64 TIDESWELL AND TIDESLOW. 



according to Professor Skeat, " the Old Norse vdllr is not 

 represented in English by -well, but by -wall''' (ioth j., 91). 

 From all this it is fairly evident that Mr. Addy's explanation 

 of the affix well or wall is not correct. 



Again, Mr. Addy affirms that " the present pronunciation of 

 Tideswell (drawling out the " i ") is owing to a false etymology 

 which has been circulated in guide-books " ; and adds, " It 

 has been connected with the tide of an ebbing well," as 

 though the pronunciation had suggested the tradition (9th xij., 

 341). But surely the word was pronounced with a long "1" 

 previous to the era of guide-books. Was the Domesday 

 " Tidesuuelle " pronounced Tideswell or Tidswell ? The 

 spelling suggests the former. Both as a place — and as a per- 

 sonal — name it is recorded as " Tydeswell " in documents of 

 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.* 



Professor Skeat considers the prefix Tides to represent the 

 name of a man called Tidi or Tide, Tides being the genitive 

 case, and the entire word denoting " Tidi's well." Also, that 

 " the Anglo-Saxon for ' intermittent well ' might have been tid- 

 well — i.e., tide-well ; but it could not possibly have been tides- 

 well" (9th j., 91). Further, "We can here only explain the 

 actual presence of an " s " that is really pronounced by the 

 supposition that it has always been pronounced" (ioth j., 317). 



Mr. W. de Gray Birch states : " Many of the names of persons 

 and of places, no doubt, have been written down by the Norman 

 scribes incorrectly, perhaps following a phonetic and arbitrary, 

 rather than any etymological rule.t And Professor Skeat 

 remarks, " We must not trust the spellings of Domesday Book 

 over much. After all, the scribes were Normans, and they often 

 made a sad hash of Anglo-Saxon " (ioth j., 229). That their 

 transcription of Anglo-Saxon place-names was not altogether 

 trustworthy, the following illustrations will sufficiently exemplify. 

 In the Exchequer Domesday Book (Devonshire) we find 

 recorded " Chisewic " and " Potsforde," and these in the 



* Vols, v., viii., xiv. (Index) of this Journal. 

 t Domesday Book, (1887,) 125. 



