ITINERARIES. 



143 



sticking fast by the way. Here we omitted the sight of 

 Fountain's Abbey, where Robin Hood's* bow is kept ; 

 a very pleasant and delectable situation ; as also of St. 

 Willfrid's well, the tutelar saint of this town. We were 

 there the day after St. Willfrid's Sunday, which is 

 esteemed by the inhabitants a great festival, and thereon 

 was wont to be held a great fair after evening prayer. 

 Leaving Rippon, we passed the same day to Borough 

 Bridge, where we viewed the three stones called the 

 Devil's Bolts or Arrows by the vulgar, and about which 

 they have a legend ; they are tall and slender, four square, 

 of a pyramidal figure, but not very sharp at the top ; 

 they seemed to us to be factitious stones, but yet endure 

 the weather exceeding well, and may, in probability, 

 stand there till doomsday. About a mile hence, at a 

 place called Aldburgh (a small village now, but of old a 

 good Roman town, and as yet a borough,) we gathered 

 up among the people divers antient Roman coins, both 

 brass and silver, which are daily found in the ploughed 

 fields, and about the streets there. Those pieces that 

 have radiate crowns on the heads of the efiigies, they call 

 Saracens' heads, all the rest Aldburgh half-pennies. 

 Here we saw a piece of the antient Roman pavement, 

 perhaps that which they called tessellatum. The pieces 

 of the pavement which we saw were about two inches 

 diameter, not perfectly square, but of the form of a 

 lozenge, some red and some black, which we suppose 

 were marble. This night we lodged at a small village 

 called Hamerton, about six or seven miles from York. 



August the 6th, we rode back again to York ; there 

 first of all we visited the minster, which is indeed a large 

 and stately fabric, but in some things inferior to Beverley 

 minster, viz., in the multitude of the marble pillars, and 

 in the arched roof of stone. The body of the church 

 and choir is very broad, the lantern high and large, which 

 we ascended by 274 steps, many of them high ones. The 



* This outlaw lived in the reign of Riehard I. 



