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



Greve's Aske, or Ashe — was a British town destroyed by 

 fire and reduced to ashes during the Saxon period. We 

 have further evidence in the word Greve's, that it was burnt 

 in Saxon times and probably by Saxon hands. Now a 

 greve (gerefa) was the Saxon governour, or prefect of a 

 province — the shire-reve, or sheriff, or ward-reve. But 

 tributary land, under the sheriff's charge and protection, was 

 called gerefa-land, or greve-land ; and the inhabitants 

 (British chiefly) would be designated gerefa-folc — greve's 

 folk. Thus Greve's Ash may be an abbreviation of Greve's- 

 folk's Ashe, or " Burnt hamlet of the tributaries." For we 

 know that in moorlands or mountainous tracts, where the 

 Britons were able to escape extermination, they oft-times 

 became tributary to their stronger neighbours by paying 

 contributions of cattle or the like, and received in return 

 from the constituted authorities of the latter some degree of 

 protection. This may well have been the case in the glens 

 and on the skirts of the Cheviots. For, extremely instruc- 

 tive are the township names of Ingram and Reveley, the 

 former that of a hamlet — even in comparatively recent times 

 a large village of crofters, with, it is said, a market-cross. 

 It is beautifully situate on the southern side of the Breamish, 

 and has, to the westward, within a mile, extensive remains 

 of British settlements, in numerous hut-circles upon the 

 hill-side, the whole surmounted by Brugh-law, or Burgh- 

 law, and another prominent stronghold of the British people. 

 Now Ingram must have been, I think, in Saxon, Ingera- 

 ham, " The home of the In-yore-folk," that is of the people 

 of yore, of the olden people of the land. And these people 

 were likely still lingering elsewhere on the lands hard bye; 

 for Reveley, just over the water, was the lea, or appropria- 

 tion, of the reve, or sheriff, and of the Revesfolk, or sheriffs 

 tributaries, on the margin of the gerefa-land. From Ingram 

 and Reveley would begin British tributary territory, and it 

 would extend westward through a great extent of hills and 

 moors. But who burnt the British fortified town at Greves 

 Aske ? May it not have been fired by the Saxon Avard-reve, 

 or shire-reve, himself, in judicial retribution for British 

 inroads upon Saxon settlements : for such names as Branton 

 and Brandon are very suggestive. Had Saxon townships 

 on these sites been destroyed by British torches from the 

 hills ? and was Greve's Aske the name given by the Anglo- 

 Saxons to the main stronghold of their oppressed but 



