———_ 
and on the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandun. 71 
interments in such a position, should induce future explorers 
to examine with care the sides of these long barrows. 
We need hardly here reproduce the arguments by which it may 
be shewn that these long barrows are to be assigned to a very 
ancient British period, prior to the introduction of metallic imple- 
ments or weapons, whether of bronze or iron. Lest, however, the 
historical evidence should be thought to outweigh the archeological, 
it seems proper to take some notice of the statement that this 
tumulus was the burial place of the Danish chief, Hubba, who died so . 
late as towards the end of the 9th century. Aubrey, as we have seen, 
alludes to a popular tradition to this effect, when he says, here “they 
say one Hubba lies buried.” Of such a tradition there are, now at 
least, no traces in the neighbourhood. Aubrey, in a note, adds, 
“Mr. Wood!” (meaning Anthony A’Wood) “TI leave it to you 
to give the name to this sepulchre, whether Hubbaslow or Barrow 
Hill. Sir Charles Snell, of Kington St. Michael, told me of it in 
1646 or 47, when I was a freshman, and said it was Hubbaslow. 
He shewed me then an old Stow’s chronicle of the first edition, in 
a thick octavo, or rather quarto, which mentioned it; but Caxton’s 
chronicle makes him to be buried in Devonshire, which I presume 
is anerror.” In this last statement, Caxton, as will be shown, was 
in all probability correct; his narrative, however, is full of incon- 
sistencies and improbabilities; and neither he nor Stow, writers of 
the 15th and 16th centuries, can be accepted as authorities in a 
disputed question of this sort. 
On turning to the cotemporary, and nearly cotemporary 
historians of this period, Asser, the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and 
Florence of Worcester, we find in them an almost uniform statement 
to the following effect, of the events early in the year 878. 
“The brother of Hynguar and Healfden, with twenty-three ships, 
came from the country of Demetia, (South Wales,) where he had 
wintered, and sailed to Devon, where he was slain before the Castle 
of Cynuit, by the king’s servants; and where was gained a very 
large booty; and, amongst other things, the war standard called 
the Raven ;” which, as the annals, (erroneously attributed to Asser,) 
