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 Another Random Document on
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openly expressed, but they are, for all that, to my certain knowledge,
still latent.

Old customs and ceremonies still linger. Mummers still perform at

Christmas. Old women “go gooding,” as in other parts of England, on
St. Thomas’s Day. Boys and girls “go shroving” on Ash Wednesday;
that is, begging for meat and drink at the farm-houses, singing this
rude snatch:—

“I come a shroving, a shroving,

For a piece of pancake,
[218]
For a piece of truffle-cheese
Of your own making.”

When, if nothing is given, they throw stones and shards at the door.
[219]

Plenty, too, of old love superstitions remain—about ash 179

boughs with an even number of leaves, and “four-leaved”
clover, concerning which runs a Forest rhyme:—

“Even ash and four-leaved clover,

You are sure your love to see
Before the day is over.”

Then, too, we must not forget the Forest proverbs. “Wood Fidley
rain,” “Hampshire and Wiltshire moon-rakers,” and “Keystone under
the hearth,” have already been noticed. But there are others such as
“As yellow as a kite’s claw,” “An iron windfall,” for anything unfairly
taken, “All in a copse,” that is, indistinct, “A good bark-year makes a
good wheat-year,” and “Like a swarm of bees all in a charm,”
explained further on, which show the nature of the country. Again, “A
poor dry thing, let it go,” a sort of poacher’s euphemism, like, “The
grapes are sour,” is said of the Forest hares when the dogs cannot
catch them, and so applied to things which are coveted but out of
reach. “As bad as Jeffreys” preserves, as throughout the West of
England, the memory of one who, instead of being the judge, should
have been the hangman. Again, too, “Eat your own side, speckle-
back,” is a common Forest expression, and is used in reference to
greedy people. It is said to have taken its origin from a girl who
shared her breakfast with a snake, and thus reproved her favourite
when he took too much. Again, “To rattle like a boar in a holme
bush,” is a thorough proverb of the Forest district, where a “holme”
bush means an old holly. Passing, however, from particulars to
generals, let me add for the last, “There is but one good mother-in-
law, and she is dead.” I have never heard it elsewhere in England,
but doubtless it is common enough. It exactly corresponds with the
German saying, “There is no good mother-in-law but she that 180
wears a green gown,” that is, who lies in the churchyard. The
shrewdness and humour of a people are never better seen than in
their proverbs.

Further, there are plenty of local sayings, such as “The cuckoo goes
to Beaulieu Fair to buy him a greatcoat,” referring to the arrival of the
cuckoo about the 15th of April, whilst the day on which the fair is
held is known as the “cuckoo day.” A similar proverb is to be found in
nearly every county. So, also, the saying with regard to Burley and its
crop of mast and acorns may be met in the Midland districts
concerning Pershore and its cherries. Like all other parts of England,
the Forest is full, too, of those sayings and adages, which are
constantly in the mouths of the lower classes, so remarkable for their
combination of both terseness and metaphor. To give an instance,
“He won’t climb up May Hill,” that is, he will not live through the cold
spring. Again, “A dog is made fat in two meals,” is applied to upstart
or purse-proud people. But it is dangerous to assign them to any
particular district, as by their applicability they have spread far and
wide.

One or two historical traditions, too, still linger in the Forest, but their
value we have seen with regard to the death of the Red King. Thus,
the peasant will tell of the French fleet, which, in June, 1690, lay off
the Needles, and of the Battle of Beachy Head—its cannonading
heard even in the Forest—but who fought, or why, he is equally
ignorant. One tradition, however, ought to be told concerning the
terrible winter of 1787, still known in the Forest as “the hard year.”
My informant, an old man, derived his knowledge from his father,
who lived in the Forest in a small lonely farm-house. The storm
began in the night; and when his father rose in the morning he could
not, on account of the snow-drift, open the door. Luckily, a back room
had been converted into a fuel-house, and his wife had laid in 181
a stock of provisions. The storm still increased. The straggling
hedges were soon covered; and by-and-by the woods themselves
disappeared. After a week’s snow, a heavy frost followed. The snow
hardened. People went out shooting, and wherever a breathing-hole
[220]
in the snow appeared, fired, and nearly always killed a hare. The
snow continued on the ground for seven weeks; and when it melted,
[221]
the stiffened bodies of horses and deer covered the plains.

