Chapter II: Part 2

Sir Peter got a sight of the serpent, and a formidable monster he appeared to be, more terrible than any he had previously met with; and he saw that it behoved him to make special provision for the combat. He pondered the matter over for a few days, and then mounted his steed and rode to Sheffield, where he employed certain cunning artificers to make him a complete suit of armour studded with razor blades. Although razors are alluded to by Homer, and have been used by the Chinese for unknown centuries, it is doubtful whether they were a staple manufacture on the banks of the Sheaf and the Rivelin in the sixth century. It is true that Chaucer speaks of a "Sheffield whittle," but this was eight centuries afterwards, and it is equally to be doubted whether Sheffield, even as a village, existed at that time; but anachronisms are of small moment in legends, and we are required to accept it as a fact, that the knight had his novel suit of armour fabricated in the valley of the Sheaf.

When it was completed, he returned with it to Ryedale, and gladly was he welcomed by the villagers, as the serpent had been committing more ravages amongst the population. He had a sword, a Damascus blade of wonderful keenness, which possessed certain magical properties, similar to those of King Arthur's famous Excaliber; and one morning, after donning his armour, he took the sword in his hand and went forth to the combat. His dog accompanied him, and it was with difficulty that he was prevented from leaping up in caressing gambols against the sharp razor blades.

The serpent had its den in the side of a wooded eminence near East Newton, by Stonegrave, which has since then gone by the name of Loschy Hill, in memory of the great fight between the Knight and the Dragon. Sir Peter, who was on foot, strode along boldly towards the hill, followed by his dog, which seemed to be perfectly aware that some exciting sport was before them, as he rushed about hither and thither, sniffing the air, as if his keen scent gave him intimation that game of an unusual character was not far off, and he barked and growled, as if in defiance of the foe; whilst the villagers stood afar off, with eager countenances, to watch the progress of the combat. As the knight came nearer, he became aware of a pestiferous odour that seemed to contaminate the air; and the dog scented and sniffed, and gave vent to more prolonged growlings and louder barking, and seemed to tremble with excitement in anticipation of the coming fray.

The serpent had not yet breakfasted, and seeing the man and dog approach, darted from his den and made for the dog, with which he thought to stay his appetite as a first mouthful, but the dog was too nimble and eluded his attack, leaping upon one of the curves of its body and biting it with mad excitement; whilst the knight struck it a blow with his sword which almost cut off its head, but the wound healed up instantly, and the serpent coiled itself round his body, in order to crush the life out of him, and then devour him at its leisure. It had not, in doing so, taken into account the razor blades, which cut its body in a multitude of gashes, and caused the blood to stream down on the earth; but this was not of much consequence, as it immediately uncoiled and rolled itself on the earth, when all the wounds closed up. Foiled in this attack, the monster then began to vomit out a poisonous vapour, so horrible and overcoming that the knight seemed ready to sink under its influence, but rallying his energies, he aimed a blow which cut the serpent in two, but the severed parts joined again immediately. All this time the monster was hissing in a fearful manner, and breathing out poison, and the knight began to fear he must succumb and become its prey; but determined not to give in so long as he could continue the fight, he aimed another blow with his sword and severed a portion of the tail end, although feeling persuaded that it would become reunited as before; but his dog, evidently a sagacious animal, having witnessed the former reunion, seized it in its teeth and ran off with it to a neighbouring hill, then returned and carried away other portions as they were cut off successively. The serpent writhed with pain, but afraid, or seeing the uselessness of attacking the razor-armed man, made many attempts to seize the dog, but in vain, as he was too agile to be caught; therefore he depended more on the venom of his breath at this juncture, which he continued to pour forth, and which he knew must eventually overpower his enemy. The dog had returned from his third or fourth journey and came up to his master, wagging his tail in seeming congratulation of the cleverness with which they were gradually accomplishing the destruction of the foe, when the serpent made a spring upon him, but at the same instant the knight's magic sword descended upon his neck and severed the head from the body, which the dog at once seized and carried off to a distance, placing it on a hill near where Nunnington Church now stands.

The monster was now dead which had caused so much terror and desolation, and the villagers shouted with joy as they saw the head carried past by the dog. Meanwhile the knight stood by the remaining portion of the body as it lay prone on the earth, quivering with the remains of its vitality. He was exhausted with his exertions, but more by the poisonous exhalation which the body still gave forth, but in rapidly diminishing volume. He was recovering from its effects and was waiting awhile to gain sufficient energy to leave the scene of his triumph, when the dog returned, but apparently in a very languid condition; still, however, evincing marks of satisfaction and pleasure at the conquest he and his master had achieved. The knight stooped down to pat caressingly his faithful companion, who, in return, reached up and licked his face. Unfortunately, in carrying away the head, the seat of the venom, the dog had imbibed the poison, and in licking his master's face had imparted the virus to him, and a few minutes were sufficient to produce its fatal effects, the knight and his dog falling to the earth together, and when the villagers came up they found both dead.

Although the villagers were rejoiced at the death of the serpent, their lamentations were equally great over the fate of the knight, who had sacrificed his life for their deliverance; and for many a month and year did they cherish his memory and mourn his death.

