280 ANTIQUITIES 



with a variety of words in husbandry and common life, still 

 subsisting among the country people. 



What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to 

 this spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called Well- 

 head? which induced them to build by the banks of that 

 perennial current; for ancient settlers loved to reside by 

 brooks and rivulets, where they could dip for their water 

 without the trouble and expense of digging wells and of 

 drawing. 



It remains still unsettled among the antiquaries at what 

 time tracts of land were first appropriated to the chase alone 

 for the amusement of the sovereign. Whether our Saxon 

 monarchs had any royal forests does not, I believe, appear on 

 record ; but the Constitutions de Foresta of Canute, the 

 Dane, are come down to us. We shall not therefore pretend 

 to say whether Wolmer-forest existed as a royal domain 

 before the conquest. If it did not, we may suppose it was 

 laid out by some of our earliest Norman kings, who were 

 exceedingly attached to the pleasures of the chase, and re- 

 sided much at Winchester, which lies at a moderate distance 

 from this district. The Plantagenet princes seem to have 

 been pleased with Wolmer ; for tradition says that king John 



women call their hogs they cry sic, sic* not knowing that sic is Saxon, or 

 rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brush wood our countrymen call 

 rise, from hris, frondes ; and talk of a load of rise. Within the author's 

 memory the Saxon plurals, housen and peason, were in common use. But 

 it would be endless to instance in every circumstance : he that wishes for 

 more specimens must frequent a farmer's kitchen. I have therefore 

 selected some words to show how familiar the Saxon dialect was to this 

 district, since in more than seven hundred years it is far from being 

 obliterated. 



1 Well-head signifies spriny-head, and not a deep pit from whence we 

 draw water. For particulars about which see Letter I. to Mr. Pennant. 



* 2i*a, porcus, apud Lacones ; un Porceau chez les Lacedemoniens : ce 

 mot a sans doute este pris des Celtes, qui discent sic, pour marquer un 

 porceau. Encore aujour'huy quand les Bretons chassent ces animaux, 

 Us ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic.Antiquite de la Nation, et de la 

 Lanyue des Celtes, par Pezron. 