And now for a few of the Forest words and expressions, many of
which are very peculiar. Take, for instance, the term “shade,” which
here has nothing in common with the shadows of the woods, but
means either a pool or an open piece of ground, generally on a hill
top, where the cattle in the warm weather collect, or, as the phrase
is, “come to shade,” for the sake of the water in the one and the
breeze in the other. Thus “Ober Shade” means nothing more than
Ober pond; whilst “Stony Cross Shade” is a mere turfy plot. At times
as many as a hundred cows or horses are collected together in one of
these places, where the owners, or “Forest marksmen,” always first
go to look after a strayed animal. Nearly every “Walk” in the Forest
has its own “Shade,” called after its own name, and we find the term
used as far back as a perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-
second year of Charles II., where is mentioned “the Green Shade of
Biericombe or Bircombe.”

It affords a good illustration of how words grow in their 182

meaning, and imperceptibly pass from one stage to another. It
originally signified nothing but a shadow, and then the place where
the shadow rests. In this second meaning it more particularly became
associated with the idea of coolness, but gradually, whilst acquiring
that idea, quite contrary to Milton’s “unpierced shade” (Paradise Lost,
B. iv. 245), lost the notion of that coolness being caused by the
interception of light and heat. In this sense it was transferred to any
place which was cool, and so at last applied, as in the New Forest, to
bare spots without a tree, deriving their coolness either from the
breeze or the water.

Another instance of the gradual change in the meaning of words

amongst provincialisms may be found in “scale,” or “squoyle.” In the
New Forest it properly signifies a short stick loaded at one end with
lead, answering to the “libbet” of Sussex, and is distinguished from a
“snog,” which is only weighted with wood. With it also is employed
the verb “to squoyle,” better known in reference to the old sport of
“cock-squoyling.” From throwing at the squirrel the word was used in
reference to persons, so that “Don’t squoyle at me” at length meant,
“Do not slander me.” Lastly, the phrase, now still common, “Don’t
throw squoyles at me,” comes by that forced interpretation of
obtaining a sense, which nearly always reverses the original meaning,
to signify, “Do not throw glances at me.” And so in the New Forest at
this day “squoyles” not unfrequently mean glances.

There is, too, the word “hat,” which in the Forest takes the place of
“clump,” and is nearly equivalent to the Sussex expression, “a toll of
trees.” I have no doubt whatever that the word had its origin in the
high-crowned hats of the Puritans, the “long crown” of the proverb;
and in the first place referred only to tall isolated clumps of 183
trees. Now, however, it does not merely mean a clump or ring,
as the “seven firs” between Burley and Ringwood, and Birchen, and
Dark Hats, near Lyndhurst, but any small irregular mass of trees, as
the Withy Bed Hat in the valley near Boldrewood.

Then of course, in connection with the Forest trees, many peculiar

words occur. The flower of the oak is called “the trail,” and the oak-
apple the “sheets axe,”—children carrying it on the twenty-ninth of
May, and calling out the word in derision to those who are not so
provided. The mast and acorns are collectively known as “the turn
[222]
out,” or “ovest;” whilst the badly-grown or stunted trees are
called “bustle-headed,” equivalent to the “oak-barrens” of America.

Other words there are, too, all proclaiming the woody nature of the
country. The tops of the oaks are termed, when lopped, the
“flitterings,” corresponding to the “batlins” of Suffolk. The brush-wood
is still occasionally Chaucer’s “rise,” or “rice,” connected with the
German reis; and the beam tree, on account of its silvery leaves, the
[223]
“white rice.” Frith, too, still means copse-wood. The stem of the
ivy is the “ivy-drum.” Stumps of trees are known as “stools,” and a
“stooled stick” is used in opposition to “maiden timber,” which has
never been touched with the axe; whilst the roots are called “mocks,”
“mootes,” “motes,” and “mores.” But about these last, which are all
used with nice shades of difference, we shall have, further on,
something to say.

