Part 2 (2/2)

(A.D. 642).

THE LEGEND OF THE WILD BOAR, ”THE MONSTER IN FORMER AGES, WHICH PROWLED OVER THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF WINWICK, INFLICTING INJURY ON MAN AND BEAST.”

The Venerable Bede, in the ninth chapter of his ”Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation,” says, in the year 642--”Oswald was killed in a great battle, by the same Pagan nation and Pagan king of the Mercians who had slain his predecessor, Edwin, at a place called in the English tongue, Maserfelth, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth day of the month of August.”

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the same date, says--”This year Oswald, King of the Northumbrians, was slain by Penda and the South-humbrians at Maserfeld, on the nones of August, and his body was buried at Bardney (Lincolns.h.i.+re). His sanct.i.ty and miracles were afterwards manifested in various ways beyond this island, and his hands are at Bamborough”

(Northumberland), ”uncorrupted.”

The battle is likewise recorded by relatively more recent chroniclers, yet its site, hitherto, has not been satisfactorily determined. Camden, Capgrave, Pennant, Sharon Turner, and some others fix it at Oswestry, in Shrops.h.i.+re; while Archbishop Usher, Alban Butler, Powell, Dr. Cowper, Edward Baines, Thomas Baines, W. Beaumont, Dr. Kendrick, Mr. T. Littler, and others prefer the neighbourhood of Winwick, in the ”Fee of Makerfield,” Lancas.h.i.+re.[11]

Mr. Edward Baines says--”The district in which Winwick is seated has, from a very distant period, been denominated Mackerfield or Macerfield--a battle-field, with variations in the orthography usually found in Norman and Anglo-Saxon writers.” The late Rev. Edmund Simpson, vicar of Ashton-in-Mackerfield, however, disputes this etymology, and contends that ”Mackerfield is Mag-er-feld, a great plain cultivated: _mag_ and _er_ being Gaelic and _feld_ Saxon. Thus Maghull, near Liverpool, is a hill on the plain: thus, also, Maghera-felt in Ireland.”

The ”Fee of Makerfield” was co-extensive with the Newton hundred of the Domesday record, and included nineteen towns.h.i.+ps. It extended from Wigan to Winwick, and was traversed in its entire length by the great Roman road, which entered Northumbria from the south near Warrington.

Professor Dwight Whitney, in his ”Life and Growth of Language” (p. 39), says--”_aecer_ meant in Anglo-Saxon a 'cultivated field,' as does the German acker to the present day; and here, again, we have its very ancient correlatives in Sanscrit _agra_, Greek ?????, Latin _ager_; the restriction of the word to signify a field of certain fixed dimensions, taken as a unit of measure for fields in general, is something quite peculiar and recent. It is a.n.a.lagous with the like treatment of _rod_ and _foot_ and _grain_, and so on, except that in these cases we have saved the old meaning while adding the new.”

Field is from A.S., O.S., and Ger. _feld_, Danish _veld_, the open _country_, cleared lawn (Collins's Dic. Der.) With respect to acre the old meaning is still retained, in one instance at least. We still say ”G.o.d's acre,” when speaking of a churchyard or burial ground.

The following are some of the princ.i.p.al variations in the writing of the name: Bede calls it Maserfelth, King Alfred writes it Maserfeld, as in one MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Another copy, however, has it Maresfeld. The latter is probably a clerical error resultant from the accidental misplacement of the letters _r_ and _s_ by the copyist, or it may be an ordinary example of what philologists call ”metathesis,” or transliteration. Matthew of Westminster writes it Marelfeld, and John of Brompton, Maxelfeld. Matthew and John, however, are relatively modern authorities in comparison with Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Alfred. Their orthography, however, furnishes an apt ill.u.s.tration of the mutation which has taken place in local nomenclature during the transition of the language from Anglo-Saxon to modern English, and hence the occasional difficulty of satisfactory identification at the present day.

The phonetic difficulty between Maserfeld, Macerfeld, and Makerfield is, perhaps, not insurmountable. The letter _c_ in English is useless, having either the sound of _k_ or _s_. Before _a_, _o_, and _u_, it becomes _k_, as in cat, cot, cure; before _e_ and _i_ it becomes _s_, as in century, certain, cinder, and city. Cer, likewise, by metathesis, or the transposition of the _r_, becomes cre, as in lucre, ma.s.sacre, etc.[12] Thus it would appear the modern word ”Makerfield” probably accords both etymologically and topographically with the Anglo-Saxon name of the site of the battle. As no other hamlet, towns.h.i.+p, or parish, or other territorial designation (the nearest being Macclesfield), does this, especially when taken in conjunction with the many corroborative evidences, would appear to satisfactorily identify the locality.[13]

These corroborative evidences are by no means either scanty or unimportant.

