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Sherston Magnafrom Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales - PLACES AND FAMILIESThe following very curious observations on this town are extracted from an anonymous MS. in my possession, written forty or fifty years ago. I have never seen the lines in print. Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wiltshire, mentions the plant called Danes-blood, and derives the name from a similar circumstance. Some observations on Sherston may be seen in Camden, ed. Gough, i. 96. It is Sceor-stan, where the celebrated battle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes was fought in the year 1016, and prodigies of valour exhibited by the combatants. "When a schoolboy, I have often traced the intrenchments at Sherston Magna, which are still visible on the north side of the town, and particularly in a field near the brow of a hill which overlooks a branch of the river Avon, which rises a little below Didmarton; and with other boys have gone in quest of a certain plant in the field where the battle was said to have been fought, which the inhabitants pretended dropt blood when gathered, and called Danesblood, corruptly no doubt for Danewort, which was supposed to have sprung from the blood of the Danes slain in that battle. Among other memorials, the statue of a brave warrior, vulgarly called Rattlebone, but whose real name I could never learn, is still standing upon a pedestal on the east side of the church-porch, as I've been lately informed, where I saw it above fifty years ago: of whose bravery, almost equal to that of Withrington, many fabulous stories are told. One, in particular, like some of the Grecian fables of old, built upon the resemblance his shield bears to the shape of a tile-stone, which he is said to have placed over his stomach after it had been ripped up in battle, and by that means maintained the field; whilst the following rude verses are said to have been repeated by the king by way of encouragement: Fight on, Rattlebone, And thou shalt have Sherstone; If Sherstone will not do, Then Easton Grey and Pinkney too." Next: North Acre Previous: Severn
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