206 Edington or Yatton the Ethandun of Alfred’s Victory ? 
forms of hight, ‘named,’ is unfounded. It would exceed the limits of 
a paper upon a local subject to explain other apparent anomalies in 
the use and disuse of an initial h, but they are, I believe, all of 
them as clearly resolvable as i¢ and Ait into a misuse of terms, and 
not a mispronunciation of them. 
As the identification of Iglea, upon which the direction of 
Alfred’s march depends, turns upon the importance or unimpor- 
tance of the initial letter being aspirated or not, I trust that these 
remarks will not be considered out of place or superfluous. 
There are two objections usually taken to etymological studies— 
their uncertainty and their frivolous character. The first objection 
applies with equal force to geology and politics, and almost all 
branches of science, and undoubtedly did once apply most especially 
to etymology, “when,” as Voltaire says, “the vowels were of no 
consequence at all and the consonants of very little.” But since 
philologists have ascertained the laws and limits of change in the 
different dialects of the great Indo-European family, as well in 
regard to vowels as consonants, what was chaotic confusion before, 
is become a pleasing, satisfactory, and very instructive science. As 
in statistics nearly every event, taken separately, is a chance, and 
yet collectively such events afford data for safe inductions, so in 
Philology the probability that some certain word is the same as 
some other word in a different language, from a mere guess becomes 
a certainty, as more and more cases in point are found; and at 
length, what at first was only probable, is established as a general 
law. Many again look upon enquiries of this kind as mere literary 
curiosities, but conducted judiciously they throw the most unex- 
pected and interesting light upon the history of a people’s civiliza- 
tion, its ancient manners and modes of thought, and not unfre- 
quently upon historical events, and in this point of view deserve 
the full attention of the local antiquary. I greatly regret that I 
cannot prove the latter assertion by more decisive testimony upon 
this question of Aithandun, but imperfect as this paper is, it may 
stimulate those who are better qualified than myself to investigate 
this and other points of county history by the same method, and 
follow them up to more satisfactory conclusions. I trust that I 