In Nunnington Church there is a monument of a knight, a recumbent effigy, with a dog crouching at his feet; and this, tradition says, is the tomb of the valorous Sir Peter Loschi and his equally valorous dog, who were buried together, and the monument erected in grateful memory of their achievement.

The Devil's Arrows.

One of the most interesting localities in broad Yorkshire, rich in historic lore and fruitful in legend, is that which comprehends within its limits the twin towns of Aldborough and Boroughbridge, on the river Ure. Their history extends back to the Celtic and Roman times, when Aldborough or Iseur, the Isurium of the Romans, was the capital of the Brigantian Celts, and near by ran northward from York a great Roman road, which crossed the Ure by a ford, which was supplanted after the Conquest by a wooden bridge, which gave rise to a great convergence of roads at this point, and the growth of a town, which obtained the name of Boroughbridge, _i.e._, the borough by the bridge.

This spot, says Dr. Stukeley, was in the British time "the scene of the great Panegyre of the Druids, the midsummer meeting of all the country round, to celebrate the great quarterly sacrifice, accompanied with sports, games, races, and all kinds of exercises, with universal festivity. This was like the Olympian and Nemean meetings and games among the Grecians."

Between the two towns there stands protruding from the earth three rough-hewn and weather-worn obelisks of rag-stone or mill-stone grit, which could not have been brought from a distance of less than seven miles, and gave rise to a sense of wonder how such stupendous masses could have been brought hither and placed upright in position by the Celts with their utter lack of mechanical appliances. The northernmost rises eighteen feet, the southernmost twenty-two and a half feet, and the centre one also twenty-two and a half feet above the ground, and from an excavation made under the latter, it was found to have an entire length of thirty feet six inches. The estimated weight of the northernmost is thirty-six tons, and of the other two thirty tons each. Originally there were four stones, which were seen by Leland in Henry VIII.'s time; but one of them fell or was removed for the sake of the materials--useful for road repairing--in the seventeenth century. Camden imagined them to be factitious compositions of sand, lime, and small pebbles cemented together; but there is no doubt they were quarried at Plumpton, the rock there corresponding exactly with their grit. The Romans made use of them as metæ, the turning point in their chariot races. There have been varying and differing conjectures by antiquaries as to their origin and purpose, but all agree as to their remote antiquity, dating back certainly 1800 years, the most probable conjecture as to their purpose being that they were connected in some way with Druidical worship. They go by the name of "The Devil's Arrows," and tradition gives an account of their origin altogether different from antiquarian conjectures, and much more in accordance with their popular designation. Thus runs the legend:--

It was soon after the Crucifixion that certain Apostles of the Cross, headed by Joseph of Arimathea, found their way from Palestine to the remote and benighted isle of Britain, in obedience to the Divine command to go forth and preach the Gospel to every creature. After their disembarkation they proceeded inland until they came to Glastonbury; and ascending the hill there, Joseph struck his walking staff in the earth and proclaimed that there should be established the first Christian church of Britain, and in confirmation thereof his staff miraculously took root, put forth branches, and although it was midwinter--Christmas Day--budded and blossomed into a rose, as its successors here continued to do on every successive Christmas Day. The Apostles preached to the barbarian people, made some converts, and erected a temporary wooden church for the performance of divine service, which was the precursor of the magnificent Abbey that afterwards rose on the site, and flourished in great prosperity until its extinction under the sacrilegious hand of Henry the Eighth.

When the new faith had taken root at Glastonbury, the Apostles divided themselves into bands of two or three, and departed north, south, east, and west, to proclaim the glad tidings in other parts of the island. One of these bands, going northwards, preached to the Cornabii and the Coritani of Mid-Britain, and then passed onward to the Brigantes, the greatest and most warlike of the kingdoms of Britain. They travelled on foot, staff in hand, and subsisted on the charity of the people; but had often to endure great hardships, having often to pass through scantily peopled districts, where wild fruits were their only food, the water of the wayside brooks their drink, and their sleeping couches the heather of the moor or the turf under the canopy of a forest tree. But all these discomforts they endured with cheerfulness, besides perils from wolves, wild boars, and other denizens of the woodlands, feeling assured that their Master would reward them a thousand-fold for their sufferings in His service.

On entering the Brigantian kingdom they learned that the capital city was Iseur, some considerable distance northward, and thither they bent their way in the hope of enlightening the King in spiritual matters as a means of facilitating the conversion of his people. With wearied steps they passed from village to village, through forests and swamps, and over black moorlands, fording the rivers where practicable, or where they were too deep for so doing going along the bank until they met with a fisherman or villager to ferry them across in his coracle; and in due course, after many days of toilsome journeying, came to the city of Iseur.

