lO-i Etymology op the Wokd Ruthwell. 



of a minute's notice. Who was Ruth ] Evidently a female, from 

 the declension of the name, and doubtless the apocryphal person 

 called also St. Ruth. History evidently was not Dr Archibald's 

 forte, or he would have known that the sixth kingdom of the 

 Saxon Heptarchy, called Northumbria, extended as far north as 

 Fife including' Dumfriesshire and a part of Galloway, and that 

 Edinburgh was founded by the greatest of the Northumbrian 

 kings, Edwin, to be the northern capital of his kingdom, as York 

 was the southern. Lowland Scotch is simply the old 

 Northumbrian dialect of the English language, as modern English 

 is derived from the Mercian or ^Midland Engli.sh. II. The second 

 derivation, dear to those ignorant of philology, is Sf. Ruth's Well. 

 It is always stated that this explanation of the words is du3 to 

 Bishop Gibson, of London, in his edition of Camden's Britannia, 

 published in 1695. He speaks of the church of Ruthwell, calling 

 it St. Ruth's church. The worthy bishop was evidently only 

 giving the local derivation, for we find Dr Archibald, in his 

 "Account," speaking of "St. Ruth's Church, called RuthwaU." 

 Archibald, it seems, knew nothing of Ruthwell. We may con- 

 clude, I think, from this that in bis time it was called Ruthwald 

 and not RuthK-e//. So far as I can learn there is absolutely 

 nothing to connect Ruthwell with St. Ruth, except that Ruth is 

 the first syllable of Ruthu-ell. Men of the critical acumen of 

 Messrs Barbour and Cairns may well express doubt of these two 

 origins of the name. III. The third derivation is that assigned by 

 our learned president. Sir Herbert Maxwell — the Rood-well. 

 There is at Ruthwell a celebrated Cross, and there is the well- 

 known Well in the parish. The obvious inference, then, is that 

 the name of the parish is derived from the cross and the well. If 

 nothing better can be found this ingenious explanation must be 

 accepted. But the practised philologist puts it aside as too simple 

 and evidently a concoction. The settlement of the question 

 reijuires research into the old English, Gaelic, and Norse languages 

 from which our place-names are derived. IV. Chalmers in his 

 "Caledonia" gives the derivation ruth, a rivulet, and well a 

 corruption of ivald, which is our modern weald or wold, a icood. 

 He says there is a rith or rivulet in the parish. I know not 

 whether this is so ox. not. But I am certain that so very common 

 a thing as a rivulet in a parish would not give its name to that 

 parish. I think, however, he was right in his statement that well 



