supply of water for Kirkham and Lytham; and from the west side a main of similar size takes the water for Fleetwood and Blackpool, the supply for the former place branching off near Great Marton, and going by Bispham and Rossall. The Weeton reservoir was formed capable of containing fifteen million gallons of water. An additional pipe, running from Weeton through Singleton, Skippool, and Thornton, to join the Fleetwood main at Flakefleet, near Rossall, was laid in 1875; and a new reservoir, to hold 190,000,000 gallons, is in course of formation at Barnacre, above Grizedale.

CHAPTER IV.

CONDITION, CUSTOMS, AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEOPLE.

HERE is little to be remarked, because little is known, respecting the social and moral aspects of the untutored race which, in the earliest historic age, sought a domicile or refuge amidst the forests of the Fylde, or invaded its glades in search of prey. The habits of the Setantii were simply those of other savage tribes who depended for their daily sustenance upon their skill and prowess in the chase, and whose intercommunion with the world beyond their own limited domains, was confined to hostile or friendly meetings with equally barbarous races whose frontiers adjoined their own. Certain disinterred roots were necessary adjuncts to their repasts, and indeed, on many occasions, when outwitted by the wild tenants of the woods, formed the sole item. Their Druidical faith and the supreme power of the priesthood over their almost every action, both secular and religious, have already been referred to in an earlier page. The remorseless sacrifice of fellow beings on their unhallowed altars, and the general spirit of cruelty and inhumanity which pervaded all their rites, are not to be regarded as disclosing a naturally callous and brutal disposition on the part of the Setantii, but as indications of the deplorable ignorance in which they existed, and the blind obdedience which they yielded to the principles indoctrinated by the Druids. That the Setantii, however submissive to the dictates and requirements of their priests, were far from passively allowing the encroachments of others on their liberties is shown by the promptitude and fierceness with which they combatted the progress of the Roman legions through their territory. No

portion of the British conquest cost the conquerors more trouble, time, and bloodshed, than did the land peopled by the hardy and valorous Brigantes with their comparatively small, but equally intrepid, neighbours and allies the Setantii. The two most striking characteristics of the aboriginal Fylde inhabitants were their ignorance and bravery, and whilst the former rivetted the chains which held them in subjection to the priesthood, the latter incited them to oppose to the death the usurpations of the stranger. There is nothing of local interest to recount during the period the Romans held the soil, but after their abdication, when the Anglo-Saxons violated their faith and traitorously seized a land which they had come professedly to protect, the Fylde began to evince symptoms of greater animation; villages sprang up in different spots on the open grounds or clearings in the woods; the solitary Roman settlement at Kirkham was appropriated and renamed by the new arrivals, and, perhaps, for the first time a population of numerical importance was established in the district.

During the earlier part of this era the inhabitants were graziers rather than agriculturists or ploughmen. Three quarters, even, of the entire kingdom were devoted to rearing and feeding cattle, so that the grain produce of the country must have been extremely small when compared with the superabundance of live stock, and as a consequence of such a condition of things, those animals which could forage for themselves and exist upon the wild herbage of the waste lands or the fallen fruits of the trees, as acorns and beech-mast, were to be purchased at prices almost nominal, whilst others which required the cultivated products of the fields, as corn and hay, for their sustenance, were disproportionately dear; thus about the end of the tenth century the values of the former were:

Trees were valued not by the circumference or magnitude of their trunks, but by the amount of shelter their branches would afford to the cattle, which seem to have lived almost entirely in the open pastures; and bearing that in mind we are not surprised to read in the Saxon Chronicle of periodical plagues or murrains breaking out amongst them. "In 1054," says that journal, "there was so great loss of cattle as was not remembered for many winters before." This, however, is only one extract from frequent entries referring to similar misfortunes in different years, both before and after the date quoted. Swine were kept in immense herds throughout the kingdom, and there is every probability that in a locality like the Fylde, where trees would still abound and provender be plentifully scattered from the oaks and beeches, hogs would be extensively bred. Indeed immediately after the close of the Saxon empire, Roger de Poictou conveyed his newly acquired right to pawnage (swine's food) in the woods of Poulton, amongst other things, to the monastery of St. Mary, in Lancaster, a circumstance strongly favourable to the existence of swine there in considerable numbers. Kine, also, are usually reported to have been a favourite stock with the breeders of Lancashire, whilst sheep were rare in proportion, although in other places they were exceedingly popular and profitable, chiefly from the sale of their wool.

The Saxon inhabitants of the small villages in the Fylde who were engaged in agriculture had no knowledge of any manure beyond marl, which they mixed with lighter and finer soils; nor were their farm-lands cultivated all at one time, but a portion only of the estate was subjected to the action of the plough, and when its fertility had been thoroughly exhausted, the remainder was tilled and brought into service, the first plot being allowed to lie fallow for a few years until its productive powers had been renewed. Grain was not, as now, purchased from the growers by dealers and stored up in warehouses, but each of the neighbouring people, as soon as the crops had been gathered into the barns, bought whatever quantity he thought would suffice for his household wants until the ensuing harvest, and removed it to his own residence. The universal waste and improvident consumption of grain during this season of abundance, led frequently to

famines in other parts of the year, and many instances of that punishment following such prodigality are related in the chronicle before named. One notice, bearing the date 1044, says :-"This year there was very great hunger all over England, and corn so dear as no man ever remembered before; so that a sester of wheat rose to sixty pence and even further."

The ploughs of our forefathers were, as would naturally be supposed, somewhat rude and clumsy in construction, differing considerably in appearance, although not in their modus operandi, from those which may be seen furrowing the same land in the present day. Each plough was furnished with an iron share, in front of which, attached to the extremity of a beam projecting anteriorly, was a wheel of moderate diameter, its purpose being to relieve the labour of the oxen and to facilitate the guiding of the instrument, especially in turning. The oxen employed were ordinarily four, and yoked to the plough by means of twisted willow bands. Horses were prohibited by law from being used on the land, but there must have been little need, one would imagine, for a legal prohibition in the matter when it is remembered that horses were nearly four times as valuable as oxen, and that the latter were fully efficient at the task. The month of January commenced their season for preparing the ground, and during the period thus occupied the labours of the ploughman began each morning at sunrise, when the oxen were tethered and conducted to the fields, where the duty of the husbandman was lightened by the assistance of a boy, who superintended the cattle, driving or leading them whilst at work. In the inclement months of winter these oxen were fed and tended in sheds under the special care of the ploughman, but during summer they shared a common lot with the other cattle and were turned out to pasture in the fields, being transferred to the charge of the cowherd. Other implements of husbandry in use, in addition to the plough, were scythes, sickles, axes, spades, pruning-hooks, forks, and flails, besides which the farmers possessed carts and waggons of rather a cumbersome pattern. It is doubtful whether the harrow was known here so early, but opinion usually refers its introduction to a later date.

Of the moral tone of our Saxon settlers it is difficult to judge, but that there business transactions were not always governed by