Miscellaneous Words. 



267 



north to south-west is described as Weala-weg (= Welsh, or 

 British, way) . To this day this old trackway can be traced, 

 and remains still the line of boundary. 

 Surrenden. Near Grittleton. In Domesday it is spelt Siren-done, 

 and in the Nom. Vill. (1316) Suryndene.. This place also, it 

 may be, gets its name from some old sarn,or British trackway 

 near it. Certainly there are the remains of a cromlech close 

 by, and Littleton Drew is in its neighbourhood. Kemble, 

 by the way, identifies Surrenden, in Kent, with the Swith- 

 r ceding -dcenne of a charter 1 dated 1020. But the intermediate 

 forms of spelling given above seem conclusive against such 

 having been the original of this place in Wiltshire. 

 Swallow. ") The source of a small stream flowing into the Kennet 

 Swill. i is called the Swallow-head, 2 and Swill Brook is the 

 name of a stream by Ash ton Keynes and Minety. In Kent 

 and Yorkshire there are two rivers called Swale, the former of 

 which is called, in Cod. Dipl. 199, Swalewe, and the ancient 

 charters (Cod. Dipl. 58, 801) speak of one in Gloucestershire 

 called Sue lie. To this day indeed there is one in that county 

 called Swily, which is possibly the same stream. Ithas been sug- 

 gested that the name may be from the Gaelic suail (= little) 

 but this is by no means a satisfactory derivation. Fergusson 3 

 l Co&. Dipl., 1315. 



2 This name would imply that there was a stream here which no doubt bare 

 the name of the Swalewe, or Suelle. This stream runs past Silbury and 

 Avebury, and flows ultimately into the Kennet. I have sometimes thought 

 the former part of the name Sil bury may have been derived from this stream, 

 which might easily, in course of centuries, have been corrupted from Suelle, or 

 Swill, as we have it in North Wilts. Unfortunately we find the name Silbury in 

 no old documents, so as to be able to tell its original form. Were it not that we 

 might fairly look for a Celtic name, at least in part, for this remarkable 

 mound (for we have not here, as in the case of Stonehenge, an original 

 name, which has been superseded, preserved to us) we should accept at once, 

 as an interpretation, Sel-berg (= great hill), just as Selwood, according to 

 Asser, is equivalent to Coit mawr or Silva magna, i.e., great wood. See Mon. 

 H. Brit., 481. There is no word like sel that now signifies great. The 

 nearest is the Cornish sel, sil, sul, which signifies a "view or prospect ; " 

 the adjective sellick meaning " conspicuous " or " remarkable." Thus Crug- 

 sellick (= conspicuous barrow). See Price's Corn. -Brit. Diet. 



3 River Names of Europe, p. 165. 



