Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/20

 Ancient British Wenta is necessarily Gwent. Besides Caerwent, which the Romans called for distinction Venta Silurum (i.e. Venta of the Silures), there were two other places of the same name, Venta Icenorum, the capital of the Iceni in Norfolk, and Venta Belgarum (of the Belgae); the name of this last Wenta was turned by the English into Wintanceaster, now Winchester. The meaning of Wenta has not yet been discovered.

The Welsh word dwr, water, which makes a great figure in popular books treating of the etymology of place-names, is not exactly spurious, but it is a mere modern colloquial shortening of dwfr, the ancient British form of which was dubron. It is therefore evident that this modern word cannot be used to explain such ancient names as Durovernon (Canterbury), or Durnovaria (whence the Old English Dornwaraceaster, now Dorchester). An ingenious combination of two absurdities appears in the explanation of the name of the river Derwent as &apos;dwr gwent, the water of the gwent or champaign country', which has found its way into many school-books.

It would be just as reasonable to try to read Virgil by means of a French dictionary and with no grammar, as to try to translate ancient British names by means of a Welsh dictionary. To say this is to condemn nearly everything that has been written on the subject in popular books.