Little more than a century afterwards, Carlisle suffered a severer siege by the Scotch and Parliamentary forces, under General Lesley. It was defended for the Royalists by Sir Thomas Glenham; and surrendered on the 28th of June, 1645, after having held out for more than six months. During the siege, the distress of the garrison and the inhabitants was so severe, that the flesh of horses, dogs, rats, and other vermin was eaten. Bread was exhausted and hemp-seed substituted; which in its turn became so dear as to be unpurchasable by all except the most wealthy. A coinage of silver pieces, of three shillings value, was instituted in the castle during the siege, from the plate of the inhabitants, which was sent in for the purpose. The diary of Isaac Tullie, a resident in the city during the siege, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, states that "the citizens were so shrunk from starvation, that they could not choose but laugh at one another, to see their clothes hang upon them as upon men on gibbets, for one might put one's head and fists between the doublets and shirts of many of them." [4] A note to this passage in "Percy's Reliques" (the editor of which, it must be stated, modernised and added to this ballad), informs us that Tearne-Wadling is near Hesketh, on the road from Penrith, where there is a tradition still in existence that an old castle once stood upon the spot. THE DRUIDS' SACRIFICE. A LEGEND OF KESWICK. Mark yon altar ... See this wide circus Skirted with unhewn stone; they awe my soul, As if the very Genius of the place Himself appeared, and with terrific tread Stalked through his drear domain.... Know that thou stand'st on consecrated ground-- The mighty pile of magic-planted rocks, Thus ranged in mystic order, marks the place Where but at times of holiest festival The Druid led his train. MASON. The old road between Keswick and Penrith passes over a rough hill, called Castle Rigg, which the new road now avoids. In a field adjoining this road, on the right hand side going to Penrith, just on the crown of the hill, and at the distance of a mile and a-half east by north from Keswick, are the remains of a Druidical Temple, popularly named the Druids' Stones.