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On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire

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Title: On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire

Author: Charles Hardwick


        
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    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
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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.


It 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 had
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.

[Illustration]




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."


The 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 _Lich_field, 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 _Win_wick, 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 s

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