Charles Hardwick

“ He says—"Amongst those opinions which are produced by a little knowledge, to be dispelled by a little more, is the belief in the almost boundless creative power in the human imagination. The superficial student, mazed in a crowd of seemingly wild and lawless fancies, which he thinks to have no reason in nature nor pattern in the material world, at first concludes them to be new births from the imagination of the poet, the tale-teller, and the seer. ”

“ Christian priests were again slain at the altar by worshippers of Woden, for the Danes were still heathen. Letters, arts, religion, governments disappeared before these Northmen as before the Northmen of old. But when the wild burst of the storm was over, land, people, government reappeared unchanged. England still remained England; the Danes sank quietly into the mass of those around them; and Woden yielded without a struggle to Christ. The secret of this difference between the two invasions was that the battle was no longer between men of different races. ”

“ But, though there were many battles in that dreary time, and many Arthurs, it was rather in the every day battle of life, in that long unceasing struggle which race wages with race, not sword in hand alone, but by brain and will and feeling, that the Saxons won the mastery of the land. ”

“ It is a recognised element in popular tradition or folk-lore, that the deeds of one historic or mythological hero are sure, when he is forgotten, to be attributed to some other man of mark, who, for the time being, fills the popular fancy. I am, therefore, inclined to think that the imaginary victories of Arthur on the continent of Europe in the sixth century, as recorded in Geoffrey's tenth book, owe their origin mainly to the real ones of Karl der Gross in the ninth. ”

“ It is, perhaps, necessary that some attempt should be made to determine the cause or causes why the site of so important a victory, celebrated in the finest extant short poem in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and so important in its political results, should have become lost both to the history and tradition of the English victors. ”

“ The Arthur of romance is, in fact, the artistic creation of writers of a later age, or, indeed, of later ages, than the conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, and not of contemporary historians, bardic or otherwise. ”

“ Jacob Grimm says (Deutsche Mythologie) —"A people whose faith is falling to pieces will save here and there a fragment of it, by fixing it on a new and unpersecuted object of veneration."
It appears, therefore, that the Winwick monster, in this respect, is but an apt illustration of ordinary mythological transference of attributes or emblems, which in no way invalidates the more remote origin to which I have ascribed it, or its connection with the totem or beast symbol of the heathen warrior. The boar, indeed, has been a sacred symbol for ages amongst the Aryan nations. ”

“ Fiske says, "the Charlemagne of romance is a mythical personage. He is supposed to be a Frenchman at a time when neither the French nation nor the French language can properly be said to have existed; and he is represented as a doughty crusader, although crusading was not thought of until long after the Karolingian era. He is a myth, and what is more he is a solar myth—an avatar, or at least a representative of Odin in his solar capacity. If in his case legend were not controlled by history, he would be for us as unreal as Agamemnon.... ”

“ At length the tremendous struggle, which lasted throughout the day, was brought to a close by Turketal chasing the Scots from the battle-field, and turning Anlaf's flank. Immense slaughter ensued; the enemy's ranks began rapidly to thin; the English shouted "victory!" and Athelstan, profiting by the auspicious opportunity, ordered his banner to the front, and by a determined and well-directed onslaught, broke the enemy's now enfeebled ranks. They fled in various directions, and, according to Egil's saga, "the plain was filled with their bodies." ”

“ Charles Elton ("Origins of English History,") says—"The names of several tribes, or the legends of their origin, show that an animal, or some other real or imaginary object, was chosen as a crest or emblem, and was probably regarded with a superstitious veneration. A powerful family or tribe would feign to be descended from a swan or a water-maiden, or a 'white lady,' who rose from the moon-beams on the lake. The moon herself was claimed as the ancestress of certain families. The legendary heroes are turned into 'swan-knights,' or fly away in the form of wild-geese. ”

“ The thunder was the bellowing of a mighty beast or the rolling of a wagon. The lightning was a sinuous serpent, or a spear shot straight athwart the sky, or a fish darting in zigzags through the waters of heaven. The stormy winds were howling dogs or wolves; the ravages of the whirlwind that tore up the earth were the work of a wild boar." [27] Mr. Fiske, in his "Myths and [Pg 109] Myth-makers," says that these mythical monsters "not only steal the daylight, but they parch the earth and wither the fruits, and they slay vegetation during the winter months." ”

“ He says—"Where the historian, bound by an oath to the severest truth in every single statement, can, at the most, only permit us to divine the causes of events and the motives of actions from the bare narration of facts, the poet, who seeks to draw from these facts only a general moral truth, and not one of facts, unites by poetic fiction the action and actors in a distinct living relation of cause and effect. ”