Nor must we forget the bees which are largely kept 184
throughout the Forest, feeding on the heather, leading Fuller
to remark that Hampshire produced the best and worst honey in
England. The bee-season, as it is called, generally lasts, on account
of the heath, a month longer than on the Wiltshire downs. A great
quantity of the Old-English mead—medu—is still made, and it is sold
at much the same value as with the Old-English, being three or four
times the price of common beer, with which it is often drunk. The
bees, in fact, still maintain an important place in the popular local
bye-laws. Even in Domesday the woods round Eling are mentioned as
yearly yielding twelve pounds’ weight of honey. As may therefore be
expected, when we remember that the whole of England was once
called the Honey Island, here, as elsewhere, plenty of provincialisms
[224]
occur concerning the bees.

The drones are here named “the big bees,” the former word being in
some parts seldom used. The young are never said to swarm, but “to
play,” the word taking its origin from their peculiar flight at the time:
as Patmore writes,—

“Under the chestnuts new bees are swarming,

Falling and rising like magical smoke.”

The caps of straw which are placed over the “bee-pots,” to protect
them from wet, are known as the “bee-hackles,” or “bee-hakes.” This
is one of those expressive words which is now only found in this
form, and that, in the Midland Counties, of “wheat hackling,” that is,
covering the sheaves with others in a peculiar way, to shelter them
from the rain. About the honeycombs, or, as they are more 185
commonly called, “workings,” the following rhyme exists:—
[225]
“Sieve upon herder,
One upon the other;
Holes upon both sides,
Not all the way, though,
What may it be? See if you know.”

The entrance for the bees into the hive is here, as in Cambridgeshire
and some other counties, named the “tee-hole,” evidently an
onomatopoieia, from the buzzing or “teeing” noise, as it is locally
called, which the bees make. The piece of wood placed under the
“bee-pots,” to give the bees more room, is known as “the rear,” still
also, I believe, in use in America. The old superstition, I may notice,
is here more or less believed, that the bees must be told if any death
happens in a family, or they will desert their hives. It is held, too,
rather, perhaps, as a tradition than a law, that if a swarm of bees flies
away the owner cannot claim them, unless, at the time, he has made
a noise with a kettle or tongs to give his neighbours notice. It is on
such occasions that the phrase “Low brown” may be heard, meaning
that the bees, or the “brownies,” as they are called, are to settle low.

So also of the cattle, which are turned out in the Forest, we find
some curious expressions. A “shadow cow” is here what would in
other places be called “sheeted,” or “saddle-backed,” that is, a cow
[226]
whose body is a different colour to its hind and fore parts. A
“huff” of cattle means a drove or herd, whilst the cattle, which 186
are entered in the marksman’s books, are said to be “wood-
roughed.” A cow without horns is still called a “not cow” (hnot),
exactly corresponding to the American “humble” or “bumble cow,”
[227]
that is, shorn, illustrating, as Mr. Akerman notices, Chaucer’s line,
—

“A not hed had he, with a brown visage.”

