The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter X

WO miles to the west of Kneesall, in Nottinghamshire, is a hill called Grimston Hill. Its sides are now all cultivated land, and there is no house upon it. But a folk-tale is current in the neighbourhood which tells that once upon a time there was a great cock-fight held on a Sunday in a solitary house which stood on the very top of this hill. Whilst the fight was going on it is said that an earthquake came and swallowed up the house, the spectators, cocks, and all, and that, at this very day, if you put your ear to the ground you can hear the cocks crowing inside the hill. It is said, too, that a ghost is to be seen there. This spectre can be called up by any person who will go to the hill at midnight and walk nine times round a particular field—no other field will suffice—upon its slopes.

The tale about the crowing of cocks inside Grimston Hill suggests the former sacrifice of cocks in that place. The folk-tale often hands down the creeds and usages of antiquity with accuracy, for we know that the sacrifice of cocks, either by burial in the ground, or by fire, was once a common practice in England. In old books on witchcraft it will be seen that the burning of a hen or of a hog alive, to propitiate an offended spirit, was a frequent thing when pestilence or disease attacked the farmer's cattle. I have myself talked to an old Derbyshire woman who remembered in her youth that cocks were buried alive as a charm to avert pestilence, and, as Dr. Munro has lately told us, this heathen praclice still lingers in Scotland. It was thought that the smothered cries of the poor birds when buried in the earth would propitiate the offended spirit which caused the mischief.

This line of thought has been suggested by a natural pillar composed of three stones at Hollow Meadows, near Sheffield. The pillar is known as the Cock-crowing Stones, otherwise Stump John. It is said that on a certain morning in the year these stones turn round when the sun shines upon them. Several other large stones, or heaps of stones, in the district are also known as "cock-crowing stones." Possibly they have been the scene of pagan rites. In South India at the present time "cocks are actually sacrificed to the village deity who is represented by the large stone in the centre of a cromlech." Some time ago a clergyman asked me whether I could tell him what "a loak hen" was. He had seen the phrase in some old parish accounts, and could not make out its meaning. I thought it might have originally meant a hen to be used for sacrifice, from the Old English lác, gift, sacrifice. This was rather a bold guess. Grimm, however, mentions the fact that red cocks, in preference to black or white ones, had to be brought in payment of ground rent, and probably for sacrifice.

The place-name Eccles occurs singly, as Eccles in Lancashire, and Eccles in Norfolk, and in many compounds, such as Eccleston, Eccleshill, Ecclesall, Ecclesfield, Eccles Craig near Aberdeen, Eccles-hall in Tideswell, Derbyshire, Eccleswell in Herefordshire.

