I take the name of this hill to come from the merriments among the northern people, called _Martinalia_, or drinking healths to the memory of St. Martin, practised by our Saxon and Danish ancestors. I doubt not but upon St. Martin’s day, or Martinmass, all the young people in the neighbourhood assembled here,[126] as they do now upon the adjacent St. Ann’s hill upon St. Ann’s day. The true word is _Martinsheil_, _heyl_ signifying health; and the Germans call a bowl, or drinking-vessel, _schale_: likewise _hali_ in the Saxon signifies holy; whence our _hallow_; and the _Washeyl_ bowl at Christmass, full of spiced ale, which they carry about, singing of carols in the streets. Monsieur Keysler speaks of these matters largely in his _Antiquitates Septentrionales_, p. 358. and that the German gilds, or societies, were obliged to keep drinking festivals to St. Mary, St. Martin, St. Nicholas, &c. p. 487. he says, at a village in _tractu Albino_, the married women upon St. Martin’s day pay 4 d. to the questor: and the Spring upon this hill still further favoured their ceremonies. So beneficial a bason in heathen times merited divine honours; and the people, not willing to part with a holy-day, blended their rites into christian. The English took the opportunity of the day after this great festival of St. Martin, much observed by the Danes, to commit that universal massacre upon them drunken, which totally extirpated them. This was anno 1002, upon the 13th of November, the feast day of St. Brittius, says Chron. Joann. Alb. Petriburg. on _Hock_ Tuesday, which Spelman says had its denomination thence. In the fields about Chute are bones dug up very plentifully, in a place called Blood-field especially: they likewise found there a stone coffin with a skeleton inclosed, and an arrow or spear-head of brass, as described to me: there was a horse found buried about three yards from the body. Whether this was Roman or British, I cannot affirm: I am inclinable to think the latter: but it seems that a battle was fought here between them. [Sidenote: +Barbury.+ Ro. _camp_.] [Sidenote: +Badbury.+]