In the Forest, too, as in all other districts, a noticeable point is the

number of words formed by the process of onomatopoieia. Thus, to
take a few examples, we have the expressive verb to “scroop,”
meaning to creak, or grate, as a door does on rusty hinges; and
again the word “hooi,” applied to the wind whistling round a corner,
or through the key-hole, making the sound correspond to the sense.
It exactly represents the harsh creaking, as the Latin susurrus and
the ψιθύρισμα of Theocritus reflect the whisperings of the wind in the
pines and poplars, resembling, as Tennyson says, “a noise of falling
showers.” Again, such words as “clocking,” “gloxing,” applied to
falling, gurgling water; “grizing,” and “snaggling,” said of a dog
snarling; “whittering,” or “whickering”—exactly equivalent to the
German wiehern—of a young colt’s neighing; “belloking,” of a cow’s
lowing—are all here commonly used, and are similarly formed. Names
of animals take their origin in the same way. The wry-neck, called the
“barley-bird” in Wiltshire, and the “cuckoo’s mate” and “messenger”
elsewhere, is in the Forest known as the “weet-bird,” from its peculiar
cry of “weet;” which it will repeat at short intervals for an hour
together. So, too, the common green woodpecker is here, as 187
is in some other parts of England, called, from its loud shrill
laugh, the “yaffingale.” The goat-sucker, too, is the “jar-bird,” so
known from its jarring noise, which has made the Welsh peasant
name it the “wheel-bird” (aderyn y droell), and the Warwickshire the
“spinning-jenny.” In fact, a large number of birds in every language
are thus called, and to this day in the cry of the peacock we may
plainly hear its Greek name, ταῶς.

Of course, we must be on our guard against adopting the

onomatopoëtic theory as altogether explaining the origin of language.
Within, however, certain limits, especially with a peculiar class of
[228]
provincialisms, it gives us, as here, true aid.

Again, as an example of phrases used by our Elizabethan poets,

preserved only by our peasantry, though in good use in America, take
the word “bottom,” so common throughout the Forest, meaning a
valley, glen, or glade. Beaumont and Fletcher and Shakspeare
frequently employ it. Even Milton, in Paradise Regained, says—
 “But cottage, herd, or sheepcote, none he saw,
Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove.”
(Book ii. 289.)

In his Comus, too, we find him using the compound “bottom-glade,”

just as the Americans speak to this day of the “bottom-lands” of the
Ohio, and our own peasants of Slufter Bottom, and Longslade
Bottom, in the New Forest.

“Heft,” too, is another similar instance of an Old-English word in good

use in America and to be found in the best American authors, but
here in England only employed by our rustics. To “heft” (from 188
hebban, with the inflexions, hefest, “hefð,” still used), signifies
to lift, with the implied meaning of weighing. So, “to heft the bee-
pots,” is to lift them in order to feel how much honey they contain.
The substantive “heft” is used for weight, as, “the heft of the
branches.”

Again, also, the good Old-English word “loute” (lutan), to bend, bow,
and so to touch the hat, to be heard every day in the Forest, though
nearly forgotten elsewhere in England, may be found in Longfellow’s
Children of the Lord’s Supper:—

“as oft as they named the Redeemer,

Lowly louted the boys, and lowly the maidens all courtesied.”

In fact, one-half of the words which are considered Americanisms are

good Old-English words, which we have been foolish enough to
discard.

Let us now take another class of words, which will help to explain
difficult or corrupt passages in our poets. There is, for instance, the
[229]
word “bugle” (buculus), meaning an ox (used, as Mr. Wedgwood
notices, in Deut. xiv. in the Bible, 1551), which is forgotten even by
the peasantry, and only to be seen, as at Lymington and elsewhere,
on a few inn-signs, with a picture sometimes of a cow, by way of
explanation. I have more than once thought, that when Rosalind, in
As You Like It (Act iii., sc. 5), speaks of Phœbe’s “bugle eyeballs,” she
means not merely her sparkling eyes, as the notes say, but rather her
large, expressive eyes, in the sense in which Homer calls Herê
βοῶπις.

To give another illustration of the value of provincialisms in 189

such cases, let us take the word “bumble,” which not only in
the New Forest means, in its onomatopoëtic sense, to buzz, hum, or
boom, as in the common proverb, “to bumble like a bee in a tar-tub,”
and as Chaucer says, in The Wife of Bath’s Tale—

“A bytoure bumbleth in the myre,”

but is also used of people stumbling or halting. Probably, in The

Merry Wives of Windsor (Act iii., sc. 3), in the passage which has
been of such difficulty to the commentators, where Mrs. Ford says to
the servants, who are carrying Falstaffe in the buck-basket—“Look,
how you drumble,” which has no meaning at all, we should, instead,
read this word. It, at all events, not only conveys good sense, but is
the exact kind of word which the passage seems to expect.

