Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/508

 484 Correspondence.

the virtues of the well were still celebrated, and were attributed to the maiden-widow's tears.

Miss Partridge refers (p. 337) to the church-removal traditions at Bisley, Minchinhampton, and Churchdown. With regard to Churchdown it may be noted that the top of the hill was a pre- historic settlement. It was defended by a rampart, strengthened during the siege of Gloucester by Charles I., and still in existence. The old parish church stands on one corner of the rampart. It contains, (though the present structure as a whole is of much later date), remains of a previous Norman and even an Anglo-Saxon edifice. The population did not desert the summit until the eleventh or twelfth century ; but it was settled as now on the northern slope prior to the death of Thomas a Becket. At that period the inhabitants were put to straits for want of water, and Archbishop Roger of York, to whose see the place belonged, arranged to lay pipes from the shallow well just below the top to convey a supply to the present village. In the course of the excavations the earth fell in and buried one workman, who was only saved by calling upon the new " martyr." The story is duly recorded by the monastic n)iracle-mongers, and is said to have been attested by a letter from Godfrey, Dean of Gloucester, to the Prior of Canterbury.^ The story of removal of the church cannot be much earlier than this ; more probably it is later. It has doubtless arisen from forgetfulness of the fact that the village was originally situated on the top of the hill.

The case of Bisley is more interesting still. According to tradition it was to have been built on a spot nearly two miles away. In restoring the church many years ago the origin of the story was discovered. " For the place where tradition said the church was to have been built is the spot where a Roman villa formerly stood, and in the course of the repairs portions of the materials of that villa were found in the church walls, including the altars of the Penates removed from the Roman shrines." - I do not know the origin of the tradition about the church of

^ E. A. Abbott, St. Thomas of Caiilerbiiry his death and miracles (London, 1898), vol. ii., p. 221-31.

^ Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, vol. v. (1880-1), p. 7.