92 The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 
WoRES-ByRGYLSE. This name, which means simply “‘ Wur’s burial- 
place,” occurs in a charter which seems to relate to Fifield, 
near Everley. Cod. Dipl., 592. I do not remember the 
name in Wilts, simply or in composition, as that of a person 
or place. An old Bishop of Lichfield (721—7381) is called 
‘by Simeon of Durham,? Aldwine alias Wor. The 
latter was his birth-name and is evidently of Celtic origin, 
the former was his assumed name, when, like some of his 
imitators of other ages, rising in the social scale, he adopted 
one taken from the language of the ruling class. Such an 
expression as Wures-leage might well account for the name 
Wors-ley. 
Hoces-Byreets. This expression is found in the boundaries of 
Bedwin (Cod. Dipl., 1266). In those for Witney, in Oxford- 
shire (Cod. Dipl., 775), we have Héces-déw, that is, the low 
of Héce. It may be that the personal name Hoox is a 
modern form of this ancient name, and possibly Hux-Ley 
may be the same in composition. Kemble suggests (Arch. 
Journ., xiv., 127) that Héce may possibly be a mythical 
personage, probably the heros eponymus of the Frisian tribe, 
who figures in Beéwulf and the episode of whose cremation is 
one of its finest passages. Still, he adds—and in this I am 
quite inclined to agree with him,—* it may be the name of 
a private individual.” 
56. Other personal names are in like manner prefixed to 
hiww ( = low), which means a mound, either natural or arti- 
ficial, and often of a sepulchral character. Thus Cwichelmes- 
hlew (Cod. Dipl., 693), is the well-known tumulus now called 
CucKHAMsLow, near Wantage, in Berks. In Wiltshire, 
we have amongst others the following :— 
tt? 
‘Mon. H. B..659. The name Wor or Wor (it occurs also in the Saxon 
Chronicle—Anno 800—as Worr, in the name of an ealdorman of Wessex), __ 
may, as a learned friend suggests to me, be connected with the Welsh gwer _ 
(= that which is superior, or uppermost). Thus VoRTIGERN is the Welsh gwr- 
theyrn (or teyrn), and means simply the ‘‘ eminent prince” or chieftain, The 
good Bishop need not have been ashamed of his birth-name, Celtic though it 
might be. See Philol. Transact, (1857,) p. 57. 

