46 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
defeated the Norsemen, in 851. And Eevelstoke bears out this 
view if we may derive revel from reafere, a " rover, robber." 
Reafful = "rapacious." It is impossible to resist the conclusion 
that these two names are thus associated. Both the bury and the 
stoke speak of defensive works ; both the Wican or Wem, and 
the Revel, connect these works with the visits of marauders. 
What we are looking for, however, is the evidence of Norse 
settlement. An unmistakable proof of this is the occurrence all 
along the south coast of ness for "headland." Permanent names 
are not given to localities by casual visitors. We have "ness " within 
the limits of our own harbour. Eavenness Point is distinctly 
Norse in its character, though, as I am not prepared to say what 
its antiquity may be, it would be unwise to attach too much 
importance to it. There can be no doubt however that we have 
"ness" in Noss, the little village on the Eevelstoke side of the Yealm 
inlet ; and its antiquity is well attested by the fact that the village 
on the opposite side, which by the patronymic attached we can 
date back to Norman times, is in distinction called Newton. 
But we need not stop here. We have in the name of our noble 
bay, and in that of one of its chief, and in early days its most 
important inlet, other evidence of the Norsemen. I do not say 
that Sound is distinctively Scandinavian. It occurs in Anglo-Saxon, 
as applied to a narrow arm of the sea ; but it is more frequently 
used in this sense in the North, and is rarely employed in this 
country. Moreover there is some weight to be attached to the 
notable fact that here in Plymouth we have the Sound and the 
Cattewater, as in Denmark the Sound and Cattegat. Cattewater 
has always been one of the local difficulties; and has as many 
etymologies as Hamoaze. It has been associated with the chapel of 
St. Catherine ; has been treated as the CWwater, after the non- 
existent river Cad. We find the word so far back as the fifteenth 
century, given as a borough boundary, as "the Catte of Hingston." 
This Kingston was what we now call Cattedown; and had its original 
name in all probability from a hanging stone or cromlech. Catte, I 
believe, is from a similar root to gut — Anglo-Saxon gut, geotan, "to 
pour, flow " — which is found in varied forms in the other Teutonic 
languages ; or it may be connected with the Icelandic gat, "a hole," 
and our own gate, "a passage;" Cattegat gives both. In either 
case it would be equivalent to Hingston Straits, or something of 
that sort. When the original idea of gat as a narrow passage for 
