of the Conquest of South Lancashire by the English," read before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, referring to the subjugation of what he aptly terms the "Brit-Welsh" of Strathclyde, (or the north-western part of the present England and the western portion of the lowlands of Scotland), by Ethelfrith, the powerful Northumbrian monarch, says that Chester was "the principal seat" of their power in that district. The whole of Lancashire, at this period, it would appear, was unconquered by the Angles or English. Under the date 607, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says—"And this year Ethelfrith led his army to Chester, and there slew numberless Welshmen: and so was fulfilled the prophesy of Augustine, wherein he saith, 'If the Welsh will not be at peace with us, they shall perish at the hands of the Saxons.' There were also slain two hundred priests who came to pray for the army of the Welsh." The death of these ecclesiastics, said to be monks of Bangor-Iscoed, was celebrated in song by a native poet. Florence of Worcester, referring to this battle, says Ethelfrith "first slew twelve hundred British priests, who had joined the army to offer prayers on their behalf, and then exterminated the remainder of this impious armament." This is evidently an antagonistic priestly exaggeration, although other authorities state that the monastery at Bangor, at one time, contained 2,400 monks. This powerful body of Brit-Welsh Christians, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, "disdained subjection to Augustine, and despised his preaching." Hence the strong clerical antipathy which characterised the conflict. Chester was utterly ruined, and is said to have remained desolate for about two centuries. Mr. Boyd Dawkins says—"In all probability South Lancashire was occupied by the English at this time, and the nature of the occupation may be gathered from the treatment of the city of Chester. A fire, to use the metaphor of Gildas, went through the land, and the Brit-Welsh inhabitants were either put to the sword or compelled to become the bondsmen of the conquerors."

Mr. J. R. Green ("The Making of England") traces Ethelfrith's march through Lancashire to his victory at Bangor-Iscoed. He says—"Though the deep indent in the Yorkshire shire-line to the west proves how vigorously the Deirans had pushed up the river valleys into the moors, it shows that they had been arrested by the pass at the head of the Ribblesdale; while further to the south the Roman road that crossed the moors from York to Manchester was blocked by the unconquered fastnesses of Elmet, which reached away to the yet more difficult fastnesses of the Peak. But the line of defence was broken as the forces of Ethelfrith pushed over the moors along the Ribblesdale into our southern Lancashire. His march was upon Chester, the capital of Gwynedd, and probably the refuge place of Edwine."

The more northern portion of the county was not subdued till about half a century afterwards, when Cumberland and Westmoreland were absorbed into the Northumbrian kingdom by Ecfrith (670-685). Mr. J. R. Green, in the work referred to, says—"The Welsh states across the western moors had owned, at least from Oswald's time, the Northumbrian supremacy, but little actual advance had been made by the English in this quarter since the victory of Chester, and northward of the Ribble the land between the moors and the sea still formed a part of the British kingdom of Cumbria. It was from this tract, from what we now know as northern Lancashire and the Lake District, Ecgfrith's armies chased the Britons in the early years of his reign."

Some severe struggles must have taken place during this period; and, therefore, it is by no means improbable that a portion, at least, of the remains on the banks of the Douglas, referred to by the Rev. John Whitaker as evidence of Arthur's historical existence, may pertain to the struggles of the Brit-Welsh and their Angle or English conquerors of the seventh century. This confusion of names and dates is a common feature in the folk-lore of all nations and periods, but in none is it more strongly developed than in the Arthurian romances. The author of the metrical "Morte D'Arthur," after describing the victory of the hero over his rebellious nephew, Modred, at "Barren-down," near Canterbury, tells us that the barrows raised on the burial of the slain were still to be seen in his day. Barham Down is still covered with barrows, which recent examination has demonstrated to be the remains of a Saxon cemetery, and not a battle-field.

Bangor-Iscoed, the Bovium, and, at a later period, the Banchorium, of the Romans, is situated on the river Dee, some fourteen miles south of Chester. Sharon Turner laments the destruction of its magnificent library at the sacking of the monastery, which he regarded as an "irreparable loss to the ancient British antiquities." Gildas, the quasi-historian, is said to have been one of its abbots. The Brit-Welsh commander during this struggle was Brocmail, the friend of Taliesin, who, in his poem on the disastrous battle, says—

I saw the oppression of the tumult; the wrath and tribulation;
The blades gleaming on the bright helmets;
The battle against the lord of fame, in the dales of Hafren;
Against Brocvail[10] of Powys, who loved my muse.

Sharon Turner says the precise date of this battle is uncertain. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle says it was fought in the year 607, and the Annals of Ulster in 612. Other authorities assign dates between the two.

The Rev, John Whitaker seems to have had not only a perfect faith in the historical existence of Arthur, but also of his famous knights of the "table round." Following tradition he locates at Castle-field, Manchester, the legendary fortress of "Sir Tarquin," a gigantic hero, to whose prowess several of Arthur's doughty knights had succumbed, before he himself fell beneath the stalwart arm of "Sir Lancelot du Lake." Whitaker regards Lancelot's patronymic, "du Lake," as referable to the Linius which gave the name to the district, according to the hypothesis previously advanced.

It is scarcely necessary to say that, notwithstanding all this ingenuity, Sir Tarquin, Sir Lancelot, and their knightly compeers, are as much creatures of the imagination as the heroes of any acknowledged work of fiction, such as the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" of Homer, or the novels of Scott, Thackeray, Lord Lytton, and Dickens.

The gradual growth of what are generally regarded as the spontaneous products of the imagination, in the region of art, is well expressed in Mr. Tylor's admirable work on "Primitive Culture." He says—"Amongst those opinions which are produced by a little knowledge, to be dispelled by a little more, is the belief in the almost boundless creative power in the human imagination. The superficial student, mazed in a crowd of seemingly wild and lawless fancies, which he thinks to have no reason in nature nor pattern in the material world, at first concludes them to be new births from the imagination of the poet, the tale-teller, and the seer. But little by little, in what seemed the most spontaneous fiction, a more comprehensive study of the source of poetry and romance begins to disclose a cause for each fancy, an education that has led up to each train of thought, a store of inherited materials from out of which each province of the poet's land has been shaped and built over and peopled. Backward from our own times, the course of mental history may be traced through the changes wrought by modern schools of thought and fancy upon an intellectual inheritance handed down to them from earlier generations. And through remote periods, as we recede more nearly towards primitive conditions of our race, the threads which connect new thought with old do not always vanish from our sight. It is in large measure possible to follow them as clues leading back to that actual experience of nature and life which is the ultimate source of human fancy."

Perhaps no finer illustration, at least in English literature, of the truthfulness of this position can be cited than the Arthurian art-products with which I am dealing. In them we have embodied thoughts and fancies of the earlier myth-makers of our common Aryan race, legends and quasi-historical traditions of mediæval times, the more artistic romances of a relatively recent and more highly-cultured period, and, lastly, the lyrics of Morris and others, and the splendid capital which worthily crowns this truly historic literary column, in the exquisitely felt and gracefully wrought "Idylls of the King," by the laureate of the Victorian age, Alfred Tennyson. The last named says—

Lancelot spoke
And answered him at full, as having been
With Arthur in the fight which all day long
Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem:
And in the four wild battles by the shore
Of Douglas.

(Idylls, p. 162.)

Referring to the parentage of the Arthurian legends, in the essay prefixed to his "Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances," Mr. George Ellis says—"Although Geoffrey's 'British Chronicle' is justly regarded as one of the corner-stones of romantic fiction, yet its principal, if not sole effect, was to stamp the names of Arthur, Merlin, Kay, and Gawain with the character of historical veracity; and thus to authorise a collection of all the fables already current respecting these fanciful heroes and their companions. For not one word is to be found in that compilation concerning Sir Lancelot and his brothers; Sir Tristram; Sir Ywain; Joseph of Arimathea and the Sangrael; the round table with its perilous seat; and the various quests and adventures which fill so many folio volumes. These were subsequent additions, but additions apparently derived from the same source. The names, the manners of the heroes, and the scenes of their adventures, were still British; and, the taste for these strange traditions continuing to gain ground for at least two centuries, the whole literature of Europe was ultimately inundated by the nursery-tales of Wales and Armorica, as it had formerly been by the mythology of Greece and Egypt."

Of course there sometimes is, and there oftener is not, recognisable historical or biographical fact at the basis of so-called historical novels, poems, or plays, but the difficulty of separating the one from the other is generally insurmountable, and the labour bestowed thereon often profitless. This is especially the case where quasi-history has become inextricably interwoven with faded nature-myths and more modern artistic inventions. Mr. Fiske, in the work previously quoted, has the following very pertinent remarks on this subject:—

"I do not suppose that the struggle between light and darkness was Homer's subject in the 'Iliad' any more than it was Shakespeare's subject in 'Hamlet.' Homer's subject was the wrath of the Greek hero, as Shakespeare's subject was the vengeance of the Danish prince. Nevertheless, the story of 'Hamlet,' when traced back to its Norse original, is unmistakably the quarrel between summer and winter; and the moody prince is as much a solar hero as Odin himself. (See Simrock, Die Quellen des Shakespeare, I., 127-133.) Of course Shakespeare knew nothing of this, as Homer knew nothing of the origin of Achilleus. The two stories are therefore not to be taken as sun-myths in their present form. They are the offspring of other stories which were sun-myths. They are stories which conform to the sun-myth type.... The sun and the clouds, the light and the darkness, were once supposed to be actuated by wills analagous to the human will; they were personified and worshipped or propitiated by sacrifice; and their doings were described in language which applied so well to the deeds of human or quasi-human beings, that in course of time its primitive import faded from recollection. No competent scholar now doubts that the myths of the Veda and the Edda originated in this way, for philology itself shows that the names employed in them are the names of the great phenomena of nature. And when once a few striking stories had thus arisen—when once it had been told how Indra smote the Panis, and how Sigurd rescued Brynhild, and how Odysseus blinded the Kyklops—then certain mythic or dramatic types hadd been called into existence; and to these types, preserved in the popular imagination, future stories would inevitably conform.... In this view I am upheld by a most sagacious and accurate scholar, Mr. E. A. Freeman, who finds in Carlovingian romance an excellent illustration of the problem before us."

The Carlovingian romance thus cited is, indeed, almost an exact counterpart of the Arthurian one, with the certainly very important exception that we can appeal to reliable history in the former case to prove our position, while the mythical gloom of legend and tradition obscures so much of the probable historical facts in connection with the latter that our path is beset with difficulties which cannot be solved otherwise than by analogical inference. History informs us of the acts and deeds of Karl der Gross, a German by birth, name, race, and language. This warrior, who conquered nearly the whole of Europe and founded one of the most important dynastic houses in mediæval times, was born about the year 742, in the castle of Silzburg, in Bavaria, and died in 814 at Aachen, now called Aix-la-Chapelle. On the other hand, as Mr. Fiske says, "the Charlemagne of romance is a mythical personage. He is supposed to be a Frenchman at a time when neither the French nation nor the French language can properly be said to have existed; and he is represented as a doughty crusader, although crusading was not thought of until long after the Karolingian era. He is a myth, and what is more he is a solar myth—an avatar, or at least a representative of Odin in his solar capacity. If in his case legend were not controlled by history, he would be for us as unreal as Agamemnon.... To the historic Karl corresponds in many particulars the mythical Charlemagne. The legend has preserved the fact, which without the information supplied by history we might perhaps set down as a fiction, that there was a time when Germany, Gaul, Italy, and part of Spain formed a single empire. And as Mr. Freeman has well observed, the mythical crusades of Charlemagne are good evidence that there were crusades, although the real Karl had nothing whatever to do with one."

In the old ballad legend of Sir Guy, of Warwick, this chronological confusion is equally apparent. One of the earlier stanzas says—

Nine hundred twenty yeere and odde
After our Saviour Christ his birth,
When King Athelstone wore the crowne,
I lived heere upon the earth.

And yet this same legendary hero slays Saracens and other "heathen pagans" during the crusades some three centuries afterwards. The "Scop" or Geeman's song, and others, exhibit similar instances of this confusion of personages and dates.

Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian, has, like Geoffrey of Monmouth, mingled so much legendary and irrelevant matter with his genuine material, that it is often difficult and sometimes impossible to distinguish one from the other. Mr. H. H. Howorth, in the work previously quoted, referring to Harald Hildetand, "the most prominent figure in Scandinavian history at the close of the heroic period," says—"Although Saxo's notice of him is long, it will be found to contain scarcely anything about him. It is filled up with parenthetical stories about other people, referring doubtless to other times altogether, while the stories it contains about his exploits in Aquitania, and Britain, and Northumbria, show very clearly, as Müller has pointed out, that he has confused his doings with those of another, and much later, Harald, probably Harald Blaatand (Op. Cit. 366, note 3). It is only when we come to the close of his reign that we have a more detailed and valuable story. This is the account of the famous fight at Bravalla, of which we have two recensions, one in Saxo and the other in the Sogubrot, and which have preserved for us one of the most romantic epical stories in the history of the north. The story was recorded in verse by the famous champion Starkadr, whom Saxo quotes as his authority, and whom he seems closely to follow. Dahlman has, I think, argued very forcibly that the form and matter of this saga as told by Saxo is more ancient, and preserves more of the local colour of the original than that of the Sogubrot (Forsch, etc., 307-308). And yet the story as it stands is very incongruous, and makes it impossible for us to believe that it was written by a contemporary at all. How can we understand Icelanders fighting in a battle a hundred years before Iceland was discovered, and what are we to make of such champions as Orm the Englishman, Brat the Hibernian, etc., among the followers of Harald? It would seem that on such points the story has been somewhat sophisticated, perhaps, as in the Roll of Battle Abbey, names have been added to flatter later heroes."

