64 On some Place-Names near Malmeslury , 



I will now put before you various examples of such " Place-names/' 

 belonging to the several classes I have indicated. 



(I.) As to Celtic place-names in this neighbourhood. 



It is impossible for any one, at all accustomed to the study of 

 local nomenclature, to glance, even cursorily, at a map of the 

 neighbourhood of Malmesbury, without being struck at the large 

 proportion of the names which are clearly of Celtic origin. As a 

 rule, a conquering people adopt, from the language of the natives, 

 those local names which designate the natural features of a country ; 

 such, for example, as its rivers, its valleys, and its ancient tracts of 

 wood-land ; in truth, in such names it would be not only difficult, 

 but almost impossible to effect changes. In this neighbourhood, we 

 not only have examples of this character, but some in which the 

 English, whilst adopting the Celtic names, added their own endings 

 to them. 



Take first of all the name Cirencester. The river on which 

 that town is situated is now called the " Cerne " or " Churn." 

 Originally no doubt the initial letter was not as now a palatal, 

 but a guttural, and was pronounced " Kerne." — The Romans added 

 the Latin termination to the river-name and called the place Corin- 

 ium ; just as they called what is now Marlborough by the name 

 Cunet-io because situated on the river Kennet. — The English also took 

 the river-name, and added to it their own form of the Roman 

 castra, and so made it dren-cester, that is the " encampment on the 

 Cerne." 



Again the old name of the stream flowing by Malmesbury was 

 the Bladon : and so the name of the fortress was originally " Caer- 

 Bladon." The earliest grant to Aldhelm, for his monastery at 

 Malmesbury, by Hlothere (or Lithuari) Bishop of Wessex, was 

 dated from the banks of the Bladon. This name appears also as 

 Braden (or Bradon) and like other streams (such as the Wyley and 

 the Avon) gives name to an adjoining district, the interchange of 

 the letters " V and " r" being natural enough. Thus, whilst from 

 the Latin " peregrin-us " we have our word "foreign," we obtain 



