By J. U. Powell, M.A. 



115 



he appears also in the name Warminster, which maybe Waermunds- 

 tre (as I have tried to show in this Magazine, vol. xxix. p. 191), 

 and in Werescombe, or Warscombe, which occurs in a thirteenth 

 century document relative to Longbridge Deverill, which will be 

 considered later. And the Teutonic legend of Woden with his 

 spectral hunt seems to be localised at Gun's Church, a barrow on 

 the down above Longbridge, round which the old owner of the land 

 drives his hounds in the chase, with horses and horns. 



From these early days, too, came the custom of going out into 

 the fields in spring-time to " tread the wheat." Palm-Sunday was 

 the day at Longbridge, and men and lads kept it as a festival, 

 going up the down to play "trap." 1 This piece of innocent and 

 unconscious nature-worship, in honour of the Spirit of the Corn, 

 held its own here till the middle of the nineteenth century, in the 

 same way as the belief in the appearance and the laying of ghosts. 

 Some pre-Christian beliefs have never died out, and, even now, 

 sometimes astonish us by their re-appearance among modern pagans ; 

 but there often imposture is at work, not unconscious tradition, as 

 here. 



Many more traces of these early English settlers may be found 

 in the field-names seen in the tithe-maps and heard in local con- 

 versation : such as the " pill " (landing-place) at Norton ; " Prior's 

 pill," by Pitmead ; " Pill ford," in a survey of Monkton, like " the 

 quay," sometimes still so-called, at Hill Deverill ; the " cop," or 

 " head," of Copheap ; the " Chettle " hole at Corton, which is the 

 same word as " kettle," called so from its shape (and not a cor- 

 ruption of " chapel," " because there was one there once which was 

 swallowed up by diabolical agency " 2 ) ; Mote Hill, or Moot Hill, at 

 Norton. In this name may be preserved for us the meeting-place 

 of the new settlers — the " tun-moot, where the inhabitants met as 

 a self-governing community." 3 



1 For other examples of heathen usages, such as fires on Midsummer Eve, 

 which still survive in places, see Green's Conquest of England, 12, 13. 



2 Hoare, Heytesbury Hundred, p. 218, suggests the right derivation, but 

 cannot quite shake himself free from the other. 



3 Green, Making of England, 181, and Green, Short History, illustrated 

 edition, i., 6. 