It is a recognised element in popular tradition or folk-lore, that the deeds of one historic or mythological hero are sure, when he is forgotten, to be attributed to some other man of mark, who, for the time being, fills the popular fancy. I am, therefore, inclined to think that the imaginary victories of Arthur on the continent of Europe in the sixth century, as recorded in Geoffrey's tenth book, owe their origin mainly to the real ones of Karl der Gross in the ninth. Geoffrey, or his Breton authority, had three centuries of tradition to fall back upon, time amply sufficient for mediæval myth makers and romance writers to torture them to their own purposes. Instances of this re-crystallisation of several stories, mythical and otherwise, around the name of a single hero, by the vulgar, may be found in relatively modern history. There is, in the region of traditional lore, in various parts of England, a mythical Cromwell, as well as the two well-known historical personages of that name. In whatever part of the country stands a ruined castle or abbey, or other ecclesiastical edifice, the nearest peasant, or even farmer, will assure an inquirer that it was battered into ruin by Oliver Cromwell! Here the Secretary Cromwell, of Henry the Eighth's reign, and the renowned Protector, of the following century, are evidently amalgamated. Indeed, the redoubted Oliver seems to have absorbed all the castle and abbey-destroying heroes of the national history, old Time himself included. There is a weather-worn statue on the triangular bridge at Croyland, erected in honour of King Ethelbald, the founder of the neighbouring abbey now in ruins, which is popularly supposed to be an effigy of Cromwell, and by some the bridge is likewise named after him. It is, however, more than probable that the neighbouring ruin is alone responsible for this nomenclature. A similar fate has befallen Alexander the Great in the East. Arminius Vámbéry, in his "Travels in Central Asia," says—"The history of the great Macedonian is invested by the Orientals with all the characteristics of a religious myth; and although some of their writers are anxious to distinguish Iskender Zul Karnein (the two-horned Alexander), the hero of their fable, from Iskenderi Roumi (the Greek Alexander), I have yet everywhere found that these two persons were regarded as one and the same." There is likewise a mythical as well as an historical Taliesin (the Welsh poet), but they are generally confounded by the populace.

Mr. C. P. Kains-Jackson, in "Our Ancient Monuments and the Land around them," referring to the huge rock, named "Arthur's Quoit," Gower, Llanridian, Glamorganshire, says—"The reason why the name of Arthur should attach to the Titantic boulder represented in our engraving does not readily appear. The name has probably come by that process of accretion which has caused every witty cynicism to be attributed to Talleyrand, or, in another way, every achievement of the Third Crusade to Richard Cœur de Lion, and every contemporary woodland exploit to Robin Hood. No name from Druidical times attaching to the monument, the local tradition joined to the rock the name of the only man whose legendary repute and fame at all admitted of a super-human feat of strength being attributed to him."

Mr. Frederick Metcalfe, in his "Englishman and Scandinavian," says—"Then again our old institution, trial by jury, to our immortal King Alfred, the people's darling, it has been assigned, along with other tithings, hundreds, and a host of other inventions and institutions, which, we are persuaded, he would have been the first to repudiate. Indeed, he has become a sort of Odin to some antiquaries, on whom everything bearing the stamp of remote antiquity was gathered, the invention of names amongst the rest."

The same writer, referring to the "famous story of Theophilus," says—"The legend, as we have said, ran through Europe in various shapes, and was fitted to all people imaginable. It is referred to in one of Ælfric's homilies (i. 448), while in an Icelandic legend Anselm and Theophilus are thus blended. Now we know that Eormenric, who died 370, Attila, 453, Gundicar of Burgundy, 436, and the Ostrogothic King Theordoric or Dietrich, 536, become contemporaries and merge one into another in heroic mythus. But one is hardly prepared to find Dietrich of Bern and Theophilus of Sicily getting confused into one. But so it is. Amongst the Wends it has become a popular story, and is told of Dietrich (Theodoric of Verona), who among the peasantry is transmuted into the Wild Huntsman."

Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen, in his learned lecture on "A Chaldean Heliopolis," at Manchester, in December, 1881, after referring to the manner in which Berosus "had resort to an ingenious literary fiction to preserve the continuity of the narrative in his history of Chaldea, which he claimed to have based on documentary evidence, extending back over fifteen myriads of years," says—"The daily recurring war of day and night, which had belonged to the nomadic age, now became national wars and combats of Samson, Shamgar, and Gideon, the solar heroes, against the dark forces of the Philistine and Midianite. But in this period of the heroic age—the 'once upon a time' of the Chaldean story-teller, the nation was not one consolidated whole; it was the age of polyarchy. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was not one capital city, it was the tetrapolis of Babel, Akkad, Erech, and Calrech, and each city was a little kingdom. So each city had its hero. The giant Isdubar was the hero of Erech; Sargon the Moses of Chaldea—the hero of Aganne; Etanne and Ner, of Babylon. In the labours and wars of these heroes we saw the labours and wars and struggles of the city kingdom, but lit with the lustre of divinity which shone forth from the age of the gods and clothed with its brightness the characters in the heroic age. But, in time, as the nation became consolidated, all became blended and absorbed into the great national hero, Isdubar, the great king."

The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, in his "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," successfully shows that the principal materials of the Arthurian legends are identical with those which underlie the Hindoo, Grecian, Teutonic, and other common Aryan myths. He contends that Arthur is a solar hero, of the same type as Phoibus Chrysâôr, or Heracles, or Bellerophon, or Perseus, or Achilleus, or Sigurd; and he illustrates this position by the citation of numerous instances in which their common original is clearly perceptible, notwithstanding the great modification, especially in costume and morals, to which the original materials have been subjected. A single instance of this uniformity, but an important one, will suffice for the present purpose. The peculiar form as well as the name of the supernatural weapon of Indra, the Vedic lightning god, has undergone many changes in its progress through the mythical lore of the various Aryan nations, and yet its identity is rarely, if ever, doubtful. It is the "Durandal" of Roland; it is Arthur's famous sword "Excalibur," as well as the similar weapon which no one could draw from the "iron anvil-sheaf embedded in stone" except himself. It is the sword of the maiden drawn by Balin, after Arthur had failed in the attempt. It is the "Macabuin," the weapon of the Manx hero, Olave of Norway; it is Odin's sword "Gram," stuck in the roof-tree of Volsung's hall. It is the sword of Chrysâôr; it is that of Theseus, and that of Sigurd. It is very palpably the spear (Gûngnir) which Odin lent, in the form of a reed, to King Erich, in order to ensure him the victory in a battle against Styrbjörn. The reed in its flight is said to have assumed the form of a spear and struck with blindness the whole of the opposing army. It is the arrow with which Apollo slew the Python; it is the lance of St. George, the patron saint of England; it is the "sword of sharpness" of "Jack-the-Giant-Killer;" nay, it is the relatively humble magic cudgel of popular Norse story, which, like Thor's hammer, voluntarily returned to the lad's hand on the completion of the rascally innkeeper's well-merited castigation.

So fascinating are the so-called "historical novels" of such men as Sir Walter Scott and the late Lord Lytton, such "historical plays" as Shakspere's, and the popular ballads and other lyric narratives of great historical events, that some of the most permanent impressions on the mind of the studious, and many on that of the relatively non-studious sections of mankind, have been derived therefrom. Indeed, there are persons who roundly assert that "good historical novels" convey to the ordinary reader a better idea of the manners and customs and general aspect of society, as well as of the idiosyncrasies, or special characteristics, of distinguished individuals, than historical works of a more definite and presumedly more reliable character. Those who entertain these views, however, as a rule, are not themselves historical students in its higher or more legitimate sense, but merely dabblers in history with an æsthetic object. Besides, if the hypothesis be a sound one, these "historical novelists" must themselves be more fully and accurately informed concerning all the hard elements of fact and individual feeling with which they deal than their rivals (which, unfortunately, they never or rarely are), or how could they, by any human process, produce their presumedly more truthful artistic "counterfeit presentments?" The late Lord Lytton, in the preface to the third edition of his novel, "Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings," expressly says "It was indeed my aim to solve the problem how to produce the greatest amount of dramatic effect at the least expense of historical truth."

On the other hand, Sir Francis Palgrave denounces "historical novels" as the "mortal enemies to history," and Leslie Stephen adds, "they are mortal enemies to fiction" likewise. The latter writer contends, under such conditions, one of two evils necessarily results, notwithstanding the fact that perhaps an isolated exception or two might be cited in opposition: "Either the novel becomes pure cram, a dictionary of antiquities dissolved in a thin solution of romance, or, which is generally more refreshing, it takes leave of accuracy altogether and simply takes the plot and the costumes from history, but allows us to feel that genuine moderns are masquerading in the dress of a bygone century." Dean Milman, in his review of Ranke's work on the Papacy, referring to the scene in the conclave on the elevation of Sixtus V. to the Papal chair, which, he says, Gregoria Leti "has drawn with such unscrupulous boldness," adds, "All the minute circumstances of his (the Pope's) manner, speech, and gesture is like one of Scott's happiest historical descriptions, but, we fear, of no better historical authority than the picture of our great novelist."

The false impressions often formed of actual fact from implicit reliance on artistic fiction, as authority in such matters, is admirably illustrated in a passage in "Travels in Central Asia," by Arminius Vámbéry. After journeying from Tabris to Teheran, he says—"It is a distance of only fifteen, or perhaps we may rather say of only thirteen caravan stations; still, it is fearfully fatiguing, when circumstances compel one to toil slowly from station to station under a scorching sun, mounted upon a laden mule, and condemned to see nothing but such drought and barrenness as characterise almost the whole of Persia. How bitter the disappointment to him who has studied Persia only in Saadi, Khakani, and Hafiz; or still worse, who has received his dreamy impressions of the East from the beautiful imaginings of Goethe's 'Ost-Westlicher Divan,' or Victor Hugo's 'Orientales,' or the magnificent picturings of Tom Moore."

If, under circumstances so favourable as those attendant upon such a "Dryasdust" historical student as Sir Walter Scott, historical truth is violated or perverted as often as it is illustrated, it is painful to reflect what must have resulted when solar and other myths, miraculous legends and traditions of pagan times, have become interwoven with the faith and morals of Christianity, and the pomp and pageantry of mediæval chivalry! Leslie Stephens asserts that "'Ivanhoe,' and 'Kenilworth,' and 'Quentin Durward,' and the rest are, of course, bare, blank impossibilities." "No such people," he declares, "ever lived or talked on this planet." He is willing to allow that some fragments of genuine character may be embedded in what he terms "the plaster of Paris;" but he insists that "there is no solidity or permanence in the workmanship." If this be true, how has history fared at the hands of such craftsmen as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Archdeacon Walter Map, Sir Thos. Malory, and a whole host of mediæval romance writers, with their King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad, their magicians, sorcerers, giants, dragons, and other monsters? History, in its highest, indeed its only legitimate, sense, most unquestionably has suffered to a much greater extent than can be conceived, except by those who have patiently plodded amongst the details of a portion at least of its dim and dusty, and oft-times doubtful, raw material. But, on the other hand, to the novelist or the poet historical truthfulness in the incidents of which his plot is composed, or biographical truthfulness in the characters delineated, is simply surplusage, if it be nothing worse, æsthetic or artistic verities having no necessary foundation thereupon. It is this æsthetic ideal, evolved from general rather than individual truths, this poetic element, which lies at the root, and, indeed, furnishes the raison d'être, the very life-giving blood, of such art products as those under consideration. Hamlet, Lear, Imogen, Ophelia, Cordelia, Oberon, Elaine, Sir Galahad, Achilleus, Arthur, et hoc genus omne, possess an inherent subjective vitality and truthfulness of their own, drawn from the universal and everlasting fountains of human emotion, passion, and psychical aspiration, however little realistic, individual, or strictly historic value the learned may place on the legends of Saxo Grammaticus and Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the myths of our common Aryan ancestors. Thos. Carlyle, in "Sartor Resartus," aptly asks—"Was Luther's picture of the devil less a reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye, or without it?" Dean Milman, in his essay on "Pagan and Christian Sepulchres," referring to the "two large mounds popularly known as the tombs of the Horatii and the Curiatii," on the Appian way, near Rome, says—"Let us leave the legend undisturbed, and take no more notice of those wicked disenchanters of our old belief." Yet he feelingly and truthfully adds—"They will leave us at least the poetry, if they scatter our history into a mist." Truly the æsthetic element, if in itself worthy, will ever survive the destruction of the presumed historical verity with which it may have been for ages allied. Who now believes in the historic truthfulness of the reputed deeds of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome? And yet the æsthetic beauties of Homer, Æschylus, Virgil, and Ovid are none the less admired and enjoyed. Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, in his Life of J. M. W. Turner, when commenting on the lack of "topographical," and other realistic truthfulness, both in colour and details, in many of the great landscape painter's finest productions, thus aptly deals with the difference between æsthetic and literal truthfulness—"It is with these drawings as with the romances of Sir Walter Scott: a time comes in the life of every intelligent reader when he perceives that Scott was not, and could not be, really true to the times he represented, except when they approached very near his own; but a student of literature would be much to be pitied who was unable to enjoy 'Ivanhoe' after this discovery. So when we have found out the excessive freedom which Turner allowed himself; when we have discovered that he is not to be trusted for the representation of any object, however important—that his chiaroscuro, though effective is arbitrary, and his colour though brilliant is false; when we have quite satisfied ourselves, in a word, that he is a poet, and not an architectural draughtsman, or an imitator of nature, is that a reason why we should not enjoy the poems? There is a wide difference, I grant, between the pleasure of real belief and the pleasure of confessed imagination: the first belongs to imaginative ignorance, and is only possible for the uncritical; the second belongs to a state of knowledge, and is only possible for those in whom the acquisition of knowledge has not deadened the imaginative faculties. Show the 'Rivers of France' to a boy who has the natural faculties which perceive beauty, but who is still innocent of criticism, he will believe the drawings to be true, and think as he dreams over them that a day may come when he will visit these enchanting scenes. Show them to a real critic, and he will not accept for fact a single statement made by the draughtsman from beginning to end, but he will say—'The poetic power is here,' and then he will yield to its influence, and dream also in his own way—not like the boy, in simple faith, but in the pleasant make-belief faith which is all that the poet asks of us."