The parish church of Winwick is dedicated to St. Oswald, and Mr. Baines says--”Little more than half a mile to the north, on the road to Golborne and Wigan, is an ancient well, which has been known from time immemorial by the name of 'St. Oswald's Well.'” This well is still in existence, and a certain veneration at the present time hovers about it in the minds of others than the superst.i.tious peasantry. On the upper portion of the south wall of the church is an inscription in Latin, purporting to be a ”renovation” of a previous one, by a person named Sclater, in the year 1530, in the curacy of Henry Johnson. On a recent visit, this inscription, as well as other portions of the edifice, I found had undergone further renovation. Gough translates the first three lines as follows:--

This place of old did Oswald greatly love: Who the Northumbers ruled, now reigns above, And from Marcelde did to Heaven remove.

Mr. Beamont gives the translation of the inscription as follows:--

This place of yore did Oswald greatly love, Northumbria's King, but now a saint above, Who in Marcelde's field did fighting fall, Hear us, oh blest one, when here to thee we call.

(A line over the porch obliterated.) In fifteen hundred and just three times ten, Sclater restored and built this wall again, And Henry Johnson here was curate then.

This, and its repet.i.tion by Hollingworth in his ”Mancuniensis,” appears to have alone const.i.tuted ”the highest authority” relied upon by Edward Baines for his statement that Winwick parish was the favourite residence of King Oswald. The inscription does not, as some have a.s.sumed, state the church is built in, on, or near Marcelde. It merely a.s.serts that Oswald died at a place so named, and which may have been Winwick, the site of the church dedicated to St. Oswald, or any other locality, Marcelde being evidently a corruption and a rythmical contraction of the undoubted Anglo-Saxon name of the scene of Oswald's defeat and death.

Objection has been taken to the word ”Marcelde,” as a bad Latin subst.i.tute for ”Maserfeld.” But the goodness or badness of mediaeval Latin subst.i.tutes for English names is of no consequence to the question at issue, as the reference to the place of Oswald's death is undeniable.

It is but an apt ill.u.s.tration of the strange transformations local nomenclature sometimes has undergone in transmission from past centuries to the present time.

Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh Bruts curiously confound the incidents attendant upon this and a previous battle, in which Oswald was engaged and was victorious. Geoffrey says that Cadwalla, a Brit-Welsh king, one of the heroes of Lywrich Hen's poetic effusions, _hearing of Oswald's victory over Penda(?)_ at ”Heavenfield,” ”being inflamed with rage, a.s.sembled his army and went in pursuit of the holy king, Oswald; and in a battle which he had with him, at a place called Burne, broke in upon him and killed him.”

Geoffrey here, as noted by Sharon Turner, shows his irrational partiality to the fame of the British chieftain, and his disregard of historical truth when it did not minister to his prejudices or presumed patriotism. Cadwalla was slain in the battle with Oswald at ”Heavenfield,” in 635, seven years previously to the saintly Northumbrian warrior's defeat and death; and, consequently, the British hero was, in accordance with ordinary mortal notions, somewhat incapacitated for the performance of the after-deeds of valour, ascribed to him by his panegyrist--without miraculous intervention--which, however, Geoffrey does not even suggest, notwithstanding its presumed frequency on other momentous occasions.[14]

Referring to Oswald's death, Bede says--”It is also given out and become a proverb, 'that he ended his life in prayer;' for when he was beset with weapons and enemies, he perceived he must immediately be killed, and prayed to G.o.d for the souls of his army, hence it is proverbially said, 'Lord have mercy on their souls, said Oswald, as he fell on the ground.' His bones, therefore, were translated to the monastery which we mentioned (Bardsea), and buried therein; but the king that slew him commanded his head, hands, and arms to be cut off from the body, and set upon stakes. But the successor in the throne, Oswy, coming thither the next year with his army, took them down, and buried his head in the church of Lindisfarne, and the hands and arms in the royal city”

(Bamborough).

Bede relates many anecdotes, ill.u.s.trative of the sanct.i.ty of Oswald, and the miracles wrought by his bones, as well as by the earth which received his blood on the battle-field. One instance I give entire, in Dr. Giles's translation of the venerable historian's own words. In chapter x., book iii., he says--

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