The place-names which illustrate the character of Anglo-Saxon heathenism have a special claim on the attention of historians. To scholars such as Bede, who wrote when English paganism was still within the range of living memory, it was a detestable superstition, which could not be ignored, but should not be described. Eighth-century writers, and, in particular, Bede, have preserved the names of a number of heathen gods, and recorded the occasion of a number of heathen festivals; they refer to temples, to idols, to altars, and to sacrifices, and their language suggests the existence of different ranks within the heathen priesthood. But it is only a dim impression of the pagan foreworld which can be recovered from their writings, and the points at which it can be reinforced by quotation from later authorities are very few.

^{page 1 note 1} Most of the material on which this address is founded is well known, and I wish to make a general reference to the county volumes issued by the English Place-Name Society, to Professor Ekwall'sOxford dictionary of English place-names, and to the article by Professor Dickins which is quoted on page 3. This year, again, I have to thank Sir Allen Mawer for his kindness in reading my typescript. I should add that in choosing the names to which I have referred in the address, I have confined myself to those which are recorded in one or more medieval forms.

^{page 2 note 1} Edited by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne.

^{page 2 note 2}Leechdoms, i. 402.

^{page 3 note 1} Leipzig, 1929.

^{page 3 note 2} The introduction to the Ordnance SurveyMap of South Britain in the Dark Ages (1935) and theOxford history of England, vol. i. (1936), contain maps indicating the position of some thirty heathen names. In the first of these maps, by O. G. S. Crawford, the heathen names are combined with place-names ining. The second map, by J. N. L. Myres, also marks the principal heathen English burial-grounds.

^{page 3 note 3}Essays and studies by members of the English Association, xix. 148–60.

^{page 3 note 4} These words are discussedinfra, pp. 10–16.

^{page 4 note 1}Birch,,Cartularium Saxonicum,476Google Scholar.

^{page 4 note 2}English hundred-names, part iii (Lund,1939),70Google Scholar.

^{page 5 note 1}Ibid., 80, where Dr. Anderson comparesesa gescot, “ arrow of the gods”, which occurs in a charm inLeechdoms, iii. 54.

^{page 5 note 2} A large and representative collection is brought together by Professor Dickins in the article mentioned on page 3.

^{page 5 note 3} OriginallyScuccan thorn;Walker,B.,The Place-names of Derbyshire (1915), p.219Google Scholar.

^{page 5 note 4} At Stapenhill, south of Burton-on-Trent.

^{page 5 note 5}Ekwall,,The Place-names of Lancashire (1922), p.212Google Scholar.

^{page 6 note 1} These, and other names containingGrendel, are enumerated byNapier, andStevenson,,Crawford charters (1893), p.50Google Scholar, and discussed byProfessorChambers,R. W.,Beowulf (1932),304–11Google Scholar.

^{page 7 note 1}Memorials of Saint Guthlac, ed.Birch,W. de G. (1881), p.51Google Scholar.Respondisse fertur illius loci heredem in gentili populo fuisse necdum ad baptismatis lavacrum devenisse.

^{page 7 note 2} There seems to be no direct evidence for the deliberate re-naming of heathen sites under Christian influence, but there are place-names which suggest that some process of the kind has actually occurred. There are at least five known examples of the place-name Godshill, Gadshill, or Godsell. All these names represent an Old EnglishGodeshyll, which formally may mean the hill belonging to a man namedGod—a short form of a compound name such as the familiar Godwine or Godric. But the frequent occurrence of the nameGodeshyll makes this explanation unsatisfactory, and it is on the whole more probable that each of these names stands for a successful attempt to destroy the unseemly associations of a hill-site once devoted to heathen worship.

^{page 8 note 1}Bede,,Historia ecclesiastica,iii.8Google Scholar.

^{page 9 note 1} The minute investigation undertaken by Professor Ekwall for hisPlace-names of Lancashire did not bring out any strictly heathen names in that county. It is possible that Harrowbank in Stanhope, county Durham, contains the Old English wordhearh (see below), but the earliest form of the name comes from the late fourteenth century, and it may have some other origin. In any case, it stands alone in Mawer'sPlace-names of Northumberland and Durham.