The city stood in a forest clearing, surrounded by a stockade of felled trees, with an entrenchment for protection against enemies, and for the security of their flocks and herds against the attacks of wild beasts. In the centre stood the King's Palace, a tolerably spacious edifice built of unhewn blocks of stone, placed in cyclopean fashion without mortar; and scattered around were the mud-built and straw-thatched dwellings of the people. There was no temple of their deity, the gods of the Britons disdaining mortal-built places of worship. But adjacent was a separate forest clearing, with a circling of huge forest oaks, on which grew the sacred mistletoe, which constituted a temple not built with hands; and in which was a pool of water, indispensable in the ceremonials of their religion, where the beaver abounded, and was used as an emblem of the flood, of which the Britons had a tradition; and here were constructed the wickerwork forms of gigantic human beings, which at certain seasons were filled with men, women, and children, and burnt to propitiate the wrath of their god.

They proceeded to the palace of the King and asked for an audience, which was granted them after some demur; the King feeling uncertain, from the description his attendants gave of their foreign aspect, outlandish dresses, and imperfect utterance of the British language, whether they might not be enemies, assassins, or sorcerers come hither to take his life or subject him to some other evil. He received them seated on a sort of throne, clad in a white, coarsely woven tunic of wool reaching half way down his thighs, and leaving the lower limbs altogether uncovered, and over his shoulders a wolf-skin mantle, whilst he supported his dignity by holding in his right hand a long bronze-headed spear, with a richly-carved shaft. By his side sat his Queen, and at his feet gambolled three or four children, whilst around him stood representatives of the Druidical hierarchy--the Druids proper or high priests, the Eubates or soothsayers, and the Bards who chanted anthems to the glory of their god and recited odes in praise of the warriors and great men of their race.

The King inquired of the strangers who they were and what was their purpose in thus coming to his court. The Apostles replied that they were people of a far distant land, near the sunrising, and had come hither to show them their errors in worshipping false gods, and point out to them the true object of worship, the one only God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and the awarder of happiness or misery in the future life beyond the grave. A murmur of dissatisfaction arose at this announcement amongst the Druids, who whispered amongst themselves that it was fitting such blasphemers should be offered up as sacrifices to their god.

"Truly," said the King, "you have come on a strange errand; we are firm believers in and devout worshippers of the one Supreme God, as you pretend to be. Do we not yearly offer up on His altars hundreds of human victims to propitiate His good-will? What more would you have? We believe what you do, and a great deal more, for we have a host of minor deities whom we pay adoration to. Methinks you had better return to your own country and not trouble us with your hallucinations, so as to cause a schism in the faith. We are content with our own belief, which teaches us that when we die the souls of those who have done justly will pass gradually into a higher and higher sphere, until at length, when perfectly purified, it will become absorbed in the essence of the Deity, or become an inferior god; whilst those of the wicked will be transformed to the bodies of inferior and unclean animals, and eventually be annihilated."

The Apostles upon this explained briefly the principles of the Christian religion, the fall of man and his loss of the divine favour, his necessary condemnation to temporal and eternal death, and the redemptorial scheme, in which God himself, or rather his Son, who was identical with himself, suffered death on the cross, taking upon himself, in lieu of man, the threatened penalty.

"Is your God dead, then?" inquired the King; "or is it possible for God to die. If so, our faith is better than yours, for our God is immortal."

The Apostles then entered into an elaborate disquisition on the subtleties of the necessity and nature of the Divine scheme for the salvation of the human race, but the reasonings were too abstruse for the King's comprehension, as, indeed, were they for the more cultured minds of the Druids; therefore the King declined any further discourse on the subject, adding that he was perfectly willing that they should be courteously treated and have fair play, as they had come so far with the intent, as it seemed to them, of doing him and his people a service; therefore he would appoint a day on which they should have a full and fair discussion with the Druids on the merits of the respective faiths, and in the meantime they should be hospitably entertained at his cost, and with this the audience terminated.

It happened that at this time the Father of Evil was prowling about Britain, with the object of thwarting the efforts of St. Joseph and his band of missionaries for the evangelisation of the land. He employed himself chiefly about Glastonbury and its neighbourhood, the primitive and central seat of British Christianity, and centuries elapsed before he relaxed his persistent attempt to eradicate the faith, hostile to himself, which had taken root there. Nine hundred years afterwards we find that he was a perpetual annoyance to the holy St. Dunstan in his Glastonbury cell, continually intruding upon him when engaged in his studies, and offering to him the most seductive temptations, until, on one occasion, he made his appearance before him when he was engaged on some blacksmith work, and commenced tempting him to sell his soul to him for unbounded wealth and the highest temporal distinction. The saint, however, was proof against his temptations, and resolved to free himself once for all from his importunities, took his red-hot tongs from the fire, and seized him by the nose. The devil roared out lustily with the pain, although one would fancy, from fire being his natural element, that it would not incommode him greatly; nevertheless, he prayed abjectly to be released from the tongs, but the saint would not release him until he promised to give him no further annoyance.

He had followed in the footsteps of the three Apostles on the northern mission, and was present, although invisible, at the interview with the King of the Brigantes; and when the conference between the Apostles and the Druids was arranged by the King, he determined upon presenting himself at the meeting in a more tangible and palpable form, to overthrow the arguments of the former by the power of his eloquence and logical force of reasoning, feeling exceedingly loth to run the risk of losing so cherished a section of his dominions, which would ensue in case the King should be convinced by the preaching and the powerful arguments of the Apostles.