There is probably no place-name whose etymology has been so much contested. The better opinion hitherto held is that Eccles is the genitive case of an Old English personal name Æcel, so that, if the opinion were correct, Eccleshill would be a hill once inhabited by a man called Æcel. I am not, however, aware that hills were ever named after persons, though it is possible that in a few cases they may have taken the names of the mythological or half-divine beings which arose from the worship of ancestors or chiefs, or, in later times, of the saints which succeeded those beings. It is very difficult—nay impossible—to believe that all these places have derived their names from the personal name Æcel, though there might be some ground for supposing that the mythic Eigill, the archer and star-hero, was intended; or for supposing that, according to the practice of ancestor-worship, the spirits of chieftains called Æcel were believed to be present there. It has been objected that the genitive case of a personal name, or of any name, cannot stand alone, and that, therefore, the place-name Eccles cannot be the genitive of Æcel, or of any other word. But it does stand alone in such names as St. Ives or St. Albans, and Egils, meaning "Egil's house," is actually found in Old Norse poetry. The idea that Eccles is the Latin ecclesia seems untenable. There is a Middle High German word häckel, Dutch hecksel, meaning a witch, and though the corresponding word is not, so far as I am aware, found in the remains of Old English or Old Norse literature, it may nevertheless have once existed. It seems to survive in such place-names as Eccleshill, and in Ecclesall (anciently Heclessale) the last syllable of which may be the Old Norse hallr, a slope. If Eccles-hall in Tideswell, or Ecclesall near Sheffield, means witch hill, we may compare Sparken Hill (wise woman's hill) near Worksop therewith. Eccles-field and Eccles-bourne are more difficult to explain, but with the former we may compare the old German phrase "na Hekelvelde faren," go to Hekelvelde, and with the latter we may compare the Scotch saying "go to John Hacklebirnie's house." Ecclesfield, then, may mean witch hill. We may ask ourselves the question whether the well-known Eccles cakes made at Eccles in Lancashire are not really witch cakes. Richard Huloet, who compiled an English-Latin dictionary in 1552, speaks of "hegges or nyght furyes, or wytches like vnto old women which do sucke the bloude of children in the nyght," and also of "wytches or nighte furies that do transforme or alter nature called hegges." The Middle English hegge or hagge, which is found in Piers Plowman, points back to an Old English hæg, and from this we may infer a diminutive hægel, like hovel from hof, etc., the aspirate in the place-name being used or omitted indifferently. Grimm mentions "Mount Hekla in Iceland, sometimes called Heklu-fiall, a rendezvous of witches." There seems to be the same connection between hacele, a cloak, and häckel, a witch, as there is between gríma, a ghost, and gríma, a mask, or the name of a witch, the cowl and the mask being apparently the dress of the ancient priestess. When the witch of Endor raised up Samuel "the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle." Here it would seem that the witch had an accomplice, who wore a mantle or cowl. If we examine some of the field-names about Ecclesall, we shall detect signs of that worship or fear of the spirits of the dead which was always associated with witchcraft. In the thirteenth century the monks of a neighbouring abbey built or further endowed a chapel just below the hill known as Dobbin Hill—the very highest ground in Ecclesall—and an old road between Porter Brook and High Storrs is still known as Dead Lane or Deadman's Lane. "Dobby" is a northern word for a spirit or goblin, and Dobin, as is well known, is only another form of Robin. It reminds us of Dockin, and some other names of sprites, Tom Dockin being a local goblin whose name appears in Dockin Hill near Doncaster, and who is still held up as a bugbear to children. Dockin, however, is not the same word as Dobbin. A mile or more to the west of Dobbin Hill is Priest Hill, otherwise known as Siva Hill. All these names appear to savour of pagan belief and practice.

Mr. Hartland has lately shown that there is no substantial distinction to be made between ghosts and witches and fairies. "Whether," he says, "it be child-stealing, transformation, midnight meetings, possession and gift of enchanted objects, spell - binding, or whatever function, or habit, or power be predicted of one, it will be found to be common to the three. I conclude, therefore, that they are all three of the same nature." That being the case we may translate häckel either as "witch" or "fairy." And when we find Eccles and Ickles attaching to the sites of ancient ruins, such as Roman villas or encampments, the explanation here offered seems to be the right one.

Harrison's Survey, dated 1637, relating to estates in Hallamshire, mentions a field called Haggas Croft, which contained "the foundation of an house where Robin Hood was born." The croft was Iess than half an acre, and it lay in the heart of a forest. Perhaps some woodsprite or sylvan god was once worshipped there. When Alice Duke, a witch, was examined in 1664 she is reported to have said that "when the Devil doth anything for her she calls for him by the name of Robin, upon which he appears." Who can doubt that this Robin was the divine or ghostly being whose aid she had been accustomed to invoke? It was not the witch, but her accuser who, putting the word into her mouth, named him "the Devil." The gods of the old religion had become, in Christian eyes, the devils of the new, and witchcraft was, above all things, the practice of the old religion. We may be almost sure that Haggas Croft was once the abode, or reputed abode, of a sorceress or witch. The very foundations of the witch's house were left, and the name Haggas—Old English hægesse, a witch—can hardly be mistaken. On a hill at Baslow in Derbyshire is a great stone called the Egglestone, sometimes popularly corrupted into Eagle Stone. This stone, even yet, is associated with popular superstition, and the late Duke of Rutland used to say that a girl would not accept a man for her lover, or marry him, until he had climbed upon the top of this stone, which is very difficult of access. There is a stone known as "the Hagglestone" near Studland on Purbeck Island in Dorsetshire. It stands upon the summit of a hill, and owing to its curious shape, its top is also very difficult of access.

