182 The Battle of Ethandun. 



perusal of Dr. Thurnam's very valuable contributions to your 

 Magazine, that his estimate of it wiU vary much from that of many 

 of his readers. I must profess myself, with humility, to be one of 

 those, and am impressed with the opinion, that the name of Yatton 

 appears to me one of the greatest stumbliug blocks in the way to 

 the conclusion proposed. The deduction of Yatton from the Ettone 

 of Domesday Book, shall not be here contested ; although it seems 

 nothing more than the gate (or street) town, the Saxon gate being 

 softened into yate throughout Gloucestershire, the neighbouring 

 county. Yet with this concession, in what way are we to account 

 for its imperfect curtailment, and for its entire difference in ortho- 

 graphy and sound, from every known variety of name which has 

 been used by every writer, to designate the site of Alfred's victory ? 

 Dr. Thurnam says, there is enough of hill or down to warrant the 

 composite term of Etton-dun, but over-looking this apparent tone 

 of hesitation, and admitting that there is " ample verge and room 

 enough," has this compound ever appeared in writing, or (perhaps) 

 in common parlance, before his ingenuity had fabricated it? 

 Would it ever be lost or discarded, if, under the circumstances of 

 the case it had ever been in use? Whilst the whole rescued king- 

 dom resounded with the glorious name of Ethandun, would its 

 inhabitants be content with the puny abortion of Ethone, and have 

 excluded the very termination which identified the site of the en- 

 gagement ? As well might we expect an Englishman to abstract 

 a letter from the name of Waterloo, or a syllable from that of 

 Trafalgar. Further, we cannot resolve this objection into the care- 

 lessness of a rustic population, for writers have, it seems, continued 

 it even to cotemporary times. 



I am indebted to Dr. Thurnam for the important information, 

 that Ethandun appears in all its integrity in the Will of Alfred, 

 having been probably purchased by that monarch ; and this fact 

 leads us to the inevitable conclusion, that the final syllable was 

 even then incorporated in the designation of the territory or estate, 

 and not arbitrarily connected with another termination, to suit a 

 particular purpose. So again, the same Ethandun occurs in the 

 Saxon chronicle ; a slight softening identifies it with the Edendune 