The conference was appointed to come off on the slopes of the Hambleton Hills, at the foot of Roulston Crag and there, on the auspicious morning, might be seen a large assemblage gathered together, presenting a very animated and picturesque grouping. The King, as president of the assembly, took his seat on an improvised throne. He was clothed in the most splendid of his regal vestments, and held in his hand his bronze-headed spear, as an emblem of his Royal authority. On his right stood a group of Druids, clad in long white linen robes, with circlets of oak leaves round their heads, and on his left the three Christian Apostles, in their weather-stained Oriental garments, whilst scattered around, was a considerable number of Brigantian warriors, courtiers, agriculturists, and serfs more or less garmented in coarse woollen fabrics or skins of animals, or without clothing of any kind, but with painted or tattooed skins, on which were depicted figures of the sun, the moon, and sundry animals. The King opened the proceedings by stating the object of the meeting, and calling upon the Apostles to explain what they wished to inculcate, promising them a fair and candid hearing, and assuring them that if what they said appeared at all consonant with reason, it should have due consideration. In all respects the meeting was very similar to that which was convened nearly 600 years afterwards by Eadwine, King of Northumbria, for a discussion of the merits of Christianity, between St. Paulinus, the apostle of Rome, and Coiffi, the High Priest of Woden, which resulted in the second establishment of Christianity in the district, which constitutes the modern Yorkshire. Just as one of the Apostles was commencing to speak, a venerable Druid, with a beard reaching half-way down to his waist, and attired in the official long white robe, entered the assembly, and made his obeisance to the King, who inquired who he was and whither he had come. "I am the High Priest, oh King," he replied, "of the great and famous forest temple of Llyn yr a vanc" (on the site of the modern Beverley). "A report came thither that certain strangers had come to the Court of Iseur from some distant land, to promulgate a foreign and damnable heresy; and I, as being well versed in the truths of our faith, and gifted with an eloquent tongue, have been deputed by my brethren to attend this conference, and aid, to the best of my ability, in discomfiting these foreign heretics, whose object is to uproot our holy religion and substitute a false theological creed."

"You are welcome!" said the King. "Take your place among your brother Druids on my right. Give heed to what the strangers have to say, and reply to their arguments as your reason and lengthened experience may dictate."

The stranger took the place indicated, and the King bade the Apostles tell what they had to say on the object of their mission, upon which the eldest looking of the three, stretching forth his arms as Raphael depicted Paul when preaching at Athens, commenced his harangue by giving an outline of the history of man as recorded in the Scriptures, his fall from innocence and perfection, by the seductions of the enemy of mankind, who for his rebellious ambition had been banished from heaven and cast down into hell, and who since then had been going to and fro in the earth tempting man to sin against his Maker, in which he had been so successful that God repented of having made man, and had caused all mankind to perish save one family, and then explained that afterwards, when the earth had again become populated, he compassionated man's fallen estate, and had sent his Son to take on himself the penalty due to man's transgression, that all, through him, might be placed in a state of salvation from that death eternal which they inherited from the transgression of their first ancestor; and wound up by imploring the King and all present to abandon their impotent and bloodthirsty gods, believe in the God of Mercy whom they proclaimed, and accept the salvation offered through the merits of Him who was crucified.

The Druid, who had come afar, then rose and craved permission to reply, which was granted, and he stood forth on a mass of rock, with a majestic presence and dignified air. He laughed to scorn the fables which they had listened to, which were only fit to delude the ears of silly old women, and could not be accepted for a moment by men endowed with the faculty of reasoning. "We are told," said he, "that man was made perfect, and was at the same time fallible; that God is immutable, and yet repented; that a creature, the work of His hands, has become His rival, and from what we hear has become even more potent than his Maker; has set up a rival kingdom, and is able to wrest from the hands of God three-fourths of the beings whom He creates, a God who is asserted to be omnipotent; with many such subtle questions, inquiring--Can these be compatible with reason, and can you, as men of sense, believe them?" He then descanted on the superior merits of the Druidical religion, contrasting its "simple truth" with the "absurd fables told us by these foreigners;" concluding with a forcible and eloquent appeal to those who listened to him not to abandon the gods of their fathers, and go hankering after strange gods, especially such as were recommended by such baseless arguments and improbable tales as they had just heard.

When he concluded a murmur of applause agitated the assembly like a rustling of leaves in the forest, and the King said, "Venerable father, thou speakest well; thy words are those of truth; and it only remains to bid these strangers depart from our shores and return to the land from whence they have come, bearing with them our thanks for having come so far to teach us what they conceive to be the truth, but which we are unable to accept as consonant with reason."

In the vehemence of his oratorical action, the Druid had caught up the skirt of his robe, and the apostle had spied protruding therefrom a cloven foot, and moreover that the heat issuing therefrom had caused the upper part of the rock on which it was placed to become partially liquefied, or rather gelatinised, so that it adhered to the foot. Suspecting, therefore, whom he had to deal with, he cried out on receiving the order to depart, "Hearken, oh King, I have told you of the arch-enemy of God and mankind, who tempted the first man to sin, and still goes about luring men to perdition; behold he--even he--is present in this assembly, and has been addressing you in advocacy of the false religion, which you, in your ignorance, maintain. Him will I unmask;" and addressing himself to the Druid, he cried in a stern and commanding voice, "Satan, I defy thee! in the name of the Saviour of mankind, I command thee to display thyself in thy proper person, and depart hence to the hell from whence thou comest." In an instant, at that adjuration, the Druid's robe and the venerable beard fell from him, and he stood revealed in all his hideous deformity, with a malignant scowl on his countenance, and springing up, he took flight, impregnating the air with a sulphurous perfume, carrying with him a mass of rock, weighing several tons, which adhered to his foot.