^{page 11 note 1}Cart. Sax., 201, a contemporary text.

^{page 11 note 2}Ibid., 72 (a twelfth-century copy).

^{page 11 note 3} Only three examples are given in Förstemann'sAltdeutsches Namenbuch.

^{page 11 note 4} As in Alahstat and Alahdorf, of which there are respectively four and three examples.

^{page 11 note 5} It has been suggested that a third example may occur in a charter of Cynewulf King of Wessex relating to Bedwyn in Wiltshire, in which one of the boundary-points appears in the printed text (Cart. Sax., 225) asPuttan ‥ ealh. The original has been damaged, but there is space for a division between two words and for a single letter between then and thee, and there is no doubt that the name was reallyPuttan healh. It survives as the name of Puthall Farm in Little Bedwyn.

^{page 12 note 1} The position of Ealhfleot is discussed byDrWard,Gordon inArchœclogia Cantiana,xlvi.123–32Google Scholar.

^{page 12 note 2}Skeat,W. W.,The Place-names of Suffolk, p.85Google Scholar. Forms which have been discovered since 1913 show that derivation fromweoh cannot be maintained in this particular case.

^{page 13 note 1}Ekwall,,Oxford, dictionary, p.483Google Scholar. See below, pp. 14, 15.

^{page 13 note 2} All the medieval forms of Wyville point to a compound ofwih andwella, “ stream ” (Ekwall,,Oxford dictionary, p.516Google Scholar). The Domesday formHuuelle, which must be erroneous as it stands, is probably due to a misreading ofWihuuelle in the original returns.

^{page 14 note 1}Cart. Sax., 888.

^{page 14 note 2} The name survived far into the thirteenth century in the formWenfeld (Harl. MS. 1708, fo. 244).

^{page 15 note 1}Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed.Arnold,T. (Rolls Series),i.76Google Scholar.

^{page 15 note 2} InThe Battle of Brunanburh (1938), p. 62, note 2, Mr. Alastair Camp bell suggests that in view of the similarity ofn andr in Old English script,Weondune may be a misreading ofWeordune, a name referring to a site near the river Wear (O.E.Weor). But the historical objections to a site so far east for the battle are almost insuperable, and the Berkshire nameœt Weonfelda shows that there is no linguistic difficulty in Simeon'sapud (forœt)Weondune.

^{page 15 note 3}Ekwall,,Oxford dictionary, p.499Google Scholar.

^{page 15 note 4}Whitelock,,Anglo-Saxon wills, p.20Google Scholar,œt Weowungum.

^{page 16 note 1} Derivation fromweoh was first proposed byDrWallenberg,J. K.,The Place-names of Kent, p.384Google Scholar. Derivation from Weohthun was suggested byProfessorEkwall,,Oxford dictionary, p.499Google Scholar. The one serious objection to theweoh explanation is the rarity of place-names ending in -ungas. The chief obstacles to derivation from Weohthun are the rarity of compound personal names in the series of place-names ending in -ingas, the lack of any adequate evidence for the combinationht in the recorded forms of Wing, and the early date at which, on this view, the name must have been reduced to a trisyllable.

^{page 16 note 2} Dr. Wallenberg has suggested that theweoh from which the early inhabitants of Wing took their name was the sanctuary recorded in the name of Weedon near Aylesbury. The places are only five miles apart, but two separate temples may well have existed within a radius of this length. It is uncertain whether the name of Wingrave, a village between Wing and Weedon, means the grove of the Weohungas or the grove belonging to the village of Wing.

^{page 16 note 3} InEnglische Studien, lxx (1935), 57–9, Professor Ekwall has suggested that Fretherne-in Gloucestershire, Fryup in Yorkshire, Freefolk, Frobury, and Froyle in Hampshire, may contain the name of the goddessFreo, preserved in the Old EnglishFrigedœg, Friday. Unfortunately, none of these names occurs in any pre-Conquest document, and four out of the five are so imperfectly recorded that it is impossible to be certain about their original forms.Frigefolc, the Domesday spelling of Freefolk, is, no doubt, a good reproduction of an Old English form, but as Ekwall observes, the name may mean either the people of Freo or “ the free people ”, and there is no way of deciding between these alternatives. Until fuller material comes to light, it would be unwise to draw any historical conclusions from these names.

