ANTIQUITIES 
til is spot was tlie beautiful spring or fountain called Well- 
head.,^ whicli induced them to build by tlie banks of tliat 
perennial current ; for ancient settlers loved to reside by 
brooks and rivulets, where they could dip for their water 
without the trouble and expense of digging wells and of 
drawing. 
It remains still unsettled among the antiquaries at what 
time tracts of land were first appropriated to the chase 
alone for the amusement of the sovereign. Whether our 
Saxon monarchs had any royal forests does not, I believe, 
appear on record ; but the Constitutiones de Foresta of 
Canute, the Dane, are come down to us^. We shall not 
therefore pretend to say whether Wolmer Forest existed 
as a royal domain before the Conquest. If it did not, we 
may suppose it was laid out by some of our earliest Norman 
kings, who were exceedingly attached to the pleasures of 
the chase, and resided much at Winchester, which lies at a 
moderate distance from this district. The Plantagenet 
princes seem to have been pleased with Wolmer ; for tra- 
dition says that King John resided just upon the verge, at 
Ward-le-ham, on a regular and remarkable mount, still 
called King John^s Hill, and Lodge Hill ; and Edward III. 
and fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether a hedge. 
When the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic* not knowing 
that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brushwood 
our countrymen call rise, from hris, frondes ; and talk of a load of rise. 
Within the author's memory the Saxon plurals, housen and peason, were 
in common use. But it would be endless to instance in every circum- 
stance : he that wishes for more specimens must frequent a farmer's 
kitchen. I have therefore selected some words to show how familiar 
the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven hundred 
years it is far from being obliterated. — G. W. 
^ Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence 
we draw water. — For particulars about which see Letter I. to Mr. 
Pennant. — G. W. 
* " Sim, porcus, apud Lacones ; un pourceau chez les Lacedemoniens * 
ce mot a sans doute este pris des Celtes, qui disoient sic, pour marquer 
un pourceau. Encore auj ourd'huy quand les Bretons chassent ces animaux, 
lis ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic" — Pezron, Antiquite de la 
Nation et de la Langue des Celtes, 