At this unanswerable demonstration of truth of the religion proclaimed by the Apostles, the King, and even the Druids, became converted, and underwent the ceremony of baptism; and the Apostles were empowered to go throughout Brigantium and preach the Gospel, which resulted in the conversion of multitudes, and the Brigantes became a Christian people.

Satan, however, although foiled so signally, set his wits to work to be avenged on the King for deserting his standard. He recollected the piece of rock which he had brought from Roulston and dropped in his flight some seven or eight miles from Iseur, the King's capital city, and this he resolved upon making use of to destroy that city. Accordingly he winged his way thither, and splitting up the rock fashioned it into four huge obelisk-like forms, and standing upon How-hill, he hurled them at Iseur, crying out:--

"Borobrig, keep out of the way,
For Auldboro town
I will ding down."

It may be observed _en passant_ that there is a slight anachronism here, as Aldborough was not so called until the Saxon age, and Boroughbridge did not come into existence until after the Conquest. But that is a matter of not much consequence in a legend.

The stones which were thus intended to "ding down" the King's city were miraculously intercepted in their flight, falling and fixing themselves firmly in the earth between the city and the fords over the Ure (Boroughbridge), where three of them, still called "The Devil's Arrows," may be seen at this day.

The Giant Road-Maker of Mulgrave.

The stately Castle of Mulgrave, now the home of the Phipps family--Marquises of Normanby--was built by Peter de Malo-lacu or de Mauley, in the reign of King John. Cox says, "he built a castle here for his defence, which, from its beauty and the grace it was to this place, he named it Moultgrace, but because it proved afterwards a great grievance to the neighbours thereabouts, the people, who will in such cases take a liberty to nickname places and things by changing one letter for another--c for v--called it Moultgrave, by which name alone for many ages it hath been and is now everywhere known, though the reason thereof is by few understood." A previous castle, with the barony, had been held by the de Turnhams, and the last male heir, Robert, having died without issue male, the barony and castle were inherited by his only daughter, Isabel, who, as was then the law respecting heiresses, became a ward of the Crown, and her hand at the disposal of the King. This Peter de Malo-lacu, or Peter of the Evil Eye, was a Poictevin of brutal and ferocious character, who was made use of by King John as the instrument for the murder of his nephew Arthur, for which piece of service he rewarded the murderer with the hand of the fair Isabel, with her inheritance.

But long before the de Mauleys and the de Turnhams, a noble Saxon family were lords of the surrounding domain, and dwelt in a castle on an eminence here, about three or four miles from the seashore at Whitby. Leland says (_temp._ Hen. 8), "Mongrave Castel standeth on a craggy hille, and on eche side of it is a hille far higher than that whereon the castel standeth. The north hille on the topp of it hath certain stones, commonly caul'd Wadda's grave, whom the people there say to have bene a gigant and owner of Mongrave." And Camden, "Hard by upon a steep hill near the sea (which yet is between two that are much higher) a castle of Wade, a Saxon Duke, is said to have stood; who, in the confused anarchy of the Northumbrians, so fatal to the petty Princes, having combined with those that murdered King Ethered, gave battel to King Ardulph at Whalley, in Lancashire, but with such ill-sucess that his army was routed and himself forced to fly. Afterwards he fell into a distemper, which killed him, and was interred on a hill here between two solid rocks, about seven foot high, which being at twelve foot distance from one another, occasions a current opinion that he was of gyant-like stature."

It is with this Duke Wada that we are concerned. He appears to have been a Saxon, or rather an Anglian noble of considerable consequence in the kingdom of Northumbria, and to have taken a conspicuous part in the political movements of that troublous period, when, as Speed narrates, "the Northumbrians were sore molested with many intruders or rather tyrants that banded for the soueraintie for the space of thirtie years." He was a man of gigantic stature and a champion of redoubtable energy in war, dealing death around him and cumbering the field with the bodies of those who had fallen beneath the blows of his ponderous mace. He was indeed a true son of Woden in all respects, excepting that he had relinquished the hope of banqueting in the halls of the Walhalia, and appropriating the skulls of his enemies as drinking vessels; for through the influence of St. Hilda's Abbey of Streoneshalh, in the immediate vicinity, he had adopted the tenets of, if he did not regulate his life altogether according to, the principles of Christianity.

Now Wada was a married man, and had a helpmate of stature and proportions corresponding with his own. They were a well-matched couple, and seemed to have lived together in a state of ordinary connubial happiness, there being but one thing to disturb the even tenor of their lives, and that was that the lady had to go in all sorts of weather across a moor to milk her cows--a long and dreary journey even in summer, along the rough and stone strewn trackway, but more especially in winter, when the snow was frequently knee deep, and the bitter blasts of the north-east wind came careering over the sea and sweeping with relentless fury across the bleak and shelterless moorland.

