Open [36.0 MB]

BOOK in.
168 THE SCANDINAVIANS, AND
leisure times by playing at keals or nine pins. 1
is manifest also that the Thinginount would not
meet the requirements of the statute, which enacts
that there shall be not one but a pair of butts and
that there was more than one of what are termed
butts is rendered probable by an ordinance made
for the preservation of " Hogges butts," about three
years after the Act of Parliament. This ordinance of
A.D. 1469 decrees in the quaint language of the
times, that " no manner of man take no clay from
Hogges butts upon pain of XX. shillings as oft as they
may be found so doing." 2 A stronger argument how-
Musters at the ever may be deduced from the size of the mount. We
find that the city forces were periodically mustered
on Hoggen Green, that the mayor and principal
citizens sat at these musters under a pavilion or tent
erected on the top of Hoggen butt, 3 and we know
that after the mount was levelled this tent was an-
nually set up in Stephen' s-green for these military
reviews. Now it is utterly irreconcilable' with any
description given of archery butts elsewhere to suppose
that a high circular mount on the top of which
a pavilion could be erected had been piled up for the
mere purpose of archery practice.
But in addition to these arguments there are cir-
cumstances connected with the mount which strongly
tend to identify it with the Scandinavian Thingmote.
1
History of Dublin, p. 108. upon occasion of a general hosting,
1 Acts of Assembly. Midsummer, the Sheriff to cause a new tent to
A.D. 1469. City Records. be made, &c., and Mr. Bellew to be
* Harris's MSS., p. 115, answerable for the old tent if he be
Pococke Collection, Brit. Mus., found chargeable." Acts of As-
MSS. 4823. "Forasmuch as the sembly, Christmas, 1593. City
City is destitute of a tent to serve Records.
It