Indeed, the whole district of the Cheviots, and the lower lines of swelling hills into which the land subsides as it nears the sea, is crowded with the memorials of an earlier race; from every hill-top and rocky height they speak with tantalising half-revelations of that race which the Romans found here when their galleys brought them to the land which was to them Ultima Thule. No convincing explanation has yet been found of the concentric circular markings, with radiating grooves from the cup-shaped hollow in the middle, which are scored on the rocks wherever traces of an ancient camp are found; and the numbers of these traces are proof that this district was once a very thickly populated part of Britain.
And when Angle and Saxon were driving the early inhabitants before them, westward and southward, these hills and valleys still sheltered a considerable population; and Bede tells us of a royal residence not far away, at the foot of the well known Yeavering Bell, one of the more important hills of the range. It rises to a height of more than 1,100 feet, and then abruptly ends in a wide, almost level top, grass-grown and boulder-strewn, and crowned near the centre with a roughly-piled cairn. The ancient name of Yeavering Bell, as given by Bede in his account of the labours of St. Paulinus, was Ad-gefrin.
To recall the days when King Edwin and his queen, Ethelburga, came here from the royal city of Bamburgh, we must go back to a time nearly forty years after the Bernician chieftain, Ida, established himself in that rocky fortress, from whence he ruled a district roughly corresponding to the present counties of Durham and Northumberland, and known as Bernicia. One of Ida's successors, Ethelric, overcame the tribe of Angles then established in the neighbouring district of Deira--the Yorkshire of to-day. His successor, Ethelfrith, ruled over the united district, and married the daughter of Ella, the vanquished chieftain. Her brother, Edwin, he drove into exile, and the young prince found refuge at the court of Redwald of East Anglia, where he remained for some years.
Redwald's friendship, however, does not seem to have been above suspicion, for we find that Ethelfrith's bribe had on one occasion nearly induced him to give up his guest, whose life, however, was saved by Redwald's wife who turned her husband from his purpose. In his exile the thoughts of the young prince often turned towards his own land; and, once, as he sat brooding over his misfortunes, he saw in a vision one who came and spoke comforting words to him, saying that he should yet be king and that his reign should be long and glorious. "And if one should come to thee and repeat this sign," said the stranger, laying his right hand on Edwin's head "wouldst thou hearken to his rede?" Edwin gave his word, and the vision fled. Some little time after this, Ethelfrith of Northumbria, as the united districts were now called, fell in battle against Redwald, and Edwin, returning northward, became ruler of Northumbria, the sons of Ethelfrith fleeing in their turn before the new king. Edwin wedded, as his second wife, Ethelburga, daughter of that king of Kent in whose days Augustine came to England; and being a Christian princess, she brought with her a priest to her new home in the north. The priest's name was Paulinus; and one day he went to the King and, placing his right hand on Edwin's head, asked if he knew that sign. Edwin remembered, and redeemed his promise. He hearkened to the teaching of the earnest monk, with the result that before long he and his court were baptised by Paulinus, Edwin's little daughter, it is said, being the first to receive the sacred rite.