Again, the compound “thiller-horse,” from the Old-English “þill,” a

beam or shaft, and so, literally, the shaft-horse, which we find in
Shakspeare under the form of “thill-horse” (Merchant of Venice, Act
ii., sc. 2), is here commonly used.

Then there are other forms among provincialisms which give such an
insight into the formation of language, and show the common mind
[230]
of the human race. Thus, take the word “three-cunning,” to be
heard every day in the Forest, where three has the signification of
intensity, just as the Greek τρίς in composition in the compounds
τρίσμακαρ, τρισάθλιος, and other forms. So, too, the missel-thrush is
called the “bull-thrush,” with the meaning of size attached to the
word, as it is more commonly to our own “horse,” and the Greek
ἵππος, and the Old-English hrefen, raven, in composition.
As might be expected, from what we have seen of the 190
population of the Forest, the Romance element in its
provincialisms is very small. Some few words, such as “merry,” for a
cherry; “fogey,” for passionate; “futy,” for foolish; “rue,” for a hedge;
“glutch,” to stifle a sob—have crept in, besides such Forest terms as
verderer, regarder, agister, agistment, &c., but the majority are
Teutonic. Old-English inflexions, too, still remain. Such plurals as
placen, housen, peasen, gripen, fuzzen, ashen, and hosen, as we find
in Daniel, ch. iii. v. 21; such perfects as crope, from creep; lod, from
lead; fotch, from fetch; and such phrases as “thissum” (“þissum”),
and “thic” for that, are daily to be heard.

Let us, for instance, take the adjective vinney, evidently from the Old-
English finie, signifying, in the first place, mouldy; and, since mould is
generally blue or purplish, having gradually attached to it the
signification of colour. Thus we find the mouldy cheese not only
named “vinney,” but a roan heifer called a “vinney heifer.” The most
singular part, however, as exemplifying the changes of words,
remains to be told. Since cheese, from its colour, was called “vinney,”
the word was applied to some particular cheese, which was mouldier
and bluer than others, and the adjective was thus changed into a
substantive. And we now have “vinney,” and the tautology, “blue
vinney,” as the names of a particular kind of cheese as distinguished
[231]
from the other local cheeses, known as “ommary” and “rammel.”

So also with the word “charm,” or rather “churm,” signifying, in the

first place, noise or disturbance, from the Old-English cyrm. We meet
it every day in the common Forest proverb, “Like a swarm of 191
bees all in a churm,” whilst the fowlers on the coast talk also
of the wild ducks “being in a churm,” when they are in confusion,
flapping their wings before they settle or rise. We find it, too, in the
old Wiltshire song of the “Owl’s Mishap,” to be sometimes heard on
the northern borders of the Forest:—

“At last a hunted zo ver away,

That the zun kum peping auver the hills,
 And the burds wakin up they did un espy,
And wur arl in a churm az un whetted their bills.”

The word was doubtless in the first place an onomatopoieia, denoting

the humming, buzzing sound of wings. Since, however, it was
particularly connected with birds, it seems to have been used in the
sense of music and song by our Elizabethan poets, and by Milton.
Thus:—

“Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet

With charm of earliest birds.”
(Paradise Lost, Book iv. 642.)

And again:—

“Morn when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds.”
(Paradise Lost, Book iv. 651.)

Here, however, in the New Forest, we find the original signification of

the word preserved.

