Read Ebook: On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire And Their Historical Legendary and Aesthetic Associations. by Hardwick Charles

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

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

ERRATA.

Transpose the note commencing on page 64 to page 65.

EARLY HISTORICAL AND LEGENDARY BATTLES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He adds, with more significant meaning:--

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

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

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

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

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

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