This æsthetic truthfulness, in contradistinction to literal historic fact, is admirably expressed by Macaulay in an entry in his journal, in August, 1851. He says—"I walked far into Herefordshire," (from Malvern) "and read, while walking, the last five books of the 'Iliad,' with deep interest and many tears. I was afraid to be seen crying by the parties of walkers that met me as I came back; crying for Achilles cutting off his hair; crying for Priam rolling on the ground in the court-yard of his house; mere imaginary beings, creatures of an old ballad maker who died near three thousand years ago."

Lord Byron wrote under the influence of the traditions of his youth or of his classical college education, and not as the true poet, when he said—"I stood upon the plain of Troy daily for more than a month, in 1810; and if anything diminished my pleasure it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity." On the contrary, I felt no such lack of pleasurable emotion when I first gazed on the Thames at Datchet, or on the withered trunk of "Herne's Oak," or on the Trossachs and Loch Katrine, or on the Rialto or the Ducal palace at Venice, or on the Colisseum or the adjacent ruins of the "lone mother of dead empires," because the mere historical verity of Jack Falstaff's unwieldly carcase, or of Shakspere, Otway, Byron or Scott's ideal and semi-historical personages, never once entered into my mind. It was sufficient for me that the scenes before me were those which were contemplated and portrayed by the great dramatists and the great novelist and the great poet. For the time being, thanks to the law of mental association, to my imagination their characters were as real personages as was necessary for the fullest appreciation and enjoyment of the ideal of their artistic creators, and anything more, being unnecessary, might have been intrusive, or even impertinent, in the original and non-metaphorical meaning of that somewhat abused word. Byron spoke more to the purpose in the opening stanzas of the fourth canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," when, after lamenting the fate of Venice, and recalling the glories of her past history, he exclaims:—

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story and her long array
Of mighty shadows whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor
And Pierre can not be swept and worn away—
The keystones of the arch! Though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

He adds, with more significant meaning:—

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more beloved existence.

Dr. Gervinus says—"Shakspere's representations of the passionate, the prodigal, the hypocrite, are not portraits of this or that individual, but examples of those passions elevated out of particular into general truth, of which, in real life, we may find a thousand diminished copies, but never the original in the exact proportions given by the poet." And so it is with the æsthetic truth embodied in artistic creations of a plastic or pictorial character. No one acquainted with art products of its class imagines that the colossal statue recently erected in Germany to the memory of Hermann, or Arminius, the conqueror of the Roman legions under Varus (A.D. 9), is an absolute every-day portrait-likeness of that not very morally scrupulous "hero and patriot;" or that the faces, figures, costumes, and other accessories, in the "Last Supper" of Da Vinci, or the "Cartoons" of Raffaelle, represent, historically or de facto, the scenes as they actually occurred. Though conventionally called "historical pictures," they are emphatically creations of the imaginations of the artists, notwithstanding their historic basis, and consequently the great truths that pervade them, and for which they are justly admired, are of an artistic or æsthetic, and not of a strictly historic, character.

Notwithstanding this general lack of historic truthfulness we, nevertheless, do gain valuable knowledge of a psychological, ethnological, and even of a strictly historical character from stories of the mythical and legendary class; but much of that knowledge pertains to the age and its mental associations in which the story-tellers or other artistic exponents themselves lived. In the Arthurian romances we find an immense amount of historic truthfulness with reference to the habits of thought, costume, and religious sentiment, which obtained in and about the twelfth century; but which truths are utterly untrue, as applied by the writers, to the fifth and sixth, the era in which Arthur and his Christian knights, magicians, and giants are presumed to have been corporal existences. The same may be said of much of Bede's, and, indeed, of most other early chronicles. Although we may refuse our assent to the improbable and miraculous stories therein narrated, we feel convinced, in Bede's instance especially, that the writer is thoroughly in earnest, and honest in his work, and that he, at least, correctly describes the manners, customs, faiths, superstitions, and legendary history prevalent at the period in which he lived. This view is now the one generally accepted by the best historians and ethnological and psychological students. Mr. Ralph N. Wornum, in his "Epochs of Painting Characterised," says—"Ancient opinions are of themselves facts, and the history of any subject is indeed imperfect when the ideas of early ages regarding it are altogether overlooked, for the impressions and associations made or suggested by any intellectual pursuit are, as one of its effects, a part of the subject itself." Mr. Tylor, in the work already quoted, says—"The very myths that were discarded as lying fables prove to be sources of history in ways that their makers and transmitters little dreamed of. Their meaning has been misunderstood, but they have a meaning. Every tale that was ever told has a meaning for the times it belongs to. Even a lie, as the Spanish proverb says, is a lady of birth. ('La mentira es hija de algo.') Thus, as evidence of the development of thought as records of long passed belief and usage, even in some measure as materials for the history of the nations owning them, the old myths have fairly taken their place among historic facts; and with such the modern historian, so able and so willing to pull down, is also able and willing to rebuild."

M. Mallet, in his "Northern Antiquities," referring to the semi-historical romances of the Scandinavians, says—"It is needless to observe that great light may be thrown on the character and sentiments of a nation, by those very books, whence we can learn nothing exact or connected of their history. The most credulous writer, he that has the greatest passion for the marvellous, while he falsifies the history of his contemporaries, paints their manners of life and modes of thinking without perceiving it. His simplicity, his ignorance, are at once pledges of the artless truth of his drawing, and a warning to distrust that of his relations."

Dr. A. Dickson White, in his treatise on "The Warfare of Science," forcibly illustrates the absolute necessary harmony of all truth, subjective and objective, although we may not always possess sufficient insight to perceive it. He says—"God's truths must agree, whether discovered by looking within upon the soul, or without upon the world. A truth written upon the human heart to-day, in its full play of emotions or passions, cannot be at any real variance even with a truth written upon a fossil whose poor life ebbed forth millions of years ago."

Professor Gervinus, in his "Shakespeare Commentaries," has skilfully analysed the distinction between historic and æsthetic truth. He says—"Where the historian, bound by an oath to the severest truth in every single statement, can, at the most, only permit us to divine the causes of events and the motives of actions from the bare narration of facts, the poet, who seeks to draw from these facts only a general moral truth, and not one of facts, unites by poetic fiction the action and actors in a distinct living relation of cause and effect. The more freely and boldly he does this, as Shakespeare has done in 'Richard III.,' the more poetically interesting will his treatment of the history become, but the more will it lose its historical value; the more truly and closely he adheres to reality, as in 'Richard II.,' the more will his poetry gain in historic meaning and forfeit in poetic splendour."

Shakspere so thoroughly felt and understood this, that in the construction of his plot, and even in the determination of the specialities of the characters of Macbeth and his indomitable wife, he has selected his incidents from more than one epoch in early Scottish history. The famous murder scenes in the first and second acts, so far as they are "historically" true, are drawn from the assassination of a previous king, Duffe, in 971 or 972, by Donwald, captain of the castle of Fores, whose wife is the "historic" original of the "æsthetic" Lady Macbeth of the tragedy, and not the spouse (if he had one) of the chieftain who, history simply says, "slew the king [Duncan] at Inverness," in an ordinary battle in 1040.

Professor Gervinus adds—"It is a common pride on the part of the poets of these historical plays, and a natural peculiarity belonging to this branch of the art, that truth and poetry should go hand in hand. It is more than probable that 'Henry VIII.' bore at first the title so characteristic in this respect—'All is True.' But this truth is throughout, as we have seen, not to be taken in the prosaic sense of the historian, who seeks it in the historical material in every most minute particular, and in its most different aspects; it is only a higher and universal truth which is gathered by a poet from a series of historical facts, yet which from the very circumstance that it springs from historical, true and actual facts, and is supported and held by them, acquires, it must be admitted, a double authority, that of poetry and history combined. The historical drama, formed of these two component parts, is therefore especially agreeable to the imaginative friend of history and the realistic friend of poetry."

It will thus be seen that there is no necessary antagonism between individual, or historic, and ideal, or æsthetic, truth. Their respective lines of action may be divergent, but they are, when thoroughly understood, both in harmony with the great central and "eternal verity" which embodies all truth. The only danger to be guarded against by the historic or æsthetic student arises from the too common habit of confounding the one with the other.

Tennyson, in his "Queen Mary," says—

The very Truth and very Word are one,
But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl,
Is like a word that comes from olden days,
And passes thro' the peoples: every tongue
Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks
Quite other than at first.

Nennius speaks of a tenth battle fought and won by Arthur on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit, or Ribroit. This has been identified by commentators as the Brue, in Somersetshire, and the Ribble, in Lancashire; but the evidence advanced is not very conclusive in favour of either locality. Mr. Haigh prefers Trefdraeth, in the island of Anglesea, as the place indicated.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE DEFEAT AND DEATH OF ST. OSWALD, OF NORTHUMBRIA, AT MASERFELD, (A.D. 642).

THE LEGEND OF THE WILD BOAR, "THE MONSTER IN FORMER AGES, WHICH PROWLED OVER THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF WINWICK, INFLICTING INJURY ON MAN AND BEAST."

he Venerable Bede, in the ninth chapter of his "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," says, in the year 642—"Oswald was killed in a great battle, by the same Pagan nation and Pagan king of the Mercians who had slain his predecessor, Edwin, at a place called in the English tongue, Maserfelth, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth day of the month of August."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the same date, says—"This year Oswald, King of the Northumbrians, was slain by Penda and the South-humbrians at Maserfeld, on the nones of August, and his body was buried at Bardney (Lincolnshire). His sanctity and miracles were afterwards manifested in various ways beyond this island, and his hands are at Bamborough" (Northumberland), "uncorrupted."

The battle is likewise recorded by relatively more recent chroniclers, yet its site, hitherto, has not been satisfactorily determined. Camden, Capgrave, Pennant, Sharon Turner, and some others fix it at Oswestry, in Shropshire; while Archbishop Usher, Alban Butler, Powell, Dr. Cowper, Edward Baines, Thomas Baines, W. Beaumont, Dr. Kendrick, Mr. T. Littler, and others prefer the neighbourhood of Winwick, in the "Fee of Makerfield," Lancashire.[11]

Mr. Edward Baines says—"The district in which Winwick is seated has, from a very distant period, been denominated Mackerfield or Macerfield—a battle-field, with variations in the orthography usually found in Norman and Anglo-Saxon writers." The late Rev. Edmund Simpson, vicar of Ashton-in-Mackerfield, however, disputes this etymology, and contends that "Mackerfield is Mag-er-feld, a great plain cultivated: mag and er being Gaelic and feld Saxon. Thus Maghull, near Liverpool, is a hill on the plain: thus, also, Maghera-felt in Ireland."

The "Fee of Makerfield" was co-extensive with the Newton hundred of the Domesday record, and included nineteen townships. It extended from Wigan to Winwick, and was traversed in its entire length by the great Roman road, which entered Northumbria from the south near Warrington.

Professor Dwight Whitney, in his "Life and Growth of Language" (p. 39), says—"Æcer meant in Anglo-Saxon a 'cultivated field,' as does the German acker to the present day; and here, again, we have its very ancient correlatives in Sanscrit agra, Greek ἀγρόϛ, Latin ager; the restriction of the word to signify a field of certain fixed dimensions, taken as a unit of measure for fields in general, is something quite peculiar and recent. It is analagous with the like treatment of rod and foot and grain, and so on, except that in these cases we have saved the old meaning while adding the new."

Field is from A.S., O.S., and Ger. feld, Danish veld, the open country, cleared lawn (Collins's Dic. Der.) With respect to acre the old meaning is still retained, in one instance at least. We still say "God's acre," when speaking of a churchyard or burial ground.

The following are some of the principal variations in the writing of the name: Bede calls it Maserfelth, King Alfred writes it Maserfeld, as in one MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Another copy, however, has it Maresfeld. The latter is probably a clerical error resultant from the accidental misplacement of the letters r and s by the copyist, or it may be an ordinary example of what philologists call "metathesis," or transliteration. Matthew of Westminster writes it Marelfeld, and John of Brompton, Maxelfeld. Matthew and John, however, are relatively modern authorities in comparison with Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Alfred. Their orthography, however, furnishes an apt illustration of the mutation which has taken place in local nomenclature during the transition of the language from Anglo-Saxon to modern English, and hence the occasional difficulty of satisfactory identification at the present day.

The phonetic difficulty between Maserfeld, Macerfeld, and Makerfield is, perhaps, not insurmountable. The letter c in English is useless, having either the sound of k or s. Before a, o, and u, it becomes k, as in cat, cot, cure; before e and i it becomes s, as in century, certain, cinder, and city. Cer, likewise, by metathesis, or the transposition of the r, becomes cre, as in lucre, massacre, etc.[12] Thus it would appear the modern word "Makerfield" probably accords both etymologically and topographically with the Anglo-Saxon name of the site of the battle. As no other hamlet, township, or parish, or other territorial designation (the nearest being Macclesfield), does this, especially when taken in conjunction with the many corroborative evidences, would appear to satisfactorily identify the locality.[13] These corroborative evidences are by no means either scanty or unimportant.

The parish church of Winwick is dedicated to St. Oswald, and Mr. Baines says—"Little more than half a mile to the north, on the road to Golborne and Wigan, is an ancient well, which has been known from time immemorial by the name of 'St. Oswald's Well.'" This well is still in existence, and a certain veneration at the present time hovers about it in the minds of others than the superstitious peasantry. On the upper portion of the south wall of the church is an inscription in Latin, purporting to be a "renovation" of a previous one, by a person named Sclater, in the year 1530, in the curacy of Henry Johnson. On a recent visit, this inscription, as well as other portions of the edifice, I found had undergone further renovation. Gough translates the first three lines as follows:—

This place of old did Oswald greatly love:
Who the Northumbers ruled, now reigns above,
And from Marcelde did to Heaven remove.

Mr. Beamont gives the translation of the inscription as follows:—

This place of yore did Oswald greatly love,
Northumbria's King, but now a saint above,
Who in Marcelde's field did fighting fall,
Hear us, oh blest one, when here to thee we call.

(A line over the porch obliterated.)
In fifteen hundred and just three times ten,
Sclater restored and built this wall again,
And Henry Johnson here was curate then.