Wada's Castle was a massive structure of stone, with round-headed unglazed windows, and a turret which commanded a fine outlook over the sea on one side, and the moorlands and Cleveland hills on the other. The rooms were of large size, as befitted the abode of a giant, but presented few of the appliances of comfort that are deemed commonplace essentials now-a-days. The walls were of bare stone, without drapery of any kind, and no ornamentation excepting some zigzag mouldings; the roofs were vaulted, and in those of large size supported at the intersections by one or more stunted round pillars; the windows were small, without glass, and furnished with wooden shutters to exclude the wind and rain in the inclement seasons of the year; and the furniture consisted of rough-hewn deal or oaken tables, and shapeless benches or stools, with an oaken coffer to hold valuables, and side shelves to hold wooden platters and vessels of earthenware. The fire in cold weather was made on the floor, of logs of wood or cuttings of peat, the smoke escaping as it could through the doorways or windows.

It was in such a room as this that Wada and his wife sat at breakfast, one rainy and boisterous morning. After devouring an enormous quantity of beef and swine's flesh, with manchets of oaten bread, washed down by repeated draughts of ale, Wada, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, rose and went to look forth at the weather.

Wada was not a ferocious giant, dragging along half-a-dozen damsels, with one hand, by their hair, to immure them in his dungeons, and grind their bones to make his bread, as was the wont of the Cornish giants of old; nor was he, like them, stupid and weak-minded, so as to be easily outwitted and destroyed by the immortal Jack. On the contrary, although valiant in war, he abused not his great strength by tyrannising and oppressing his vassals, lived on good terms with his neighbours, and was gentle and tender in all his domestic relations. Hence, when he looked through his window and saw the sea foaming with wrath, and a few fisher-boats tossed about by the waves in their endeavour to gain shelter in Whitby Bay, and saw the sleet driving across the moor, he heaved a sigh, saying, "Methinks, sweetheart, thou wilt have a rough passage over the moor this morning; would to Heaven that it were not necessary for thee so to do." "I care not much," she replied, "for the falling rain and the boisterous wind, rough as they may be, but experience more inconvenience and suffering from the roughness of the road I have to traverse daily, so bestrewn is it with obstacles and stumbling-blocks, and so many bog-holes and quagmires have I to pass through."

Now it chanced that a short while before this Wada, in one of his wanderings, came upon the road constructed by the Romans, from Eboracum, by way of Malton to the Bay of Filey, and was struck by the facilities it gave for travelling, as compared with the more modern Saxon roads, if roads they could be called, which were mere trackways, formed and trodden down by the feet of men and animals. When his wife made the above reply, this recurred to his memory, and after a few minutes musing, the thought struck him--Why should not he make a road on this pattern for the benefit of his wife, whom he loved so dearly, and whose toil and labours he would be glad to lessen at any cost to himself?

After turning the matter over in his mind as to the practicability of the project, he came to the conclusion that it was perfectly feasible. There was plenty of material close at hand, in the shingle on the beach, and he had sufficient strength and energy to level the inequalities and fill up the boggy places, so as to make a firm foundation, and to spread over the whole a layer of the stones gathered from the sea shore. Yes; it was perfectly practicable, and could be accomplished at the mere expense of a little labour. He explained the project to his wife, who was delighted with it, and undertook to bring up the stones whilst he placed them in position after forming the foundation.

They lost no time in commencing the work; he with his spade in the levelling and bog-filling operations, and she carrying up the shingle in her apron; and it went on apace day after day and week after week, soon presenting the appearance of a newly macadamised road of modern times, and was duly appreciated by Lady Wada in her daily tramps across the moor.

It chanced that when the road was nearly completed, in one of her journeys from the beach, laden with shingle, her apron strings gave way and her load fell to the earth, and there it was left (some twenty cart-loads), and remained until recent times as a monument of her industry and strength, and an incontestable evidence of the truth of the narrative. It was after this that Wada joined in the insurrection against Ethelred, the son of Moll, who, after his restoration from exile, put to death the Princes Alfus and Alwin, sons of King Alfwald, who were the rightful heirs to the crown, and repudiated his wife to marry Elfled, the daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, "which things," says Speed, "sate so neere the hearts of his subjects that they rebelliously rose in arms, and at Cobre miserably slew him, the 18th day of April, the yeare of Christ Jesus, 794." After which Wada and his confederates were defeated in battle by Duke Ardulph, one of the aspirants to the Crown, and fled to his castle, where he died of a terrible disorder, and was buried, as stated, between two huge stones.

The road leading from Dunsley Bay towards Malton still exists, and goes by the name of "Wada's Causeway," and one of the ribs of Wada's wife is preserved in the present Mulgrave Castle, but the present age is so incredulous in respect to the chronicles of the past that there are sceptics who assert that it is nothing more than the bone of a whale.

