“Full of their theme, they spurned all idle art, And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.”
Breedon church, in Leicestershire, is on a hill which similarly overlooks the village clustered at the foot. For pedestrians, the ascent has been made easier by cutting steps in the pathway, but carriages have to take a circuitous route to reach the church[270]. Other churches concerning which a contest was waged between Christian masons and the powers of darkness are St Chad’s, Rochdale, and Capel Garmon, in Denbighshire. In the second of these cases, the church was to have been erected on a hill, contiguous to an ancient spring, but the stones were repeatedly carried to a lower position[271]. This detail respecting the spring is not without significance, as was shown in the last chapter. Another illuminative Welsh example comes from Llanllechid, near Bangor. Here the fairies, or spirits, bore away the stones from a field called Caer Capel, and actually selected a situation--so the legend runs--more convenient than the first[272]. Both Caer Capel and Llanllechid are suggestive names, the latter gives a hint of a church built on the site of megaliths. At Wendover, in Buckinghamshire, the builders were thwarted by malevolent witches: at Hanchurch and Walsall, in Staffordshire, the trouble was caused by mischievous fairies. Each locality has its own bit of colour tinging the testimony, but to rehearse all the variations would be tedious. The number of these solitary hill-top churches was once probably much greater than at present. In some instances the buildings have been demolished; in others, modern dwellings have sprung up around the church and have masked its isolated position. Indeed, this shifting of the population is a factor which must never be left out of sight.
How shall we explain the superstitions attached to these churches? One fact is manifest--the selection of site was, in the majority of cases, freely made, in the sense that other spots were available. On a broader interpretation, based on retrospect, we perceive that there was little choice, since there existed an ever-present necessity for an asylum in times of stress and danger, not to mention minor reasons. We have seen that the traditions do not assign a cause for the persistence,--nay, obstinacy, of the church-builders. Perhaps we should except those churches which were erected in particular spots as the result of the vision of some saint, or of warning cries and mysterious voices heard by the masons. On the whole, however, we can interpret the stories only by the aid of folklore and anthropology. Modern research has shown that, in the earlier stages of human life in Britain, the communities dwelt mainly on the downlands and elevated moorlands[273]. Only when the historical period was well advanced, namely, during the late Roman and Saxon occupations, were the thickly wooded valleys and marshy plains settled and cultivated. The evidence, though largely inferential, is both good and abundant, and need not be recapitulated here. All that is essential, for the moment, is to remember that descendants of the earlier races probably lived on, isolated in sparse communities, wherever the conditions were favourable. This is the legitimate conclusion to be drawn, for example, from the classical excavations made by Pitt-Rivers in the chalk downlands of Cranborne Chase. Anthropological tests afford similar support in other regions, such as the Yorkshire Wolds and the Derbyshire Moors. The remnants of the older British races, modified somewhat by intermarriage, doubtless held aloof on their bleak hills and tablelands with considerable stubbornness. The Teutonic farmers of the vales would not at first greatly interfere with the hill-top folk. A time came, however, when fresh-comers began seriously to re-invade the more elevated spots, and to form settlements. This does not seem to have been done systematically until after the Norman period. But it is clear that any impinging of new races upon the older hill-top communities, however partial in its character, would give birth to exaggeration and myth. A fair corollary may be stated: the traditions which tell of the efforts of builders having been baulked or defeated by demons, witches, or evil spirits, are echoes of the time when older races still lingered sparingly on the hill-top settlements. On the other hand, the legends which speak of dreams and visions seem to represent a purely religious development belonging to the Christian period.