The collection contained numismatic treasures both of English and foreign mintage, and all were coined antecedent to the great battle, although the most modern amongst them date within a very few years of that event. Dr. Worsaae, the celebrated Danish antiquary, speaking of this "find," says--"To judge from the coins, which, with few exceptions, were minted between the years 815 and 930, the treasure must have been buried in the first half of the tenth century, or about a hundred years before the time of Canute the Great." My position, therefore, is that this great treasure chest was buried near the "pass of the Ribble," at Cuerdale, opposite Preston, during this troubled period, and probably on the retreat of the confederated Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Danish armies, after their disastrous defeat by the English under Athelstan, at the great battle of Brunanburh, in 937, which may not inaptly be styled, on account of its magnitude and important results, the Waterloo of the tenth century. Various places have from time to time been suggested as the probable locality of the conflict, but upon the very slenderest of evidence. Some say Colecroft, near Axminster, Devonshire. One authority assigns the following reason for this site--"Axminster is _supposed_ to have derived its present name from a college of priests, founded here by Athelstan, to pray for the souls of those who fell in the conflict, and who were buried in the cemetery of Axminster; there were five kings and eight earls amongst them." A claim has been advanced for Beverley in Yorkshire, for a similar reason. But the founding of a monastery, or other expression of thanksgiving for a victory, does not necessarily indicate the locality of the conflict. William the Conqueror did certainly found Battle Abbey on the site of his great victory; but such a practice is by no means of ordinary occurrence, and without corroborative evidence is valueless. Camden thought the battle was fought at Ford, near Bromeridge, in Northumberland. Skene, in his "Celtic Scotland," prefers Aldborough, on the Ouse, and regards the huge monoliths, known as "the devil's arrows," as memorials of the victory. Gibson and others suggest Bromborough, in Cheshire. The editor of the "Imperial Gazetteer" assigns Broomridge, no doubt on Camden's authority, and Brinkburn, in the Rothsay district, in Northumberland, or some other, as probable sites of the battle. Brinkburn is said to be the "true situation of Brunanburh," in "Beauties of England and Wales." The name was written in 1154, by John of Hexham, Brincaburgh. Banbury, in Oxfordshire, and Bourne, and the neighbourhood of Barton-on-Humber, in Lincolnshire, and a Bambro', a Bambury, and some other places have likewise found advocates.