ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 
words in husbandry and common life, still subsistmg 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 
induced them to build by the banks of that 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 beheve, 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 J- common use. But it would he endless to instance in every circumstance : he that wishei 
for more specimens must frequent a farmer's kitchen. I have therefore selected some words tc 
show how familiar the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven hundred year 
it is far from being obliterated. 
* Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we draw wa*ter. For par 
ticnlars about which see Letter I. to Mr. Pennant. 
+ 2t/ca, porcus, apud Lacones; un Porceau chezles Lac^demoniens : ce mot a sans double estrf 
pri« des Celtes, qui discent sic, pour marquer un porceau. Encore aujour^huy quand les Breton 
chassent ces animaux, ils ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic— Antiquity de la Nation, et d , 
a Langue des C«ltes, jpar Pezron. 
