Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435: Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435: Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852
Various
Periodicals
Mr Worsaae only speaks the truth when he remarks how the name of the
Danes has been impressed on the English mind. 'Legends about the Danes
are,' he says, 'very much disseminated among the people, even in the
south of England. There is scarce a parish that has not in some way or
another preserved the remembrance of them. Sometimes, they are
recorded to have burned churches and castles, and to have destroyed
towns, whose inhabitants were put to the sword; sometimes, they are
said to have burned or cut down forests; here are shewn the remains of
large earthen mounds and fortifications which they erected; there,
again, places are pointed out where bloody battles were fought with
them. To this must be added the names of places--as, the
_Danes-walls_, the _Danish forts_, the _Dane-field_, the
_Dane-forest_, the _Danes-banks_, and many others of the like kind.
Traces of Danish castles and ramparts are not only found in the
southern and south-eastern parts of England, but also quite in the
south-west, in Devonshire and Cornwall, where, under the name of
_Castelton Danis_, they are particularly found on the sea-coast. In
the chalk-cliffs, near Uffington, in Berkshire, is carved an enormous
figure of a horse, more than 300 feet in length; which, the common
people say, was executed in commemoration of a victory that King
Alfred gained over the Danes in that neighbourhood. On the heights,
near Eddington, were shewn not long since the intrenchments, which, it
was asserted, the Danes had thrown up in the battle with Alfred. On
the plain near Ashdon, in Essex, where it was formerly thought that
the battle of Ashingdon had taken place, are to be seen some large
Danish barrows which were long, but erroneously, said to contain the
bones of the Danes who had fallen in it. The so-called dwarf-alder
(_Sambucus ebulus_), which has red buds, and bears red berries, is
said in England to have germinated from the blood of the fallen Danes,
and is therefore also called _Daneblood_ and _Danewort_. It flourishes
principally in the neighbourhood of Warwick; where it is said to have
sprung from, and been dyed by, the blood shed there, when Canute the
Great took and destroyed the town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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