On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire: And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.Hardwick, Charles
History
On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire: And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.
Hardwick, Charles
Battles -- England; Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066; Lancashire (England) -- History
And soden full hastely,
With powder and with spysory,
And with saffron of good colour."
Of this Apician dish 'the kyng eet the flesh and gnew the bones.'
Richard afterwards feasts his infidel prisoners on a Saracen's head
each, every head having the name of its late owner attached to it on a
slip of parchment. Surely all this is as mythic as it is possible to be,
and yet Richard is a really historic earth-born personage."
Yes, there was a truly historical Richard, as there doubtless was an
Arthur, but the Richard and Arthur of romance, nevertheless, are not
historical characters, in the strict sense of the word, and ought not to
be confounded with them.
[25] At the meeting of the British Association, held at York, in 1861,
Dr. Phene, F.S.A., &c., read a paper on Scandinavian and Pictish customs
on the Anglo-Scottish Border. He spoke of the persistent retention of
curious customs, and the handing down from generation to generation of
the traditionary lore of ages long past, and then referred to some of
those which were corroborated by ancient monuments of an unusual kind
still famous on the Scottish border. These consisted of sculptured
stones, earth works, and actual ceremonies. Quoting from former writers,
from family pedigrees, and other documents, he showed that the estates
to which this traditionary lore pertained, had been held alternately by
those claiming under the respective nationalities, or more local powers,
and which from their natural defensive features must have been places of
border importance earlier than history records. The district was
occupied by the descendants--often still traceable--of Danes, Jutes,
Frisians, Picts, Scots, Angles, and Normans; and by a comparison of
several of the languages of these people, as well ancient as now
existing, and also of the Gothic, it was shown in relation to a
particular class of the most curious monuments, that the Norse "ormr,"
Anglo-Saxon "vyrm," old German "wurm," Gothic "vaúrms," pronounced like
our word worm; and the word "lint," or "lind," also German, and the
Norse "linni," are all equivalent, and mean serpent; and in some cases
the two words are united as in modern German "lindwurm," and the Danish
and Swedish "lindorm." On this apparently rested the names of some of
the places having these strange traditions, as Linton or serpent town,
Wormiston or worm's (ormr's) town, Lindisfarne, the Farne serpent
island, now Holy Island, &c., and also the various worm hills, or
serpent mounds of those localities. It was curious that the contests to
which the traditions referred (like that of St. George) were sometimes
with two dragons, as shown on a sculptured stone in Linton Church, and
on a similar stone at Lyngby, in Denmark, in the churchyard, where there
was a tradition that two dragons had their haunt near the church. From
these and other facts, the author concluded that the contests were
international, and in the case of two dragons, an allied foe, either
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