perhaps the very person who 'ridded' the land. I am not, however, aware that any one of these seven personal names has survived in field-names.
When Mr. Walter De Gray Birch has finished and fully indexed the Cartularium Saxonicum better materials than any now existing will be provided for the student to enable him to form judgments upon the meaning and derivation of obscure local names. Nevertheless, without that help, much can be done by making collections of these words, and especially by comparing field-names found in different townships and various parts of England. I have been struck with the resemblance which, in many respects, exists between the field-names of villages in this district and those of remote parishes. It is true that there are striking differences. But yet if we find a name, commonly supposed to be a word which has become so corrupt as to defy every reasonable attempt at explanation, existing in several places widely removed from each other, a strong presumption is raised that the word may not be, after all, a corrupted one, but a veritable survival from the wreck of time which has been left to tell the story of bygone life and manners.[1] It would exceed the limits of this Introduction to enter, even briefly, into an examination of this subject, but if one could get an old map, or with such oral or other assistance as can be procured, make out a map of such a village of Crookes or Holmesfield, and write in the local names, the outline of an ancient village history would be very nearly made. And this would especially be the case if the further assistance of court rolls or ancient muniments of title could be procured. Moreover, the testimony of old people who remember local names unknown to a younger generation, or wilfully altered or corrupted in recent times, is always useful.[2] It need hardly be said that these words are often of high philological value, to say nothing of their importance in determining some of the deepest and most interesting problems affecting the earliest history of these islands.
- ↑ Take, for example, Revel Wood in this glossary and Revel Batch in Wedmore, Somersetshire. It would be wrong to say that these words are derived from the surname Revel, the fact being that the surname is derived from the local name. Compare the Swedish refva, a cleft, gap, and refvel, a sandbank.
- ↑ See, for example, King's Head, Giant's Chair, and Meggon-Gin in the glossary and addenda.