Wada was the ancestor of the widely ramified family of Wade, one of whom, at least--Marshal Wade--inherited the road-making skill of his ancestor. After the rebellion of 1715 he was sent into the Highlands as military governor, with the object of thoroughly subduing the country and rendering it less available as a place of refuge for rebels. With this view he constructed a series of military roads, where there had previously been only trackways, with which the people were so delighted that they set up a stone near Fort Augustus, with the inscription:--

"If you had seen these roads before they were made,
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade."

The Virgin's Head of Halifax.

In the romantic and somewhat sterile region of south-western Yorkshire, verging on the county of Lancaster, lies a valley, or rather what has the aspect of a valley, from its nestling under the shadows of some hills of considerable height. On the slope of an aclivity stands the modern town of Halifax, with its forest of lofty chimneys, its pretty park, and its many palatial structures, devoted to charitable and philanthropic purposes, due chiefly to the benevolence of the Crossleys, who, from a humble origin, have, within the memory of living persons, become manufacturing princes of the locality, and who, in consideration of their mercantile enterprise and the philanthropic use of the wealth they have acquired, have been honoured with a baronetcy. It is one of the most flourishing, or what Leland would term "quick," towns of the Yorkshire clothing district, and in recent times has increased rapidly in population, wealth, and importance. It is not even mentioned in Domesday-Book, nor does its name appear in any record until the twelfth century, when Earl Warren made a grant of the church to the priory of Lewes, in Sussex. About the middle of the fifteenth century it consisted of but thirteen houses, which during the following hundred years increased to 520. In 1764, the parish, which, however, is very extensive, being seventeen miles in length by an average width of eleven, contained 8,244 families; and in 1811 the population numbered 73,815, that of the town being 9,159, since which period of eighty years it has been more than nontupled, the census of 1891 giving the population at 82,900.

The town of Halifax owes its prosperity to its mineral wealth. It is certainly not the place for the agriculturist or the cattle breeder. In an Act passed _temp._ Philip and Mary, it is recited, "whereas the parish of Halifax, being planted in waste and moors, where the ground is not apt to bring forth any corn or good grass, but in rare places and by exceeding and great industry of the inhabitants; and the same inhabitants altogether do live by cloth making, and the greatest part of them neither getteth corn nor is able to keepe horse to carry wools, etc.;" and Camden, in 1574, observes that there are 12,000 men in the parish, who outnumber the sheep, whereas in other parts we find thousands of sheep and but few men, "but of all others, nothing is so admirable in this town as the industry of the inhabitants, who, notwithstanding an unprofitable, barren soil, not fit to live upon, have so flourished in the cloth trade, which within these seventy years they first fell to, that they are both very rich and have gained a reputation for it above their neighbours, which confirms the truth of the old observation that a barren country is a great whet to the industry of the natives."

For the first three or four centuries after the Conquest, England was a great wool-growing but not a wool-manufacturing country. Sheep-breeding was a great source of income to the Cistercians, who, with all the private wool-growers, exported their produce to the spinners and weavers of the Low Countries. It was not until King Edward III., with great sagacity, foreseeing that England might manufacture as well as produce the raw material, and thus share in the profits arising out of that industry, invited over a number of Flemish artisans and settled them in Norfolk and Yorkshire, prohibiting the exportation of wool excepting under a tax of 50s. per pack. This was the foundation of the clothing industry of the West Riding, which has since then expanded so enormously; and Halifax was one of the first places to apply itself to the spinning and weaving of wool. As stated above, although poverty-stricken in an agricultural point of view, it possessed great mineral wealth in the shape of almost limitless deposits of coal, which was a valuable essential even in those primitive times, but which has become an absolute essential since the introduction of steam-power looms.

It is supposed that the manufacture was introduced into Halifax about the year 1414; but it was then on a very limited scale, and it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that the first great advance took place, by the erection of looms for the weaving of shalloons, everlastings, moreens, shags, etc., since which time damasks, and more recently still, carpets, have taken prominent places in the industries of the town; indeed, Halifax has absorbed a considerable portion of the trade which belongs legitimately to Kidderminster.

Although the town of Halifax is of comparatively modern origin, the name is unmistakably Saxon, indicating that previously to the Conquest there was a village or hamlet of some description to which that appellation was given. One tradition asserts that there was a hermitage dedicated to St. John the Baptist, in the valley, and that within it was preserved the face of the saint, which attracted vast numbers of pilgrims, and caused the name of the place of resort to be called Hali-fax, or Holy-face; and there may possibly be some substratum of truth in this, as the parish church is dedicated to the same saint. Dr. Whitaker partially adopts this theory, but his etymologies are frequently rather fanciful. He refers to this hermitage of St. John, "whose imagined sanctity attracted a great concourse of people in every direction, to accommodate whom there were four separate roads from different points of the compass, which converged in the valley, and hence the name Halifax, which is half Saxon and half Norman, signifying the Holy-ways, fax in Norman-French being an old plural noun, denoting highways."

Camden gives a brief outline of the legend given below, which he heard from the people of the vicinity, adding--"and thus the little village of Horton, or as it was sometimes called, 'The Chapel in the Grove,' grew up to a large town, assuming the new name of Halig-fax, or Halifax, which signifies holy hair, for fax is used by the English on the other side Trent to signify hair, and that the noble family of Fairfax in these parts are so named from their fair hair."

