We are therefore, as before stated, reduced to pure conjecture, and the expression "dene-holes" helps us not at all; for _denn_ is simply Anglo-Saxon for a cave, and a dene-hole is a "cave-hole," bilingual tautology and nothing more. Ruminating over the known facts on many occasions during recent years, for it is impossible to see these strange burrowings and to banish them from the mind, it has occurred to me, often enough to have become almost a firm theory, that the traditional name of "Dane holes" may supply the complete explanation. In the absence of evidence to the contrary tradition is entitled to more respect than it commonly gains from the antiquary; and here there is no evidence at all against tradition. "Murray" speaks of British coins found in dene-holes; certainly none such have been found in the holes in Hangman's Wood. The terror of the Danes was frequent and very real; and the men who lived on the banks of the estuary of the Thames were more exposed to Danish raids, more familiar with their ruthless mood, than most of the inhabitants of our island. It is not difficult to imagine that the heads of families in these parts selected Hangman's Wood as a suitable spot in which to dig out hiding places, separate ones for each family. From its eminence, like rabbits sitting over their burrow, they could strain their eyes down the estuary of the Thames to watch for the incoming fleet of warrior-bearing keels; and, when they saw it, they could scuttle into their holes at once. Fires, of course, they dare not kindle within, while the invaders were at hand, for the smoke would have betrayed them; and when the invaders were gone away they could come above ground again and live their ordinary lives. They did not, according to this theory, begin by making these groups of chambers in their full and careful detail. They began by digging a shaft, the mouth of which they masked with brushwood, and a hole at the bottom in which they could cower with their families until the tyranny was overpast. But the danger came again and again for years and hundreds of years. The refuge of the pits was used many times; quarters were crowded; it was not easy to pass the weary hours of captivity. The refugees wiled away the time, and added to their own comfort by gradually quarrying away more and more rooms round the original hole, some for storage of food, some for sleeping, and so on; and they showed their true national spirit by keeping all the groups of chambers absolutely separate. The fancy is at least harmless.