Let us further notice one or two more words, which are used by
Milton and his contemporaries, and even much later, but which are
now found in the Forest, and doubtless elsewhere, as mere
provincialisms. Thus, though we do not meet his “tale,” in the sense
of number, as in L’Allegro,—

“And every shepherd tells his tale,

Under the hawthorn in the dale;”

—that is, number of sheep: we find its allied word “toll,” to 192
count. “I toll ten cows,” is no very uncommon expression.
Then, too, we have the word “tole,” used, as I believe it still is in
America, of enticing animals, and thus metaphorically applied to
other matters. So, in this last sense, Milton speaks of the title of a
[232]
book, “Hung out like a toling sign-post to call passengers.”
Again, too, the bat is here called “rere-mouse” (from the Old-English
hrere-mus, from hreran to flutter, literally the fluttering mouse, the
[233]
exact equivalent of the German Flitter-maus ), with its varieties
[234]
rennie-mouse and reiny-mouse, whilst the adjective “rere” is
sometimes used, as in Wiltshire, for raw. On the other hand, the
word fliddermouse, or, as in the eastern division of Sussex,
flindermouse (from the High-German fledermaus), does not, to my
knowledge, occur. In the Midland counties it is often known as
“leathern wings” (compare ledermus); and thus, Shakspeare, with his
large vocabulary, using up every phrase and metaphor which he ever
met, makes Titania say of her fairies:—

“Some war with rear-mice for their leathern wings.”

(Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii., sc. 3.)

To take a few words common, not only to the New Forest, but to
various parts of the West of England, we shall see how strong is the
Old-English element here in the common speech. The housewife still
baits (betan, literally to repair, and so, when joined with fyr, 193
to light) the fire, and on cold days makes it blissy (connected
with blysa, a torch). The crow-boy in the spring sets up a gally-
bagger (gælan, in its last meaning to terrify), instead of the “maukin”
of the north, to frighten away the birds from the seed; and the
shepherd still tends his chilver-lamb (cilferlamb) in the barton (bere
tun, literally the barley enclosure). The labourer still sits under the
lew (hleow, or “hleowð,” shelter, warmth) of the hedge, which he has
been ethering (“eðer,” a hedge); and drives the stout (stut, a gadfly)
away from his horses; and feels himself lear (lærnes, emptiness),
before he eats his nammit (nón-mete), or his dew-bit (deaw-bite).

If we will only open our Bible we shall there find many an old word
which could be better explained by the Forest peasants than any one
else. Here the ploughman still talks of his “dredge,” or rather
“drudge,” that is, oats mixed with barley, just as we find the word
used in the marginal reading of Job xxiv. v. 6. Here, too, as in Amos
(chap. iv., v. 9), and other places, the caterpillar is called the “palmer-
worm.” Here, also, as in other parts of England, the word “lease,”
from the Old-English lesan, is far commoner than glean, and is used
just as we find it in Wycliffe’s Bible, Lev. xix., 10:—“In thi vyneyeerd
the reysonus and cornes fallynge down thou shalt not gedere, but to
pore men and pilgrimes to ben lesid thou shalt leeve.” The
goatsucker is known, as we have seen, not only as the “jar-bird,” but
as the “night-hawk,” as in Leviticus (chap. xi., v. 16) and
Deuteronomy (chap. xiv., v. 15); and also the “night-crow,” as we find
it called in Barker’s Bible (1616) in the same passages. So also the
word “mote,” in the well-known passage in St. Matthew (chap. viii., v.
3), is not here obsolete. The peasant in the Forest speaks of the
“motes,” that is, the stumps and roots of trees, in opposition to the
smaller “mores,” applied also to the fibres of ferns and furze, 194
whilst the sailor on the coast calls the former “mootes,” when
[235]
he dredges them up in the Channel.

