160 



The Names of Places in Wiltshire. 



to be interpreted at all; with Teutonic terminations which are well 

 understood. 



Such for example is Salts-bury, 1 the former part of which name is 

 still a crux for philologists. No doubt, in some instances of this sort^ 

 we have the remains of an obsolete dialect, or the names (in a cor- 

 rupt form) of some old land-owners, the remembrance of whom has 

 long since faded away. Some examples of this class of names are 

 especially interesting as showing the gradual growth of a settlement : 

 thus in Quid-ham-ton (or, as it is also spelt, Wed-ham-ton) you have 

 the successive extension, from the wood cleared for the dwelling, to 

 the homestead (or ham), and thence to the village, for such is the 

 meaning of tun (=town). 



4. In the course of this essay, many examples of each of these classes 

 of Local Names will be mentioned. By way of easier arrangement 

 I propose to treat first of all of the Celtic river-names, or of those 

 which denote water, and the various names derived from them, — then 

 of those which are originally designations of hills or valleys or other 

 natural features. An alphabetical list of local names, conjectured to 

 be derived from a Celtie source, will be appended, with such inter- 

 pretations, as, after some little thought given to the subject, appear 

 to be the most probable. 



I. — River Names, or those which denote water. 

 Avon. This name generally appears in Anglo-Saxon Charters as 

 Mfene or Ajen, though occasionally as Afo7ie or Abon. So 

 common is it in various countries that it may almost be re- 

 garded as a generic term for " river. }) In Wilts there are 

 two rivers bearing this name — the one rising near Tetbury, 

 and flowing through Malmesbury, Chippenham, Bradford, and 

 so on to Bath, — the other rising in Bishops Cannings and 

 then flowing through Rushall and Amesbury to Salisbury. 



There is no doubt that the origin of this name is to be 

 found in the widely-spreading Sanscrit root ap* which 



1 See however Wilts Mag.,xiii., 50. 



2 In the Yedas, Ap % which means literally " the waters," is used as a name 

 for the Deity. Max Miiller's " Chips from a German Workshop." i., 27. 



