TOPOGRAPHICAL ETYMOLOGY. 89 
those who have opportunity should take note of these 
peculiarities; and if they would forward their observations 
to the Secretaries of the Society, even though it be by 
one or two words at a time, a suflieient number of charac- 
teristie words may be got together, to lead to a safe 
generalization, and possibly to explain the ethnological 
grounds of the difference of dialeet prevailing on either 
side of the river Parret. What is done in this way, had 
need to be done quickly ; for the fine old Saxon words 
which our forefathers used, and which enrich, while from 
our ignorance they sometimes obscure, our early literature, 
are fast disappearing before the shriek of the railway 
whistle, and its accompanying civilization and progress. 
NoTE.—The Severn occurs in the Irish version of the 
Historia Britonum of Nennius, (published by the Irish Ar- 
chxzologieal Society. A.D. 1848.) in the form of Sabnaınd, 
Sabraind. Notwithstanding that one of the learned 
editors, the Hon. A. Herbert, in a note p. 30, regards 
“the real etymology of Sabrina, Celtic Havren, to be, no 
doubt, from hav, (Irish Jam or yampa) summer : part of 
the adjoining country being called Gwlad-yr-Hav, or Land 
of the Summer,” I would still submit that the more 
probable derivation of Havren is from Av, the root of 
Avon, “a river.” How the idea of “summer” could 
become associated with the Channel, it is diflieult to 
conceive; and it is evident from the form of the word 
Gwlad-yr-hav, that the county took its name from the sea, 
and not the sea from the county. 
It may not be altogether out of place here, to insert a 
eurious and interesting notice of the phenomenon, usually 
1854, PART II. M 
