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Lanhill

Long Barrow

Folklore

From 'Wiltshire: the topographical collections of John Aubrey. Corrected and enlarged by J. E. Jackson (1862)'.

John Aubrey wrote:
Hubba's Lowe: In the reign of King Ethelred, Hinguor and Hubba, two brothers, Danes, Leaders who had gott footing among the East Angles. These Pagans, Asserius saith, came from Danubius. Bruern, a nobleman, whose wife King Osbert had ravished, called in Hinguor and Hubba to revenge him.
Jackson, out to correct him, leaves the footnote:
There seems to be no authority for this tumulus having been ever called 'Hubba's Low' (ie the burial tumulus of Hubba, the Dane). It is merely the name that Aubrey gave it, because his neighbour at Kington St Michael, Sir Charles Snell 'told him so'. Hubba was most likely buried where the Chronicles say he was slain, in Devonshire. See Hoare's Anc Wilts ii 99, and a minute account of this barrow by Dr Thurnam, in Wilts Arch Mag III 67. The common name is Lan Hill (Long Hill) barrow. It is three miles NW of Chippenham in a meadow on the left of the high road leading to Marshfield. It is a heap of stones about 60 paces in length, covered in turf. For the convenience of obtaining road materials it has been much injured.
One feels he was rather missing the point, shirtily pointing out that Hubba would have been buried in Devon. But you can see his disregard for barrows in his description of it as 'a heap of stones'. Oh well.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
10th March 2006ce
Edited 12th March 2006ce

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