24 Dr. Wilson on Linton and its Legends. 



have been of considerable extent ; and the local tradition states 

 it to have been defended by a moat, the water for which was 

 supplied by a tiny rivulet, still to be seen passing along the 

 eastern side of the road. 



A few paces westward of the site of the castle, rises the more 

 elevated knoll which has already been mentioned as sustaining 

 the church. The original church of Linton is of very remote, 

 though uncertain, antiquity, and there is some reason to believe 

 that it may have first risen on the ruins of what had been pre- 

 viously a heathen temple. The religious structures of our Teu- 

 tonic forefathers, before the introduction of Christianity, were 

 rarely, if ever, regular edifices, but consisted merely of some con- 

 spicuous eminence, placed either in the forests or in some sheltered 

 grassy meadow, and surrounded by a simple stockade, a circle of 

 ash-trees, or a ring of heaped stones. Bede, in his 'Church 

 History,' describes the " aras et fana idolorum, cum septis qui- 

 bus sunt circumdata :" and we have an additional proof of the 

 usual slightness of their fabric in the fact that, as well in this 

 country as in Germany and Scandinavia, there is an almost total 

 absence of distinct remains of buildings which had been evidently 

 so appropriated. Partly, in all likelihood, from a lingering re- 

 gard, in the spirit of the common people, for the inherent sanc- 

 tity of these places, and partly from a desire, in the leading 

 apostles of the new and better faith, to proclaim in the most in- 

 disputable manner the extinction of the old idolatry, we find that 

 at this early period the frail sanctuary of paganism was fre- 

 quently made to give way to the more solid structure of the 

 Christian church ; and that the rites of a purer religion super- 

 seded, not only in the hearts of the converts, but at the very 

 altars of superstition, the gross and blood-stained worship which 

 had been newly abolished. Besides, the temple of the early 

 Teutonic races was also ordinarily the " Thing'' (Folkmote), or 

 place for the assemblies of the people, whether for the promulga- 

 tion of laws or the distribution of justice*. Here too were cele- 

 brated their principal festivals t; and in the vicinity was usually 

 the residence of their chief. Thus all things combined to knit 

 the locality with the feelings and affections of the people ; and 

 it was but following the course of nature and of habit, when the 

 Angle turned to worship the one God, on the spot which had 

 been recently dedicated as the shrine of Woden or of Thor. 



Paganism, as manifested in the fanciful mythology of the North, 

 may be considered as having been predominantly established in 

 this district for the space of nearly a century ; dating from the 



* Allen's Haandbog i Faedrelandets Historic {Om Nordens aldste Ind- 

 vaanere). 



t Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 77- 