This, and its repetition by Hollingworth in his "Mancuniensis," appears to have alone constituted "the highest authority" relied upon by Edward Baines for his statement that Winwick parish was the favourite residence of King Oswald. The inscription does not, as some have assumed, state the church is built in, on, or near Marcelde. It merely asserts that Oswald died at a place so named, and which may have been Winwick, the site of the church dedicated to St. Oswald, or any other locality, Marcelde being evidently a corruption and a rythmical contraction of the undoubted Anglo-Saxon name of the scene of Oswald's defeat and death.

Objection has been taken to the word "Marcelde," as a bad Latin substitute for "Maserfeld." But the goodness or badness of mediæval Latin substitutes for English names is of no consequence to the question at issue, as the reference to the place of Oswald's death is undeniable. It is but an apt illustration of the strange transformations local nomenclature sometimes has undergone in transmission from past centuries to the present time.

Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh Bruts curiously confound the incidents attendant upon this and a previous battle, in which Oswald was engaged and was victorious. Geoffrey says that Cadwalla, a Brit-Welsh king, one of the heroes of Lywrich Hen's poetic effusions, hearing of Oswald's victory over Penda(?) at "Heavenfield," "being inflamed with rage, assembled his army and went in pursuit of the holy king, Oswald; and in a battle which he had with him, at a place called Burne, broke in upon him and killed him."

Geoffrey here, as noted by Sharon Turner, shows his irrational partiality to the fame of the British chieftain, and his disregard of historical truth when it did not minister to his prejudices or presumed patriotism. Cadwalla was slain in the battle with Oswald at "Heavenfield," in 635, seven years previously to the saintly Northumbrian warrior's defeat and death; and, consequently, the British hero was, in accordance with ordinary mortal notions, somewhat incapacitated for the performance of the after-deeds of valour, ascribed to him by his panegyrist—without miraculous intervention—which, however, Geoffrey does not even suggest, notwithstanding its presumed frequency on other momentous occasions.[14]

Referring to Oswald's death, Bede says—"It is also given out and become a proverb, 'that he ended his life in prayer;' for when he was beset with weapons and enemies, he perceived he must immediately be killed, and prayed to God for the souls of his army, hence it is proverbially said, 'Lord have mercy on their souls, said Oswald, as he fell on the ground.' His bones, therefore, were translated to the monastery which we mentioned (Bardsea), and buried therein; but the king that slew him commanded his head, hands, and arms to be cut off from the body, and set upon stakes. But the successor in the throne, Oswy, coming thither the next year with his army, took them down, and buried his head in the church of Lindisfarne, and the hands and arms in the royal city" (Bamborough).

Bede relates many anecdotes, illustrative of the sanctity of Oswald, and the miracles wrought by his bones, as well as by the earth which received his blood on the battle-field. One instance I give entire, in Dr. Giles's translation of the venerable historian's own words. In chapter x., book iii., he says—

"About the same time, another person of the British nation, as is reported, happened to travel by the same place, where the aforesaid battle was fought, and observing one particular spot of ground, green and more beautiful than any other part of the field, he judiciously concluded with himself that there could be no other cause for that unusual greenness but that some person of more holiness than any other in the army had been killed there. He therefore took along with him some of that earth, tying it up in a linen cloth, supposing it would some time or other be of use for curing sick people, and proceeding on his journey, he came at night to a certain village, and entered a house where the neighbours were feasting at supper; being received by the owners of the house, he sat down with them at the entertainment, hanging the cloth in which he had brought the earth, on a post against the wall. They sat long at supper and drank hard, with a great fire in the middle of the room; it happened that the sparks flew up and caught the top of the house, which being made of wattles and thatch, was presently in a flame; the guests ran out in a fright, without being able to put a stop to the fire. The house was consequently burnt down, only that post on which the earth hung remained entire and untouched. On observing this, they were all amazed, and inquiring into it diligently, understood that the earth had been taken from the place where the blood of King Oswald had been shed. These miracles being made known and reported abroad, many began daily to frequent that place, and received health to themselves and theirs."

In June, 1856, whilst I was engaged superintending the excavations at "Castle Hill," Penwortham, near Preston, an incident occurred, which, "in the olden time," would have been regarded as a conclusive proof not only of the miraculous quality of the earth on which St. Oswald expired, but of the site of the battle-field. We found, under the mound excavated, the remains of an edifice which had been destroyed apparently partly by fire, and on the ruins of which to the height of about 12 or 14 feet, the Anglo-Saxon tumulus had been piled. The hill, situated at the nose of the promontory overlooking the upper portion of the Ribble estuary, had evidently been occupied at one time as a specula, or outpost, in connection with the Roman station at Walton-le-dale. The wattle and thatch characteristics of the remains of the fallen roof of the edifice were very apparent. But the most remarkable, nay, inexplicable feature disclosed, was a single oak pillar, with wooden peg-holes in it, standing erect near the centre of the mound, while the remainder of the structure was scattered in confusion on a mass of debris and vegetable litter, in which were found, together with several articles in metal, etc., an enormous quantity of bones of animals, evidently killed and eaten for food. To the persistent enquiries of several somewhat bewildered persons, anxious to discover an immediate explanation of so remarkable a fact, I at length yielded, and related, in a serious, but not authoritative manner, the statement of Bede, and I feel confident several persons returned home with a conviction that the story was probable enough, or at least there was something either miraculous or "uncanny" about the whole affair. Without, of course, assenting to the miraculous medicinal quality of the earth, it is highly improbable that so conscientious, if credulous, a writer as Bede would relate such a story, unless there had been some substratum of prosaic fact reported to him, on which the miraculous element might easily have been engrafted in those superstitious days. It is not improbable that the accidental preservation of the pillar to which was hung the presumed sacred earth on which the saintly monarch breathed his last, prevented its destruction or removal, and hence its position near the centre of the mound raised above the ruined edifice, and, doubtless, afterwards used as a "mote hill," or out-of-door justice seat, or place of public assembly. If Winwick be the site of the battle-field, the traveller passing from thence northward by the great Roman road would arrive at Penwortham in time for supper, presuming that his journey commenced three or four hours previously.

All this may not be worth much more than some of the idle tales of the old "historians" in support of the claims of the Lancashire site as the locality of the great battle between the Christian and Pagan elements in the population of the northern portion of England in the seventh century.[15] Nevertheless, it presents, at least, one of those remarkable coincidences that occasionally puzzle our reason and perplex our faith. Deeper insight into the psychological aspect of the humanity of any period may often be gained by a careful study of their legendary lore and cherished superstitions than from the perusal of the more orthodox historical chronicles. But there are other evidences respecting the site of this important Anglo-Saxon conflict, more reliable than the miracles of tradition, which demand our attention.

From the antecedents of the respective belligerents, and the statement of Bede, it seems almost certain that the Pagan chieftain, Penda, was the aggressor, and, anxious to avenge the death of Cadwalla, his quasi-Christian ally, invaded the Northumbrian kingdom, on the frontier of which he was successfully confronted by his Christian antagonist. The tradition in Geoffrey's day, at least, distinctly states that Oswald's conqueror was the aggressor. He says—"inflamed with rage, he went in pursuit of the holy king." See Ante, p. 67.

Referring to the antecedents of the war under Oswy, which followed Oswald's death, and in which Penda was slain near the river Winwid, Mr. Green ("Making of England") says—"That Oswiu strove to avert the conflict we see from the delivery of his youngest son, Ecgfrith, as a hostage into Penda's hands. The sacrifice, however, proved useless. Penda was again the assailant, and his attack was as vigorous as of old." We, therefore, in the first instance, should naturally look for the battle-field in Northumbria, rather than in North Wales,[16] or even in Mercia.

Another important element with reference to the disputed site has not hitherto, to my knowledge, received the attention it deserves. Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the Welsh Bruts, notwithstanding their determination to give all the honour to the defunct British chief, Cadwalla, could have no motive for falsifying the site of the battle. Indeed, his reference to it by name, as will be seen by the extract previously given, is of an ordinary passing character.

Now, there is a locality, in the parish of Winwick, and in the "Fee of Makerfield," to the north of the great barrow or tumulus, to which I shall call further attention, that answers, on true phonetic laws, to this nomenclature. Mr. Edward Baines says—"The original proprietors of the township of Ashton" (which is the largest township in the old parish of Winwick) "derived their name from Bryn Hall, the place of their residence, or gave their name to that place, and Alan le Brun occurs in the 'Testa de Nevill,' as holding by ancient tenure two bovates of land for 6s. of Sir Henry de Le." It is here apparent that the present name Bryn was originally Brun, and, as brun and burn are, by what philologists term transliteration, but different renderings of the same word, meaning a spring or brook, Geoffrey's varied reading of the name of the locality—"at a place called Burne," strongly supports the other evidence in favour of the Lancashire site. Edward Baines, referring to the ancient Lancashire family, the Gerards of Bryn, says—"This family have had four seats within the township of Ashton," (in Makerfield), "namely, Old Bryn, abandoned five centuries ago; New Bryn, erected in the reign of Edward VI.; Garswood, taken down at the beginning of the present century; and the new hall, the present residence of the family."

Nennius says Penda slew Oswald at the "battle of Cocboy,"[17] and that "he gained the victory by diabolical agency." No attempt, however, within my knowledge, has been made to identify "Cocboy" with any existing locality. There is, however, I understand, a place near the ancient pass of the Mersey, or Latchford, and contiguous to the great Roman road, named Cockedge. As Cocboy is unknown this may be a corruption of it. Etymologists identify coc with the British gosh or red. As the new red sandstone crops out in the neighbourhood, this interpretation accords with the local condition.

Latchford, too, would be significant, if like Lichfield, it had its root in the Anglo-Saxon lic, but this is doubtful. Lichfield or Litchfield, the "field of dead bodies," is said to have derived its name from the circumstance that "many suffered martyrdom there in the time of Dioclesian."[18] In Gibson's "Etymological Geography," Win-feld, where Arminius, or Hermann, defeated the Roman legions under Varus, A.D. 10, is said to signify the "field of victory." A similar etymology is equally valid for Winwick, and hence its significance. Indeed, the intransitive form of the Anglo-Saxon verb winnan, whence our win, signifies "To gain the victory." A similar interpretation will equally apply to Winwidfield, near Leeds, the scene of Penda's subsequent defeat and death.

When dealing with the identification of modern with ancient names, it is well to bear in mind the remarks of so erudite a philologist as Professor Dwight Whitney. In his "Life and Growth of Language," he says—"It must be carefully noted, indeed, that the reach of phonetics, its power to penetrate to the heart of its facts and account for them, is only limited. There is always one element in linguistic change which refuses scientific treatment, namely, the action of the human will. The work is all done by human beings, adapting means to ends, under the impulse of motives and the guidance of habits which are the resultant of causes so multifarious and obscure that they elude recognition and defy estimate." Again, "Every period of linguistic life, with its constantly progressive changes of form and meaning, wipes out a part of the intermediates which connect a derived element with its original. There are plenty of items of word-formation in even the modern Romanic languages, which completely elude explanation. Mere absence of evidence, then, will not in the least justify us in assuming the genesis of an obscure form to be of a wholly different character from that which is obvious or demonstrable in other forms. The presumption is wholly in favour of the accordance of the one with the other; it can only be repelled by direct and convincing evidence." And again, "As linguistics is a historical science, so its evidences are historical, and its methods of proof of the same character. There is no absolute demonstration about it: there is only probability, in the same varying degree as elsewhere in historical enquiry. There are no rules, the strict application of which will lead to infallible results. Nothing will make dispensable the wide gathering-in of evidence, the careful sifting of it, so as to determine what bears upon the case in hand and how directly, the judicial balancing of apparently conflicting testimony, the refraining from pushing conclusions beyond what the evidences warrant, the willingness to rest, when necessary, in a merely negative conclusion, which should characterize the historical investigator in all departments."

The most important ancient structure at present remaining in the parish of Winwick is an immense tumulus called "Castle Hill." Mr. Edward Baines says—"At the distance of half-a-mile from and to the north of Newton, stands an ancient barrow, called Castle Hill. It is romantically situated on elevated ground, at the junction of two streams, whose united waters form the brook which flows past the lower part of the town of Newton.[19] The sides and summit of the barrow are covered with venerable oaks, which to all appearance have weathered the rude and wintry blasts for centuries. It is a spot well adapted for the repose of the ashes of the mighty dead."

Mr. W. Beamont, in a paper read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society, on the "Fee of Makerfield," etc., in March, 1873, says,—"On the west side of this rivulet" (the Golbourne brook), "where the red rock rises above it, there is scooped out a rude alcove or cave, which the country people assign to Robin Hood, the popular hero, who in most of our northern counties divides with Arthur of the Round Table and Alfred the Great the right to legendary fame. The Castle Hill, which stands in a commanding position above the other bank of the stream, and is boul-shaped, is 320 feet in circumference at the base, 226 feet in circumference at the top, and it has an elevation of 17 feet above the level of the field below."

On a recent visit I found the old oaks, like faithful veteran sentinels, still guarding, in Mr. Baines's language, "the repose of the mighty dead." One or two of them, however, exhibited unmistakeable evidence that the rude blast of the storm-wind and fiery embrace of the lightning-flash had shattered their aged limbs, while the benumbing grasp of Time had chilled their heretofore invigorating sap. Yet, although they are destined, in a relatively very short period, from their chronological standpoint, to succumb to the destiny of all organic life, and finish their lengthened existence in ignominious association with the faggot-shed, still their venerable forms, notwithstanding the dilapidations which attest the force of years of elemental conflict, in conjunction with the historic and legendary memories with which they are associated, render them more suggestive teachers in their decay than they were in the pride of their stalwart and umbrageous prime.

Another change has likewise come over the scene since Mr. Beamont's description was written. The stream near Newton has been blocked by an earthen embankment, and the "Castle Hill" now overlooks a beautiful artificial lake, with three branches. Robin Hood's cave, alas! had to be sacrificed; four or five feet of water now placidly flows over the site of its former entrance.

