58 PLACE AND FIELD NAMES OF DERBYSHIRE. 
description, as the Anglo-Saxons frequently named their chiefs 
from the cognizance on their shields ; and, as a natural sequence, 
these chieftains gave their names to many of the places in which 
they subsequently settled, or where they achieved any special 
feat of arms. This caution is eminently necessary with words 
compounded of zwo/f or dear. 
Horsey is the name of three places in the county, and it 
also occurs five or six times in the field names. It has been 
conjectured that all places having this prefix (some thirty in 
number) are derived from the semi-mythical chiefs, Hengist 
(stallion) and Horsa (mare), who are said to have landed in the 
year 449 on the coast of Kent, at the request of the British King 
Vortigern.* The colonists of the eastern counties were, however, 
Jutes, the kingdom of Mercia being subsequently formed by 
Teutonic tribes of a different origin. In all probability these 
names simply denote “horse pastures.’’ Horses appear to have 
been natives of this country, and were known to the Celtic 
inhabitants.t They were by them used merely for warlike 
purposes ; and even among the Anglo-Saxons were rarely used 
in connection with the tillage of the ground. In King Alfred’s 
version of Orosius we read :—‘‘Othare himself was among the 
first men of the land, though he had not more than twenty red 
cattle, twenty sheep, and twenty swine; avd what littl he 
ploughed, he ploughed with horses.’ The fact of Alfred thus 
drawing special attention to this circumstance is a striking proof 
of the preference given in this country, even in the ninth century, 
to oxen in ploughing. A lighter breed was imported from 
France. When Hugh Capet solicited the hand of Edelswitha, 
the sister of Athelstan, he sent to that prince several “ running 
horses,” ¢ with full equipments. It is hence concluded that horse- 
racing was known and practised by the Anglo-Saxon nobles. 
Horses were largely imported by the Danes in their various 
piratical incursions. In the Forest Charter of Canute, granted at 
* Bede Ecc/. Hist., c. xv. 3 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ann. 449. 
+ Whittaker, Azst. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 63. 
t Equos Cursores, Malmsbury de Gest. Reg. Angl., lib. ii. cap. 6. 
