114 NOMENCLATURE. 



still tenants, as the old map which should have accompanied the 

 inventory was lost, it was impossible to identify each field, many 

 of the names having been changed. The same thing happens every- 

 where. Hence the importance of preserving old names, — not 

 changing them because they may seem uncouth, for others which 

 are thought prettier and more in accordance with the style of 

 nomenclature in vogue. 



Looking through Maps and Surveys here, I have found some 

 curious English as well as Cornish names. I will mention only 

 two, taken from the Plan of Gwennap Glebe : there was " Hook 

 Meadow," which I found was formerly of very irregular shape, 

 and had a hooh, or bend, in its fence ; and " Homer-way Field," 

 which I at first was disposed to think owed its name to the clas- 

 sical taste of some Vicar; but as there is also a "Further-way 

 Field," Homer must be the comparative degree of the noun home, 

 made into an adjective ; just as it is common to say " shut home 

 the door." I found a field in S. Breock with a similar name; and 

 in Talland there is a place called " Homerwell." 



In attempting to explain names of places, we often find names 

 of animals used, it would seem, as distinctive designations : thus 

 we have Trelowarren (Fox town), Trembleath (AVolf town). With 

 regard to the latter, I was once asked if I believed that there were 

 ever wolves in Cornwall, or that they had existed here, since it 

 was found necessary to name the place, and that they had actually 

 given name to the place. I answered, that it does not follow that 

 the name was given from the animal ; it is customary, Ave all know, 

 to name persons after animals, birds, trees, gods and goddesses, 

 human passions bad and good, and in fact every thing in creation ; 

 and, further, it is customary to name places after persons ; so that 

 all sorts of strange things may indirectly enter into the composi- 

 tion of local names, and " Trembleath" may be, not the JFolf toion 

 but Wolf s-toum, havmg been the residence of a man called 

 'E\\^\t=Bleiclh, a wolf; as "Trelowarren" may have been of some 

 one called Lewarn, a common family name=Lowern, i.e., Fox; 

 though, with regard to the latter, I should prefer rendering it the 

 dwelling (tre) by the fortification (warren) near the tumulus (low). 

 It is true we have thus a mixture of Teutonic and Celtic, a 

 *' hyhrida compositio " as Baxter calls it ; but such compounds are 

 not unusual in this county. Nor are they to be wondered at, 



