408 ANTIQUITIES 



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 Constitutiones 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 resided much at Winchester, which lies at a 

 moderate distance from this district. The Plantagenet 

 princes seem to have been pleased with Wolmer ; for tra- 

 dition says that King John resided just upon the verge, at 

 Ward-le-ham, on a regular and remarkable mount, still 

 called King John's Hill, and Lodge Hill; and Edward III. 



and fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether a hedge. 

 Whon the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic,* not knowing 

 that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brushwood 

 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 circum- 

 stance : 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. G. W. 



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

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

 Pennant. G. W. 



* " 2t/oa, porcus, apud Lacones ; un pourceau chez les Lacedemoniens 

 ce mot a sans doute este pris des Celtes, qui disoient sic, pour marquer 

 un pourceau. Encore auj ourd'huy quandles Bretons chassentces animaux, 

 ils ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic." FEZ RON, Antiquite dc la 

 Nation et de la Langue des Celtes. 



