A second family, the Govetts, has a claim to definite "Danish origin." One member of this family was remarkably musical, and trained the local band at Combwich, some five and twenty years ago. "He came from the old Danes, and they were the most musical people that ever were. When they were about here, some of them stopped and settled down, and Govett came from them. That is where he got his music from." Another definite legend of settlement of a ghastly sort still survives. It is said that the "Danes" had married "some of our women." The women rose by a concerted plan one night, and slew all their foreign husbands.

From the testimony, therefore, of physique, place-names, and traditions, it seems certain that there has been an actual settlement of Scandinavians on the southern shore of the Severn, analogous to, and probably contemporary with, the known eighth-century settlements on the south Welsh coast. With so favourable a land in sight from thence, and that helpless after the first Saxon inroads, it would seem actually improbable that such settlements should not have been made.

The Danes of Alfred's troubles most certainly did not gain any foothold in Somerset. Indeed, the utmost insult that one can now hurl at a red-headed opponent on a village green is to call him "a Dane's bastard"-while a new comer who is also a Somerset man is hailed as "an Englishman too." It is quite probable that the Rawlins family tradition of expulsion from Wales may give an exact date at which the Somerset settlement existed, as the Danes are known to have been driven from Wales in 795.1

It would be most natural for the wanderers to seek refuge with already established countrymen just across The knowledge of the same settlements would

'The local pronunciation of the name Rawlins, is "Hrollins," a close approximation to the Norse "Hrolfing."

ey account for the first Danish landings being made at the Parrett mouth in later years. For this settlement the hill by the Combwich haven, already guarded by its prehistoric walling, would be a natural place for the sanctuary of the Asir, and it may be worth noting that on this hill the ash trees, rare on the surrounding land, grow abundantly.

It becomes a further and interesting question, whether the old port of Watchet may not have been founded by the men of the same settlement, and if the name of the little market town of Williton, "the town of the Wealas," may not refer rather to these northern foreigners than to the Welsh of the district. Scandinavian names occur in the Somerset Domesday as those of tenants of coastwise lands, mostly those under the de Courcy who gave his name to the village which took the place of the old Farringdon. A later chapelry dedicated to St. Olaf in the Church of St. Dubric at Porlock may also tend to prove a lasting Scandinavian interest in the coast.

To pass now to another group of traditions, common perhaps to all our component populations. The Pixy legends of the district are of no unusual type. Belief in "Pixy leading" is general, and only a few years since a woman, lost in a sudden evening mist within a few minutes walk across the fields from her house, and unable to regain the pathway or find the stile, became actually demented from terror, firmly believing that she was Pixy led." The legends have one special centre round a large mound on the Wick "moor," exploration of which has this year yielded some very remarkable results. The mound is about ninety feet across by eleven feet high, mainly composed of stones, and it was said to move bodily about the field in whose centre it stands. Its position, not many feet above the old high-water line and below the hill-crest, is unusual. Close to it is a holy well, said to be gifted with healing properties for skin and eye

The field

complaints, and still resorted to for such. itself is called "Pixy piece," and the mound "Pixies' mound": while the well is said to be dedicated to St. Sativola, and is known as "Sidwells." This dedication occurs elsewhere in the county and in Devon (Exeter and Morebath). The Somerset "Sigwell" at Charlton Horethorne is also associated with a barrow. It would seem more likely that in both these cases the name is connected with the "sidhe "1 of the Gaelic population, and that the mediaeval saint has been chosen for some distant likeness of name, if not evolved from it.

In this mound the pixies were said to live, and an old barn close at hand is the last place where they were seen by "Mr. Rawlins's uncle." He heard the sound of threshing, and crept up to the barn to see who was making free with his corn. As he came near he heard voices.

How I do tweat," said one.

"So thee do tweat, do 'ee?" answered another, "well then, I do tweat and double tweat, looky zee!"

Mr. Rawlins's uncle looked over the half-door, and there were the pixies with their red caps.

"Well done, my little vellows!" he cried, and at that they fled, and have been seen no more.

The story is not unusual, of course, and occurs in connection with other old barns and relatives of other living men elsewhere in the district.

Another less common legend, but one which is found elsewhere in England and Scandinavia alike, is that of a ploughman who was at work in one of the Sidwell fields. As he worked he heard what he took to be a child crying, and lamenting that it had "broken its peel," round the barrow. The "peel" is the long wooden shovel with which the bread is put into the old brick-ovens, but the man went to see if he could find the child, whom he 1 Older form "side "-presumably pronounced as "" "sheědě (M'Ritchie).

D

supposed must have wandered from home. He could see no one, but on the side of the mound was the broken peel, which he mended with string, being goodnatured, and supposing that the child could not be far away. When he left work in the evening he went to see if the peel had been recovered. It was gone, but in its place was a cake hot from the oven of the grateful pixy.

There is no treasure-legend attached to the mound, which is, in the light of the results of the exploration, significant. It was said that "beautiful music comes from it of a night," and (perhaps in this district, of course), "that a Dane was buried there." But the most persistent statement concerning the mound was that "if it were digged down by day, it would be put back that night." This statement probably occurs in connection with other barrows, but I have always had a strong opinion that it was a memory of an actual attempt at mound-breaking by some enemy, and of replacement of the moved material by the tribe.

The mound seemed from position and tradition a most likely place for the burial of a Scandinavian warrior near his beached ships, besides that the size and position of it was most unusual. A joint exploration was therefore carried out this year by the Somerset Archaeological Society and the Viking Club, under the superintendence of Mr. St. George Gray, Mr. A. F. Major, and myself.1 The mound proved to be of early bronze date, three perfect secondary interments with accompanying flint implements and typical "beakers" being found in the upper portion of the barrow. Below them, and resting on the bed rock of the district, had been built a perfect circular wall surrounding the core of the structure, some 3 ft. 6 in. high and of varying thickness. Within this we expected

The full account of this exploration will be found in the Saga-book of the Viking Club for 1908, and will be published separately during the year.