68 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



There is scarcely a church on our eastern coast which shows 

 not, in some part or other of its structure, red and calcined 

 stones suggestive of Danish ravage ; and it is by no means 

 improbable, as is asserted,* that beneath the broad-headed nails 

 which stud the oaken doors may still be found some withered 

 fragment of the skin of sacrilegious viking. 



Of dread potent was the hoisting on the Saxon shore of the 

 Raven banner, surnamed the ' Landwaster ' ; 



For there 



Was shedding of blood and rending of hair, 

 Rape of maiden, and slaughter of priest, 

 Gathering of ravens and wolves to the feast. 



Yet one hundred years later throughout the peaceful Danelagh 

 the savage marauder had become transformed into the peaceful 

 tiller of the soil. What the physical characters of the county 

 were in the second period we may conjecture from the positions 

 chosen by these vikings or ' creekers ' for their permanent 

 homes, placed at regular intervals on the slopes or near the foot 

 of the uplands, overlooking the low country or marsh. The 

 house or by rising on a foundation of stone chalk quarried 

 from the wold the upper part of c stud and mud ' with wattled 

 outbuildings and c crews,' surrounded by 'garth* and ^wong? 

 Above them stretched the open wold, rolling uplands of heather 

 and gorse, and coarse tussocks of tAira ccespitosa and the barren 

 brome grass, stretches of brake bright green in spring and 

 golden-brown in the autumn ; here and there solitary 

 hawthorns quite grey with lichen, storm-twisted and venerable ; 

 and on the highest ridges many a tumulus and c hoe ' long 

 since obliterated by the destroying plough. A land without 

 inhabitant; the haunt of bustard and stone curlew, golden 

 plover and dotterel, where in deep dales by chalk stream sides 

 the otter had his home, and in the twilight the red deer and 

 roe came down to graze. Below the wold, covering much of 

 what is now known as the middle marsh, stretched the wide 

 forest of oak, beech and elm, with an undergrowth of holly, 

 hazel, and yew ; dense thickets of blackthorn and bramble, 

 where lurked the grey wolf, wild boar, and wild cat; and 

 above falcon, kite, and buzzard held almost undisputed posses- 



* In a footnote, Lincolnshire and the Danes, p. 4, Mr. Streatfeild says ' the 

 four churches with which such traditions are distinctly connected are Rochester 

 Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the churches of Hadstock and Copford in 

 Essex. In the case of Hadstock, the last fragments of skin did not disappear until 

 1846 ; and in that of Copford, not until 1843 (see Archaeological Journal, Vol. V., 

 p. 185 ; Vol. X., p. 167). 



