Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/228

 222 Flom established itself in the name of the city of Keswick, while dialect speech all around had the palatal c. The vocalic difficulty is not so serious, for in such position shortening of the vowel might possibly have taken place. However, if OE. cese+wic were the origin, the modern form should in Cumber- land regularly be Cheeswick, or Cheeaswick. Assuming for the moment that the ending represents .OE. -wlc, the use of this ending in the name of a place to designate it as the place where cheese was made and sold seems very unlikely. One might have compounded cese with hus or some such general word, but not with the word wic, 'dwelling.' 7 And the combination with ON. wk is likewise hardly to be thought of. Vik is a common enough place-name-ending in Norway, but such a name as Ostvik, as the name of a farmstead, nowhere occurs, and impresses a native at once as impossible. I must, therefore, reject Moorman's explanation of the syllable kes- in Keswick. Sedgefield identifies the first part of the name with that of Keisley in Westmorland. The oldest form given of the latter is Kifisclive. This he derives from ON. Kef sir, a personal name, and ON. klif, 'a cliff.' In the modern form the ending has become confused with the Eng. word leak, 'pasture.' 8 How- ever, none of the oldest forms of Keswick show an /; the forms are: Kesewyk, 1288, Kesewik, 1290, Keswyk, 1292, and Kesse- wik (year not given). Also the loss of the weak i in Kifisclive left a consonant combination which was entirely contrary to the tendency in the dialect to reduce groups of three or four conso- nants; and cl being an inseparable and necessary part of the last element of the name /must fall out; cp. Uldale Kifswik the cimbination fsw should have maintained itself at least as long as the date of the earliest occurrences of the name Keswick. As to the second element, -wick, it may perfectly well be from either OE. wlc or ON. vfk, But in this case it seems 'Other definitions in Bosworth-Toller are: abode, residence, lodging; group of houses, hamlet. 8 In regard to the first part of Kifisclif I would assume contamination of Kef sir and OE. cefes. In the later form Keisley, then, there has evidently been confusion between Kifis- and the name-stem Keis- or- Kes-.