300 CASTERS AND CHESTERS. 



into the modern York. It is curious to note that some 

 of these intermediate forms very closely approach the 

 original Eburac, which must have been the root of the 

 Roman name. Was the change partly due to the pre- 

 servation of the older sound on the lips of Celtic serfs ? 

 It is not impossible, for marks of British blood are strong 

 in Yorkshire ; and Nennius confirms the idea by calling 

 the town Kair Ebrauc. 



Among the other Geasters which have never developed 

 into full-blown Chester s, I may mention Bath, given as 

 Akemannes ceaster and Bathan ceaster in our old docu- 

 ments, so that it might have become Achemanchester or 

 Bathceter in the course of ordinary changes. Canter- 

 bury, again, the Eoman Durovernum, dropped through 

 Dorobernia into Dorwit ceaster, which would no doubt 

 have turned into a third Dorchester, to puzzle our heads 

 by its likeness to Dome ceaster in Dorsetshire, and to 

 Dorce ceaster near Oxford; while Chesterton in Hun- 

 tingdonshire, which was once Dorme ceaster, narrowly 

 escaped burdening a distracted world with a fourth. 

 Happily, the colloquial form Cantwara burh, or Kent- 

 men's bury, gained the day, and so every trace of Duro- 

 vernum is now quite lost in Canterbury. North Shields 

 was once Scythles-ceaster, but here the Chester has simply 

 dropped out. Verulam, or St. Albans, is another curious 

 case. Its Romano-British name was Verulamium, and 

 Bseda calls it Verlama ceaster. But the early English 

 in Sleswick believed in a race of mythical giants, the 

 Wsetlingas or Watlings, from whom they called the Milky 

 Way ' Watling Street.' When the rude pirates from 

 those trackless marshes came over to Britain and first 



