EMon Mote Hills. By Mr Thos. Arkle. 541 



inestimable benefits on mankind, and wMch a faith, infinitely 

 more exalted and sublime found it difficult to extinguish. We 

 know little of sun worship, only we are informed that elevated 

 positions were its most appropriate temples ; and we can easily 

 conceive that some such notion prevailed amongst a people who 

 designated one of their highest mountains by a name which, in 

 their admirably descriptive language, signified the presence. One 

 relic of sun worship certainly came down to our own times, viz., 

 the lighting of a bone-fire on Midsummer eve, which practice at 

 Elsdon was discontinued only half a century ago. We need not 

 be surprised at this observance when we find that so late as the 

 time of Canute the Great (1017 to 1036) an Act was passed pro- 

 hibiting the worship of the heavenly bodies. 



Hutchinson, Mackenzie, Hodgson, and Bruce, all agree that 

 the Eomans occupied the Mote Hills ; but Hodgson is the only 

 historian who mentions Eoman masonry as existing there, adding, 

 however, that the hUl was occupied for occasional purposes. The 

 evidence of Eoman occupation seems to rest solely on the fact of 

 two fragments of stone, together forming one tablet, dedicated to 

 Matunus, having been found in one of the hUls. Boar's tusks, 

 urns containing bone ashes, and bones of animals supposed to 

 have been used in sacrifice, are too vague to be relied upon as 

 proofs of occupation by any particular people. 



There is a tradition that squared stones obtained from the hill 

 were used in building the farm house at the High Mote. These 

 stones do not seem to possess any of the distinguishing charac- 

 teristics of Eoman masonry ; they appear rather to resemble the 

 remains of some mediaeval structure. 



General Eoy's conjecture that Elsdon was the first of a chain 

 of Eoman forts between Watling Street and its Eastern branch, 

 the second having been on the Coquet behind Hepple, on a hill 

 called Hetchester, carries with it less weight when it becomes 

 known that Hetchester was a British encampment, and that a 

 paved Eoman road led from Bremenium on the Eeed to Holystone 

 on the Coquet, and thence by way of Callaly to Thrunton, where 

 it joined the Eastern branch of the Watling Street. If there had 

 been a succession of forts they would have been placed on this 

 line of road. 



Hodgson well observes that the term Mote HOI, as applied to 

 the remarkable structure at Elsdon, is descriptive either of its 

 form or of the use to which it was applied ; but when it is 