This tumulus, situated on the Gol-bourne brook, in the Fee of Mackerfield, was opened on the 8th of July, 1843. An account of this excavation, by the Rev. E. Sibson, was published in the "Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society" at the time, from which I gather the following important particulars. Mr. W. Beamont, who was present during the excavations, likewise (in the paper previously quoted) gives a detailed account of the mode of procedure adopted, and of the remains discovered. The mound was found to be artificial, and composed of earth, sand, and rock taken from a trench on the south and west sides. This trench was then found to be about five feet deep and forty feet wide. It appeared to have been originally seven feet deep, two of which had been excavated out of the solid rock. A shaft six feet wide was sunk in the centre of the tumulus, and an adit to meet it, from the west side, on the level of the original soil. Mr. Beamont says—"At the distance of about ten feet from the centre of the barrow, on the south side of the shaft, a chamber was discovered. The base of this chamber was two feet broad, and it was curved. Its length was twenty-one feet, its height two feet, and the roof was a semi-circular arch. It seemed to be constructed of masses of clay, about a foot in diameter, rolled into form in a moist state, and closely compacted by pressure. When the chamber was first opened the candles were extinguished, and there was great difficulty in breathing. The sides and bottom of the chamber were coated with impalpable powder, of smoke colour. The bottom of the chamber was covered with a dark-coloured substance. The external surface of this substance was like peat earth, being rough, uneven, and of a black colour. The inside of it, when broken, was close and compact, and somewhat similar to black sealing-wax, which, when examined by the microscope, was found to be closely dotted with particles of lime. It was thought to be a mixture of wood ashes, half burned animal matter, and calcined bones. On this plate of animal matter, which had been placed on the edge of the original green sward, was a covering of loose earth, about two inches in thickness, which might have fallen from the roof and sides of the chamber. Immediately below the plate of animal matter a trench had been cut, about fifteen inches deep, and two tiers of round oak timber had been placed in it. The first tier was notched into the green sward, and the second tier was nine inches below it. The horizontal distance of the several pieces was about eighteen inches, and the pieces in the lower tier were placed exactly opposite to those in the upper one. Several of the pieces were charred, and many of them had entirely disappeared, leaving black marks in the sides of the trench, where they had formerly been placed. These pieces of oak appeared to have been three or four inches in diameter. In almost all the cases the wood of these pieces had been absorbed; in some cases the bark on the under side of these pieces was carbonised, and had nearly the appearance of coal; and in other cases the bark on the under side of these pieces retained its original form and colour. In one case, however, one of these pieces, in contact with the animal matter, had the appearance of dry decayed wood. The trench, below the plate of animal matter, was filled with clay."

Mr. Beamont gives several other interesting details, and adds,—"It is probable that this chamber contained the original deposit, and that it had never been opened before. On the roof of the east side of the chamber there was discovered a very distinct and remarkable impression of a human body. There was the cavity formed by the back of the head, and this cavity was coated with a very thin shell of carbonised matter. The depression of the back of the neck, the projection of the shoulders, the elevation of the spine, and the protuberance of the lower part of the body, were distinctly visible. The body had been that of an adult, and the head lay towards the west. The exact form and vertical position of the circular chamber was indicated by a ridge on the crest of the hill, which was one reason why the tunnel was driven from the bottom of the shaft towards the south." The writer further informs us that the "Castle Hill is said to be haunted by a white lady, who flits and glides, but never walks. She is sometimes seen at midnight, but is never heard to speak." The Rev. Mr. Sibson adds—"There is a tradition that Alfred the Great was buried here, with a crown of gold, in a silver coffin." He likewise says that in a "drift, on the east side of the shaft, and near the centre of the hill, a broken whetstone was found. It was of freestone of a fine grain, of a dull white colour, slightly veined with red; and the surface was finely polished. It was about five inches in length and three in breadth." He likewise figures a fragment of an urn, apparently of Roman manufacture, from the presence of which he inferred that "the Castle Hill had been a place of interment for persons of distinction for a long period."

Dr. James Fergusson, in an appendix to his work on "Rude Stone Monuments of All Countries," gives, at length, an account of the opening, in 1846, of a huge tumulus, named "Oden's Howe," near Upsala, by Herr Hildebrand, the royal antiquary of Sweden. The similarity of many of the remains brought to light to those found in the "Castle Hill," seems to suggest that these tumuli were erected by cognate people, and at no very distant periods from each other. Herr Hildebrand says,—"During the diggings were found unburnt animal bones, bits of dark wood, charcoal, bits of burnt bones, etc. This was evidently a sepulchral mound. Diggings have also been made in the smaller cairns near by, and, although they have been opened before, burial urns have been found, burnt human bones, bones of animals and birds, bits of iron and bronze, etc.... At the middle of the howe, the grave-chamber is nine feet above the level of the soil, 18 feet under the top of the howe. On the bed of the clay, under the great stones, have been found an iron clinker three inches long, remains of pine poles partly burnt, a lock of hair chestnut coloured, etc. The numerous clusters of charcoal show that the dead had been burned on the layer of clay, and the bones have been collected in an urn not yet found. In one of the nearest small howes have been found a quantity of burnt animal and human bones, two little-injured bronze brooches, a fragment of a golden ornament, etc." After further examination of the contents of the howe, Herr Hildebrand says, "June 29th, 1847,—The burial urn has been found in the grave-chamber, also have turned up bones of men, horses, dogs, a golden ornament delicately worked, a bone comb, bone buttons, etc." He afterwards writes to say that the burial urn was found three inches under the soil, and was covered with a thin slab. "It was seven inches high, nine inches in diameter, filled with burnt bones, human and animal (horse, dog, etc.), ashes, charcoal (of needle and leaf trees), nails, copper ornaments, bone articles, a bird of bone, etc. In the mass of charcoal also were found bones, broken ornaments, bits of two golden bracteates, etc. Coins of King Oscar were then placed in the urn, and everything restored as before. Frey's Howe was opened, and showed the same results."

"Dr. Fergusson, commenting on this, says—"With a little local industry, I have very little doubt, not only that the date of these tombs could be ascertained, but the names of the royal personages who were therein buried, probably in the sixth or seventh century of our era."

In a paper read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society, in March, 1860, the late Dr. Robson says—"In the Ordnance survey as first published on the inch scale, about half a mile to the east of Winwick church, we find a couple of tumuli, one on each side of a bye-lane; but in the later and larger map, a single tumulus is marked, through the centre of which the road seems to have been cut. The earlier survey gives the more correct representation of the place, as there have certainly been at least two barrows, one in the field on the east, the other in that of the west side of the lane." The latter is on a farm called "Highfields." As the land has long been under cultivation, the tumulus was not very well defined, but it appeared to have been about thirty yards in diameter. The summit is "distinct enough," says Dr. Robson, and "is about six feet above the level of the lane." This mound was dug into in November, 1859, and the Dr. records that "deposits of burned bones were found at some distance from its centre, on the slopes to the east and south. These bones were in small fragments, apparently in distinct heaps, mixed with minute particles of burnt wood, and one or two fragments of brown, thick, ill-burnt and rude pottery turned up, not, however, appearing to have any connection with the bone deposits—the only portion of which offering any recognisable character, was the head of a thigh bone of a subject twelve or fourteen years old. About six feet deep in the centre, the red sandstone rock was reached.... Some labourers working in the field on the other side of the lane, fifteen years ago, came upon an urn with bones in it, apparently of a similar description. This tumulus was removed at the beginning of the present year, and the men in their operations cutting into some soft black stuff, struck a spade into an urn and broke it into pieces; it seems to have been of large size, and has a feathered pattern scored on the outside, in other respects agreeing with the fragments already described. It contained bones in the same fragmentary state as those found on the west side of the lane, and with them a stone hammer-head and a bronze dart."

Near these tumuli, on the ordnance map, is a place named Arbury. This name has evidently had originally some connection with these mounds. In the "Imperial Gazetteer," Arbury, in Herts, on the Icknield-st., is described as a "Roman camp," and so is Arbury or Harborough, near Cambridge, as well as Arbury Banks, on the Watling-st., near Chipping Norton, Northamptonshire. In Anglo-Saxon the prefix ar, according to Bosworth's Dictionary, signifies "glory, honour, respect, reverence," etc.

Dr. Robson discusses at some length the presumed date of these interments, and contends that such nomenclature as "stone and bronze periods" only mislead. He says—"In some graves are coins which carry a date with them, and in others Roman remains which belong to the first four centuries of our era. But in tumuli such as those at Winwick, there is nothing to show whether it was raised six centuries before or six centuries after that period." From the drawings which accompany Dr. Robson's paper, there appears nothing to vitiate the hypothesis that these mounds were raised on the battle-field of 642. The stone hammer is highly finished and polished. The form of the spear-head agrees with some of the examples figured by Mr. Thomas Wright and Mr. L. Jewitt, as pertaining to the earlier Anglo-Saxon period. It presents a kind of transition from between the shorter Roman bronze and the more elongated iron of the later Anglo-Saxon time. The "feathery pattern" scored on the pottery resembles the rude "herring-bone," or zig-zag ornamentation of late Roman and early Anglo-Saxon masonry.

Another and much larger tumulus until recently was situated opposite to the parish church at Warrington, and contiguous to the ancient Latchford, by which the British trackway and the great Roman road crossed the Mersey. For some miles both on the east and west, in early times, no other route was practicable; the mosses on the one hand and the tidal estuary on the other presenting insuperable obstacles, especially to heavy traffic. The tumulus at Warrington, named the "Mote Hill," was entirely removed in 1852. Pennant had conjectured it to be Roman; Ormerod, Norman; and John Whitaker, Saxon. In a paper read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society, on November, 1852, Dr. Kendrick gave a detailed account of the excavation, and exhibited the discovered remains. Some of the pottery was rude (apparently Romano-British), and cremated human remains were present, as well as an immense quantity of the remains of animals. Referring to Whitaker's conjecture of the Saxon origin of the mound, or of that race having utilised it, Dr. Kendrick says—"to this opinion I think all the appearances detailed this evening afford strong support." Mr. Sibson, likewise, who was present at the examination of the hill in 1832, and again in 1841, coincides in this view, and suggests that it originally constituted a tumulus, or burial place, raised after the battle fought at Winwick. Dr. Kendrick thought that as the church was dedicated to St. Elphin, slain in 679, the mound might have covered his remains; but the Pagan character of the interment or interments negatives this view.

Mr. W. T. Watkin, in a note to the present writer, says—"Dr. Kendrick's account compared with that of Mr. Sibson evidently shows that the mound was originally a Roman boundary mark, used afterwards in Saxon and mediæval times for various purposes. The second excavation merely shows the contents of the mound as they were thrown in after the first exploration, with the exception of the well and one or two smaller details." He adds—"All these things are in accordance with the rules of the Roman agrimensores." This view seems very probable.[20]

I am inclined to regard these tumuli, in the main, as monuments of the site of some great battle or battles, and that amongst others, Maserfeld may be, perhaps, the latest and most important fought in the neighbourhood previous to the disuse of cremation and the general adoption of the modern Christian mode of interment. The whole of these large barrows were evidently erected by people who burned and buried their dead on the spot where the memorial mound or monument was afterwards erected. We know from the Venerable Bede's record, how the body of King Oswald was disposed of. Besides the king being a pious Christian, such a mode of sepulture would not have been adopted by his followers. Penda, on the contrary, was a Pagan, and strongly attached to the superstitions and customs of his Teutonic ancestors. We know that the Pagan Anglo-Saxons in England practised both modes of interment, the burial of the body entire and cremation. Mr. Thomas Wright says—(Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 401) "The custom in this respect appears to have varied with the different tribes who came into the island. In the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Kent, cremation is the rare exception to the general rule; while it seems to have been the predominating practice among the Angles from Norfolk into the centre of Mercia." It is, therefore, highly probable, if the battle of Maserfeld was fought in this district, that these tumuli, or some portion of them, were raised by the Pagan Mercian victors over the bodies of chieftains of their party slain in the battle. Nennius says that in the conflict Penda's brother Eawa was slain, and, consequently, he and the other Pagan chieftains who fell in the battle would be interred in Pagan fashion by the victorious survivors.

The oldest Anglo-Saxon poem extant, "Beowulf," the scene of the events of which Mr. D. Haigh, in his "Conquest of Britain by the Saxons," contends to be the neighbourhood of Hartlepool, in Durham,[21] has preserved to us a description of such a ceremonial in detail. On Beowulf's death, his warriors raised a funeral pile to burn the body. It was—

hung round with helmets,
with boards of war, [shields]
and with bright byrnies, [coats of mail]
as he had requested.
Then the heroes, weeping,
laid down in the midst
the famous chieftain,
their dear lord.
Then began on the hill,
the warriors to awake
the mightiest of funeral fires;
the wood-smoke rose aloft
dark from the fire;
noisily it went,
mingled with weeping.

His faithful followers afterwards erected the barrow over his ashes:—

a mound over the sea;
it was high and broad,
by the sailors over the waves
the beacon of the war-renowned.
They surrounded it with a wall
in the most honourable manner
that wise men
could desire.
They put into the mound
rings and bright gems,
all such ornaments
as before from the hoard
the fierce-minded men
had taken.

The date of the erection of the first parish church at Winwick is not known with certainty. Some contend that it was coeval with the introduction of Christianity into the North of England by Paulinus. Although this is incapable of absolute verification, it is generally conceded that a church must have existed for some time antecedent to the Norman conquest. The Domesday Survey, under the head of "Newton Hundred," seems to confirm this. It says, "Under the reign of King Edward" (the Confessor) "there were five hides in Newton: one of these was held in demesne. The church of this manor had one carucate of land, and St. Oswald, of this village, had two carucates, exempt from all taxation." Mr. Baines says—"In 1828, while digging a vault in the chancel of this church, there were found, at the depth of eight or ten feet below the floor, three human skeletons of gigantic size, laid upon each other, and over them a rude heap of cubical sandstone blocks of irregular dimensions, varying from one to two feet. No remains of coffins were found in the grave, and the history of the occupants of this mysterious tomb remains undiscovered." It seems, however, not improbable that these interments took place anterior to the building of the church, that the skeletons were the remains of chieftains who perished with Oswald, and that the sacred edifice, dedicated to the warrior saint, was afterwards erected on the spot.

