APPENDIX. 



293 



tongue, not from any particular people, like the Cretan, Carian, and 

 S[)ar(an hounds, but from his quality of speed, as son»e of the Cre- 

 tans are distinguished by certain peculiarities of character. Here, 

 however, our author's ignorance of the Celtic language has led him 

 into an error. Being unable, probably, to explain a term which 

 had reached him in a corrupt form, he falsely derived it from the 

 dog's most characteristic property, utto tFjs <1)kvtt)tos : whereas in 

 truth it is compounded of Veil, a plain or open country ,i the " ar- 

 vum vacuum " of Ovid, and racha, a hound of chase ; - and conse- 



J. Vlitii 



Venat. Novant. 



true root by referring to the passage of Gratius, in which the same dog is mentioned 

 under the title of Vertraha ; 



At te leve si qua 

 Tangit opus, pavidosque juvat compellere dorcas, 

 Aut versuta sequi leporis vestigia parvi : 

 Petronios, scit fama, canes, volucresque Sicambros, 

 Et pictam maculi Vertraham delige fals:l. 

 Ocyor affectu mentis pinn^que cucurrit, 

 Sed premit inventas, non inventura latentes 

 Ilia feias. 



Gratii Cyneg. 

 vs. 191). 



Spelman, citing this passage, reads Veltrahnm, and gives many synonyms of the same 

 in the column of his Gloss. Arch. ' de Canibus Veterum' — but all more or less cor- 

 rupt. The correct term would be Veltracha, which has been changed to Velti-achus, 



Vcrtrachus, Vertragus, in which last form it is found in our readings of Arrian Oiiep- 



Tpayos. Du Cange suggests Velt-jaghere, campestris Venator, ex velt campus, and 

 jaghere venator, as another probable source of Veltragus or Vertragus. See his 

 Glossary, in voce. 



The reader need not be informed, that in the term Oviprpayos Arrian employs the 

 Greek oh, as the nearest approach to the initial V — whether using the digamma (the 

 V of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the F of Dr. Marsh) as his prefixture, I leave to 

 others to determine. 



1. From the term Veltris or Fc/fra/ius is derived the class of huntsmen denomi- 

 nated Veltrarii of the court of Charles the Great, "qui veltres custodiebant :" of 

 •which class, at a later period, were the masters of the leash whom the lords of the 

 manor of Setene, in Kent, furnished as the condition of their tenure to Edward I. 

 and II. to lead three greyhounds when the king went into Gascony ; " so long as a 

 pair of shoes of four-pence price should last" — " donee perusus fuit pari solutarum 

 pretii iiij d." Neither Blount nor Strutt appear to have been aware of the origin of 

 the term Vellrarius. 



2. The Saxons used racha, and our oldest writers rache and braclie. Thomas the 



Spelman 

 Gloss. Arch. 



Ancient 



Tenures. 



pp. y and 35- 



