79 
fused by transcribers with the krger Derwent, near which 
they had pitched their camp ? It is but a slight alteration, 
not near so great or important as the extraordinary mistake 
which one writer has followed another in regard to this very 
battle. I cannot account for it, but it shows how easily a 
mistake once made is copied, one and all writing Harold 
** Harfagery or fair- haired," who had died a century before in 
his bed, for Harold " Hardradaj'^ who met his doom in this 
battlefield in the Southern part of North Humberland! Then 
we have in our favour that soon after the conquest " Tates- 
halle " disappears, and in De Lacy Chartas the " village and 
honour of Pontefract'^ assumes its place. Why, and how, 
and wherefore this change of name in this important district ? 
Does it not point to some important incident in connection 
with some broken bridge — Ponte-fract? You may see such a 
causeway as we may conjecture this may have been at 
Smeaton, a little lower on the Went ; a ford below, and a 
raised causeway of stone with a couple of planks alongside 
for foot passengers. " Liable to floods is written down still 
on the low lands round Standing Bridge ; the valley of 
the Went and the whole of this district in old days, when 
the outlets of the Ouse and Humber were water-logged,, 
presented a very different aspect to what now it does. 
Lastly, what light does topography and a view of the 
country and the traditions of the past throw upon our 
subject? Stamford Bridge! no one can view the false or 
" Brommagen " spot without a conviction coming across him — 
Not here could Harold possibly have been taken unawares,''' 
as we look at the dead level towards York ; that not here 
could he, coming to York, at the same time have been 
surprised at the other side the river, **^be)^ond the bridge.'' 
That it is simply impossible, as the writer of the romance in 
the Quarterly (October, 1868), on Yorkshire, would feign, that 
the bridge being carried they came upon the dispersed and 