“ But little by little, in what seemed the most spontaneous fiction, a more comprehensive study of the source of poetry and romance begins to disclose a cause for each fancy, an education that has led up to each train of thought, a store of inherited materials from out of which each province of the poet's land has been shaped and built over and peopled. ”

“ The most credulous writer, he that has the greatest passion for the marvellous, while he falsifies the history of his contemporaries, paints their manners of life and modes of thinking without perceiving it. His simplicity, his ignorance, are at once pledges of the artless truth of his drawing, and a warning to distrust that of his relations. ”

“ In addition, the magnificent scenery by which it is surrounded, in which grandeur and beauty are seen in the most harmonious combination, the interesting archæological remains, and the numerous other historic associations of the neighbourhood, including those connected with Whalley Abbey, Clitheroe Castle, Mytton, and Stonyhurst, give an interest to the locality which is denied to the sites of many battle-fields, the names of which have become "household words," not merely with one nation or people, but with all the so-called civilised section of mankind. ”

“ While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbued,
And Dunbar field resound thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than War; new foes arise
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.
The number of the troops engaged in this short but brilliant campaign is stated variously by different authorities. ”

“ So when we have found out the excessive freedom which Turner allowed himself; when we have discovered that he is not to be trusted for the representation of any object, however important—that his chiaroscuro, though effective is arbitrary, and his colour though brilliant is false; when we have quite satisfied ourselves, in a word, that he is a poet, and not an architectural draughtsman, or an imitator of nature, is that a reason why we should not enjoy the poems? ”

“ The battle-fields and all authentic record of the battles themselves amongst the inhabitants of Britain prior to the Roman conquest are, of course, utterly lost in the gloom of the past. Nay, we know, with certainty, very few even of the sites of the struggles of the Britons with the victorious Roman legions. The locality we now denominate Lancashire was, at that time, inhabited by the Volantii and the Sistuntii, Setantii, or Segantii, and was included in the "country of the Brigantes," a numerous and warlike tribe which frequently "measured blades" with the imperial troops. ”

“ He adds—"After the battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan had no competitor; he was the immediate Sovereign of all England. He was even nominal lord of Wales and Scotland." This seems to be the true solution of the query.
It is a most remarkable circumstance that the site of this great victory, notwithstanding the magnitude of the contending armies and the importance of its political and social results, was, until recently, at least, absolutely unknown, and it cannot yet be said that the true locality [Pg 181] has been demonstrated with sufficient clearness to entirely remove all doubt. ”

“ But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl,
Is like a word that comes from olden days,
And passes thro' the peoples: every tongue
Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks
Quite other than at first.
Nennius speaks of a tenth battle fought and won by Arthur on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit, or Ribroit. This has been identified by commentators as the Brue, in Somersetshire, and the Ribble, in Lancashire; but the evidence advanced is not very conclusive in favour of either locality. Mr. Haigh prefers Trefdraeth, in the island of Anglesea, as the place indicated. ”

“ E. Baines says—"The well in that country is a spring and not a fosse, as described by Bede, and is as the well at Winwick," and he regards this feature as additional evidence in favour of the presumed Lancashire site of the battle. The saint's well is not, however, of much value, as Bede makes no mention of any spring, natural or otherwise, and wells dedicated to saints in the "olden time," are common all over the country. Indeed, there is a natural spring near the main highway about a mile to the north of Winwick Church, which is likewise called St. Oswald's well. ”

“ Lancashire is not referred to as a county till the middle of the twelfth century. The name is never mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As we find the "Lands between the Ribble and the Mersey" are surveyed with those of Cheshire, in the Domesday book, it seems highly probable that they formed a part of Leofric's earldom of Mercia, at the time of the Norman conquest. Consequently it is to the latter and not to the earlier portion of the Anglo-Saxon period that the Ribble formed the southern boundary of the earldom of Northumbria, rather than of the earlier independent kingdom. ”

“ Baines gives no authority whatever for this astounding statement. He evidently merely repeats a well-known local tradition. It would have been worth the while of a local historian, one would think, to have made some enquiry as to the history of the edifice at Bury during the century which had elapsed between Leland's reference to it, and the redoubtable exploit of the Parliamentary army in 1644. The earliest authentic record of the castle is no older than the reign of Henry VIII., but from the very nature of the record it must have been in existence for a long time previously. ”

