[20] "Siculus Flaccus says that it was the practice of some _agrimensores_ to place under _termini_ ashes, or charcoal, or pieces of broken glass or pottery, or _asses_, or lime, or plaster (gypsum).... The writer of a later treatise, or rather compilation, attributed to Boëthius, speaking upon the same subject, enumerates as the objects to be so placed, ashes, or charcoals, or potsherds, or bones, or glass, or _assæ_ of iron, or brass, or lime, or plaster, or a fictile vessel."--"_The Romans of Britain_," _by H. C. Coote F.S.A._ [21] This, of course, is disputed by other authorities. Mr. Thorpe regards the only copy now extant as an Anglo-Saxon version of an older Scandinavian poem. [22] Mr. Askew Roberts, in his "Contributions to Oswestry History," has the following:--"Is not all the alluvial tract of country which lies between Buttington and Oswestry, called in the Welsh tongue 'Ystrad Marchell.' = Strata Marcella, at one end of which stood the once famous monastery of Ystrad Marchell or Strata Marcella? Is it not more likely that Oswald should have been overwhelmed by a combined force of Mercians, Welsh, and Angles somewhere in the large plain of _Ystradmarchell_, which lies on the boundary of the Welsh and Mercian territories, than at Winwick, in Lancashire, and does not the above line prove that 'Oswald from Marchelldy [Marcelde the House or Monastery of Marchell] did to Heaven remove.'--BONION, writing in _Bygones_, August 6, 1873." This would have more value had the inscription been on Oswestry Church. It is not very probable the Cleric of Winwick would be a Welsh scholar, or that he would translate the Welsh word into Latin in preference to the English one by which the locality was well known. What business had Oswald "somewhere in the large plain of _Ystradmarchell_, which lies on the boundary of the Welsh and Mercian territory," if Penda were the aggressor, as Geoffrey and others testify. Besides, as Mr. Green's maps show, the district in question was, in the seventh century, a long way from either the Mercian or Northumbrian boundary. To be in the locality at all would constitute Oswald the attacking and not the defending party, as Bede's expression, "_pro patria dimicans_," seems to imply. [23] This is a very daring assertion, and is by no means confirmed by a visit to the locality. [24] "Were there no other record of the existence of our own Richard I. than the _Romaunt_ bearing his name, and composed within a century of his death, he would unquestionably have been numbered by the Mythists among their shadowy heroes; for among the superhuman feats performed by that pious crusader, we read, in the above mentioned authority, that having torn out the heart of a lion, he pressed out the blood, dipt it in salt, and ate it without bread; that being sick, and longing after pork (which in a land of Moslems and Jews was not to be had), "They took a Sarezyne young and fat * * * * *