50 



Who Jirst founded Malmesbury ? 



character, from Avebury to Stonchenge, of the British period. 

 Stouehengo in its way was no less remarkable than Malmesbury 

 Abbey. I cannot suppose that Primitive Wilts was deficient in 

 defensive structures, nor can I explain to myself why the river 

 washing the base of the formidable military site of Malmesbury 

 still retains the pure British name of Avon, if the first settlers on 

 its margin, and occupants of its natural strongholds were not 

 Britons. The appellation given it by the race who first built their 

 habitations on its banks has never disappeared, attesting at this 

 moment the fact of a British Founder to the town it encircles, and 

 though that material foundation itself may have been swept away 

 by the revolutions of races, kings and laws, I must confess that I 

 entertain the belief that its original name, as " Malmud's Castle, 

 Castra Malmutii," or Saxon, "Malmud's Burg," is co-eval with 

 the name of the river, both being purely British, running back to 

 the dim but not unscientific eras when the vast circle of Avebury, 

 the Gilgal of Britain, was pitched, and the masses of Cor Gaur (after- 

 wards Stonehenge) were elevated into the air. The Architects who 

 reared this latter pile would certainly have experienced no difficulty 

 in the construction of ordinary buildings. Now the chronicles of 

 the British Kings state that Malmud laid the foundations of Bristol 

 and Malmesbury the same day. I see no solid reason to discredit 

 this statement. I accept it on the grounds which I have enumerated, 

 viz., that his sons, Belinus and Brennus were great city builders, 

 that Wilts abounds in British monuments of prior date to Malmud 

 requiring greater mechanical skill and appliances in their construc- 

 tion than any castles or fortifications— that the name of the stream on 

 which this castle was built is the best natural evidence we can have 

 that its founder spoke the language in which the name still bears 

 the meaning of " a River." It is obvious that no Roman, Saxon or 

 Norman gave the stream its present appellation. In what language 

 has that appellation a meaning ? In the British. The man or men 

 who named it were therefore Britons; which leads us by another pro- 

 cess of reasoning to the same conclusion. And if the Chronicles and 

 Traditions of Britain are all in unison in the statement that the Briton 

 who founded the Castle on the Avon was Malmud, and that the 



