On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the least difficulty the ground-plan of many houses under the short turf. The early writers do not mention Cottam, and so far I have come upon no explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction was due to the Black Death in 1349. Mr. Cole of Wetwang thinks it significant that there were three vicars of his church (five miles to the south-west) between 1349 and 1352. It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to the church from the road is through an enormous stack-yard, speaking eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much perambulation of the farm. At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel. Although the Bible account plainly indicates that Jacob struggled with some God-like power, yet the actual words used are: ‘And Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day,’ and the additional piece of information describing how the patriarch’s thigh was put out of joint would be sufficient to prompt the Norman craftsman to give the figure the ordinary form of a man. The carving to the right shows the Temptation of Adam and Eve, the ‘general father of us all’ being placed on the opposite side of the tree to the position given to him at Cottam. Then follow the Massacre of the Innocents--an ambitious subject; the Visit of the Magi, Mary being shown with the child on her knee; and a Bishop holding a crozier in his left hand. The period of this elaborate work would appear to be Late Norman. At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes’ house is well wooded, owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years ago, and in the autumn the orange and red colours of the beeches and the brown carpets beneath them are so beautiful that the scenery has no touch of sadness even in November.