Miscellaneous Words. 269 



were the Mercurii Tumuli of Livy (B. xxvi.,) and that 

 the Teuts, or Toot-hills, of our county were so denominated, 

 according to Bowles (Hermes. 19, 20), from the identity of 

 Mercury or Teutates. Cleeve Toot in Somerset is capped by 

 a mass of rocks which from below has all the appearance of 

 an altar. Tothill Street, Westminster, says Norden, a 

 topographer of Elizabeth^s reign, "taketh name of a hill 

 near it, which is called Toote-hill, in the great field near the 

 Street." Encyclop. of Antiq. ii. 582. If there be any truth 

 in this conjecture it is not from the Tuisco or Teut of the 

 Germans, but from the Celtic Taith (in Welsh Dim Taith), 

 the god of travelling, that these places are named. It is 

 far more likely that the name comes from the Welsh twdd 

 (pronounced tooth), which means simply that " which pro- 

 jects" or "juts out." See Philolog. Transactions 1855, p. 283. 



Underditch. Written anciently IFond'dic, and the name not only 

 of one of the Wiltshire dykes but also of the hundred in 

 which it is situated. Its derivation is probably either from 

 the Cornish woon (= a down) — as e.g., woon-hocca (= goats' 

 down) , tre-ivoon (= house on the do^ni) — or from the Welsh 

 gwdn (= separation) from the yevh ffwantu (^ to sever) , as 

 denoting the object for which it was made, viz., to serve as 

 a line of boundary. 



33. Vern-Dyke. One of the ancient Wiltshire dykes. It is in 

 the neighbourhood of Broad Chalk. The name vern (if not 

 a dialectic change of fern) is perhaps from the Welsh gioern, 

 which signifies " a morass " and also an " alder tree." Thus 

 Whern-side in Yorkshire is so called from the alder trees 

 with which it is covered. Some of the Glossaries give gwern 

 as an epithet for hell, — and, without putting too much re- 

 liance on this fact, we may say that if so used here it would 

 carry out the idea of the supernatural as associated with wild 

 dismal places, and with such works as these. See § 17 under 



BOKERLEY. 



Wab-wick. ") The former place is by Box, the latter is the name 

 Whad-don. J of two parishes, one near Trowbridge, and the other 



VOL. XIV. NO. XLII. X 