With this I must stop. I will only add that the study of the West
Saxon dialect in the counties of Hants, Wilts, and Dorset, is all-
important. As we go westward we shall find it less pure, and more
mixed with Keltic. As is well known, the Britons lived with the Old-
English in perfect harmony in Exeter. Their traces remain there to this
day. In these three counties, therefore, are the most perfect
specimens of the West-Saxon dialect to be found. Mr. Thorpe has
noticed in the Old-English text of Orosius, which is now generally
ascribed to Alfred, the change of a into o and o into a, and also the
[236]
same peculiarity in Alfred’s Boethius. This we have already, in the
last chapter, seen to be purely West-Saxon. I have no doubt whatever
that at even the present day it is not too late to find other points of
similarity, and make still clearer the West-Saxon origin of the Corpus
[237]
Christi manuscript of the Chronicle, and how far even Alfred and
St. Swithin contributed to its pages. These are difficult questions; but
I feel sure that much additional light can even yet be 195
obtained. Sound criticism would show as much difference
between our local dialects, whether even Anglian, or South, or West-
Saxon, as between the Doric and Attic of Greece. I have dealt only
with the broader features of the Old-English tongue, as it is still
spoken in the Forest. Enough, however, I trust, has been shown of
the value of provincialisms, even when collected over so limited a
space. Everywhere in England we shall find Teutonic words, which
are not so much the mould into which all other forms have been cast,
as the living germ of our language. Mixed and imbedded with these,
as we have also seen, we shall meet Keltic and Romance, by both of
which our language has been so influenced and modified. Let us not
be ashamed to collect them; for by them we may explain not only
obscure passages in our old authors, but doubtful points in our very
history.
Bushey Bratley (Another View).

196
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BARROWS.
 The Urns in Bratley Barrow.

It is much to be regretted that Sir Walter Scott has left no account of

his excavations of various barrows in the Forest. However little we
may be able to determine by the evidence, or however conjectural
the inferences which we may draw, there will, at least, be this 197
value to this chapter, that it will put on record facts which
otherwise could not be known.

The barrows lie scattered all over the Forest, and are known to the
Foresters by the name of “butts,” some of the largest being
distinguished by local appellations. As in other parts of England, and
as in France, superstition connects them with the fairies; and so we
find on Beaulieu Plain two mounds known as the Pixey’s Cave and
Laurence’s Barrow.

My own excavations have been entirely confined to the Keltic barrows

[238]
in the northern part of the Forest. But we will first of all 198
take those on Sway and Shirley Commons, opened by Warner.
[239]
The largest stands a little to the east of Shirley Holms, close to
Fetmoor Pond, measuring about a hundred yards in circumference,
and surrounded by three smaller mounds varying from thirty to fifty
yards, and two more nearly indistinct. These two last are, I suspect,
those opened by Warner, where, after piercing the mound, he found
on the natural soil a layer of burnt earth mixed with charcoal, and
below this, at the depth of two feet, a small coarse urn with “an
[240]
inverted brim,” containing ashes and calcined bones.

Some more lie to the northward, and are distinguished by being

trenched. Two of these also were opened by Warner, but he failed to
discover anything beyond charcoal and burnt earth.

His opinion was that these last belonged to the West-Saxons and the
former to the Kelts, who were slain defending their country against
Cerdic. So large a generalization, however, requires far stronger
evidence than can at present be produced.

Warner, too, is besides wrong in much of his criticism, such as that

the Teutonic nations never practised urn-burial; whilst the banks in
which he sees fortifications may be only the embankments within
which dwelt a British population.

Still there is some probability about the conjecture. A little farther

down the Brockenhurst stream are Ambrose Hole and Ampress Farm,
both names unmistakeably referring to Ambrosius Aurelianus, or
Natan-Leod, who led the Britons against their invaders. Nearer 199
[241]
Lymington, too, stands Buckland Rings, a Roman camp,
with its south and north sides still nearly perfect, to which, perhaps,
Natan-Leod fell back from Calshot.

All this, however, must be accepted as mere conjecture. A more

critical examination of these barrows is still wanting.

Close to them, however, lies Latchmoor or Lichmoor Pond, the moor

of corpses, a name which we meet again a little to the westward in
Latchmoor Water, which flows by Ashley Common. The words are
noticeable, and in connection with Darrat’s (Dane-rout) stream, which
[242]
is also not far distant may point to a very different invasion.

