44 PAPERS, ETC. 
There is no reason therefore that the Britons 
of Norton should not have met the invaders at 
Conquest, as the garrison of Dousborough had 
met them on Quantock. And their being totally 
defeated there might well have given the Roman 
name of Conquest to the place, and at the same 
time have been the cause of the evacuation 
of Dousborough, and the discontinuance of the 
works at Elworthy. It may perhaps raise a 
smile among my hearers, when I refer to the absurd 
legend of the serpent before mentioned, as a corro- 
borative proof of this theory ; but an eloquent writer 
has said, tradition is generally an accretion of error 
formed upon a nucleus of truth, and there is danger, 
if we cast away the tradition too hastily, that we 
may cast away the truth with it. Now that ser- 
penis have been generated from the corruption of 
human bodies is an idea common enough in classi- 
cal antiquity, and whether it be typical of disease 
produced by that corruption or no, it is by no means 
an uncommon tradition in places where slaughter is 
known to have taken place; so much so, indeed, 
that wherever the antiquary meets with it, it is well 
worth his while to enquire into the history of the 
place. 
An additional reason for supposing Norton 
to have been a permanent British town is this. 
There is still in existence a portion of an ancient 
trackway, probably paved in aftertimes by the 
Romans, leading from the British village Byng Ny 
