42 Dr. Wilson on Linton and its Legends. 



inexplicable to the many, was seized upon to show how heavy 

 and how peculiar had been the penance, and yet how tempered 

 by mercy, which had followed the perpetration of a sacrilegious 

 murder. The manner of inculcating the lesson was in the true 

 spirit of the times, when credulity was rarely startled by the 

 imposture which simplicity and ignorance were careless to de- 

 tect, and around which bigotry threw a veil which it would have 

 been profanation to have withdrawn. To induce faith in such 

 a legend was at once to shield themselves behind the fears and 

 the affections of the people. 



The twin legends of Linton suggest a speculation regarding 

 the origin of the name, which it may be interesting to notice. 

 It will be recollected that in the early charter of Richard Cumyn, 

 dating about the middle of the twelfth century, the name appears 

 as Lyntunruderic ; while in the Confirmation of Bishop Herbert, 

 only a few years later, it is mentioned as Lintun Ruderich in the 

 body of the deed, and Lyntunruderyc in the rubric. We have 

 seen that in the old Scandinavian dialects linni signified a ser- 

 pent ; and we have evidently in this word the root of the terms 

 linirache, lintdrache, and lintwurm, which appear in the ancient 

 German, and which signify a dragon. Tun is the well-known 

 Anglo-Saxon word, signifying an enclosed space, a dwelling, or 

 an aggregation of dwellings, and which has been universally 

 modernized into ton, or town. Linton may therefore be easily 

 understood as the " Dragon-town." An etymologist so eminent 

 as Grimm considers that Limburg, in the Netherlands, has been 

 similarly derived, and was originally Lint-burg ; while Lindholm, 

 in Jutland, and Lindam, a locality near Colding, in the same pro- 

 vince, are both of them connected with legends of dragons, to 

 which they are probably indebted for their name. On the other 

 hand, hridrian in Anglo-Saxon signifies to riddle, or sift, and 

 hridrud, or (sed) hridrude, signifies sifted. Hrig or hric (rick) is 

 the term for a heap ; and hridrudhric, therefore, easily contracted 

 and softened into ruderic, would denote the " sifted heap." If 

 Lyntunruderic, then, imply the " Dragon-town at the sifted 

 heap," as it may be understood with much appearance of pro- 

 bability, we have in the double appellation a singular revelation 

 of the whole traditionary history of the locality : and we have 

 here a proof also of the considerable antiquity of the legends 

 themselves, or of the foundation which we have supposed for 

 them ; for if these have given a designation to the locality, su- 

 perseding that by which it may have been anciently known, it 

 is clear that they must have been in existence prior to the middle 

 of the twelfth century, when the name first occurs, and of 

 course prior to the era of the fabulous exploit of John de 

 Somcrville. We are thus once more carried back towards the 