The first known record of the old church at Oswestry is thus referred to by the Rev. D. R. Thomas (His: Diocese of St. Asaph):—"The Parish Church of St. Oswald is first definitely mentioned in 1086 in the Grant of Warin, Vicecomes ... to the abbot and monks of Shrewsbury Abbey, dedit eis Ecclesiam Sancti Oswaldi cum decima ville;" but there is a belief that there was a still earlier one elsewhere than on the present site, which may be due partly to the fact that the town was originally built on some other site, partly to the circumstance that several of the earlier mission stations are still indicated by such names as Maen Tysilio, Croes-Wylan, Cae Croes, and Croes Oswaldt, or The Cross; and to the tradition which Leyland records, "that at Llanforda was a church now" (sixteenth century) "decaid. Sum say this was the paroche church of Oswestre."

I have previously referred to the ancient well, situated about half-a-mile from Winwick Church, known from time immemorial as "St. Oswald's Well." Mr. Edward Baines regards this sacred spring as having been originally formed by the excavation of earth on the spot where Oswald fell, and he fortifies his position by reference to Bede, who says—"Whereupon many took up of the very dust of the place where his body fell, and putting it into water, did much good with it to their friends who were sick. This custom came so much into use, that the earth being carried away by degrees, there remained a hole as deep as the height of a man."

Perhaps the most important objection to the Oswestry site lies in the fact that there is no satisfactory representative of the name of Maserfeld to be found in its neighbourhood.[22] One writer says—"In the vicinity of the town, at a place called by the Welsh 'Cae Naef' (Heaven's Field) there is a remarkably fine spring of water, which bears the name of Oswald's Well, and over which, as recently as the year 1770, were the ruins of a very ancient chapel likewise dedicated to him." Commenting on this, Mr. E. Baines says—"The well in that country is a spring and not a fosse, as described by Bede, and is as the well at Winwick," and he regards this feature as additional evidence in favour of the presumed Lancashire site of the battle. The saint's well is not, however, of much value, as Bede makes no mention of any spring, natural or otherwise, and wells dedicated to saints in the "olden time," are common all over the country. Indeed, there is a natural spring near the main highway about a mile to the north of Winwick Church, which is likewise called St. Oswald's well. From Bede's context it is evident Oswald died on the ordinary dry earth, which, in consequence, thenceforth produced greener grass than the surrounding land, and the soil was afterwards mixed with water and used medicinally. In England there are at least five different places named after St. Oswald, and, in addition, many ecclesiastical edifices have been dedicated to him.

There is something mysterious, or at least curiously coincident, about this Welsh "Cae Naef," or "Heaven's Field," as this latter, according to Bede, is the name of the site of the previous battle in 635, when Oswald defeated and slew Cadwalla. The same authority likewise refers to it as being fought "at a place called Denises-burn, that is Denis's-brook." Dr. Giles says "Dilston is identified with the ancient Deniseburn, but on no authority." Dilston is situated about two miles from Hexham. Sharon Turner says—"Camden places this battle at Dilston, formerly Devilston, on a small brook which empties into the Tyne." He adds, "Smith, with greater probability, makes Errinburn as the rivulet on which Cadwallon perished, and the fields either of Cockley, Hallington, or Bingfield, as the scene of the conflict. The Angles called it Hefenfield, which name, according to tradition, Bingfield bore." Dr. Smith says that Hallington was anciently Heavenfelth, but adds that probably the whole country from Hallington southward to the Roman wall was originally included in the name. On the place where Oswald is said to have raised a cross, as his standard during the battle, a church was afterwards erected. Thus it would at first sight appear that Oswestry might enter into competition with Bingfield for the site of the Heavenfield struggle, rather than with Winwick for that of Maserfeld. There is, however, one important fact which fatally militates against this. Bede says, referring to the Heavenfield where Cadwalla met his death, the "place is near the wall with which the Romans formerly enclosed the island from sea to sea, to restrain the fury of the barbarous nations, as has been said before." The greater probability is as the two engagements are intertwined by the Welsh Bruts, and in the Oswestry and Geoffrey traditions, that the place owes its designation directly to neither the one nor the other; but that, like the sites I have mentioned, the dedication of a church to the saint has been sufficient to confer his name on the locality. That a neighbouring well, under such circumstances, should receive a similar designation, is too ordinary a matter to require special consideration.

It is not at all improbable that, as Geoffrey and the Welsh Bruts both refer to the battle in which Oswald fell as fought at or near Burne, the Oswestry traditions may have originally only had reference to the battle of Denis-BURN or Denis-brook, in which the Welsh Christian hero, Cadwalla, was slain by his hated rival, the Anglican Christian king Oswald, of Northumbria. It is utterly improbable that the Welsh Christians would dedicate a church to St. Oswald. The first Christian king of Northumbria, Edwin, the friend of Paulinus and Augustine, was slain by Cadwalla, "king of the Britons," or Brit-Welsh, in a battle at Heathfield (Hadfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire), A.D. 633, in which he was aided by the pagan Penda. The Brit-Welsh Christians and the disciples of Augustine and Paulinus hated each other with more than ordinary sacerdotal intensity, and the former often entered into alliances with the pagan Anglo-Saxons, in order to avenge themselves on their detested rivals. One of the subjects of fierce contention between them, as is well known, related to the time for the celebration of Easter. Bede, referring to the defeat of Edwin at Heathfield and the consequences attendant thereon, says—

"A great slaughter was made in the church or nation of the Northumbrians; and the more so because one of the commanders by whom it was made was a pagan, and the other a barbarian more cruel than a pagan; for Penda, with all the nation of the Mercians, was an idolator and a stranger to the name of Christ; but Cadwalla, although he bore the name and professed himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and behaviour, that he neither spared the female sex, nor the innocent age of children, but with savage cruelty put them to tormenting deaths, ravaging all their country for a long time, and resolving to cut off all the race of the English within the borders of Britain. Nor did he pay any respect to the Christian religion which had newly taken root among them; it being to this day" (the 8th century) "the custom of Britons not to pay any respect to the faith and religion of the English, nor to correspond with them any more than with pagans."

Unquestionably no Christian church was dedicated to St. Oswald at Oswestry until after the final subjection of the district by the Anglican Christians. The probability therefore is that the locality was merely named, as in the other instances referred to, from the fact that it had become the location of a place of worship dedicated to him, and that gradually the various traditions about the saint and his rivals became inextricably confused. The last syllable "tre" is indicative of British influence in the formation of the word Oswestry, as in Pentre, Gladestry, Coventry (in Radnorshire), Tremadoc, Trewilan, Tredegar, etc., which simply means, according to Spurrell's Welsh dictionary, "resort, homestead, home, hamlet, town (used chiefly in composition)." Indeed, Oswestry is more suggestive of Oswy's-tre, and may refer to a successor who, some time after Oswald's death, built a church and dedicated it to the saintly monarch.

The pagan Mercian king, Penda, was himself slain in the following year by Oswy, the successor to St. Oswald. Bede says "the battle was fought near the river Vinwed, which then with the great rains had not only filled its channel, but overflowed its banks, so that many more were drowned in the flight than destroyed by the sword." Most authorities place this battle at Winwidfield, near Leeds. Mr. Thos. Baines, however ("Historical Notes on the Valley of the Mersey," His. Soc. Lan. and Ches. Pro. session 5), claims for Winwick the scene of both engagements. He says—"Penda and upwards of thirty of his principal officers were drowned in their flight, having been driven into the river Winweyde, the waters of which were at that time much swollen by heavy rains. There is no stream in England which is more liable to be suddenly flooded than the stream which joins the Mersey below Winwick[23], and there both the resemblance of the names, and the probability of the fact, induce me to think that Penda met with his death within two or three miles of the place at which Oswald had fallen."

This seems, at first sight, plausible enough, but as Bede distinctly states that "King Oswy concluded the aforesaid war in the country of Loides" (Leeds), Winwidfield must unquestionably have preference over the Lancashire site, as the scene of Penda's discomfiture and death.

It is generally accepted that Oswald died either at Oswestry or Winwick. There are some, however, who accept neither, but contend that the true site of the battle may yet, possibly, be found in a different locality. This appears to be the opinion of Mr. John R. Green. In support of this view he says ("Making of England")—"Though the conversion of Wessex had prisoned it (Mercia) within the central districts of England, heathendom fought desperately for life. Penda remained its rallying point; and the long reign of the Mercian king was in fact one continuous battle with the Cross. But so far as we can judge from his acts, Penda seemed to have looked on the strife of religion in a purely political light. The point of conflict, as before," [that is when Edwin was defeated and slain at Hatfield] "seems to have been the dominion over East Anglia. Its possession was vital to Mid-Britain as it was to Northumbria, which needed it to link itself with its West-Saxon subjects in the south; and Oswald must have felt that he was challenging his rival to a decisive combat when he marched, in 642, to deliver the East Anglians from Penda. But his doom was that of Eadwine; for he was overthrown and slain in a battle called the battle of Maserfeld."

If this view be accepted, the claim of Oswestry must be at once dismissed, while that of Winwick is rendered still more doubtful. But Mr. Green does not state on what authority he relies when he states that Oswald "marched in 642, to deliver the East-Anglians from Penda." In consequence I am unable to test its value or probability. He certainly would not march by either Oswestry or Winwick if such were his destination. This statement, however, appears to be not exactly in accordance with another by Mr. Green, previously quoted, in which he says, referring to the antecedents of the war under Oswy, which followed Oswald's death, and in which Penda was slain near the river Winwid—"That Oswiu strove to avert the conflict we see from the delivery of his youngest son Ecgfrith as a hostage into Penda's hands. The sacrifice, however, proved useless. Penda was again the assailant, and his attack was as vigorous as of old."

If Penda was the assailant, his assault must, in the first instance, have been not on Oswald himself, but on his East-Anglian allies, or Oswald would not have thought of marching in that direction for their relief. But if Penda, having previously humbled the East-Anglians, had become aware of such intention on the part of the Northumbrian monarch, there is nothing improbable in a vigorous warrior of Penda's stamp, by a rapid march, surprising him on the frontier of his own dominions, defeating him, and thus warding off the threatened blow. Under such circumstances Winwick might very probably have been the scene of the conflict. The advocates of Oswestry do not deny the great probability that Oswald had a favourite residence in the locality.

The neighbourhood of Winwick, however, is the undisputed site of a battle in more recent times. After the Duke of Hamilton's defeat at Preston, by Cromwell, in 1648, the former made a stand against his pursuers at a place called "Red Bank," where he was totally routed by the less numerous but highly disciplined army of his more skilful antagonist.

A rude piece of sculpture built in the outer wall, evidently a relic from an older edifice, was long supposed to be a representation of the crest of St. Oswald; but this is disputed by Mr. Edward Baines. He says—"The heralds assign to that monarch azure, a cross between four lions rampant, or." He adds—"Superstition sees in the chained hog the resemblance of a monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast, and which could only be restrained by the subduing force of the sacred edifice." This sculpture he regards as not improbably a rude attempt to "represent the crest of the Gerrards—a lion rampant, armed and langued, with a coronet upon the head." This is certainly more probable than the heralds' assignment of "azure, a cross between four lions rampant, or," to Oswald, which is suggestive of mediæval Norman-French associations and nomenclature, without the slightest Anglo-Saxon ingredient. The late Mr. T. T. Wilkinson refers to a tradition which asserts that "the demon-pig not only determined the site of St. Oswald's Church, at Winwick, but gave a name to the parish." This attempt to solve the enigma by the assistance of the squeak of a sucking pig, has evidently originated in some rural jesting or lame attempt to divine the connection of the animal with the church and neighbourhood.

This traditionary "monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast," is worthy of a little more serious attention than has hitherto been paid to it. The legend is evidently but a northern form of the wide-spread Aryan myth concerning Vritra, the dragon, or storm-fiend, who stole the light rain clouds (the "herds of Indra," the Sanscrit "god of the clear heaven, and of light, warmth, and fertilising rain"), and hid them in the cave of the Panis (the dark storm-cloud). Indra, launching his lightning-spear into the black thunder-cloud, (personified by the dragon, snake, or monster whose poisonous breath parched the earth and destroyed the harvest), released the confined waters and thus refertilised the land. The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, in his "Manual of Mythology," says—"In the Indian tales Indra kills the dragon Vritra, and in the old Norse legend Sigurd kills the great snake Fafnir." The myth survives in the exploits of the patron saint of England, St. George, the slayer of the dragon. In one Teutonic form Odin, or Wodin, hunted the wild boar, the representative of the stormy wind-clouds. His tusk was a type of the lightning. This mythical devouring monster is reproduced in Grendel, the "great scather," in the old Anglo-Saxon poem "Beowulf," the scene of which Mr. D. Haigh, in his "Conquest of the Britons by the Saxons," regards as the neighbourhood of Hartlepool, in Durham.

There exists a great diversity of opinion as to the genesis and original habitat of the poem, Beowulf. Mr. Frederick Metcalfe, in his "Englishman and Scandinavian," says—"There is, however, one Saxon work which tells us of the northern mythology, 'Beowulf,' the oldest heroic, or, as some will have it, mythic—perhaps it will be best to call it mytho-heroic—poem in any German language, and which has been pronounced to be older than Homer." In another place he says—"The date of its composition has been much debated. By Conybeare it was thought, in its present shape, to be the work of the bards about Canute's court. The leading incidents of the plot are as follows:—Beowulf, the son of Ecgtheow and prince in Scania (South Sweden), hearing how for twelve years King Hrothgar and his people in North Jutland had been mightily oppressed by a monster, Grendel, resolves to deliver him, and arrives at Hart Hall, the Jutish palace, as an avenger."

Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, in the preface to his edition of the poem (1855) says—"With respect to this the oldest heroic poem in any Germanic tongue, my opinion is, that it is not an original production of the Anglo-Saxon muse, but a metrical paraphrase of an heroic Saga composed in the south-west of Sweden, in the old common language of the north, and probably brought to this country during the sway of the Danish dynasty. It is in this light only that I can view a work evincing a knowledge of northern localities and persons, hardly to be acquired by a native of England in those days of ignorance with regard to remote foreign parts. And what interest could an Anglo-Saxon feel in the valourous feats of his deadly foes, the northmen? in the encounter of a Sweo-Gothic hero with a monster in Denmark? or with a fire-drake in his own country? The answer, I think, is obvious—none whatever." In a note Mr. Thorpe says—"Let us cherish the hope that the original Saga may one day be discovered in some Swedish library." The only MS. of the poem extant, (MS. Cott. Vitellius A. 15), he says—"I take to be of the first half of the eleventh century."

With respect to the strictly historical character of this poem, Mr. Thorpe says—"Preceding editors have regarded the poem of Beowulf as a myth, and its heroes as beings of a divine order.[24] To my dull perception these appear as real kings and chieftains of the North, some of them as Hygelac and Offa, entering within the pale of authentic history, while the names of others may have perished, either because the records in which they were chronicled are no longer extant, or the individuals themselves were not of sufficient importance to occupy a place in them."

Mr. Haigh likewise contends for the historic value of the poem; but attributes its locality to Britain. Some of the legends and traditions of the North of England certainly suggest that the Scandinavian population settled there were either acquainted with the poem or the legendary elements which strongly characterise it, and upon which it is evidently mainly constructed, whatever strictly historical matter, as in the romances of Richard Cœur de Lion, Charlemagne, Arthur, and others, may have become incorporated therewith.[25]

Mr. John R. Green ("The Making of England") says, "The song as we have it now is a poem of the eighth century, the work it may be of some English missionary of the days of Beda and Boniface, who gathered in the homeland of his race the legend of its earlier prime."

After referring to the interpolations in which there "is a distinctly Christian element, contrasting strongly with the general heathen current of the whole," Mr. Sweet, in his "Sketch of the History of the Anglo-Saxon Poetry," in Hazlitt's edition of Warton's "His. of English Poetry," says—"Without these additions and alterations it is certain that we have in Beowulf a poem composed before the Teutonic conquest of Britain. The localities are purely continental; the scenery is laid amongst the Goths of Sweden and the Danes; in the episodes the Swedes, Frisians, and other continental tribes appear, while there is no mention of England, or the adjoining countries and nations."

Mr. Jno. Fenton, in an able article on "Easter" in the Antiquary for April, 1882, says—"To us in western lands the equinox is the beginning of spring and the new life of the year; but in the east it is the beginning of summer, when the early harvest is also ripe, when the sun is parching the grass and drying up the wells, when, as Egyptian folk-lore has it, a serpent wanders over the earth, infecting the atmosphere with its poisonous breath."[26]

These mythical huge worms, serpents, dragons, wild boars, and other monsters, "harvest blasters," are still very common in the North of England. The famous "Lambton worm," of huge dimensions and poisonous breath, when coiled round a hill, was pacified with copious draughts of milk, and his blood flowed freely when he was pierced by the spear-heads attached to the armour of the returned Crusader. The Linton worm curled itself round a hill, and by its poisonous breath destroyed the neighbouring animal and vegetable life. The Pollard worm is described as "a venomous serpent which did much harm to man and beast," while that at Stockburn is designated as the "worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent, which destroyed man, woman, and child."

In the ancient romance in English verse, which celebrates the deeds of the renowned Sir Guy, of Warwick, is the following quaint description of a Northumberland dragon, slain by the hero:—

A messenger came to the king.
Syr king he sayd, lysten me now,
For bad tydinges I bring you.
In Northumberlande there is no man,
But that they be slayne everychone;
For there dare no man route,
By twenty myle rounde aboute,
For doubt of a fowle dragon,
That sleath men and beastes downe.
He is blacke as any cole,
Ragged as a rough fole;
His body from the navill upwards.
No man may it pierce it is so harde;
His neck is great as any summere;
He renneth as swift as any distrere;
Pawes he hath as a lyon;
All that he toucheth he sleath dead downe,
Great winges he hath to flight,
That is no man that bare him might,
There may no man fight him agayne,
But that he sleath him certayne;
For a fowler beast then is he,
Ywis of none never heard ye.

The said Guy, amongst other marvellous exploits, killed at "Winsor,"

A bore of passing might and strength,
Whose like in England never was,
For hugenesse both in breadth and length.

Mr. Barrett, a saddler, of Manchester, with antiquarian taste, in an illuminated MS., now in the Chetham Library, refers to an old tradition concerning a dragon whose den was amongst the red sandstone rocks in the neighbourhood of Lymm, about five miles from Warrington. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in Merlin's prophesy especially, often refers to these mythical monsters; and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is equally expressive in attributing disaster to their influences. In the latter work we read: "A.D. 793. This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the Northumbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings; and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens." Mr. Baring-Gould says, as recently as the year 1600,—"A German writer would illustrate a thunderstorm destroying a crop of corn by a picture of a dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flaming tongue and iron teeth."

That this tradition at Winwick respecting a "monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast," is a legitimate descendant from our Aryan ancestors' personification of natural phenomena, seems very apparent, and aptly illustrates what Sir G. W. Dasent terms the "toughness of tradition," especially when interwoven with the marvellous or supernatural. Mr. Walter K. Kelly, in his "Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore," says—"These phenomena were noted and designated with a watchfulness and a wealth of imagery which made them the principal groundwork of all the Indo-European mythologies and superstitions. The thunder was the bellowing of a mighty beast or the rolling of a wagon. The lightning was a sinuous serpent, or a spear shot straight athwart the sky, or a fish darting in zigzags through the waters of heaven. The stormy winds were howling dogs or wolves; the ravages of the whirlwind that tore up the earth were the work of a wild boar."[27] Mr. Fiske, in his "Myths and Myth-makers," says that these mythical monsters "not only steal the daylight, but they parch the earth and wither the fruits, and they slay vegetation during the winter months."

These traditionary "Harvest Blasters," as they are sometimes styled, have a wide range, and are not confined even to the various branches of the Aryan race.

Most writers agree in assigning the origin of heraldry, in the modern acceptation of the term, to the crusades. At least little is recorded concerning the "science," or "art," as it is sometimes termed, previously to the middle of the twelfth century. It was found necessary during the religious wars in the east that the knights should wear some device or distinguishing badge on the field of battle, on account of the diversity of the languages spoken by the combatants, and hence the term "cognizance" was often applied to these symbols. This, in the following century, eventuated in the adoption of the warlike badges or "arms" of the original bearers by their families. They afterwards became hereditary characteristics, and hence the development of the quasi science. These devices were figured on crest, banner, and shield. One authority (Pen. Cyclop.) says—"The crest is said to have been carved on light wood, or made of leather, in the shape of some animal, real or fictitious, and fastened by a fillet of silk round the helmet, over which was a large piece of fringed samit or taffeta, pointed with a tassel at the end." The same writer adds—"The custom of conferring crests as distinguishing marks seems to have originated with Edward III., who, in 1333 (Rot. Pat., 9 Edward III.), granted one to William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, his 'tymbre,' as it is called, of the eagle. By a further grant, in the thirteenth of the same king (Rot. Vasc., 13 Edward III., m. 4), the grant of this crest was made hereditary, and the manor of Wodeton given in addition to support its dignity."

I am inclined, notwithstanding, to regard heraldry in its more extended significance, that is if the term can properly be applied to practices anterior to the establishment of heralds, as of much greater antiquity than the crusades. Herodotus tells us that the Carians first set the Greeks the example of fastening crests upon their helmets, and of putting devices upon their shields. The "totems," or beast symbols, of our savage ancestors undoubtedly preceded the mediæval practice, and influenced its incipient development. The "White Horse" of Hengist, the "Raven" of the Scandinavian vikings, the "Golden Dragon" of the kings of Wessex, as well as others, might be mentioned, which clearly demonstrate this position. Uther, the father of Arthur, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, caused "two dragons to be made of gold, which was done with wondrous nicety of workmanship." The quasi-historian adds—"He made a present of one to the cathedral church of Winchester, but reserved the other for himself to be carried along with him to his wars. From this time, therefore, he was called Uther Pendragon, which in the British tongue signifies the dragon's head." Indeed, amongst savage nations at the present or relatively recent time, we find "totems" or symbols, such as beaver, snake, hare, cornstalk, black hawk, dog, wolf, bear, beaver, little bear, crazy horse, and sitting bull, not only used by the warrior chiefs, but even the tribes sometimes take their names therefrom.

Mr. E. B. Tylor, in his "Early History of Mankind," says—"More than twenty years ago, Sir George Grey called attention to the divisions of the Australians into families, and distinguished by the name of some animal or vegetable, which served as their crest or kobong." He adds—"The Indian tribes" (of America) "are usually divided into clans, each distinguished by a totem (Algonquin do-daim, that is 'town mark,') which is commonly some animal, as a bear, wolf, deer, etc., which may be compared on the one hand to a crest, and on the other to a surname."

Indeed, until very recently, some of our own regiments had their "beast totem" in the shape of a goat, a bear, or a tiger, which generally marched at the head of the corps. The goat, I believe, yet survives, and the men of one regiment are designated "tigers" to this day.

The crest is evidently one of the oldest, if not the oldest, forms in which the beast symbol was displayed. The bronze Roman helmet, or rather bust or head of Minerva, found at Ribchester, in 1796, had originally a sphinx as a crest. This appendage, however, having become detached, has since been lost. The gladiators' helmet decorations, in the pictures found at Pompeii, are generally plumes or tufts of horsehair, but some of their shields exhibit devices suggestive of those of more recent date. The Roman historians, recording the events pertaining to the great Cimbri-Teutonic invasion rather more than a century before the Christian era, state that each of the fifteen thousand horsemen, which formed the élite of the army of Bojorix, "bore upon his helmet the head of some savage beast, with its mouth gaping wide."

Osman, the son of Ertoghrul, was the founder of the Turkish empire (A.D. 1288-1326). One writer (Pen. Cyc.) says—"The name Osman is of Arabic origin (Othman), and signifies literally the bone-breaker; but it also designates a species of large vulture, usually called the royal vulture, and in this latter acceptation it was given to the son of Ertoghrul."

The Rev. Isaac Taylor, in his "Etruscan Researches," referring to the origin of the tribal "totem" of the Asena horde, afterwards named Turks, says—"It is not difficult to discover the genesis of the legend. It has been already shown that the ancient Ugric word sena meant a 'man.' The analogy of a host of ancient tribe-names leaves little doubt that the Asena simply called themselves 'the men.' This obvious etymology of the name having in lapse of time become obscure by linguistic changes, the word schino, a wolf, was assumed to be the true source of the national appellation, and the myth came into existence as a means of accounting for the name of the nation which proudly called itself the 'wolf-race,' and bore the wolves' heads as its 'totem.'"

It is said the Kabyls tattoo figures of animals on their foreheads, cheeks, nose, or temples, in order to distinguish their various tribes. A similar practice obtains generally in central Africa and the Caroline archipelago.

The plague, sent by Artemis to punish Æneus, who had neglected to offer up to her a portion of a sacrifice, was a "monstrous boar," afterwards slain by Meleagros, Atalanta, and others, in the famous Kalydonian hunt, is evidently a Greek form of a mythical "monster, which in former ages prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast."

The boar, or the boar's head, was a favourite helmet crest or "totem" amongst our Teutonic ancestors, both Scandinavian and German. This animal was sacred to the goddess Friga, or Freya, whom Tacitus, in his "Germania," styles the "mother of the gods," and from whom our Friday is named. She was propitiated by the warriors in order to secure her protection in battle. This practice is often referred to in the sagas, as well as in the earliest known example of Anglo-Saxon poetry extant, "Beowulf." The following illustrations are from this remarkable poem:—

When we in battle our mail hoods defended,
When troops rushed together and boar-crests crashed.

Then commanded he to bring in
The boar, an ornament to the head,
The helmet lofty in war.

Surrounded with lordly chains,
Even as in days of yore,
The weapon-smith had wrought it,
Had wondrously finished it,
Had set it round with shapes of swine,
That never afterwards brand or war-knife
Might have power to bite it.
They seemed a boar's form
To bear over their cheeks;
Twisted with gold,
Variegated and hardened in the fire;
This kept the guard of life.

At the pile was
Easy to be seen
The mail shirt covered with gore,
The hog of gold,
The boar hard as iron.

In the episode relating the events attendant on the battle of Finsburgh, in the same poem, we find similar importance attached to the boar, as the warrior's protector. We read—

Of the martial Scyldings,
The best of warriors,
On the pile was ready;
At the heap was
Easy to be seen
The blood-stained tunic,
The swine all golden,
The boar iron-hard, etc.

In the "Life of Merlin," Arthur and his kinsman, Hoel, are described as "two lions," and "two moons." In the same poem, Hoel is styled the "Armorican boar."

In the Welsh poem, "The Gododin," by Aneurin, are several allusions to the boar and the bull, as warlike appellations:—

It was like the tearing onset of the woodland boar;
Bull of the army in the mangling fight.

The furze was kindled by the ardent spirit, the bull of conflict.

And those shields were shivered before the herd of the roaring Beli.[28]

The boar proposed a compact in front of the course—the great plotter.

Adan, the son of Ervai, there did pierce,
Adan pierced the haughty boar.

Mr. F. Metcalfe, in his "Englishman and Scandinavian," says—"Indeed this porcine device was common to all the Northern nations who worshipped Freya and Freyr. The helmet of the Norwegian king, Ali, was called Hildigölltr, the boar of war, and was prized beyond measure by his victors (Prose Edda, I., 394). But long before that Tacitus (Germ., 45) had recorded that the Esthonians, east of the Baltic, wore swine-shaped amulets, as a symbol of the mother of the gods.

Tacitus adds—"This" (the wild-boar symbol) "serves instead of weapons or any other defence, and gives safety to the servant of the goddess, even in the midst of the foe."

This connection of the boar with the religious ceremonies and warlike exploits of our pagan ancestors is often referred to in the Edda. The valiant Norseman believed that when he entered Walhalla he should join the combats of the warriors each morning, and hack and hew away as in earthly conflict, till the slain for the day had been "chosen," and mealtime arrived, when the vanquished and victorious returned together to feast on the "everlasting boar" (sœhrimnir), and carouse on mead and ale with the Æsir. The boar's head, which figured so conspicuously in the Christmas festivities of our ancestors, is evidently a relic, like the mistletoe and the yule-log, of pagan times.

