GRANBORNE-THE SO-GALLED 

 CASTLE. 



By the Rev. W. BARNES. 



' HIS earthwork has the form of a British Cor, or Bang, or 

 court for business of common or Bardic law. Such 

 British meetings were of several kinds, as Bardic meet- 

 ings for business of the Bardic body, in which was the gradua- 

 tion of the Bards ; (2) Courts of common law, criminal and 

 civil ; (3) Hundreds' courts : for South Britain was divided into 

 hundreds long ere the Saxons came hither, as were Wales and 

 Ireland ; (4) Meetings for offices of religion and teaching. 



Leaving out of question the great national conventions and 

 provincial assemblies, of which the Cranborne Castle was not a 

 court, I will speak only of the smaller courts, holden under the 

 laws, as the Bardic Triads or the Common Law Triads. They 

 were holden under a graduated Bard (Bardd Braint) as judge, 

 or chairman, who sat on a bench, usually a stone, and on a mound, 

 natural or hand-built (like the one within the Cranborne Castle), 

 and above the people, by whom he could be heard and seen with- 

 out being jostled. The bench was truly the gorsedd (high seat), 

 and the stone as such was the Maen gorsedd (Seat stone), and 

 the mound was called the crue y gorsedd (Bench mound), though 

 the word "gorsedd" was applied to the meeting itself as a court. 

 Is there any tradition that there was ever any gorsedd stone on 

 the mound at Cranborne ? The gorsedd mound would be fenced 



