The Danes introduced much of that elfin mythology which still lingers in Wensleydale. Independently of the Gods of Valhalla, the northern paradise, the Scandinavians acknowledged a multitude of inferior, but still supernatural beings. Heaven, according to their creed, consisted of several cities, and in one of these we find the Light or White Alfs, who are more luminous than the sun; opposed to them were the Black Alfs, who were dark as pitch, and inhabited the forest or the depths of the earth." Besides these were the Nornir, or Destinies, living also under the ash tree, Ydrasil, whose branches extend over the whole universe, whose stem bears up the earth, and whose three roots stretch respectively amongst the Gods, the Frost Giants, and over Niffelheim. Beneath the last is the fountain Hvergelmer, from which flow the infernal rivers; here lies also the serpent king Nedlögg, who is continually gnawing at the root. Under the root in the Giants' land is a well belonging to Mimer, in which all wisdom and prudence are hidden; and under the root of the Aser, is the well of Urda, where the gods sit in judgment. Near Urda's well stands a fair building, from whence issue the three maidens called Nornir; Udr, the Past; Verthandi, the Present; and Skulld, the Future. These maidens appoint the time that all men have to live. They take water each day from the well and pour it upon the Ash, lest its branches should wither. The dew which falls from Ydrasil, is honeydew, on which bees love to feed. To know the destinies of the universe was given to the Nornir alone, whom the gods themselves, having only dim forebodings of their own fortunes, frequently consulted. In addition, however, 'Skrattafell,' means the mountain haunted by demons, which will show, that the common people of the North are right in their pronunciation of the name of a certain being which their betters have perverted into "Scratch." (Hist. Craven, p. 491.) Keld, very frequent in old perambulations, signifies the cold summit of a hill; and Car, a pool. Harrison, in his Description of Britain, 1577, says— 'Helbeck is so called because it riseth in the derne and elenge hills." Both Chancer and Piers Plowman, two centuries before, used elenge in the sense of 'dreary or comfortless.' Thwaite signifies a division or separate district.

to these, were many other Nornir, who fulfilled the same functions, being some of celestial origin, others descended from the Alfs, and others again from the Dwarfs, as we are told in these verses:

"Sundry children deem I, the Nornir to be,

The same race they have not,

Some are of Æser kin,

Some are of Alf kin,

Some are the daughters of Dualin."

The Alfs are decidedly the English Fairies, known in some parts as the "Underground People," amongst whom are included besides Elves; Thusses, Teutones, Nisses, Huldras, and all the Duergar. One class are undistinguished by any popular appellation; they are represented as being uniformly kind and gentle, but sad and mournful, as if uncertain of their future immortality. Afzelius says this myth arose "from the sympathy of the people with their forefathers, who, having died before the introduction of Christianity into the north, were laid in unhallowed ground, and were hence believed to wander in the spirit about their place of sepulture, or in the lower regions of air, till the day of judgment. They may be occasionally heard in the summer nights singing from the bosom of the hills, but if the listener breathes a word that may dash their lingering hopes of redemption, their song is on the instant changed to wailing." Such were the illusions in which both Saxons and Danes believed prior to their conversion.

During the greatest part of the Saxon era, Wensleydale seems to have been included in the vast parish of Catteric; but prior to the Conquest, a subdivision had taken place. In Domesday we find only two churches named,Thornton Steward and Spennithorne (Speningtorp); but we must not suppose from this that there were no others in the dale. On the contrary, considering the richness of the valley, its large population, and the devout

piety of our Catholic Saxon ancestors, we may be certain ample arrangements would be made, that not only on Sundays and Holidays of Obligation, but daily, also, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass might be offered up in a becoming manner. These churches and chapels were soon to be destroyed. The mild and polished Saxon rule gave place to Norman tyranny, which raged with fearful fury through the North. (1)

In the year 1070, William the Conqueror, at the head of a formidable army, ravaged the whole country, "never ceasing to kill men, and to do all the mischief possible." In this beautiful and fruitful valley, as elsewhere, "men

(1) It may prove not uninteresting to ask "Who were the Normans?" The following paragraph is curious, but yet true; hence I give it, though myself of Norman as well as of ancient Saxon lineage.

"The period from which the English aristocracy dates its origin, is that of the Norman Conquest. Aristocracy, indeed, there was in the country before, but that was annihilated by the Normans; and this epoch is the vaunted birth-day of our nobility. There is nothing of which we hear so much as of the pride of a descent from these first Norman nobles; of the pure and immaculate blood derived from this long descent. We will take the trouble to refer to the histories of the time, and show what these Norman conquerors really were. They were not, in fact, one half of them, what they are pretended to beNormans; but collected by proclamation, and by lavish promises of sharing in the plunder of conquered England-vultures from every wind of heaven rushing to the field of British carnage. The great vultures fleshed themselves to the throat with the first spoil, and returned home, while their places were obliged to be repeatedly supplied, through renewed proclamations, and renewed offers of the plunder of the Anglo-Saxons. Again we shall come to the curious question, who the Normans actually were? Who actually they were who actually were Normans? Our nobles, forsooth, are descended from the gallant and chivalrous Normans. They will be descended from them and them alone. There is not a soul of them that will claim the honour of descent from the Danes. Oh no! The barbarous and bloody Danes, they are a scandal and an abomination! They are thieves, pirates, plunderers, and savages. Nobody is descended from them, except some plebeians in the North of England, and except that the rabble rout of the common people are contaminated with their blood. And yet, who are the Normans? Why the Danes!-Yes, the aristocracy of England are descended from the Danes! They are the legitimate issue of this bloody and barbarous people that nobody wishes to acknowledge as ancestors. The Danes, driven from England, fell on the shores of France, and, amid the distractions of that kingdom, laid Paris in ashes, and siezed on that district which thence received from these Northmenner or Normans, its name of Normandy. Here, though settled too comfortably for deserts, they never ceased to keep an eye on