That the valley was esteemed a place of peculiar sanctity in the early ages is a matter of which there can be little doubt, and this is sufficiently evidenced by one fact alone. Within its precincts was born, about the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century, John, the foremost mathematician of the age, author of "Tractatus de Sphæri Mundi," "De Computo Ecclesiastes," and "De Algorismo," who was honoured with a public funeral at the expense of the University of Paris, who assumed the name of Johannes de Sancto Bosco, or John of the Holy Wood. And here it may be incidentally noticed that the Holy Wood has since then produced other men upon whom the mantle of Johannes seems to have fallen. Here was born, in 1556, Henry Briggs, the eminent mathematician; Gresham, Professor of Geometry, Savilian Professor at Oxford, and author of "Arithmetica Logarithmica," an improvement on Napier, containing logarithms of 30,000 natural numbers; Jesse Ramsden, the famous optician, and improver of the Hadley quadrant, who died A.D. 1800; and at Horton, seven miles distant, Abraham Sharpe, one of the best mathematicians and astronomers of his time, who died in 1742.

The shadows of evening were falling upon the valley, and the outlines of the rugged, verdureless hills were gradually becoming more and more indistinct, as Father Aelred, having passed out of his little chapel of St. John the Baptist, where he had been performing the vesper service, proceeded to his lonely habitation, and after a simple meal of wild fruits and a draught of water from the little streamlet trickling down the hillside, sat him down to read for the hundredth time a transcript of a portion of Cædmon's Scriptural poems, after which he spent some time in prayer and self-communion, and then cast himself upon his sackcloth, which was spread over a layer of rough gravel, to slumber for a short time, in this mortifying and penitential fashion, to rise again at midnight for other devotional exercises.

Father Aelred was a man of thirty or thirty-five years of age, of pale countenance and emaciated frame, with sunken eyes and hollow voice, the result of rigorous fasting, long vigils, mortification of the flesh, and severe penitential exercises. In his boyhood he had been regarded, from his gravity of aspect, love of learning, and incipient piety, as one who was destined to become a light of the church of the coming generation, and was sent for his education to the famous School of Streoneshalh, established by the Lady Hilda, and at that time under the superintendence of her successor, the Princess Elfleda, where he imbibed Scriptural instruction from the lips of the then venerable Cædmon, a monk of the house. He became a novice of the house, passed the requisite examinations satisfactorily, and was in due course admitted as a fully accredited member of the fraternity. The strictness of his piety was such that he shortly found the life of a monk not to answer his longings for a higher life of holiness and a position where he could be of service to the souls of his fellowmen. He therefore left the shelter of Whitby, and wandered about for some weeks, until he came into the wild and barren-looking mountainous district of the west, and finding there a secluded valley, shut in by towering hills and frowning rocks--a spot with a very sparse and scattered population, and removed far away from the noise and turmoil of the world--he resolved to make it his home, and to settle down in it as a hermit, shutting out all intercourse with his fellowmen and women, save in the way of imparting spiritual teaching and consolation to the few simple unsophisticated rustics who dwelt in the valley. He found a cavern in the hillside, which he enlarged and fashioned into a habitation wherein to live; fitting the entrance with a door, to shelter him from the cold winter winds and prevent the intrusion of wild animals, above which he made an orifice for the admission of light, which he glazed with a thinly scraped sheet of horn, such as King Alfred's lanterns were made of, and furnished the interior with two sections of a tree trunk, the larger to serve as a table, the smaller as a seat; a shelf on which he kept his eatables, with a knife, an earthen platter, and a drinking horn, a piece of rough sackcloth for his bed, and over it, fixed to the rock, a roughly-shapen cross, the emblem of his faith, beside which hung a knotted rope for the purpose of penitential flagellation. At a few rods distance he erected with his own hands, from timber cut by himself, a small chapel--a temple of God, sufficiently rude and unpretentious in point of architecture, but answering every purpose for which it was intended, that of a place of assembly for the simple and unlettered people of the valley, where they might join in the worship of God; and here Aelred every evening performed divine service and catechised the small flock of which he had constituted himself the pastor, and on Sundays performed three full services, with a sermon and the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And thus he came to be looked upon in the district as a most holy man, as indeed he was, and but little below a saint, who might be expected any day to commence the working of miracles, in the cure of the sick and afflicted.

There was one peculiarity about Aelred's character, which amounted almost to a monomania. He entertained a shrinking horror of fair-featured, beautiful women--not that there were many such in his solitary valley, they being, as a rule, embrowned by exposure to the sun, and their features corrugated by marks of rough toil and the troubles of life even from girlhood, and as such they experienced his sympathy and Christian charity; and the little children were always treated by him with tenderness and love, in imitation of his Divine Master, who had said "for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." But for the vain and frivolous of the sex, who seemed to deem nothing of supreme importance save the adornment of their persons, he felt profound scorn and contempt, mixed with a modicum of pity, and marvelled why they were sent into the world at all, unless, it might be, to test the virtue of man by the temptation of their fascinating allurements.