Etymology of some Names of Places, by R. Carr-Ellison. 239 



land*. There remains, therefore, from this comparison of the 

 number of places named simply after some species of tree, 

 without any other element annexed thereto in composition, 

 considerable reason to reject the ash-tree from any claim to 

 the etymology of most of the sites in England denominated 

 Ashe, Ash, or Ashen; though if we allow it as many as the 

 oak and elm conjunctly, it may possibly account for about 

 five out of fourteen. The ash-tree in Anglo-Saxon is cbsc. 

 It is masculine. It forms, as its genitive, cesces, as its dative 

 cesce, and (which is important to remember), its plural 

 cescas. We may here remark that the ash is always popularly 

 called esh, or esh-tree, in Northumberland. The township of 

 Eshott was originally Esh-holt (ash- thicket). The southern 

 form of the same is Ascot, or Ascott, fraxinetum. But in 

 Yorkshire we have again Esholt in the true northern form. 

 Yet Greves Ash is never called Greves Esh by the country 

 folk, if I remember aright. We now come to the interesting 

 question : If the ash-tree does not give the element of com- 

 position in the remarkable designation — Graves Ash, Greves 

 Ashe, or Greves Aske — to what other element are we to 

 look ? I believe we have it in the Anglo-Saxon axe or 

 acse ; plural axan, femin. ; — our English ash, or ashe, and 

 ashes, " embers, cinis, cineres." The Scottish pronunciation 

 is asse, or aiss, aisse ; Cumbrian, esse ; in Durham we have 

 the village of Eshe ; in Northumberland we speak of an 

 asse-heap, or ash-heap ; German, asche, or Mceso-Gothic, 

 asja ; Old-Norse or Icelandic, aska. There seems to me all 

 likelihood that most of the places called Ash, Ashe, and 

 Ashen in England, are on the sites of British towns or 

 villages, which were destroyed by fire, in the progress of the 

 Anglo-Saxon conquest and occupation of the country. When 

 the conquerors erected a hamlet of their own upon the spot, 

 they seem to have denominated it Aston (that is ember-town), 

 and I find no fewer than forty-five English villages bearing 

 the name of Aston. Lest it be thought that this was a 

 softened pronunciation from Ashton, after the ash -tree, I 

 may observe that we retain unchanged our full complement 

 of Ashtons proper, namely, twenty ; whilst from ac, the oak, 

 we can adduce only sixteen Actons. The inevitable infer- 

 ence, to my mind, is, that Greave's Aske or Ashe — or 



* It is not improbable that some of the numerous Ashbys may have been 

 named, not from the ash-tree, but from the Old Danish as, plural cesir, the 

 designation of any heathen god or gods of that people. 



