128 THE CASTLE OF EXETER.
ness of purpose, it may with propriety be recommended generally to such of our readers as may take an interest in Slavonic antiquities.
Since writing the above, I have seen the second collection, consisting of seven letters, printed at Gnesen in 1847, 4°. This collection is principally devoted to Slavonic mythology, and contains descriptions of the gods Perkun or Perun, Jessa, Dziedzilia, Ljadas or Krasopani, Pikollo, Swatowit, Kija, Lajma, Radegast, Tur or Thor, Triglaw, Czernibog, Weles or Wolos, Czur, Bystizye, Sobot, Apia, Jezibaba, Ipabog, Sieba, &c, with explanatory remarks upon some other antiquarian subjects of minor importance.
THE CASTLE OF EXETER.
BY THE REV. GEORGE OLIVER, D.D.
All our Chronicles agree, as Bishop Grandisson observes in the letter he addressed to King Edward III. (Register, vol. i., fol. 286), that King Athelstan was the first of our monarchs who surrounded the city of Exeter with walls and erected a castle. "Si len regarde bien les cronicles, len trovera que le Roy Adelstan fist enclore la vylle D'Excestre, et fist le chastel." (a.d. 925—941). Within seventy years later, the whole of these fortifications, with the city itself, were utterly demolished and levelled by the ruthless Sweyn; but, under the auspices of the Kings Canute and Edward the Confessor, Exeter arose like a phoenix from its ashes, and, at the period of the Conquest, was regarded as a city (civitas) of considerable importance for its population, its strength, and the riches of its inhabitants. William the Conqueror, provoked at the honourable reception which Githa, the mother of King Harold, and several noble ladies of her court, had experienced from the authorities there, and, in consequence, at their successful escape to Flanders from his insatiate rapacity; furious also at the ill-treatment which the citizens had dealt to a fleet of his mercenaries, driven by a tempest into the river Exe, and at their daring to refuse the admission of a garrison, or perform any other services to him than they had hitherto rendered to their Anglo-Saxon monarchs;
