but tradition, there are innumerable
traces of historic fact.[48]

A stage forward, in the same class of tradition, are those examples of
special names which indicate an important or impressive event, the
real nature of which is only revealed by modern discovery. Thus
perhaps the "White Horse Stone" at Aylesford, in Kent, the legend of
which is that one who rode a beast of this description was killed on
or about this spot,[49] may take us back to the great battle at
Crayford, where Horsa was killed. Another kind of local tradition is
perhaps more instructive. Immediately contiguous to the north side of
the Roman road at Litlington, near Royston, were some strips of
unenclosed, but cultivated, land, which in ancient deeds from time
immemorial had been called "Heaven's Walls." Traditional awe attached
to this spot, and the village children were afraid to traverse it
after dark, when it was said to be frequented by supernatural beings.
Here is subject for inquiry. Both words in the name are significant.
Why the allusion to Heaven; why is a field called walls? The problem
was solved in 1821, for in that year some labourers were digging for
gravel on this spot, and they struck upon an old wall composed of
flint and Roman brick. This accidental discovery was followed up by
Dr. Webb, and the wall was found to enclose a rectangular space
measuring about thirty-eight yards by twenty-seven, and containing
numerous deposits of sepulchral urns containing ashes of the dead. It
was clear from the results of the excavations that here was one of
those large plots of ground environed by walls to which the name of
_ustrinum_ was given by the Romans,[50] a fact which was preserved in
the name long after the site had lost every trace of its origin.

[Illustration: LITLINGTON FIELD]

I will refer to one more local example. In Dorsetshire and Wiltshire
fairs are held upon sites which are often marked by the remains of
ancient works, or distinguished by some dim tradition of vanished
importance.[51] One has only to refer to the history of the market as
"a contribution to the early history of human intercourse" as Mr.
Grierson puts it,[52] and to the extremely important and archaic
constitution of the market, a glimpse of which has been afforded by
Sir Henry Maine, alone among scholars who have investigated earliest
English institutions, to know how valuable such a note as this must be
if it can be confirmed by extended research. Local inve