_Estoveria._ In this case, small wood necessary for household purposes, as Housebote, Hedgebote and Ploughbote, the materials for repairing house, hedge and plough. But timber trees are not included. See Stat. West. 2. cap. 25; and 20 Car. II. c. 3. ----- The sanctity of the Mark is the condition and guarantee of its indivisibility, without which it cannot long be proof against the avarice or ambition of individuals: and its indivisibility is, in turn, the condition of the service which it is to render as a bulwark, and of its utility as a pasture. I therefore hold it certain that some solemn religious ceremonies at first accompanied and consecrated its limitation[93]. What these may have consisted in, among the heathen Anglosaxons, we cannot now discover, but many circumstances render it probable that Wóden, who in this function also resembles Ἑρμῆς, was the tutelary god[94]: though not absolutely to the exclusion of other deities, Tiw and Frea appearing to have some claim to a similar distinction[95]. But however its limit was originally drawn or driven, it was, as its name denotes, distinguished by marks or signs. Trees of peculiar size and beauty, and carved with the figures of birds and beasts, perhaps even with Runic characters, served the purpose of limitation and definition[96]: striking natural features, a hill, a brook, a morass, a rock, or the artificial mound of an ancient warrior, warned the intruder to abstain from dangerous ground, or taught the herdsman how far he might advance with impunity. In water or in marshy land, poles were set up, which it was as impious to remove, as it would have been to cut or burn down a mark-tree in the forest. ----- Footnote 93: “Silvam auguriis patrum et prisca formidine sacram.” Tac. Germ. 39. See Möser, Osnabrückische Geschichte, i. 57, _seq._ Footnote 94: Ἑρμῆς, in this one sense Mercurius, is identical with Wóden. Both invented letters; both are the wandering god; both are Odysseus. The name of Wóden is preserved in many boundary places, or chains of hills, in every part of England. See chap. xii. of this Book. The Wónác (Cod. Dipl. No. 495), the Wónstoc (ibid. Nos. 287, 657), I have no hesitation in translating by Wóden’s oak, Wóden’s post. Scyldes treów (ibid. No. 436) may also refer to Wóden in the form of Scyld, as Hnices þorn (ibid. No. 268) may record the same god in his form of Hnicor, or Hnic. Footnote 95: Teowes þorn, Tiw’s thorn. Cod. Dipl. No. 174. Tiwes mére, Tiw’s lake. Ibid. No. 262. Frigedæges treów (ibid. No. 1221), the tree of Frigedæg, a name I hold equivalent to Frea or Fricge. Footnote 96: