ANtiaUITlES OF SELBORNE. 
325 
words in husbandry and common life, still subsisting among the 
country people. 
What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to this 
spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called Well-head/ which 
Well-head. 
induced them to build by the banks of that perennial current ; 
for ancient settlers loved to reside by brooks and ri^oilets, where 
they could dip for their water without the trouble and expense 
of digging weUs 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 
The wicker-work that binds and fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether an 
hedge. When the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic,t not knowing that sic is Saxon, 
or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brush wood 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 he endless to instance in every circumstance : 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. 
* Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we draw water. For par- 
ticulars about which see Letter I. to Mr. Pennant. 
+ 2<Ka, porous, apud Lacones ; un Porceau chezles Lacedemoniens : ce mot a sans doubte este 
pris des Celtes, qui discent sic, pour marquer un porceau. Encore aujour'huy quand les Bretons 
tfhassent ces animaux, ils ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic— Antiquite de la Nation, et de 
a Laogue des Celtas, par Pezron. 
