226 THE BRIGANTES. 



teries of Lastingham and Whitby to within a few centuries of 

 the Roman Camps at Cawthorn, which were planted amidst 

 British dikes, like those of Scamridge, and British villages like 

 that of Egton Grange. 



On the eastern side of the Vale of York, the dry Wold hills 

 were thickly peopled along their edges ; not that the tribes were 

 mainly gathered on the Wold, though a few ' pit' stations appear 

 there; these dry hills formed, no doubt, an extended sheep- 

 pasture, defended by many dikes, for the dwellers by the springs 

 of Acklam, Leavening, Knapton, Ganton, and Reighton; and 

 the towns of Kilham, Driffield, and Beverley, have claims to 

 great antiquity. Southward from Acklam the dikes and tumuli 

 continue above many villages and springs, by Godmundisham, 

 where perhaps British paganism preceded the Saxon idolatry; 

 by Londesborough, Warter, and Weighton ; and collect into a 

 final group about Cave, and the road to Beverley, by St. Austin's 

 Stone, Hunsley Beacon, and the mound of Bishop Burton. 



The country all round Malton is thus shown to have been in 

 early times the most peopled part of Yorkshire, and so it re- 

 mained till a comparatively late period. The range of villages 

 which cling to the foot of the Wolds, from the Humber, round 

 by Malton to Hunmanby and Filey, is remarkable; a similar 

 crowd of large villages runs from Scarborough by Helmsley and 

 Thirsk to the north of the Tees, and from many circumstances 

 there is reason to conclude these lines to have been occupied by 

 settlements in the earliest times. Along them flowed the finest 

 springs ; above them were open pastures for sheep, the bustard, 

 the dotterel, and other birds, and below in boundless forests 

 roamed red deer and the wild boar; herons and wild fowl 

 frequented the swamps ; wolves, foxes, martens, and other ani- 

 mals of some value for skins, afforded occupation to the arrow, 

 spear, pit or net ; while, to complete the happiness of savage 

 life, the roving pirates or merchants of the Baltic and the Elbe 

 might land at the 'Uchel' (Ocelum Promontorium, Flambo- 

 rough), the ' Dun ' (Dunsley, near Whitby), or the ' Aberach/ 



