Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/201



the following passage in Brome's Travels (1700), p. 27. "'Tis reported by some Historians, That while David, Bishop of this See, who was a very sharp stickler against the Pelagian Heresie, was one day very zealously disputing against those erroneous Tenets, the Earth whereon he then stood arguing, rose up by a Miracle to a certain height under his feet."

In the copy of these Travels in the London Library, the following MS. note in the hand of the beginning of the 18th century is added to the above in the margin: "and a white Dove descending as is supposed from heaven sate all the while he preached upon his right shoulder. Angl. Sacr. pars secunda, p. 638." (In A Menology of England and Wales, by Richard Stanton, 1887, p. 93, this reference is, however, given as "The Life of St. David, by Giraldus Cambrensis . … in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol ii., p. 628.")

At p. 166 of Brome's Travels, he says of Darlington: "Here was also formerly a College for a Dean and six Prebendaries: In the Precincts of this place are to be seen three Pits full of water, of a wonderful depth, called by the common People Hell-Kettles, concerning which Sir Richard Baker in his Chronicle gives us this following account. That in the 24th year of King Henry the Second the Earth in this place lifted up it self in the manner of a high Tower, and so remained immovable from Morning until Evening, and then fell with so horrible a noise, that it afrighted all the Inhabitants thereabouts, and the Earth swallowing it up, made there a deep Pit, which is still to be seen to this day. That these