The value of "comparative folk-lore," in the elucidation of obscure passages in the early history of mankind, especially with regard to manners, customs, and superstitious faiths, is now pretty generally acknowledged by archæological students. Since this chapter was first written I find the subject has been ably treated by Mr. J. A. Farrer, in the _Cornhill Magazine_ of January, 1875. He says--"The evidence that the nations now highest in culture were once in the position of those now the lowest is ever increasing, and the study of folk-lore corroborates the conclusions long since arrived at by archæological science. For, just as stone monuments, flint-knives, lake-piles, and shell-mounds point to a time when Europeans resembled races where such things are still part of actual life, so do the traces in our social organism, of fetishism, totemism, and other low forms of thought, connect our past with people where such forms of thought are still predominant. The analogies with barbarism that still flourish in civilised communities seem only explicable on the theory of a slow and more or less uniform metamorphosis to higher types and modes of life, and we are forced to believe that ere long it will appear a law of development, as firmly established on the inconceivability of the contrary, that civilization should emerge from barbarism as that butterflies should first be caterpillars, or that ignorance should precede knowledge. It is in this way that superstition itself may be turned to the service of science." CHAPTER III. BATTLES IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIBBLE, NEAR WHALLEY AND CLITHEROE. WADA'S DEFEAT BY KING EARDULPH, AT BILLANGAHOH, A.D. 798, AND CONTEMPORARY PROPHETIC SUPERSTITIONS. THE VICTORY OF THE SCOTS AT EDISFORD BRIDGE IN 1138. CIVIL WAR INCIDENTS BETWEEN CHARLES I. AND THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the date 798, says--"This year there was a great fight at Hwelleage (Whalley), in the land of the Northumbrians, during Lent, on the 4th before the Nones of April, and there Alric, the son of Herbert, was slain, and many others with him." Simeon of Durham has the following reference to this battle:--"A.D. 798. A conspiracy having been organised by the murderers of Ethelred, the king, Wada, the chief of that conspiracy, commenced a war against Eardulph, and fought a battle at a place called by the English Billangahoh, near Walalega, and, after many had fallen on both sides, Wada and his army were totally routed." [Illustration: MAP 2.]