306 



Gaelic and Kymric occupation ; of Roman conquest ; and lastly, 

 of Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman invasions and settlements. 



Bath being situated near where three counties meet, viz., 

 Gloucestershire, Somersetshire and Wiltshire, I will first consider 

 the meaning and etymology of the names of the counties them- 

 selves, and after that the derivation of the names of the places in 

 them. But in order to avoid repetition, I shall give the meanings 

 of some of the common prefixes and suifixes to be met with, and 

 make my remarks on this head preliminary to my account of the 

 names. 



It will be assumed in this paper that the modern Gaelic and 

 Kymric of to-day are practically the same as the Gaelic and 

 Kymric of more than two thousand years ago. Nor is there 

 anytliing essentially incredible in this assumption ; for the Arabic 

 of to-day is said by Dr. Pusey, in his " Lectures on Daniel," to be 

 precisely the same as the Arabic of the Koran written twelve 

 hundred years ago. And if this is set down to the proverbial 

 unchangeableness of the East, yet Greek has changed almost as 

 little, if we may believe Farrar, in his " Families of Speech." For 

 Farrar writes, " Place side by side a page of Herodotus, a page of 

 Plutarch, a page of Anna Comnena, and a page of Trikupi, and 

 any clever schoolboy would be able to construe any one of them 

 with equal facility." 



Now these Greek writers, all equally intelligible to a clever 

 boy, embrace a period extending from 450 B.C. to 1860 A.D., 

 twenty-three centuries. 



Whatever changes therefore the Gaelic and Kymric languages 

 may have undergone in the course of two millenniums, it is never- 

 theless reasonably certain, not to say undeniable, that Gaelic 

 names of places have changed very little indeed. 



Without further preface, we come to the consideration of the 

 word Gloucestershire. It is so called from its capital — Gloucester 

 —which originally bore the name of " Caer Gloui," or the " Fair 

 City." 