^{page 17 note 1}Kemble,,The Saxons in England (ed.Birch,),i.351Google Scholar. The medieval forms of Tuesley are discussed inThe Place-names of Surrey, 200–1.

^{page 17 note 2}Ekwall, inEnglische Studien, as above, pp.55–7Google Scholar;The Place-names of Warwickshire, p. 284.

^{page 17 note 3}Dugdale,,The Antiquities of Warwickshire (ed.1765), p.392Google Scholar.

^{page 18 note 1} Ed.Cockayne,,Leechdoms,iii.422–8Google Scholar, from Cott. Caligula A xiv. The story is generally quoted from the twelfth-century version given by Simeon of Durham (Opera, ed.Arnold,T. in Rolls Series,ii.4–12)Google Scholar.

^{page 18 note 2} The fifteenth-century form of the story is set out byCrawford,O. G. S. inAntiquity,vii (1933),92seqq.Google Scholar, where the site is identified.

^{page 19 note 1}Toresmere, Domesday Book;Turesmere c. 1130, Salter,Oxford charters; Thuresmere, 1220,Book of fees. The formTyresmere which occurs in a Charter Roll of 1267, and suggests derivation fromthyrs, “ giant ”, comes from anInspeximus of the charter ofc. 1130 quoted above. It is merely a bad copy ofTuresmere in that document, and has no authority.

^{page 19 note 2}Kemble,,Codex Diplomaticus,784Google Scholar, in the boundaries of Ayston, near Uppingham.

^{page 19 note 3} Although each of these names is preserved in an eleventh-century form, neither of them shows then which is usual in compounds of Thunor. Its absence is probably due to an early loss ofn beforer, such as has occurred inThurres dœg forThunres dœg in an early manuscript of Ælfric's Homilies. But there is a possibility, though not, perhaps, a very strong one, that the Rutland name may be a hybrid compound containing the Anglo-Danish personal nameThur.

^{page 19 note 4}Wallenberg,,The Place-names of Kent, p.240Google Scholar.

^{page 20 note 1} AWodnes dic which has sometimes been regarded as a second example of this name occurs inCart. Sax., 1257, among the boundaries of a place namedCliftun near a river Avon, identified by Kemble and Birch with Clifton near Bristol. But other names in the boundaries show that the property was situated immediately to the south of Bath, and theWodnes dic of the charter is clearly the great West Saxon Wansdyke.

^{page 21 note 1}English Historical Review, xvii. 629.

^{page 21 note 2}Studia Germanica tillägnade Ernst Albin Kock (Lund,1934), pp.41–4Google Scholar.

^{page 21 note 3}Place-names of Wiltshire, pp. 15, 16.

^{page 21 note 4}e.g. Grim's Ditch in Wychwood Forest and Grim's Ditch between the Thames at Mongewell and the Chilterns, each of which is mentioned in the thirteenth century.

^{page 21 note 5}Place-names of Essex, pp. 374–6.

^{page 21 note 6} The clearest illustration of the meaning ofwrāsn in local names is the great upthrust of Silurian limestone near Dudley called the Wren's Nest, which appears asla wrosne in the thirteenth century.

^{page 22 note 1}The Place-names of Surrey (1934), Appendix I, where many German parallels are quoted.

^{page 22 note 2} The overwhelming preponderance of forms witha in the first syllable is a serious obstacle to Dr. Anderson's suggested derivation of Manshead from an Old Englishgemœnnessheafod, “ head of the common ”.English hundred-names, iii. 22, 3.

^{page 23 note 1} The chief gaps in the distribution of these sites occur in the south and south-west of Oxfordshire and the north of Berkshire.

^{page 24 note 1}Bede,,Historia Ecclesiastica,ii.13Google Scholar.