There is nothing, therefore, improbable in the proposition that the standard, totem, or helmet-crest of some devastating Teutonic chieftain like Penda, the ferocious pagan conqueror of Oswald, may have been of this porcine character. The Christian adherents of the Northumbrian king and saint would very easily confound him and the devastation attendant upon his victorious march through their country, with the dethroned and abhorred pagan deity whose emblem formed his crest or "totem," as well as with the older wild boar storm-fiend, or "the monster who prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast," and for the subdual of which the sanctity of the edifice of the saintly monarch was alone effectual. In the prophecy attributed to Merlin, King Arthur is described as the wild boar of Cornwall, that would "devour" his enemies. The mingling of ancient superstitious fears with the more modern Christianity, especially with reference to such matters as charms, prophylactics, etc., is of very common occurrence even at the present day. Sir John Lubbock, in his "Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man," says—"When man, either by natural progress or the influence of a more advanced race, rises to a conception of a higher religion, he still retains his old beliefs, which linger on side by side with, and yet in utter opposition to, the higher creed. The new and more powerful spirit is an addition to the old pantheon, and diminishes the importance of the older deities; gradually the worship of the latter sinks in the social scale, and becomes confined to the ignorant and young. Thus a belief in witchcraft still flourishes amongst our agricultural labourers and the lowest class in our great cities, and the deities of our ancestors survive in the nursery tales of our children. We must, therefore, expect to find in each race traces—nay, more than traces—of lower religions."

Some parties regard the Winwick sculpture as "St. Anthony's pig," but they acknowledge they know of no connection of that saint with the parish. But, as I have shown in the previous chapter, "the deeds of one mythical hero are sure, when he is forgotten, to be attributed to some other man of mark, who for the time being fills the popular fancy." Keightley, in his "Fairy Mythology," says—"Every extraordinary appearance is found to have its extraordinary cause assigned, a cause always connected with the history or religion, ancient or modern, of the country, and not unfrequently varying with the change of faith. The mark on Adam's Peak, in Ceylon, is by the Buddhists ascribed to Buddha; by the Mohammedans to Adam."

Mr. Mackenzie Wallace, in his "Russia," speaking of the Finns and their Russian neighbours, says—"The friendly contact of two such races naturally led to a curious blending of the two religions. The Russians adopted many customs from the Finns, and the Finns adopted still more from the Russians. When Yumala and the other Finnish deities did not do as they were desired, their worshippers naturally applied for protection or assistance to the Madonna and the 'Russian god.' If their own traditional magic rites did not suffice to ward off evil influences, they naturally tried the effect of crossing themselves as the Russians do in moments of danger." In another place he says—"At the harvest festivals, Tchuvash peasants have been known to pray first to their own deities and then to St. Nicholas, the miracle-worker, who is the favourite saint of the Russian peasantry. This dual worship is sometimes recommended by the Yornzi—a class of men who correspond to the medicine men among the Red Indians." He truly observes—"popular imagination always uses heroic names as pegs on which to hang traditions."

Bishop Percy, in the preface to his translation of "Mallet's Northern Antiquities," says—"Nothing is more contagious than superstition, and therefore we must not wonder if, in ages of ignorance, one wild people catch up from another, though of very different race, the most arbitrary and groundless opinions, or endeavour to imitate them in such rites and practices as they are told will recommend them to the gods, or avert their anger."

Jacob Grimm says (Deutsche Mythologie)—"A people whose faith is falling to pieces will save here and there a fragment of it, by fixing it on a new and unpersecuted object of veneration."

It appears, therefore, that the Winwick monster, in this respect, is but an apt illustration of ordinary mythological transference of attributes or emblems, which in no way invalidates the more remote origin to which I have ascribed it, or its connection with the totem or beast symbol of the heathen warrior. The boar, indeed, has been a sacred symbol for ages amongst the Aryan nations. Herodotus (b. 3, c. 59) says that the Eginetæ, after defeating the Samians in a sea-fight, "cut off the prows of their boats, which represented the figure of a boar, and dedicated them in the temple of Minerva, in Egina."

The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, in his "Introduction to Mythology and Folk-Lore," referring to the Greek war god Arês, says—"In the Odyssey his name is connected with Aphrodite, whose love he is said to have obtained; but other traditions tell us that when she seemed to favour Adonis, Arês changed himself into a boar, which slew the youth of whom he was jealous."

The Mussulman's abhorrence of roast pork is well known. Amongst the Turkomans of Central Asia (the ancient home of our Aryan ancestors) the prowess of the living animal is likewise regarded with a strange superstitious dread, evidently akin to some more ancient belief in the supernatural attributes of the animal. Arminius Vámbéry, in his "Travels in Central Asia" (having narrowly escaped serious injury from a wild porcine assailant), informs us he was seriously assured by a Turkoman friend that he might regard himself as very lucky, inasmuch as "death by the wound of a wild boar would send even the most pious Mussulman nedgis (unclean) into the next world, where a hundred years' burning in purgatorial fire would not purge away his uncleanness."

Since the above was written I have perceived a passage in Mr. Fiske's essay on "Werewolves," in his "Myths and Myth-makers," that seems not only to strengthen the conjecture that the boar was the crest or "totem" of the pagan Penda, but likewise the probability of the influence of the older mythical story with which I have associated it. The boar, it must be remembered, in all the Indo-European mythologies, is associated with stormy wind and lightning. Mr. Fiske, referring to what he terms one of the "more striking characteristics of primitive thinking," namely, "the close community of nature which it assumes between man and brute," says—"The doctrine of metempsychosis, which is found in some shape or other all over the world, implies a fundamental identity between the two: the Hindu is taught to respect the flocks browsing in the meadow, and will on no account lift his hand against a cow, for who knows but that it may be his own grandmother? The recent researches of Mr. Lennan and Mr. Herbert Spencer have served to connect this feeling with the primeval worship of ancestors and with the savage customs of totemism.... This kind of worship still maintains a languid existence as the state religion of China, and it still exists as a portion of Brahmanism; but in the Vedic religion it is to be seen in all its native simplicity. According to the ancient Aryan, the Pitris, or 'Fathers' (Lat. Patres) live in the sky along with Yama, the great original Pitri of mankind.... Now if the storm-wind is a host of Pitris, or one great Pitri, who appeared as a fearful giant, and is also a pack of wolves or wish-hounds, or a single savage dog or wolf, the inference is obvious to the mythopœic mind that men may become wolves, at least after death. And to the uncivilised thinker this inference is strengthened, as Mr. Spencer has shown by evidence registered on his own tribal 'totem' or heraldic emblem. The bears and lions and leopards of heraldry are the degenerate descendants of the 'totem' of savagery which designated a tribe by a beast symbol. To the untutored mind there is everything in a name; and the descendant of Brown Bear, or Yellow Tiger, or Silver Hyæna, cannot be pronounced unfaithful to his own style of philosophising if he regards his ancestors, who career about his hut in the darkness of the night, as belonging to whatever order of beasts his 'totem' associations may suggest."

In the Volsung tale of the Northern mythology the "gods of the bright heaven" had to make atonement to the sons of Reidmar, whose brother they had slain. This brother was named "the otter."

Modern surnames have been derived from very varied sources, including trades, locations, and individual characteristics. Many, identical with birds, beasts, and fishes, may have originally been what are vulgarly termed "nicknames," or they may be corrupt modern renderings of very different ancient words, such as Haddock, from Haydock, a township in Lancashire; Winter, from vintner; and Sumner from summoner, &c. Nevertheless, the old tribal "totem" or heraldic device of a feudal superior may have given rise to some of the following: Wolf, Lyon, Hog, Bull, Bullock, Buck, Hart, Fox, Lamb, Hare, Poynter, Badger, Beaver, Griffin, Raven, Hawk, Eagle, Stork, Crane, Woodcock, Gull, Nightingale, Cock, Cockerell, Bantam, Crow, Dove, Pigeon, Lark, Swallow, Martin, Wren, Teal, Finch, Jay, Sparrow, Partridge, Peacock, Goose, Gosling, Bird, Fish, Salmon, Sturgeon, Gudgeon, Herring, Roach, Pike, Sprat, &c. Some flowers and plants may likewise have formed badges or tribal or family symbols or "quarterings," and thus given rise to surnames. We have several of this class, such as Plantagenet (the broom), Rose, Lily, Primrose, Heath, Broome, Hollyoak, Pine, Thorne, Hawthorne, Hawes, Hyacinth, Crabbe, Crabtree, Crabstick, &c. The leek, the Welshman's "totem," is not an uncommon name, though generally spelled Leak. I never, however, heard of such names as Shamrock or Thistle. On the other hand, many families have reversed the process and adopted a symbol or crest from a real or fancied similarity of their names and those of the selected objects. The figure of a dog is borne on the arms of the Talbot family, whence, perhaps, the name. The talbot is a dog noted for his quick scent and eager pursuit of game.

Jacob Grimm ("Deutsche Mythologie,") says:—"Even in the middle ages, Landscado (scather of the land) was a name borne by noble families." He further says:—"Swans, ravens, wolves, stags, bears, and lions, will join the heroes, to render them assistance; and that is how animal figures in the scutcheons and helmet insignia of heroes are in many cases to be accounted for, though they may arise from other causes too, e.g., the ability of certain heroes to transform themselves at will into wolf or swan."

Mr. Charles Elton ("Origins of English History,") says—"The names of several tribes, or the legends of their origin, show that an animal, or some other real or imaginary object, was chosen as a crest or emblem, and was probably regarded with a superstitious veneration. A powerful family or tribe would feign to be descended from a swan or a water-maiden, or a 'white lady,' who rose from the moon-beams on the lake. The moon herself was claimed as the ancestress of certain families. The legendary heroes are turned into 'swan-knights,' or fly away in the form of wild-geese. The tribe of the 'Ui Duinn,' who claimed St. Bridgit as their kinswoman, wore for their crest the figure of a lizard, which appeared at the foot of the oak-tree above her shrine. We hear of 'griffins' by the Shannon, of 'calves' in the country around Belfast; the men of Ossory were called by a name which signifies the wild red-deer! There are similar instances from Scotland in such names as 'Clan Chattan,' or the Wild Cats, and in the animal crests which have been borne from the most ancient times as the emblems or cognizances of the chieftains. The early Welsh poems will furnish another set of examples. The tribes who fought at Catraeth are distinguished by the bard as wolves, bears, or ravens; the families which claim descent from Caradock or Oswain take the boar or the raven for their crest. The followers of 'Cian the Dog' are called the 'dogs of war,' and the chieftain's house is described as the stone or castle of 'the white dogs.'"

The writer, in the Pen. Cyclop., of the memoir of Owen Glendwr, says—"It was at this juncture that Glendwr revived the ancient prophecy that Henry IV. should fall under the name of 'Moldwary,' or 'the cursed of God's mouth'; and styling himself 'the Dragon,' assumed a badge representing that monster with a star above, in imitation of Uther, whose victories over the Saxons were foretold by the appearance of a star with a dagger threatening beneath. Percy was denoted 'the Lion,' from the crest of his family; and on Sir Edward Mortimer they bestowed the title of 'the Wolf.'"

Hugh of Avranche, Earl of Chester, was called Hugh Lupus, from his cognizance or favourite device of a wolf's head.

Shakspere has preserved to us at least two noteworthy instances in which the "totem" or beast symbol of our savage ancestors survived, with its original significance, until the period of the "Wars of the Roses." In the Second Part of "King Henry VI." (Act 5, Scene 1), Warwick exclaims:—

Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,
The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,
This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet
(As on a mountain top the cedar shows,
That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm),
Even to affright thee with the view thereof.

To which boast Clifford replies:—

And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear,
And tread it underfoot with all contempt,
Despite the bearward that protects the bear.

Warwick, in the following scene, amidst the carnage of battle, shouts:—

Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls!
And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,
Now—when the angry trumpet sounds alarm,
And dead men's cries do fill the empty air—
Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me!

The expression "dead men's cries do fill the empty air," I have hitherto regarded, as doubtless most other readers of Shakspere have done, as either a misprint or an obsolete form of expression, meaning, in the more modern English, "dying men's cries do fill the empty air." Taken in connection, however, with the continual reference of Warwick to the "rampant bear" as his ancestral "totem" or beast symbol, I am inclined to think it is not improbable that Shakspere, who has made use of such an enormous number of other superstitious fancies as poetic images, as well as illustrations of character, may have had in his mind the old belief that the souls of ancestors, "Pitris," or "Fathers," careered and howled amongst the storm-winds in the form indicated by their beast symbol or tribal "totem." Poetically, the thought is singularly appropriate to the storm and strife of the battlefield, and especially to the frenzied agony engendered by the horrors too often attendant upon "domestic fury and fierce civil strife." Referring to, and quoting from, the "Exodus," a poem of the Cœdman school, Mr. Green ("The Making of England") says—"The wolves sang their dread evensong; the fowls of war, greedy of battle, dewy feathered, screamed around the host of Pharaoh, as wolf howled and eagle screamed round the host of Penda." Shakspere places in the mouth of Calphurnia, when recounting the prodigies which preceded Cæsar's assassination, the following remarkable words:—

The graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

When beggars die there are no comets seen:
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

Again, in "Richard III." (Act 3, Scene 2), Stanley's messenger informs Hastings that his master had commissioned him to say he had dreamt that night "the boar (Richard) had raised off his helm." This, he adds, his master regards as a warning to Hastings and himself—

To shun the danger that his soul divines.

The boar was the cognizance, crest, or "totem" of Richard. In the fourth scene of the same act, Hastings, on hearing his death sentence, exclaims:

Woe! woe for England! not a whit for me;
For I, too fond, might have prevented this:
Stanley did dream the boar did raise his helm;
But I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly.

In Act 4, Scene 4, Stanley, addressing Sir Christopher Urswick, says:—