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ON THE LOCAL LEGENDS OF SHROPSHIRE.

BY

THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ., F.S.A.

MANY persons-possibly some of my hearers would be at first surprised to be told

that the sort of legends and traditions with which I am going for a short while to occupy your attention, deserve any notice from the historian or from the antiquary. In fact, historians and antiquaries themselves have been in the habit of treating them with neglect till a comparatively recent period, when more enlarged views on archæological and ethnological science have taught us that even these hitherto despised stories are far from unimportant materials for the history of the peoples who have passed over, or remained on, the surface of the earth. It is a fit occasion, when we are here assembled in one of the border counties, where such legends are still to be gathered in some abundance, to give you a slight sketch of their history and meaning-slight, because the subject is a very wide one, and it would be quite impossible, within the limits to which I must restrict myself, to enter into it to any extent. So closely are all these legends connected with the history of race, that to understand them we must begin by taking our forefathers at a period before they had become Christians, or had even set their feet on the shores of the land of which they made us their inheritors.

People in the condition in which they then were, possess two things which belong to the natural poetry of the human mind—a popular religious faith, and a mythic history, both more or less peculiar to the race. The former of these, among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, appears to have consisted chiefly in the belief that all nature was filled with spiritual beings-beneficent nymphs in those features of the landscape which presented a more cheerful appearance, the pleasant woods and fields, the rivers which ran through them, and especially the spring heads from which they rose, while the wild and barren mountains and moors, and the treacherous morasses, were peopled with beings of a more hateful character, who were invariably hostile to the prosperity and happiness of mankind.

In all the different branches and sub-divisions of the Teutonic race, there were royal or heroic families, who traced their descent direct from the deity, their god Woden, the genealogical link between the god and the first individual who had any historical existence, consisting of a series of personages of a purely mythic character. The story of these forms the mythic history of the race, and they are represented as continually

engaged in performing extraordinary exploits against supernatural enemies of different descriptions. As we approach nearer to the source, there is more of what our pagan forefathers looked upon as godliness in their character, and their enemies are vaster and more powerful. Thus Thor, one of the immediate offspring of the supreme God, was perpetually engaged in hostility against the giants, who were the enemies of the universe itself. As we descend in the genealogical scale, we find these heroes engaged in similar exploits against monsters of a less divine character, like Beowulf, one of the personages of the mythic genealogy of our own race, with his grendels and dragons. These exploits were told in the primeval poetry of the people, and thus lived in their memories, and formed, on one hand, their literature. After the introduction of Christianity, the real import of this literature became forgotten, and it passed through a variety of modifications and changes, in the course of which it was constantly more and more debased. In their first changes of form these mythic pagan legends gave birth to the medieval romances, and formed the most important and the most national part of the literature of Western Europe in the middle ages. In their latest and most debased form, they were turned into the nursery tales which have been the delight of our childhood. There can be no doubt that the exploits of that popular hero, Jack the Giant-killer, as well as of some other Jacks of the same description, really represent the adventures of the god Thor in his expeditions against the giants of Eotenheim.

But these mythic legends were all this while going through another series of modifications, which are no less remarkable and interesting than their literary history. The minstrels, who recited their national poems, and the chieftains, who listened to them in their halls, understood these stories as belonging to their race, regarded their heroes as real personages, and looked and looked upon them as less ancient than they were; but the people, more limited in their knowledge, could only understand them by connecting them with visible objects; hence arose a constant practice of localizing the national legends. As different tribes migrated from one land to another, they thus localized anew the various legends which, intimately bound up with the history and creed of their race, had constantly travelled along with them. As the old pagan belief gradually melted away under the influence of Christianity, these legends, now made local, lost their original character almost entirely, and became mere tales connected with the locality; but when we collect them, and compare them with one another, not only in our county, but all over the kingdom, and proceed to do the same thing for other countries, for Germany, for Scandinavia, for the East; and when we find the same or similar legends constantly recurring; we then arrive at important knowledge as to what they represent, and whence they came. It is this which constitutes the ethnological value of our local legends. By the similarity of their legends, we are enabled to establish the relationship between nations

and tribes where it is otherwise obscure, and we can by these local stories trace their primeval migrations from one part of the world to another, during ages of which we have no historical record. Moreover, through this same process of collecting and comparing, we are enabled sometimes, and in some degree, to reconstruct the primitive mythology and faith of races when the other memorials of them have perished.

Such is the origin of the local legends which form the subject I venture on the present occasion to bring before our meeting. Shropshire, like all border counties, where the old traditions are preserved much more tenaciously than in other parts, has been, and is still, rich in such legends, and I have succeeded in gathering a few which will enable me to illustrate the remarks I have just offered to you.

When any branch of the race to which we belong-I shall confine myself to Teutonic traditions, because they are more especially ours, and more has been done towards tracing them—when such race settled in a new country, the people began soon to explain to themselves the remarkable objects which they did not understand, and they did this almost invariably by referring to their legends and traditions. To express their opinion of the great magnitude or wonderful character of monuments of the origin of which they were ignorant, they often ascribed them to their own gods and heroes, and named them accordingly. Thus, one of the most extraordinary entrenchments in the south of England was called Woden's Dyke, from the great Teutonic god; its name is now contracted into Wansdyke. Again, one of the principal Roman roads which crossed our county from east to west, and another Roman road running through Shropshire from north to south, both bear the name of the Watling-street. The name, in its Anglo-Saxon form, Wætlingastræt, can only have one meaning the street or road of the sons of Wætla, or of the family of Wætla, and accordingly one of the early chroniclers informs us that this road was so called because it was made by the sons of king Wætla, but he does not tell us who king Wætla was. However, we have another glimpse of light thrown on the matter by the circumstance that the Anglo-Saxons gave this same name of Watlinga-street, of course with the same meaning, to the milky way in the heavens, and we can, therefore, hardly doubt that this king Wætla was one of the heroes of the Anglo-Saxon mythic history, and that there formerly existed some legend connecting him or his sons with the terrestrial and the celestial Watling-streets. The people of the Teutonic race were not accustomed to paved roads, and they had no name for them in their language, for their word street was merely the Roman name stratum, and the Roman roads were, therefore, always objects of wonder to them. In Wales there are still legends attached to the Roman roads, and perhaps road-legends may still be met with in some corners of England. I am told that it is a matter of belief in the neighbourhood that the road from the Craven Arms to Bishop's Castle is on the line of the first road that was ever made in England, and that it "was made very long ago to go across from sea to sea.”

