ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 289 
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THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the 
time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, as 
there are few if any accounts of the villages before Domesday, it 
will be best to begin with that venerable record. “ Ipse rex tenet 
Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. De isto 
manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum 
ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos 
et sex denarios ; modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios.” Here we 
see that Selborne was a royal manor: and that Editha the queen 
of Edward the Confessor, had been lady of that manor, and was 
succeeded in it by the Conqueror, and that it had a church. 
Besides these, many circumstances concur to prove it to have been 
a Saxon village; such as the name of the place itself,* the names 
of many fields, and some families,t with a variety of words in 
husbandry and common life, still subsisting among the country 
people. 
What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to this spot 
* Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as it has been 
variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation; for Se/ signifies great, and 
burn torrens, a brook or rivulet: so that the name seems to be derived from the great 
perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village.—SeZ also signifies Jonzs, 
item fecundus, fertilis. ‘‘ Sel SeNy-tuN : fecunda graminis clausura; fertile 
pascuum: a meadow in the parish of Godelming is still called Sad-gars-ton.”—Lyr’s 
Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning. 
+ Thus, the name of Addred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp means a soldier. 
Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead bodies, and not a church-yard ; there 
is also a Culver-crof¢ near the Grange-farm, being the enclosure where the priory pigeon- 
house stood, from ca/ver a pigeon. Again there are three steep pastures in this parish 
called the Lzthe, from Hltthe, clivus. The wiclcer-work that binds and fastens down a 
hedge on the top is called ether, from ether, an hedge. When the good women call their 
hogs they cry sic, séc,t not knowing that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice 
or brushwood our countrymen call vse, from /Avzs, frondes; and talk of a load of rise. 
Within the author’s memory the Saxon plurals, housen and feason, were in common use. 
But it would be endless to instance in every circumstance: he that wishes for mcre 
specimens must frequent a farmer’s kitchen. I have therefore selected some words to show 
how familiar the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven hundred years 
it is far from being obliterated. 
7 séka, porcus, apud Lacones ; un Porceau chez les Lacédemoniens: ce mot a sans doute 
esté pris des Celtes, qui disoent sze, pour marquer un porceau. Encore aujour’huy quand 
les Bretons chassent ces animaux, ils ne disent autrement, que s7c, stc.—Antiguité de la 
Nation et de la Langue des Celtes, par Pezron. 
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