warrant the name.[1] Even but a few years since, the springs of chalybeate water hereabouts—the sources of the little river Asten—were believed to have received their redness from the blood of the slaughtered Saxons. Drayton, with his usual grace, embodies the beautiful idea in his Polyolbion:
"Asten once distained with native English blood;
Whose soil yet, when but wet with any little rain,
Doth blush, as put in mind of those there sadly slain."
Most unfortunately, however, for tradition and poetry, the true original name of the spot referred to was not Sanguelac, but Santlache, and it is so spelt in all the earlier monastic documents.
4. One of the boroughs or subdivisions of the hundred of Battel is called Mountjoy. Now Boyer defines Mont-joie as "a heap of stones made by an army as a monument of victory," and this may be the origin of the name. In this district, and on the line by which the Saxons must have retreated, is another spot, known as Call-back-hill; and this, tradition—ever fond of playing with words—has made the place where the duke "called back" his pursuing troops. Here again legendary history must yield to etymological criticism, for the true name is Cald-bec, i.e., "the cold spring;" and such a spring is yet seen bursting from a cavernous recess on the spot.
5. To the westward of the town of Battel, on the London road, is a large tree, called the Watch-Oak which is supposed to have derived its epithet from some watch set either the night before or the night after the battle; but the tradition is very vague. One other place may be noticed: this is Stan-dard-hill, in the adjacent parish of Ninfield, where somebody's standard, William's or Harold's, was set up. So says tradition; but there seems nothing to support such a notion. Harold's standard was first pitched here, and here it remained until it was supplanted by the oriflamme of the Conqueror; and here, as we have already seen, subsequently arose this
- ↑ Vide p. 31 supra.
