Chapter 2 THE DEFEAT AND DEATH OF ST. OSWALD, OF NORTHUMBRIA, AT MASERFELD, (A.D. 642).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Professor Dwight Whitney, in his "Life and Growth of Language" (p. 39), says-"?cer 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 ?γρ??, 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 medi?val Latin substitutes for English names is of no consequence to the question at issue, as the reference to the place of Oswald's death is undeniable. It is but an apt illustration of the strange transformations local nomenclature sometimes has undergone in transmission from past centuries to the present time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. W. T. Watkin, in a note to the present writer, says-"Dr. Kendrick's account compared with that of Mr. Sibson evidently shows that the mound was originally a Roman boundary mark, used afterwards in Saxon and medi?val 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 medi?val 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 C?ur 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 medi?val 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 ?neus, 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 Hildig?lltr, 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" (s?hrimnir), and carouse on mead and ale with the ?sir. The boar's head, which figured so conspicuously in the Christmas festivities of our ancestors, is evidently a relic, like the mistletoe and the yule-log, of pagan times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,

The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,

This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet

(As on a mountain top the cedar shows,

That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm),

Even to affright thee with the view thereof.

To which boast Clifford replies:-

And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear,

And tread it underfoot with all contempt,

Despite the bearward that protects the bear.

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

Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls!

And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,

Now-when the angry trumpet sounds alarm,

And dead men's cries do fill the empty air-

Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me!

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

The graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:

Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;

The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

* * *

When beggars die there are no comets seen:

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

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

To shun the danger that his soul divines.

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

Woe! woe for England! not a whit for me;

For I, too fond, might have prevented this:

Stanley did dream the boar did raise his helm;

But I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly.

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

Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:

That in the sty of this most bloody boar,

My son, George Stanley, is frank'd up in hold;

If I revolt, off goes young George's head;

The fear of that withholds my present aid.

In Richmond's address to his army, in the second scene of the fifth act, the Aryan personification of the destroying storm-wind and "harvest blaster," as well as "the monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast," is very distinctly indicated, and adds another link to the chain of evidence by which I have endeavoured to justify the hypothesis that the rude sculpture of Winwick may represent the crest or "totem" of Penda, the ruthless pagan victor in the disastrous fight at Maserfeld, in the year 642. Richmond says:-

The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,

That spoiled your summer fields and fruitful vines,

Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough

In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine

Lies now even in the centre of this isle,

Near to the town of Leicester.

There is an old rhyming couplet, referring to the three personages who were Richard's chief advisers or instruments, in his usurpation, Ratcliffe, Catesby and Lovel, which throws additional light on this beast symbolism:-

The rat and the cat, and Lovel the dog,

Do govern all England under the hog.

Amongst our Scandinavian predecessors the customs and superstitions now under consideration seem to have been deeply rooted. Sir G. W. Dasent, in the introduction to his translation of the Icelandic saga, the "Story of Brunt Njal," says the Icelander believed in wraiths and patches and guardian spirits, who followed particular persons, and belonged to certain families-a belief which seems to have sprung from the habit of regarding body and soul as two distinct beings, which at certain times took each a separate bodily shape. Sometimes the guardian spirit or Jylgja took a human shape, and at others its form took that of some animal to foreshadow the character of the man to whom it belonged. Thus it becomes a bear, a wolf, an ox, and even a fox, in men. The Jylgja of women were fond of taking the shape of swans. To see one's own Jylgja was unlucky, and often a sign that a man was 'fey,' or death-doomed. So, when Thord Freedmanson tells Njal that he sees the goat wallowing in its gore in the 'town' of Bergthirsknoll, the foresighted man tells him that he has seen his own Jylgja, and that he must be doomed to die. Finer and nobler natures often saw the guardian spirits of others.... From the Jylgja of the individual it was easy to rise to the still more abstract notion of the guardian spirits of a family, who sometimes, if a great change in the house is about to begin, even show themselves as hurtful to some member of the house. He believed also that some men had more than one shape (voru eigi einhamir); that they could either take the shapes of animals, as bears or wolves, and so work mischief; or that without undergoing bodily change, an access of rage and strength came over them, and more especially towards night, which made them more than a match for ordinary men."

To those who may fancy that in this inquiry I have carried conjecture and apparent analogy beyond the domain of legitimate critical inference, I answer in the words of Professor Gervinus, in his comments on the sonnets of Shakspere-"The caution of the critic does not require that we should repudiate a supposition so extraordinarily probable; it requires alone that we should not obstinately insist upon it and set it up as an established certainty, but that we should lend a willing ear to better and surer knowledge whenever it is offered." Professor Tyndall, too, in his "Lectures on Light," referring to the genesis of all scientific knowledge, says-"All our notions of nature, however exalted or however grotesque, have some foundations in experience. The notion of personal volition in nature had this basis. In the fury and the serenity of natural phenomena the savage saw the transcript of his own varying moods, and he accordingly ascribed these phenomena to beings of like passions with himself, but vastly transcending him in power. Thus the notion of causality-the assumption that natural things did not come of themselves, but had unseen antecedents-lay at the root of even the savage's interpretation of nature. Out of this bias of the human mind to seek for the antecedents of phenomena, all science has sprung."

The value of "comparative folk-lore," in the elucidation of obscure passages in the early history of mankind, especially with regard to manners, customs, and superstitious faiths, is now pretty generally acknowledged by arch?ological students. Since this chapter was first written I find the subject has been ably treated by Mr. J. A. Farrer, in the Cornhill Magazine of January, 1875. He says-"The evidence that the nations now highest in culture were once in the position of those now the lowest is ever increasing, and the study of folk-lore corroborates the conclusions long since arrived at by arch?ological science. For, just as stone monuments, flint-knives, lake-piles, and shell-mounds point to a time when Europeans resembled races where such things are still part of actual life, so do the traces in our social organism, of fetishism, totemism, and other low forms of thought, connect our past with people where such forms of thought are still predominant. The analogies with barbarism that still flourish in civilised communities seem only explicable on the theory of a slow and more or less uniform metamorphosis to higher types and modes of life, and we are forced to believe that ere long it will appear a law of development, as firmly established on the inconceivability of the contrary, that civilization should emerge from barbarism as that butterflies should first be caterpillars, or that ignorance should precede knowledge. It is in this way that superstition itself may be turned to the service of science."

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