And now we will pass to the barrows which I have opened. The first
are situated on Bratley Plain, as the name shows, a wide heath,
marked only by a few hollies and the undulations of the scattered
mounds. The largest barrow lies close to the sixth milestone 200
on the Ringwood Road. In a straight line to the north, at the
distance of a quarter of a mile apart, rise three others, whilst round it
on the east side lie a quantity of small circles, so low as hardly to be
discernible when the heather is in bloom. An irregularly shaped oval,
it rose in the centre to a height of nearly six feet above the ground,
measuring sixteen yards in breadth, and twenty-two in length, with a
circumference of from sixty to sixty-five. On the south side was a
depression from whence the gravel had been obtained. We first cut a
trench two yards broad, so as to take the centre, and at about two
feet and a half from the surface came upon traces of charcoal, which
increased till we reached the floor. A few round stones, probably, as
they bore some slight artificial marks, used for slinging, and the flake
of, perhaps, a flint knife, were the only things found, and were all
placed on the south side. We now cut the mound from east to west,
and on the east side, resting on the floor, we discovered the remains
of a Keltic urn. The parts were, however, in a most fragile state, and
in some instances had resolved themselves into mere clay, and we
could only obtain two small fragments, sufficient to show the
coarseness and extreme early age of the ware. No charcoal nor
osseous matter could be detected adhering to the sides, which, as we
shall see, is generally the case.

Round it, as was stated, lie a quantity of small grave-circles, varying

from twenty-five to ten yards in circumference, and scarcely better
defined than fairy-rings. Two of these I opened, and they
corresponded with the mounds on Sway Common examined by
Warner, in having a grave about three feet deep, in which we found
only charcoal. This was, however, the only point of resemblance, as
they had no mound, and contained no urn. One fact is worth
noticing, that they were dug in a remarkably hard gravelly 201
soil, so hard that the labourers made very slow progress even
with their pick-axes. I did not excavate any more, as they were all
evidently of the same character. The choice of such a soil, especially
with the instruments they possessed, may, perhaps, show the
importance which the Britons attached to the rite of burial.

About a quarter of a mile, or rather less, from this great graveyard

lay a solitary mound, two feet and a half in height, having a
circumference of twenty-seven feet, a very common measurement,
but without any trench. Upon digging into it on the east side we
quickly came, about four inches from the surface, upon a patch of
charcoal and burnt earth. Proceeding farther, we reached two well-
defined layers of charcoal, the uppermost two feet from the top of
the barrow. A band of red burnt earth, measuring five inches,
separated these two beds, in both of which in places appeared white
spots and patches of limy matter, the remains of calcined bones. In
the centre, as shown in the illustration, we found a Keltic urn.
Imbedded in a fine white burnt clay, which had hardened, placed with
its mouth uppermost, and ornamented with a rough cable-moulding,
and two small ears, it stood on the level of the natural soil, rising to
within sixteen inches of the top of the mound.

Digging on both sides, we discovered two more urns imbedded in the

same hard white sandy clay, so hard that it had to be scraped away
with knives. Like the first, they were made by hand, and when
exposed quite shone with a bright vermilion, which quickly changed
to a dull grey. The paste, however, was a light yellow, mixed with
coarse gritty sand. And the three were placed, as shown by the
compass, exactly due north-east and south-west.

A plain moulding ran round the south-west urn, which was 202
considerably smaller and not so well baked as the other two,
and had very much fallen to pieces from natural decay. This was
placed eight inches lower than the central urn.

The northernmost was the same size as the central, though differing
from it in the contraction of the rim, and when discovered was
perfectly whole, but was unfortunately fractured by being separated
from a large furze root, which had completely twined round the upper
part. It, too, was placed on a lower level, by four inches, than the
central urn. The two extreme urns were exactly five feet apart, and
the interiors of them all were blackened by the carbon from the
charcoal, burnt earth, and bones, which they contained.

Looking at their rude forms and large size, their straight sides, their
wide mouths, the thickness, and the rough gritty texture of the paste,
[243]
the absence of nearly all ornamentation, and, with the
exception, perhaps, of a slinging stone, of all weapons, we shall not
be wrong in dating them as long anterior to the Roman invasion—
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