Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/41

 are now called Stratford, Stratton or Stretton, and Streatham. So, too, we say Bradford instead of Broadford, and Dunham instead of Down-home (though some places have the name as Downham).

Before passing from the Angle and Saxon names to those which are of Scandinavian origin, it may be useful to call attention to one or two grammatical points. Old English place-names were used more frequently in the dative than in any other case; indeed certain prepositions governing this case were often treated as a part of the name, as when a charter of the eighth century speaks of land 'in loco quern dicunt æt Eastune', or when Bæda refers to a place called 'in Getlingum' (literally 'among the Gythlingas'), now Gilling. Hence the modern form of a name very commonly represents the Old English dative. The ending -bury, from the dative byrig, is more usual than -borough from the nominative burh. (The Scandinavian names containing the same word have it only in the form -borough.) The dative plural of all nouns ended in -um, which has sometimes been corrupted into -ham or -holm, but sometimes remains in other forms, as in Moorsome from Mōrhūsum, 'at the moorhouses.' Hallam, from which is derived Hallamshire, the name of the district including Sheffield, is probably æt Healum, from the dative plural of healh, haugh. When the first element of a compound is an adjective, it usually appears in the dative of what is called the weak declension. In the Southern and Midland dialects the ending of this form was -an, so that we meet with names like æt Hēan lēage, 'at the high lea,' now Hanley (hēan being the dative of hēah, high). In other names that have a first element ending in -an, this syllable is the inflexion of the genitive either of a personal name, as in Badecan wiellon, 'Badeca's wells,' now Bakewell, or of a river-name (the nominative of which ended in -a or -e), as in Exan mūtha, Exmouth. As may be seen from these instances, the n often dropped