100 



of the Ptolemaic name "Alaunus" for the group of rivers 

 whose outlet is Christchurch harbour, as the Salisbury [Al-] 

 Avon is another. An English alias, " Wimbourn," must have 

 prevailed long enough to name these places, but the ancient name 

 has reasserted itself, The Stour, however, retains its still older 

 Celtic alias. This district may be rather distant, from our 

 "Welsh one, for the neighbourship of the Wentssete implied in 

 the Code : and without other links the hold of relationship of 

 "Win-" and " Went-" would be somewhat infirm. The Stour 

 also which divides them is here a considerable " stream." 



Another view may be presented by the fight at "Beandun," 

 A.D. 614, already noticed. This makes it almost certain that 

 the invaders had landed at Wareham, and already possessed 

 themselves of the lower country between our hill-district and 

 Bindon Hill, through which the Frome runs to Wareham. Was 

 this district, and the Isle of Purbeck south of it, the land of the 

 Wentssete which had been already annexed by the West-Saxons 

 when the Code was enacted ? and was the Frome the stream 

 which divided them ? This view has also some slightly possible 

 philological support. The labial convertibility of W and B is 

 well known, and this would give us "Win-" in "Bindon"; 

 also repeated farther west in the district in the name of " Bin- 

 combe." What if the slaughter of the Britons at Bindon was a 

 victory ; and the occasion upon which the Wentssete which had 

 formerly belonged to the Dunsaete began to " belong to the 

 West Saxons"? The "great ditch," mentioned by Hutchins, 

 as "near Pokeswell quarries," and thought by Dr. Guest to have 

 been a " Belgic ditch," may have been a part of this international 

 arrangement. It probably extended from the well known ravine* 

 of Osmington Mill, across the Frome, and perhaps the Piddle ; 

 and would account for the survival into Saxon Christian times, 

 of the Celtic St. German's dedication to the west of it. This 



*About half-a-mile west of the Osmington outlet, is a fragment of a 

 fortress, unnoticed in Mr. Warne's Ancient Dorset. The largest part 

 appears to have gone over the cliff into the sea. The rampart seems to have 

 been formed of chalk brought from a spot adjoining, but the cliff itself does 

 pot appear to be chalk. 