In the time of James I women firmly believed in the existence and power of witches, and would not believe what "the Scripture man," as they called the Christian minister, said about them. If we examine books on witchcraft we shall see that late in the seventeenth, or even in the eighteenth, century, witches continued to hold their meetings, and practise their orgies, in secret by night. The ancient religion had been dying for centuries, yet in spite of persecution and contempt the "wise women" had not ceased to assemble on the hill top, on the lonely heath, in the green place, or the fastness of a forest. In 1664 we learn that a number of them assembled at Brewham in Somersetshire "at a place called Hussey's-knap in the forest, in the night-time, where met them the fiend, in the shape of a little man in black cloaths, with a little band, to him all made obeysances, and at that time a picture in wax or clay was deliver'd by Agar [one of the witches] to the man in black, who stuck a thorn into the crown of it, Margaret Agar one towards the breast, Catherine Green in the side; after which Agar threw down the piclure, and said 'there is Cornish's picture, with a murrain to it, or a plague on it.'" Here we see that the meeting was on a "knap," or hill top, in the forest. Sometimes, we are told, the little man in black "plays on a pipe or cittern and the company dance." At last he vanishes, and the witches "are all carried to their several homes in a short space." The heathen practice of attempting to torture or destroy a person by sticking pins, etc., into an image made to resemble him, or into a live animal, is still in use. I am told that at Curbar in Derbyshire, a few years ago a girl was deserted by her lover. To win him back she was advised, probably by a "wise woman," to get a live frog, and after having stuck its body full of pins, to bury it in the ground. She did so, and in a short time her faithless swain was seized with such excruciating pains in all his limbs that he "crawled back" to beg her pardon, and to renew his love. Thereupon she dug up the frog and removed the pins, when the man's pains ceased, and the pair were shortly afterwards married! These meetings of witches in high places did not exclude sensual delights. After the witches had gone through the business of obeisance to "the little man in black," and had received "wax candles like little torches" from him, and had performed their various orgies and ceremonies, "they had wine, cakes, and roast-meat (all brought by the man in' black) which they did eat and drink. They danced and were merry, were bodily there and in their cloaths."

It appears from the statement of one of the accused witches mentioned in Glanvil's book that they were sometimes present in the body and sometimes in the spirit, yet when their spirits only were present they knew one another. These carousals, whether real or fancied, or whether existing only in the popular belief as traditions from past ages, preserve the memory of very ancient practices, and they lead us straight back to heathen sacrifice and feast.

I am acquainted with at least four places which are known as Machon Bank, "machon" being here equivalent to maykin, malkin, little maid, elle maid, nymph, or even witch, the word being also found in the surname Makin or Machon. The name is evidence of a belief in fays or hill-folk who were once supposed to haunt these places. As we have seen that witches, according to popular belief, might be present either in the body or the spirit at these meetings, it is difficult to separate the nymph or demi-goddess from the witch, and this difficulty runs through all Teutonic mythology. The belief that lovely beings of light dwelt upon these places seems to have been associated with nightly mysteries which were wholly sensual, and in no sense divine. Particular spots were associated with the presence of nymphs or elle maids. Elias Ashmole, according to Aubrey, said that "there was in his time a piper in Lichfield that did know what houses were faiery-ground, and that the piper had often-times seen them." Machon Bank was "fairy ground."

The place now known as Endcliffe was formerly called Elcliffe. It is written Elcliffe in 1333 and in 1577 and I never saw Endcliffe in an old document. At the beginning of the present century the place is mentioned in title-deeds as "Elcliffe or Endcliffe." It is probable that the change from Elcliffe into Endcliffe was made by some person who thought that the latter word was more euphonious, and that there was a danger of prefixing an aspirate to the former, and so suggesting the abode of the wicked. At all events we must take Endcliffe as a very modern alteration of the older Elcliffe, which appears to mean elf-cliffe, inasmuch as the word el-mawes, meaning elf-maidens, is found in Old English. "The Elle-people live in the Elle-moors. The appearance of the man is that of an old man with a low-crowned hat on his head; the Elle-woman is of a fair and attractive countenance, but behind she is hollow like a dough-trough. Young men should be especially on their guard against her, for it is very difficult to resist her; and she has, moreover, a stringed instrument, which, when she plays on it, quite ravishes their hearts. The man may be often seen near the Elle-moors, bathing himself in the sunbeams, but if any one comes too near him he opens his mouth wide and breathes upon them, and his breath produces sickness and pestilence. But the women are most frequently to be seen by moonshine; then they dance their rounds in the high grass so lightly and so gracefully that they seldom meet a denial when they offer their hand to a rash young man. It is also necessary to watch cattle, that they may not graze in any place where the Elle-people have been; for if any animal come to a place where the Elle-people have spit, or done what is worse, it is attacked by some grievous disease which can only be cured by giving it to eat a handful of St. John's wort, which had been pulled at twelve o'clock on St. John's night."

