THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
63 
But there we stop. We must, I think, agree with Mr. Davidson 
that the document cited by Wilkins has no reference to Devon at 
all, to any Devnsseta or Defena, hut to certain Dzmsasta — " dwel- 
lers on the downs," probably inhabitants of Wales proper. 
The meagreness of direct historical statement drives us to seek 
information elsewhere, and we soon find how completely this "in- 
genious theory of a bisected Devonshire, half Saxon, half British, 
with Exeter as a border fortress, and the river Exe as a boundary, 
vanishes into thin air." 1 
The place-names of a country are valuable guides to its early 
history ; and, as I have pointed out elsewhere, those of Devon clearly 
show that there " is no evidence whatever of a graduated Keltic 
element westward, which must be apparent if the Saxon expulsion 
of the Britons (when made) was not complete and final. The Saxon 
element in our nomenclature is quite as decided on the eastern 
bank of the Tamar as it is on the north coast, and the Keltic names 
in that locality are not a whit more plentiful than in some other 
parts of the county." 2 
It has been argued, and with good a priori grounds, that the 
recesses of Dartmoor might have retained their Keltic population 
long after the rest of Devon had fallen into Saxon hands. But 
Dartmoor has hardly a Keltic name left, save upon the borders, with 
which Saxon dwellers in the lowlands must have been more or less 
familiar. Hence I conclude that in the early days of Saxon 
colonization in Devon Dartmoor remained pretty much a terra 
incognita — 
" A spot almost unknown, untrod," 
1 Davidson, op. cit. p. 213. Mr. Karslake suggests Great Fulford as the 
Gafulford where the Weala and Defena fought in 823 ; Mr. Davidson leans to 
Camelford. I do not think that mere identity or similarity of name, as suggested, 
is likely to help us here. Great Fulford is too much within the Devon boun- 
dary, and Camelford too far beyond. The probability is, that the site of 
this battle is to be sought on the Tamar, at some ancient ford in the vicinity 
of Hingston Down, an accustomed passage from one county to the other. No 
one seems to have observed that Gafulford may be "the ford of the tax or 
toll" — gavel = tax— i. e. the ford at which toll was taken, the very spot where, 
in these primitive times, a dispute and fight should have arisen. A "gavel- 
ford" must have been a frontier. 
2 "Hist. Con. Devon. Place-names," Trans. Dev. Assoc. vol. x. pp. 
276-308. 
