OF ANGLO-SAXON DERIVATION. 153 



the reader to Mr. Kemble's work, " The Saxons in England,'' vol. 

 i., appendix, whence my own information has been drawn. The 

 true application and import of the word is there examined and 

 elucidated, together with the part it has borne in the formation 

 of compound names of localites. 



Our present use of the word, to signify the cavern or retreat of a 

 beast of prey, is, of course, much more restricted. But in Scotland 

 at least, its earlier sense is not extinct, as may be inferred from 

 the beautiful song called the " Gentle Hugh Herries,' where " the 

 den" of the gallant outlaw probably only imported some tangled 

 thicket or lone recess among the hills, like that which is afterwards 

 alluded to as "far in the wild glen, 'mid banks of blaeberries." 



We owe to Mr. Kemble the observation, that when names of 

 places terminate in den, it is this term, and not dene, a woody 

 ravine, which so enters into compositio n : an observation which is 

 strongly confirmed by the popular mode of speaking of " Castle 

 Eden dene" and "Hazleden dene," in the county of Durham; as 

 if there were an idiomatic consciousness that no pleonasm is 

 committed, no unmeaning repetition. Shawdon is written Shaw- 

 den in some of the oldest notices of the spot, and is so pronounced 

 by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who yet habitually speak 

 also of " Shawden Dene." In like manner, Brandon was written 

 also Brandon, and the no less familiar "Brandon Dene" was pro- 

 bably of old a haunt of the wild boar; hran being still in use to 

 signify the the male swine. In these, and similar instances, the 

 inference must naturally be, that the den or chase, with its wild 

 pasturage, was much more extensive than the dene or ravine 

 which is now perhaps the only wooded and uncultivated portion ; 

 the rest of the ground, once constituting the den or chase, having 

 long ago been brought under the plough. 



Garth: Old-Norse gard, but represented also in the Anglo- 

 Saxon, and even in the British. It is, however, most frequent as 

 a topothetic term, wherever the Danes have left the strongest 

 traces of their presence. Hence we may infer, that though the 

 cognate word was familiar to the Anglo-Saxons, under the form 

 of geard, (Eng. yard,) yet the garths may be considered of Danish 

 origin. Its signification is that of close or enclosure. Gard, in 