were fain to eat horseflesh, cats, dogs, and men's flesh, for all the land that lay betwixt Durham and York, lay waste without inhabitants, and people to till the ground, for the space of nine years." One hundred thousand human lives perished. (1) Domesday Book, which was compiled between 1083 and 1085, gives us a startling idea of the sufferings of Wensleydale. Out of more than thirty manors and villages which were flourishing in the reign of St. Edward the Confessor, all lay waste except seven, namely, Thornton Steward, Danby, Spennithorne, Harmby, Witton, Aysgarth, and Swinithwaite; and these were but recovering, although thirteen years had elapsed. No public mill is named; a clear evidence of desolation. Most of the villages were afterwards rebuilt, but many never rose from their ashes. We know nothing of them save that they are recorded in the Survey.

William, who, when pursuing gratification thought little of destroying churches, and in making the New Forest, in Hampshire, demolished thirty-six, exclusive of chapels, besides one hundred and eight manors and villages, would care nothing for those of Wensleydale, itself destined afterwards to become a royal forest. (2) On the far richer prize of England, from which, for their cruelties and fiery devastations, they had been settled about two centuries in France; and though they had acquired a considerable degree of external civilization, and much martial discipline, yet, if we are to judge by their proceedings on the acquisition of England, they had lost none of their greedy hunger of spoil, nor of their reckless and ruthless disposition to shed blood."-Hampden's History of the English Aristocracy.

(1) Orderic Vitalis; who denounces the "feralis occisio," the dismal slaughter. (2) Wensleydale does not appear to have been enclosed, though the adjacent Forest of Skipton, and the Chases of Blackburnshire were fenced with a pale. On this subject, Whitaker says, "The Saxon forests, as far as I know, lay open, and the practice of enclosing these immense tracts must have been introduced by the great Norman lords. Musing on this circumstance, I was struck by a passage of Colnmella, from which it appears that the idea was familiar to the ancient princes of Gaul: Hoc autem modo licet etiam latissimus regiones tractusque montium claudere, sicuti Galliarum; locarum vastitas patitur. Cobmella de R. R. l. g. c. i. Ed. Steph. MDXLIII. The materials of the fence were cleft poles (Vacerra) of oak, cork-tree, &c. Care was taken to enclose a supply of perennial water; as also great plenty of mast-bearing and bucciferous trees, particularly the arbutus. The animals nourished

lands whence the Saxon had gathered rich harvests, the heather encroached, and the dark trees grew rank. The fox kennelled on the Thane's forsaken hearth, “and that grey beast, the wolf of the weald,” howled nightly around the ruined altars where saints and kings formerly knelt. Even yet, when nearly eight hundred years are gone, an observant eye may trace vestiges of Saxon buildings and cultivation, in places where neither buildings nor cultivation have since been; and still, shadowy traditions, growing fainter and fainter every day, point to castles and hamlets that have long been no more.

According to Spelman's Glossary, vox Feodum, from the statement of Thomas Sprot, a monk of the monastery of St. Augustine, in Canterbury, the number of parish churches in England about the time of the Norman Conquest, was 48,011, and that of the villages, 62,080. The number of parishes at present is not much above 10,000.

Some idea of the time may be gathered from the lines in Peter de Langtoft's Chronicle, who was himself a Yorkshireman. They are thus translated from the French original, of the fourteenth century, by an unknown hand.

in these enclosures were the stag, the wild-boar, the fallow-deer, the roe, and the oryx; which last, from the account given of his inverted mane by Pliny, can have been no other than the aurochs, or wild bull, still found in the Lithuanian forests. Beans, yet in use for the winter fodder of deer, are particularly recommended. On the whole, I propound it as a subject of curious speculation, whether the practice of enclosing forests were not continued in France from the æra of classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, and whether the Norman lords, when they became possessed of tracts, equally wild and extensive in this country, did, by enclosing them, anything more than follow the example of their ancestors. The forests of the French nobility at the time of the revolution, were uniformly open, but so have been our own during four or five centuries. In the old economy of the forests, the wild bee-stocks were always an object of attention: officers were appointed specifically for the purpose of pursuing them, and securing the wax and honey. These were called Bigres, or Bigri, possibly a corruption of Apigeri. The Bigres had a right to cut down trees in order to get at the honey. In a charter of Rich. II. occurs "In Foresta de Bord. unum Bigrum ad luminare ecclesiæ.-See Du lange in voce Bigrus." Whit. Hist. Craven, p. 233.