Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the Cheviots. 355 



Brand's Hill. It may have been transported thither by 

 human agency, for the purpose of the ancient inhabitants 

 sharpening their weapons and domestic implements thereon. 

 For ages a sharpening slab of this kind lay near the Well- 

 dean, Wooler, on which the inhabitants ground their swords 

 or pikes, when summoned to active warfare. 



In the first gap behind Horsdean, issues at the foot of the 

 rocks a copious spring of pure water, called the Fairy, 

 Maiden, or Wishing Well ; whither youngsters still resort, 

 and dropping in crooked pins, whisper the name of their 

 partners as fervently and believingly as ever they did in the 

 olden time. Overhanging it, although now partly destroyed, 

 is a lock, called the King's Chair, whereon a king once 

 witnessed a mythical battle in the days of old, when some- 

 thing of " divinity did hedge a king." An extensive camp 

 occupies the platform behind, and is accommodated to its 

 shape ; the ancient refuge for the Horsdean and other hut- 

 men, the foundations of whose habitations and rude tombs 

 are still sprinkled over the adjacent waste of Kenterdale. 

 By those who have seen it entire, it is said to have been fully 

 as strongly fortified as the fine camp on a similar situation 

 on Harehope (on Akeldfarm), and was almost a "fac-simile" 

 of that stronghold. The place is called " the Kettles " from 

 the pot-like cavities in the surrounding ravine. In these 

 hollows are old folds and hut-circles of the British people. 

 An old faint wall runs down the side of the valley next to 

 Horsdean. A road from this great camp conducts to several 

 other smaller ringlets, or hill-forts, at the top of the steep 

 fields which we pass before reaching Earle ; and near that 

 road are traces of ancient division walls, of mixed earth 

 and stone. Nearly all the top, and middle face of the hill, 

 forming the cover called Earle whin, except the declivity of 

 Earle dean, has been cultivated on the ridge and balk system ; 

 we likewise find hut-circles of the former husbandmen among 

 the balks. The balks again re-appear beyond Old Earle, 

 above the " Common " farm, whence they may have com- 

 municated with Hartheugh, where a set of them remains 

 entire, intermingled with tombs, and walls, and hut-circles ; 

 while on a bright spring day, others of them are readily 

 distinguishable on the slopes of part of that hill above the 

 Care burn. Precarious must have been the harvests on these 

 wind-swept eminences ; but corn growing was not abandoned 

 on the Earle heights till within a recent period. 



