English Villages. P. H. Ditchfield

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English Villages - P. H. Ditchfield

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in this district for the purpose of defence in dangerous times, when the approach of a neighbouring tribe, or the advance of a company of free-booting invaders, threatened them with death or the destruction of their flocks and herds. These earthworks we shall examine more closely. An ivy-covered ruin near the church shows the remains of a monastic cell or monastery; and in the distance perhaps we can see the outlines of an old Norman keep or castle; all of these relate to the story of our villages, and afford us subjects for investigation and research.

      Then there is the village green where so many generations of the villagers have disported themselves, danced the old country dances (now alas! forgotten), and reared the merry May-pole, and crowned their queen. Here they held their rural sports, and fought their bouts of quarter-staff and cudgel-play, grinned through horse-collars, and played pipe and tabor at many a rustic feast, when life was young and England merry. We shall try to picture to ourselves these happy scenes of innocent diversion which cheered the hearts of our forefathers in bygone times.

       ENLARGE

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       AN ENGLISH VILLAGE STREET

      We will try to collect the curious legends and stories which were told to us by our grandsires, and are almost forgotten by the present generation. These we should treasure up, lest they should be for ever lost. Local tradition has often led the way to important discoveries.

      In this brief circuit of an ordinary English village we have found many objects which are calculated to excite our imagination and to stimulate inquiry. A closer examination will well repay our study, and reward the labour of the investigator. It is satisfactory to know that all possible discoveries as to the antiquities of our villages have not yet been made. We have still much to learn, and the earth has not yet disclosed all its treasures. Roman villas still remain buried; the sepulchres of many a Saxon chieftain or early nomad Celt are still unexplored; the pile dwellings and cave domiciles of the early inhabitants of our country have still to be discovered; and piles of records and historical documents have still to be sought out, arranged, and examined. So there is much work to be done by the antiquary for many a long year; and every little discovery, and the results of every patient research, assist in accumulating that store of knowledge which is gradually being compiled by the hard labour of our English historians and antiquaries.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      Pytheas of Marseilles—Discovery of flint implements—Geological changes—Palaeolithic man—Eslithic—Palaeolithic implements—Drift men—Cave men—Neolithic man and his weapons—Dolichocephalic—Celtic or Brachycephalic race—The Iron Age.

      It was customary some years ago to begin the history of any country with the statement, “Of the early inhabitants nothing is known with any certainty,” and to commence the history of England with the landing of Julius Caesar B.C. 55. If this book had been written forty or fifty years ago it might have been stated that our first knowledge of Britain dates from 330 B.C. when Pytheas of Marseilles visited it, and described his impressions. He says that the climate was foggy, a characteristic which it has not altogether lost, that the people cultivated the ground and used beer and mead as beverages. Our villagers still follow the example of their ancestors in their use of one at least of these drinks.

      Of the history of all the ages prior to the advent of this Pytheas all written record is silent. Hence we have to play the part of scientific detectives, examine the footprints of the early man who inhabited our island, hunt for odds and ends which he has left behind, to rake over his kitchen middens, pick up his old tools, and even open his burial mound.

      About fifty years ago the attention of the scientific world was drawn to the flint implements which were scattered over the surface of our fields and in our gravel pits and mountain caves; and inquiring minds began to speculate as to their origin. The collections made at Amiens and Abbeville and other places began to convince men of the existence of an unknown and unimagined race, and it gradually dawned on us that on our moors and downs were the tombs of a race of men who fashioned their weapons of war and implements of peace out of flint. These discoveries have pushed back our knowledge of man to an antiquity formerly never dreamed of, and enlarged considerably our historical horizon. So we will endeavour to discover what kind of men they were, who roamed our fields and woods before any historical records were written, and mark the very considerable traces of their occupation which they have left behind.

      The condition of life and the character and climate of the country were very different in early times from what they are in the present day; and in endeavouring to discover the kind of people who dwelt here in prehistoric times, we must hear what the geologists have to tell us about the physical aspect of Britain in that period. There was a time when this country was connected with the Continent of Europe, and the English Channel and North Sea were mere valleys with rivers running through them fed by many streams. Where the North Sea now rolls there was the great valley of the Rhine; and as there were no ocean-waves to cross, animals and primitive man wandered northwards and westwards from the Continent, and made their abode here. It is curious to note that the migratory birds when returning to France and Italy, and thence to the sunny regions of Algiers and other parts of Northern Africa, always cross the seas where in remote ages there was dry land. They always traverse the same route; and it appears that the recollection of the places where their ancestors crossed has been preserved by them through all the centuries that have elapsed since “the silver streak” was formed that severs England from her neighbours.

      In the times of which we are speaking the land was much higher than it is now. Snowdon was 600 feet greater, and the climate was much colder and more rigorous. Glaciers like those in Switzerland were in all the higher valleys, and the marks of the action of the ice are still plainly seen on the rocky cliffs that border many a ravine. Moreover we find in the valleys many detached rocks, immense boulders, the nature of which is quite different from the character of the stone in the neighbourhood. These were carried down by the glaciers from higher elevations, and deposited, when the ice melted, in the lower valleys. Hence in this glacial period the condition of the country was very different from what it is now.

      Then a remarkable change took place. The land began to sink, and its elevation so much decreased that the central part of the country became a huge lake, and the peak of Snowdon was an island surrounded by the sea which washed with its waves the lofty shoulder of the mountain. This is the reason why shells and shingle are found in high elevations. The Ice Age passed away and the climate became warmer. The Gulf Stream found its way to our shores, and the country was covered by a warm ocean having islands raising their heads above the surface. Sharks swam around, whose teeth we find now buried in beds of clay. The land continued to rise, and attracted by the sunshine and the more genial clime animals from the Continent wandered northwards, and with them came man. Caves, now high amongst the hills, but then on a level with the rivers, were his first abode, and contain many relics of his occupancy, together with the bones of extinct animals. The land appears to have risen, and the climate became colder. The sea worked its relentless way through the chalk hills on the south and gradually met the waves of the North Sea which flowed over the old Rhine valley. It widened also the narrow strait that severed the country from Ireland, and the outline and contour of the island began more nearly to resemble that with which we are now familiar.

      A vast period of time was necessary to accomplish

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