Carrot and Coals: Earth-Work-Mound…

*

The name Arbor Low is of Saxon derivation, originally ‘Eordburh-Hlaw’ meaning the Earth-Work Mound.

Wen smiles, “Where did you dig that up from?”

“I have my sources, you know.”

“As your text only specifies Saxon, are we to presume that the Angles had a different language.”

“Quite possibly, but it says something else too.”

“Go on…”

“It tells us that as the Saxon name has stuck, then they very probably attended to the site more than any of the other later cultures.”

“It’s very descriptive isn’t it?”

“If a tin were involved…”

“Funny you should say that because tin may be very much involved not least because it is essential in the manufacture of bronze and there was a thriving tin trade between Briton and the Near East.”

“It seems odd to associate the word manufacture with these people.”

“That’s precisely what it was though.”

“Oh yes…”

“The mound, presumably, refers to Gib Hill?”

“Which is also, presumably a much later name, indicative of a much more barbaric culture?”

“Strange isn’t it, the same mound is accorded the most venerable dead by one culture and the most despicable criminals by another.”

“People have no grasp of what they do.”…

“A gibbet is an iron casing with iron spikes which penetrate various parts of the body; a sort of metal crown of thorns for the whole body.

“Nice.”

“If the mound was a moot as opposed to a toot-hill then the two functions might not be mutually exclusive. The laws would be proclaimed from the mound and any transgressions of that law would also be rectified there.”

“Moot and Toot?”

“A moot is spoken, a toot is heard.”

“But then again the name could also be specifically designed by later generations to keep people away.”

“I once worked for a company who took over a hospital building and converted one of the operating theatres into a restaurant.”

“People, I have recently heard it said, have no grasp of what they do.”…

*