~ VOL. XIV. (3) THE COTTESWOLD HILLS 239 
to account for what may be termed the middle syllable of 
our spelling of the word. Further, it makes better sense— 
coed y swl would mean “ wood of the plain,” coed swl 
merely “ wood of a plain.” 
One note about sw/—there are other similar words in 
Welsh which might serve the purpose equally well, and 
may, therefore, have been the original form; for instance, 
sel, a distant view; se//t, a limit, a border ; syl, surface, 
ground; sy//, a view; sylit, what is fair. I am inclined 
to think that coed y sedlt, “ wood of the edge,” is not at all 
unlikely. And I would further suggest that whatever the 
original was, it was also the original of the word which 
was corrupted into “ Salt” in the term Saltway, the name 
of certain of the principal British roads which traverse the 
Cotteswolds. 
Of course, when the question of the spelling was raised, 
I put the matter before John Bellows for his assistance. 
He wrote :— 
iA, 1; 190. 
“Cotteswold or Cotswold. 
“ The root of the word is coe¢—a wood or forest, which 
gives many local names, such as Coates, Foxcote, Wood- 
mancote, Hucclecote (Uchel, higher [high], coet, wood), 
Cudhill, Catbrain. For this reason Cotswold is preferable 
to our Club form of Cotteswold.” 
His opinion I gladly record, although it is contrary to 
mine. I now attempt to justify my decision. 
We are both agreed that the name of the hills is an 
Anglicised form of a Teutonic name, which is again a 
corruption of some prior Celtic term by the process of 
folk-etymology. Now we cannot attempt to restore the 
original Celtic term, as that is too conjectural. We have 
to decide between two spellings based on the Teutonic 
word. In that case we must keep wholly to the Teutonic 
form; but John Bellows has taken half of one and half of 
