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me as freshly and distinctly, as though recently heard. The 

 purity of the Anglo-Saxon of the district is remarkable, especially 

 in regard to all terms connected with agriculture, and its imple- 

 ments. Edmund Ieonsides defeated Canute the Great here, 

 in 1016, and the place still rings with the fame of a local hero, 

 named John Rattlebone, who is said to have killed with his 

 own hand, a whole *' skillin-vuU" of Danes — "skillin" meaning, 

 I was told, the bay of a barn. He gives his name to the prin- 

 cipal Inn of the place, and if the signboard over the door, as I 

 knew it, bore only an approximate resemblance to him, he must 

 have been as remarkable in appearance, as for prowess. 



I remember that upon asking my informant what a Dane 

 was, he replied that he did not know, but that he " had heard 

 there was one then at Salisbury," i.e., the Very Reverend the 

 Dean. This circumstance first gave me the idea, which has 

 since been frequently confirmed by analagous instances in other 

 countries, that the correctness of mere names and words, pre- 

 served in traditions handed down orally to persons ignorant 

 and uneducated, who have not the faintest conception of their 

 true meaning, is one of the best guarantees of their genxaineness, 

 and, consequently, of that of the tradition or legend in which 

 they are embodied. Some writers liave assumed, that John 

 Rattlebone was the popular impersonation of Edmund Ironsides 

 himself, but the persistency with which he is claimed as a 

 " Shuston man," and the absence of any intelligible motive for 

 converting "Edmund" into "John," justifies me, I think, in 

 assigning to him the designation of " local hero." 



I now come to the period when the place seems really, as a 

 Celto-British City, to have been known, as tradition asserts, as 

 the " City of White Walls," or the " White Town." 



We are informed by the Saxon Chronicle, that : — " In the year 

 577, Kouthwin and Keawlin fought the Britons, and killed 

 three of their kings, Konmael, Kendelaun, and Karenmael, 

 in a place called Deorham, and took from them three cities, 

 Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath." The Eendelaun here 

 mentioned is called in the Welsh MSS. indifferently Kyndyllan, 

 KoNDOLAN, and Kandilen, and by the Saxons Condidan and 



