TIDESWELL AND TIDESLOW. 65 



Exeter Domesday appear as " Clisewic " and " Poteforda." 

 Some important variations will be found occasionally in the 

 same document ; thus in the Inqidsitio Geldi we find " Dippe- 

 forda" and " Dippesforda." 



Must we regard the presence of an " s " in the middle of a 

 place-name as the invariable sign of the genitive case ? If so, 

 it is remarkable that two of the examples just noted should 

 respectively show both its omission and its retention, the " s " 

 being in either case omitted in the modern name. Another 

 example occurs in " Titesle " (Cheshire), now known as Titley. 

 Other Domesday words exhibit no sign of the genitive, and 

 yet the modern forms have the " s " inserted ; thus " Hirletun," 

 " Wibaldelai " (Cheshire), and " Steintune " (Derbyshire) are 

 now represented by Hurleston, Wimbaldsley, and Stenson. 

 According to Professor Skeat, the presence of the cs as the 

 genitive case in the place-name under notice marks the essential 

 difference between " Tidi's well" and the "well of the tides," 

 the former being the philological and the latter the traditional 

 form. But Southsworth, in the county of Devon, is written 

 in the will of King Alfred himself, Sutheswyrthe. 

 Here we have the es dividing the two words, as in Tides- 

 well, and if the one is to be the well of someone called 

 Tide, then the other ought to be the worth of someone called 

 South. Surely this is my case, for if Sutheswyrthe is the 

 southern worth, so Tidesuuelle is the tidal well. Again, in a 

 charter of Edward the Confessor, Nettleswell in Essex is spelt 

 Nethleswelle. According to Professor Skeat's argument, this 

 must be the well of someone named Nethli or Nethle ; but as 

 the Anglo-Saxon for the common nettle was netele, I prefer to 

 associate the well with the weed and to call it Nettleswell. 

 The natives, too, call it JSfettleswell, just as Derbyshire folk 

 speak of Tideswell. The two words are too much alike in 

 spelling and in meaning to admit of any etymological 

 distinctions. After due consideration of these various 

 points, the suggestion that the s, whether or not the 

 sign of the genitive, may have been an accidental 

 interpolation, seems to be a very natural one. Nor 

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