Why Hollow Hill?

The name has appealed to me for many years. It relates to the belief that fairie folk lived in hollow hills, and that what we now think of as barrows etc were often portals into fairy land. The one shown on my Logo is Silbury Hill, on the A4 road between Calne and Marlborough, a site linked to others including the Avebury Stone Circle and a similar hill in Marlborough itself, though the latter has been landscaped and planted with trees. Coming into Marlborough from the West it can be seen on your right in the grounds of the college.

In fact the belief probably stems from the existence of nomadic tribes,who wandered Britain and largely herded deer, which provided them with milk and meat. They would never stay anywhere long enough to raise crops, and their diet would make them very small of stature. Though they probably avoided settlement they inspired fear, hence the poem ; 'Up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen/we dare not go a-hunting for fear of little men'. When they did stop anywhere they would make huts of branches covered in turf. They were not averse to improving their own blood-line; there are many tales of human  babies being stolen or exchanged for fairy children, often called changelings. Eventually the tribes died out or were gradually integrated into the human population.