Northmen had long held rule, and that it meant nothing more 

 than " Salmon Weir." O'Connell won his case, but he could 

 never find out who the unknown friend was who had thus given 

 him the key to victory. 



Now, in regard to the place-names of a district, I would make 

 the preliminary observation, that we ought never, if we can help 

 it, to treat a name as if it stood alone, but always collate the names 

 which seem to partake of the same form, both in that and as far 

 as possible, also in other districts. There is, for an example, a well- 

 known place in London where the rank and fashion congregate, 

 and which is called " Rotten Row." This has been explained as 

 from the French " Route de roi," the king's road. This deriva- 

 tion, by no means a satisfactory one in itself, becomes impossible 

 in face of the fact that, the name of Rotten Row occurs in various 

 other counties and in Cumberland among others. And so far 

 from being from the French, the English " rotten row" is no 

 doubt nearer to the mark, as referring to perhaps a row of decayed 

 trees. 



In the first place, then, let us deal with the names of the two 

 counties themselves, Cumberland and Westmorland. Cumberland 

 (in the Saxon Chronicle Cumbralarni) has been explained as the 

 land of combes or valleys, a derivation not I think very satisfactory 

 in itself, inasmuch as it seems to me that it is the mountains as 

 the more salient feature, and not the valleys, that would give the 

 name. But Mr. Henry Bradley, who, though its papers have 

 unfortunately not been published in a collected form, is one of 

 our most trustworthy guides in local etymology, has shewn, in an 

 article on "The Names of the English Counties" in the Gentle- 

 maris Magazine, that this derivation is etymologically impossible, 

 and that Cumberland means " the land of the Cymry." And he 

 further maintains that the name, like that of the Cumbraes (islands 

 of the Cymry) in the Frith of Clyde, was one given by the Scan- 

 dinavian conquerors of the north-west. The name of Westmor- 

 land (Westmoringa-land) is, on the other hand, clearly of Anglo- 

 Saxon origin, signifying " the land of the dwellers on the western 

 m-oors," and it shews, observes Mr. Bradley, " that the district was 