“ There may undoubtedly have existed, nay, there probably did exist, a British chieftain who fought against Teutonic invaders during some portion of the two or three centuries occupied in the Anglo-Saxon conquest, whose name was Arthur, but his deeds, whatever may have been their extent or character, have been so exaggerated and interwoven with far more ancient mythical stories, and confounded with those of other warriors, that his individuality or personality, in a truly historical sense, is apparently lost. ”

“ From these remains it is not improbable some of the struggles of the Brigantes with the imperial legions took place in these localities, or they may have been ordinary burial places of distinguished chieftains and their relatives.
After the departure of the Roman legions and their attendant auxiliaries, history becomes inextricably allied to, and interwoven with, legend and romance. The marvellous narratives of the elder "historians," such as Gildas, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, may have some substratum of fact underlying an immense mass of tradition, superstition, and artistic fiction. ”

“ Either the novel becomes pure cram, a dictionary of antiquities dissolved in a thin solution of romance, or, which is generally more refreshing, it takes leave of accuracy altogether and simply takes the plot and the costumes from history, but allows us to feel that genuine moderns are masquerading in the dress of a bygone century. ”

“ At first sight there appears something singularly exceptionable in the fact. But a closer inspection of the details of what may be termed the Anglo-Saxon period of conflict with their Scandinavian enemies, Danish, Norwegian, or Norman-French, soon removes this impression, the sites of many other, almost equally important struggles, and notoriously some of those in which the Great Alfred was engaged, having been subjected to similar doubt, if not oblivion. ”

“ A crowd of ghastly monarchs pass swiftly along the page of history as we gaze, and scarcely was the sword of the assassin sheathed before it was drawn against its master, and he was carried to the sepulchre which he had just closed upon another. ”

“ In the labours and wars of these heroes we saw the labours and wars and struggles of the city kingdom, but lit with the lustre of divinity which shone forth from the age of the gods and clothed with its brightness the characters in the heroic age. ”

“ The land is now England; the Britons themselves, though still strong in many parts of the country, have been generally worsted by their foes; they have lost that great battle which has [Pg 16] lasted through three centuries. Their Arthur has come and gone, never again to turn the heady fight. Henceforth Britain has no hero, and merely consoles herself with the hope that he will one day rise and restore the fortunes of his race. ”

“ Consequently, from this period, the great mass of the men of Scandinavian blood in Northumbria must be regarded rather in the light of emigrants or settlers than roving pirates, although, doubtless, with them the sword was always ready to supersede the ploughshare whenever the arrival of a fleet of their buccaneering relatives on the coast afforded an opportunity for a successful foray on the lands of their Anglo-Saxon neighbours. ”

“ The Arthur of History and Legend. King Arthur's presumed Victories on the Douglas, near Wigan and Blackrod.
Historical works are chiefly records of battles, squabbles and intrigues of diplomatists and politicians. More details now required as to the domestic habits and conditions of the people, and the degree and kind of intellectual and moral culture which obtained at any given period of their history. Progress of man from the savage to a more civilized condition. Records of many battles survive, the sites of which are either unknown or involved in the greatest obscurity. ”

“ And through remote periods, as we recede more nearly towards primitive conditions of our race, the threads which connect new thought with old do not always vanish from our sight. It is in large measure possible to follow them as clues leading back to that actual experience of nature and life which is the ultimate source of human fancy. ”

“ The flood waters of the Ribble have occasionally dislodged human bones, including skulls, from the banks, and these are almost universally, if somewhat vaguely, associated with "Scotch warriors," but without any definite notion as to the period or cause of their presence in the neighbourhood. I remember, many years ago, suggesting to a very old man employed on a rope-walk near the south bank of the river, that, as a number of English, including some Lancashire men, were slain in the great battle in 1648, it was possible a portion of the bones might belong to them. ”

“ He says—"Penda and upwards of thirty of his principal officers were drowned in their flight, having been driven into the river Winweyde, the waters of which were at that time much swollen by heavy rains. There is no stream in England which is more liable to be suddenly flooded than the stream which joins the [Pg 97] Mersey below Winwick [23] , and there both the resemblance of the names, and the probability of the fact, induce me to think that Penda met with his death within two or three miles of the place at which Oswald had fallen." ”

“ Geoffrey, or his Breton [Pg 43] authority, had three centuries of tradition to fall back upon, time amply sufficient for mediæval myth makers and romance writers to torture them to their own purposes. Instances of this re-crystallisation of several stories, mythical and otherwise, around the name of a single hero, by the vulgar, may be found in relatively modern history. There is, in the region of traditional lore, in various parts of England, a mythical Cromwell, as well as the two well-known historical personages of that name. ”