and on the Battles of Cynuit and Ethandun. 83 
Stow omits this; perhaps from perceiving the improbability of the 
body of Hubba being carried from Chippenham to Devonshire for 
interment. Hence the reader of Stow’s Chronicle might naturally 
conclude, with Aubrey and Sir Charles Snell, that the site of this 
barrow was at or near Chippenham. 
John Brompton was probably led into error, as to these events, 
by a careless reading of the Metrical Chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimar, 
written about the middle of the 12th century, in the Norman- 
French of that day, and designed for the use of the then lords of 
England. Brompton seems certainly to have had Gaimar before 
him, when he wrote the passage referred to, as the words of both 
writers are, toa great extent, identical. Gaimar, in recounting the 
events of the year 878, speaks of the arrival of the Danes at 
Chippenham, and of their ravages in Wessex. He then goes on to 
describe the events at Cynuit, though he does not allude to that 
place by name, and does not clearly distinguish the Danish force 
under Guthrum, from that under Hynguar and Hubba. This may 
probably have led Brompton to confound both events and places.! 
Gaimar’s narrative is important from containing the earliest men- 
tion of Hubba’s death, as occurring in Devonshire, and naming 
the “wood of Pene” as the spot where he fell. 
‘Un frere Iware e Haldene 
Eu fu oscis el bois de Pene; 
Ubbe out a nun un mal fesant: 
Sur li firent hoge mult grant 
Li Daneis, quant l’ourent trové. 
Ubbelawe, l’unt apelé 
La hoge est en Deveneschire: 
Conquis i fu le gomfariun | 
Ubbe, ke Raven out nun.” 2 
The exact site of Cynuit, where the Danes under the “ brother 
of Hynguar” were defeated, and where Hubba doubtless fell, is not 
1 The ae Dr, Panli himself seems to haye mis-read Gaimar in this 
passage, when he cites his narrative as authority for Hubba’s fall before Chip- 
penham, Loc. Cit., p. 180. 
2 Gaimar, line 3147. 
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