But our ancestors, when they settled in new lands, were, perhaps, more inclined to give the names of their gods and heroes to natural objects than to the works of man's hand, which they found either perfect or in a state of ruin. In those primitive ages every race, and almost every nation, looked upon every other race or nation as their "natural enemies," and they generally ascribed monuments and works, of whatever description, which were not those of their race, to the enemies of their gods rather than to their gods themselves-they were the works of the Eotens or giants. This notion is one of the most remote antiquity among the Teutonic race, and, in accordance with it, our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were accustomed to speak of the ruined buildings of former ages which they found in their island as enta geweorc, the work of the giants. In a curious poem preserved in the valuable collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry known as the Exeter Book, p. 291, which has been entitled The Wanderer, the author, speaking of a scene of desolation in which everything was left in ruin, says:—

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In another beautiful poem, in the same collection, p. 476, which has been entitled The Ruin, but which, unfortunately, is only a fragment, the poet, describing a ruined town, such as our Wroxeter no doubt was at that period, exclaims:

Wrætlic is þes weal-stan,

wyrde gebræcon,
burg-stede burston;

brosnað enta geweorc.

Wondrous is this wall-stone,

the fates have broken it,
have burst the burgh-place;
the work of giants is perishing.

The giants are frequently associated with ruins and ancient relics in the legends of this country. In the history of the Fitz-Warines we are given to understand that the ruined Roman city of Uriconium, which we are now exploring at Wroxeter, had been taken possession of by the giants. Sometimes, in these legends, the very names of the Teutonic mythic personages are preserved. Thus a legend in Berkshire, which was brought before the Association in its meeting at Newbury last year, has preserved the name of the Northern and Teutonic smith-hero, Weland, the representative of the classical Vulcan. The name of Weland's father, Wade, is preserved in the legend of Mulgrave Castle, in Yorkshire, which is pretended to have been built by a giant of that name. A Roman road, which passes by it, is called Wade's Causeway, and a large tumulus, or cairn of stones, in the vicinity, is popularly called Wade's Grave. According to the legend, while the giant Wade was building his castle, he and his wife lived upon the milk of an enormous cow, which she was obliged to leave at pasture on the distant Wade made the causeway for her convenience, and she assisted him in building

moors.

the castle by bringing him quantities of large stones in her apron. One day, as she was carrying her burden of stones, her apron-string broke, and they all fell to the ground, a great heap of about twenty cart-loads, and there they still remain as a memorial of her industry. Another castle in Yorkshire, occupying an early site, was said, according to a legend mentioned by Leland in the sixteenth century, to have been built by a giant named Ettin. It is hardly necessary to remark that this is a mere corruption of the name of the eotenas, or giants of Teutonic mythology.

These giants have left their traces in our county of Salop. A mass of large stones, or rather of rocks, on the summit of the Titterstone Clee Hill, overlooking the vale of Ludlow, is called the Giant's Chair; and there may probably still exist a popular legend in explanation of the name. A somewhat similar heap on the highest point of the mountain range of the Stiperstones probably had formerly the same name, though it is now called the Devil's Chair, and it has a legend attached to it not unlike that of Wade's Grave, in Yorkshire. According to this story, the demon, having to carry a great quantity of stones over the mountain to some locality, which I at least have forgotten, trussed them up in a leathern apron, and proceeded sturdily on his way. As he approached the top of the hill one corner of the apron slipped out of his hand, and a few of the stones fell and formed a small heap; a little further on he dropped a few more; and at last, when he had reached the top, he stumbled and let go two corners of the apron at once, in consequence of which the whole mass of stones fell to the ground. The evil one cursed them, and vanished; and the three heaps of stones, the largest of which is that called the Devil's Chair, have remained there ever since. A large stone on the side of the principal branch of the Brown Clee Hill (Abdon Burf), belonging apparently to the class of monuments commonly called druidical, is called the Giant's Shaft-shaft, of course, signifying an arrow.

I have heard related, in regard to the origin of our celebrated mountain, the Wrekin, a still more curious legend of this kind, the authenticity of which I have no reason to doubt. There was once, it is said, a great giant in North Wales, who was such a gormandizer that he had soon cleared off the whole produce of the country around him, including, I believe, man, woman, and child, and he then cast longing eyes on the fertile districts on the Border. Thus impelled by hunger as well as by the innate love of evil, the giant despatched a messenger to the people of Shrewsbury to require that they should immediately send him a considerable supply, either of cattle, or of "Proud Salopians," or perhaps of fair maidens, for these giants of the olden time had a particular taste for this latter class of food. The people of Shrewsbury refused to comply with this demand, and the giant, in his anger, threatened to destroy both the town and its inhabitants. Now, according to the legend, there lived at this time, somewhere, I

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