I never saw the word "end," meaning boundary, as the prefix of a place-name, though it is curious that Rand-moor, meaning probably Edge-moor, should be so near. Amongst some field-names in Bolsover I have noticed Entercliff (enta-clif) which is strangely like Endcliffe, and means giants' cliff.

William Harrison, in his survey of Hallamshire in 1637 mentions a field called Godman Storth which contained an acre and one perch. In connection with this name it may be observed that the piece of land on the south side of the street called the Wicker just over the Lady's Bridge in Sheffield was called Good Croft. The position of Good Croft is clearly shown on Fairbank's map made at the end of the last century. It was a- piece of waste ground adjoining the river. Ray in his "Proverbs" mentions the lines:
 * When all the world shall he aloft,
 * Then Hallamshire shall be God's croft.
 * Winkabank and Templebrough
 * Will buy all England through and through.

I cannot, of course, identify Good Croft with the God's Croft of these lines, but the name seems to point back to some old religious practice or belief. "In many parishes of Scotland," writes Sir Walter Scott, "there was suffered to exist a certain portion of land called the Gude-man's Croft, which was never ploughed or cultivated, but suffered to remain waste, like the temenos of a pagan temple. Though it was not expressly avowed, no one doubted that the goodman's croft was set apart for some evil being; in fact that it was the portion of the arch-fiend himself, whom our ancestors distinguished by a name which, while it was generally understood, could not, it was supposed, be offensive to the stern inhabitant of the regions of despair. This was so general a custom that the Church published an ordinance against it as an impious and blasphemous usage. This singular custom sank before the efforts of the clergy in the seventeenth century; but there must still be many alive who in childhood have been taught to look with wonder on knolls and patches of ground left uncultivated, because, whenever a ploughshare entered the soil, the elementary spirits were supposed to testify their displeasure by storm and thunder."

The "evil being," or the "arch-fiend" of this account was merely the name by which Christian sentiment had chosen to designate the pagan god of the fields. The Good Croft, God's Croft, Godman Storth, Gudeman's Croft, was a piece of land dedicated to the local divinity, genius loci, or, to use the more modern phrase, to the fairies. At this very day colliers in Derbyshire leave a piece of coal in the pit ungot "for the fairies," in other words as a sacrifice, or first-fruit, to the local god. And exactly in the same way the farmer, or tiller of the ground, once left an untilled piece of land to propitiate the deity of the woods and fields. Scott tells us that "good old Mr. Gibb, of the Advocates' Library, used to point out amongst the ancient altars under his charge one which is consecrated Diis campestribus, and usually added, with a wink, 'the fairies, ye ken.'" Onesmoor, formerly Wonsmoor, in Bradfield, and Onesacre, in the same place, appear to Wodan's moor, Wodan's acre, the former place having been probably regarded as sacred to the supreme god, and the latter being the equivalent of god's acre, or the "god's croft" of the old local saw.

In the neighbourhood of Sheffield there are several place-names in which the word Jenkin occurs. Thus we have Jenkin hill and Jenkin lane at Ranmoor, "the Jinkin hill" at Holmesfield near Sheffield, and Jenkin lane, which runs across the "Roman Rig" or ridge-way between Meadow Hall and the earthwork on Wincobank. There is also a Jenkin Wood near Rotherham. It is obvious that these names were intended to express the same idea, and it is equally clear that these two hills and this lane did not obtain their names from living men and women. Jenkin is equivalent to "little John," and as Robin Hood is a mythical being, so also is his companion Little John a mythical being. When we are told that Little John lies buried in Hathersage churchyard we can only infer that a long time ago a sprite called Little John or Jenkin was believed to haunt the slope or hill on which the church was built. Grimm mentions a noisy ghost in Lower Germany called Chimken (gimken) and he, no doubt, is the same being as our Jenkin.

