NOTES ON THE PLACE-NAMES OF CUMBERLAND 

 AND WESTMORLAND. 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BY ROBT. FERGUSON, M.P., F.S.A., 

 At the Ambleside Annual Meeting. 



Etymological Geography might be supposed to be somelhing 

 of a rather technical and of a somewhat dry pursuit, but any one 

 who has studied Mr. Isaac Taylor's " Words and Places " can 

 hardly fail to perceive how closely the place-names of a district 

 are connected with its early life and ancient history. In these 

 two counties of Cumberland and Westmorland this is the case to 

 a greater extent than elsewhere, for much of their early history is 

 a blank on which these names tend very materially to throw some 

 light. It happens indeed occasionally that very important results 

 depend upon the proper explanation of a place-name, and I 

 remember a somewhat striking incident of this kind that happened 

 many years ago. It was a case of right of water that was being 

 tried in the Irish courts, and in which the celebrated Daniel 

 O'Connell was counsel on behalf of the right. Now, the weir in 

 which this right was vested was called Lax Weir, and it was con- 

 tended by the opposition that Lax Weir could only mean " loose 

 weir," and that such a meaning was fatal to the claim. O'Connell 

 found it difficult to make head against this argument, and had 

 small hope of winning his cause. Just at the most critical 

 moment a scrap of paper was handed to him on which were written 

 the words — " Lax is Danish for salmon." O'Connell read it and 

 rose up a new man. He shewed that Lax Weir was one of the 

 many Scandinavian names still surviving in a district where the 



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