256 The Battle of Ethandun. 
readers, to enter so fully as I should otherwise desire, on the 
strictures made by Mr. Scrope on my pape?* relative to Dr. Thur- 
nam’s views of the site of the Battle of Ethandun. You may per- 
haps in justice, allow me to offer briefly a few remarks in answer 
to the charges with which I have been assailed. 
With regard to the suggestions that I have (vol. iv. p. 177, 1. 22) 
translated the Ethandun of Asser into “Edington;” and thereby 
seemed to beg the whole question, you are yourself aware, that I 
corrected the error of the press before the appearance of Mr. 
Scrope’s objection; and your readers by substituting the page 
attached to your subsequent number, will be relieved from that 
and one or two more mistakes. With reference to the identity 
between the names Ethandun and Edington, to which Dr. Thurnam 
himself “on the ground of orthography” admits that “little diffi- 
culty exists,” I am accused of rashness in making “the sweeping 
assertion” that the words dun and ton in Anglo-Saxon terminology 
are usually convertible terms. A reference, however, to my commu- 
nication will shew that although I as fully admit the original 
distinction, as my opponent himself, I consider that frequently a 
change was effected in popular discourse which was afterwards 
embodied in written documents. But Mr. Scrope informs us, that 
he cannot find a single instance of the kind in the works he has 
consulted: and he fortifies his position by a list of places, all now 
preserving their original terminations. Advancing no further than 
his second example, we finda refutation of the writer’s own theory, 
for according to Lysons, the town of “ Abbundune now Abingdon,” 
is “sometimes called Abington,”! and the list quoted is closed by 
the singular illustration of Huntendwne now Huntington. My 
attention on this point has been called by a member of our Society,” 
to the collection of Saxon charters published by the late Mr. 
Kemble, from the index of which work, a sufficient number of 
instances has been extracted and given in the note below, which 
will not only “favour,” but substantiate the idea of such converti- 
bility. As the original Saxon terminations often remained invio- 
1 Lysons’s Magna Britannia, vol. i. p. 216. 2H. J. Swayne, Esq. 
8 Alsedun Ascesdun Ashton Wilts. 