It is possible that the words Peter and Parkin its diminutive which occur amongst Hallamshire place-names are the names of sprites or mythological beings, and not merely the names of persons who once lived in the district. I might mention Peter Wood at Fulwood, and Parkin Hagge near Rivelin Firth mentioned by Harrison in 1637. Perkun, Perkunos, is an old name of the thunder-god. Grimm mentions a place called Perkunstein near Battenhof in Courland with legends about it. There is a field in Ecclesall called Patrick Storrs which occurs in a survey made in 1807. We may compare with it Patrick Poole in the city of York, Patricroft near Manchester, Patrixbourne near Canterbury, Kirkpatrick, etc. "Storrs" appears to be the plural of the Middle English star, Old Norse störr, bent grass, coarse grass, so that we might compare Patrick Stors with Totley Bents, near Sheffield. But what is Patrick? Is it the name of the Irish saint with which we are so familiar, and were crofts, streams, churches, pools, and marshy places alike named after this "toad-driver"? The many legends and old wives' tales which are related about St. Patrick lead one to think that he is a myth, the creation of popular fancy. In Iceland, where no amphibia are found, the word padda, a toad, our paddock, is used of any inserts or beetles in foul water. The legend about there being neither snakes, frogs, nor toads in Ireland is said to have been taken from a popular etymology of the saint's name, namely pad-reaker or toad-driver. It is curious to find the word associated with pools, and sedges, and one may suspect that the popular etymology, unlike other popular etymologies, may here contain a grain of truth. "Lying along the banks of the river," says Hunter, "at the foot of the hill on which stands Shiercliffe Hall are the hamlets of Neepsend and Farfield." The word is written "Neepesend"in 1365. Harrison, in 1637, mentions "Neepsende greene." The English word "gnipe" meaning a peak, or hill, Old Norse gnipa, or nipr is not applicable to this place, which is flat land lying by the banks of the river Don. The Middle English neep, which occurs in neap-tide, low tide, comes nearer, and it may be connected, but the Don is not a tidal river. There seems to be no way of explaining the word unless we take Nepe (1365) or Neep (1637) either as a personal, or a mythological, name. In the belief of our ancestors, the woods, fields, and rivers were peopled with spirits, just as they are now in the belief of savage nations. In the Edda we read of "Neps dóttir," i.e., the daughter of Nepr, who was the son of Odin. The nickname Nefja (Neb) occurs in a Wicking song. "Nippen" and "Number Nip" are names of goblins. Henderson mentions "the Nick or Nippen." In the words Neeps-end and Wards-end, the termination "end" means land, mark, district. Neepsend, therefore, may be the piece of land which was believed to be haunted by a local genius or spirit, probably a river sprite, and possibly the name of this sprite may be connected with Neptune, who was god of the fresh, as well as of the salt, waters. Hunter has preserved the following local rime :
 * The shelving, slimy river Dun
 * Each year a daughter or a son.

There can be no doubt that these lines point back to a time when human sacrifices were offered to the god or goddess of the river. In mediaeval times there was a chapel of "Our Lady" on the bridge which crosses the Don between Waingate and the Wicker, and which still retains the name of Lady's Bridge. There is a similar chapel on the bridge at Rotherham. The worship of "Our Lady" on the bridge is merely the substitution of a Christian saint for a pagan god or goddess of the river. Is it too much to say that Nepr, Nip, or Nippen was the being who was once here worshipped as the river god, and to whom, in the words of the old local saw, "a daughter or a son" was offered "each year"?

I find in a plan dated 1778 that Nico' Busk is the name of a narrow strip of Woodland adjoining the Don at Wadsley. "Busk" is an obsolete form of bush, and Nico' stands for the Old Norse nykr, "'the nick,' a fabulous water-goblin mostly appearing in the shape of a gray water-horse, emerging from lakes, to be recognised by its inverted hoofs. . . . . The nykr is the Proteus of the Northern tales, and takes many shapes." The same word, it need hardly be said, appears in our Old Nick, an epithet of the Devil. Nico' Busk, then, is Nykr bush—the little wood by the river side which in the belief of the old inhabitants of this district was the dwelling-place of a water-horse. Nikarr was also one of the names of Odin, but, as suggested by Finn Magnusson, it no doubt was originally the name of Neptune or a water-goblin.

There is a place in Bradfield called Ughill, which is mentioned in the Doomsday Book as Vghil. This is not, as I have said in the Sheffield Glossary, yew hill. I find the word written as Hughill in 1580, and I also find Uggellwoodd-side in 1582. Harrison also mentions Uggle Brooke in 1637. I think we must connect the word with the Old Norse uggr, so that Uggell Wood may mean fear-hill wood—prisca formidine sacrum. Uggr, according to Vigfusson, is used as equivalent to Yggr, a name of Odin in the Edda.