128 



History of the Sarsens. 



Among 1 the several suggestions about the origin of the word it 

 has been thought " Saracen" was the term applied opprobriously, 

 and softened to " Sarsen"; but neither old Saxon nor Briton knew 

 anything of the Saracens. The Latin word Saxa (stones) is better 

 than the last as a root (John Phillips) ; and the Roman landowners 

 must have known them well in the fields which their slaves worked 

 and the walls they built (Silchester, for instance) ; but the Saxon 

 derivation seems to be quite satisfactory. 



Other derivations have been suggested for " Sarsen" or " Sarsden. M 

 Wilts Mag., vol. v. (No. 14, November, 1858), p. 168. Mr. W. 

 Cunnington, quoted by Mr. W. Long", states: — " According to Mr. 

 Falkner, of Devizes, the Anglo-Saxon word for a rock or stone is 

 Ses, ] in the plural Sesen or Sesan. The letter e in Sesan is sounded as 

 e in there, ai in fair, and as e in apres. The people where the stones 

 are found (on the Marlborough Downs) call them Sasens or Sassens ; 

 so that perhaps the word Sarsen is no other than the Anglo-Saxon 

 word for rocks properly pronounced, as many other words from the 

 same origin are in the present day." So also R. Falkner's note in 

 the Geol. Mag., 1874, p. 96, with which the above has been 

 collated. 



Mr. H. J. F. Swayne, of the Island, Wilton, kindly reminds me 

 that Aubrey, in his " Natural History of Wiltshire " (edited by 

 J. Britton for the Wiltshire Topographical Society, 1847), which 

 appears to have been written between 1656 — 84, says, at p. 44, 

 that the stones called " Grey Wethers which lye scattered all 

 over the downes about Marlborough .... are also (far from 

 the rode) commonly called Sarsdens or Sarsdon stones." 



Mr. Swayne also has been so good as to refer me to an entry in 

 the Marlborough Corporation Book, given by the late F. A. 

 Carrington, Esq., in a paper on the Old Market House, &c, at 

 Marlborough, Wilts Mag., vol. iii., 1857, p. Ill, thus : — 



1673. Reed, for the Market House (first time since the fire), 40 u . Paid for 

 two loads of sarazen stones, 8 s ." 



Mr. Swayne himself thinks that these blocks were so called as 



1 See Bosworth's "Anglo-Saxon Dictionary" (Addenda), 8vo, London, 1838. 



