the Traditions connected with it. 329 



whole being called Wayland-Smith : which is the name it was 

 always known by to the country people." As thus explained, Sir 

 Richard Hoare might well speak of it as " a ridiculous name given 

 to a British monument of very high antiquity." But though the 

 etymology of Wise is sufficiently absurd, he has preserved what 

 appeared an idle story of the peasantry, but by which, since the 

 time when Sir Richard Hoare and Sir Walter Scott wrote, modern 

 research has been enabled to recover the true origin of the name. 

 Wise says, " All the account, which the country people are able to 

 give of it, is ' At this place lived formerly an invisible Smith, and 

 if a traveller's Horse had lost a Shoe upon the road, he had no more 

 to do, than to bring the Horse to this place, with a piece of money, 

 and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again 

 and find the money gone, but the Horse new shod.' " This story 

 is still laughingly told by the villagers, in almost the same words. 

 In his notes to Kenil worth. Sir Walter Scott says "it was believed 

 that Wayland's fee was six-pence," (elsewhere he says " a silver 

 groat,") " and that unlike other workmen he was oflPended if more 

 was offered." The country people at the present time, say the fee 

 was " a penny." Another story Ihey have of him, — " that he had a 

 servant or apprentice, whom he one day sent down the hill, for fire 

 to Shrivenham, five miles off; that the boy, lingering by the way, 

 enraged Wayland, who cast a huge stone at him, when at the dis- 

 tance of a mile, which struck him on the heel, and left the print of 

 his foot on the stone. The boy, it is said, sat down and cried at the 

 spot, at a place called Odstone Farm, which to this day is known 

 as Snivelling Corner." ^ A stone, a Sarsen block much mutilated, is 

 still shown b}'' the rustics as that with which this feat was performed. 

 A shepherd of TJffington, a neighbouring village, who wrote rhymes 

 early in the century, on " the stories the old voke do tell," says ; — 



If you along the Rudgeway go, 

 About a mile for aught I know. 

 There Wayland's cave then you may see 

 Surrounded by a group of trees. 



' The story given above was taken down, by the writer, from the mouths of 

 peasants, in the parishes of Ashbury and Compton, in the present year. It 

 contains some particulars not given by Mr. Akerman. 



