Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/102

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JAk 29, '98.

of controversy in * N. & Q.,' 6 th S. xi. 325, 396, 475 ; xii. 313, RICHD. WELFORD.

BOADICEA (8 th S. xii. 366, 497), The question asked by C. C. B,, how this name should be accented, is one I have often asked myself. The modern Welsh F6eddawg is accented upon the penultimate, but must once have been accented upon the final (Foeddawg), as is proved, among other things, by the presence in it of the diphthong aw, derived from an older o by the action of the stress ; at any rate, I know of 110 other reason which could account for this diphthongization. But the really important thing is to find out which of the numerous spellings of this name is the most correct. Here our best authority is Prof. Rhys, who pronounces in favour of Bodicca or Boudicca, both of which forms actually occur- in inscriptions. Camden's Voadica or Boodicia and the other variants quoted by C. C. B. are all what Prof. Rhys calls the "gib- berish of editors." It is noteworthy how the terminal -cca has bothered the copyists, who have turned it into -cia or -cea ; and the pro- nunciation which we have all learnt in the schoolroom, and which has been blindly followed by Tennyson (Boadicea), is therefore absurd in so far as the stress falls upon a totally imaginary vowel for which there is no warrant. On the whole, those orthographies which do not show this intrusive vowel ought to be preferred, such as Camden's Voadica, mentioned above, or Bondiica, and I consider that these should be accented, as I have marked them, upon the last syllable but one. JAMES PLATT, JUN.

Prof. Rhys, in 'Celtic Britain,' contends for Boudicca or Bodicca as the correct form, assigning Boadicea to " the gibberish of editors." The site of the great battle between the warrior queen and the Roman forces must, I fear, be for ever uncertain. Tacitus does not give help sufficient to enable us to localize it. Perhaps the study of the course of ancient trackways may afford some dim light. As I incidentally mentioned in my pamphlet ' The Site of Camulodunum,' there can then have been no road across the morass of the Lea in the proximity of Londinium. That the passage was higher up the river is, I think, certain, and I suggested that the point of crossing (except by boat) was near Ruckholt, but even that ford was not prac- ticable till after the time of Boudicca's revolt. The older trackways crossed the Lea further north, one probably where Waltham now stands ; but the rapid march of Suetonius would necessitate his following well-defined roads and fords. The Waltham ford, whicl

rossed the valley at a wide' part, would lardly be satisfactory for the passage of an army. Where, then, did the Roman leader
 * ross the water ?

Verulamium was a pre-Roman town, doubt- ess with direct means of communication with Camulodunum, and I imagine that, whether Suetonius actually went into Londinium or merely turned aside, he followed the course of the old way from Verulamium to the east, and crossed the Lea, or rather the Stort^ valley somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bishops Stortford. The declivity of the land towards that river may have afforded at some point the narrow defile Tacitus refers to (locum arctis faucibus), and I suggest that it was somewhere in that neighbourhood that the great fight took place.

In the absence of historical data one may suggest ; but who will venture to affirm 1

I. C. GOULD.

Loughton.

I believe the opinion of the most reputable authorities is that this heroine's name was Boudicca, equivalent in modern Welsh to Buddyg, which now appears only as part of the word buddugoliaeth, victory. If this etymology is correct, the British lady was the first Queen Victoria.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

GEORGE JULIAN HARNEY (8 th S. xii. 486). I well remember, in my salad days, having once spent an afternoon, more than twenty- five years ago, at his abode in Roxbury, a district of Boston. This was followed by a running acquaintance for some years, and then I lost sight of him. He struck me always as a man of unusual intelligence, with a fine memory, seemingly ever inclined to pour forth minute facts in the life of Victor Hugo. But not till I caught his name in Mr. Thomas Hughes's ' Vacation Rambles,' within a year or so (where reference is made to his being one of the scribes at the Massachusetts State House), was I aware that he enjoyed a history out of the common. I should like to know that history. J. G. C.

Boston, U.S.

ST. SYTH (8 th S. xii. 483 ; 9 th S. i. 16). Surely MR. SEYMOUR must be in error in connecting this lady with Rsedwald. She is always said to have been daughter of Frithewald, sub-King of Surrey, by Wilburh, daughter of Penda of Mercia. Of course Alban Butler is wrong in making the Danes murder her in 807. That may have been the time when the body of the saint was removed from Chiche to her birthplace, Aylesbury, where the coffin