Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/355

 10 s. VIL APRIL 13, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

291

THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS. (10 S. ii. 441, 516 ; iii. 18, 114 ; vii. 238.)

THERE is an early reference to the Chilterns in Eddy's ' Life of Wilfrid,' which was written before 730 (' Historians of York and its Archbishops,' ed. Raine, ' R.B.SS.,' No. "1, 1879). Eddy tells us in chap. xlii. that when Caedwalla was driven out of Wessex he took refuge in the wilds of Ciltina and Ondred. The words are " desertis Oil tine et Ondred," and they may represent the Anglo-Saxon ones " on Ciltina wealda, on Ondredes wealda." If this guess be correct, the A.-S. Ciltina, which Eddy declines as if it were a nominative singular, might be a genitive plural, and it would mean " of the Ciltinas." The form given by MB. MOBLEY DAVIES, namely, " Cilternsoetna," as from the * Nomina Hidarum,' is not the one usually adopted, which is " Ciltene-(setena)." This may be the genitive plural of Ciltan, Ciltas, and may, perhaps, indicate a sib- name like that of Chilt-ing-ton, in Sussex. On the other hand, the etymon of the word may not be Teutonic at all, and Ciltene- (saete), like Elmete-(s8ete) and Dorn-(saete), may be Celtic in origin. In Arthurian legend we read of a Coet Celidon.

A complete list of the forms in -scete, scientifically treated, would be of great value ; but I know of none, and the de- velopment of that branch of research which is concerned with the meaning of English place-names is proceeding very slowly. When it is considered that three parts of the business of historical inquiry into the Anglo- Saxon period consist of the identification of persons and places, and the determination of the dates of events, it is rather surprising that so little has been published which might tend to establish the grammar of place- names. It is just the same with the forms assumed by the Latin word castra. There is no scientific list of them, so far as I am aware ; and no attempt at the graphic representation of the territorial distribu- tion of the varities of the A.-S. and English forms, from che-, initial, to final -ster and -eter, have I ever come across. But how interesting a coloured map showing the distribution of -Chester, -cester, -caster, -xeter, &c., would be !

I am not unmindful that much good work has been done since J. M. Kemble wrote. Mr. Harrison's and Mr. Duignan's works are well known. Mr. J. Horace Round has dealt collectively with some of the place-

names in my own county Sussex, and with many others in different quarters. Prof. Skeat has done great things for the local names of Cambridgeshire, Hertford- shire, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire. Mr. W. H. Stevenson has not published much ; but those who have ever so slight an insight into this department of research cannot have failed to note, in connexion with his too-infrequent contribu- tions to it, that behind his written words there crowd whole cohorts of closely related facts, capable of being materialized by a stroke of the pen, and launched to the support of any position of his that may be assailed. The copiousness of proof that Mr. Stevenson has at command indicates how continuous and diligent must the in- dustry have been which could amass so great a store of instances as that of which the possession by him has been revealed from time to time.

In the present circumstances much of the work of writers and scholars done in this connexion must remain unpublished and unknown, and in time death cometh, and the card-cabinets become dead things also. In some happy cases " Collections," " Re- mains," " Nachlasse," and the like make their appearance in the fullness of time. But it is only in a very few of these cases that the love cf a disciple revivifies the " lave " of the master, and reinforms his work with an energy akin to that which had originated the master's method and watched over the growth of his collections.

Having taken up so much valuable space, I come at last to the reason why I have encroached so unduly. I would say that I believe that the advancement of learning in so obscure, complex, and difficult a subject as that of place-, sib-, and person-names would be well served by the formation of an English Place-Name Society. The readers of ' N. & Q.' are aware how great is the number among themselves of those who take interest in these questions, and perhaps I may not be wrong in thinking that the time is ripe for the organization of intelligent and willing effort. ALFBED ANSCOMBE.

4, Temple Road, Hornsey, N.

The exact title of the publication I re- ferred to a copy of which I have before me as I write is " The Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. Printed for Her Majesty's Stationery Office by Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1893." The preface is signed by F. S. Parry, and dated from Treasury Chambers, 8 April, 1893. It