10 s. vii. FKB. 9, loo:.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
101
LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 0, 1907.
CONTENTS. No. 1&3.
NOTES : Early British Names : their Interpretation, 101 The Gages of Bentley, Framtielrt, Sussex, 102 Burton's ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' 103 Pastoral Astronomy, 104 " Mesteque " : its Etymology" Adespota "Watts and the Rose " Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna" "Carry- ing coals to Newcastle " Error in Ruffhead Falling Birdcage and 111 Luck, 105" Boz-pole " " To go to pot " Hornsey Wood House : Harringay House, 106.
QUERIES : Poonah Painting ' Pop goes the Weasel' Addison and Col. Philip Dormer Newbolds of Derby- shire, 107 Latin Pronunciation in England " Haze" 'Bibliotheca Staffordiensis,' 108 " Blue- water " " Ar- miger " : " Generosus," &c. Ward Surname " Kingsley's Stand "John Amcotts George Geoffry Wyatville, 109 Antiquarian Society, Batley, Yorkshire Charles Reade's Greek Quotation Dubourdieu and England Families, 110.
REPLIES: Bell -horses: Pack-horses, 110 Cardinal Mezzofanti "Mony a pickle maks a mickle," 112 Rom- ney's Ancestry A Knighthood of 1603, 113 Major Hamill of Capri "G" Hard or Soft Splitting Fields of Ice, 114 ' The Times,' 1692 Duke of Kent's Children Rev. R. Rauthmel " The Old Highlander "" Mitis "" Moke," a Donkey, 115 "Mulatto" Royal Kepier School, Houghton - le - Spring " Wroth " Admiral Benbow's
Kingsland
speare,' 117 J. L. Toole, 118.
NOTES ON BOOKS :' Society in the Country House' 'Visitation of England and Wales Poems of Long- fellow ' ' Poems of Herrick ' ' A Dictionary of Political Phrases and Allusions ' " The World's Classics " Reviews and Magazines.
Notices to Correspondents.
EARLY BRITISH NAMES: THEIR
INTERPRETATION.
Mona and cognate Names. Mona was the name of the isles of Anglesey and Man at the coming of the Romans. It goes back, therefore, to prehistoric time. We find the same element in other names, such as Monnow ; Menevia Juteorum (i.e., Menevia of the Goths), the ancient name of St. David's in South Wales ; Dumnonium, the ancient name of Devonshire, and mean- ing, as will presently appear, the region bounded on either side by water ; Clack- mannan, in Scotland ; Mannau Gododin, a name given in Welsh literature to what is now Haddingtonshire ; and besides these it occurs, in different modified forms, in a great many other geographical names, as I shall endeavour to show.
Now, in regard to the meaning, it is to be observed that the name is always used as a river-name, or else to designate a portion of land adjacent to or surrounded by water whilst the instances in which it is so used are so numerous as to leave little doubt that the word signifies water. This being taken for granted, the next point is to ascertain in what language or languages
he word is found with this meaning. The
answer to this is that the nearest existing
brm of a word with this meaning is the
Norse word vand (water), the Scandinavian
nasalized) form of the English word water,
vat or vad being the root. Let us consider
what modifications of this form of the word
would be required to give the form found in
Vtona, Man, and the other instances above
nentioned. One would be the assimilating
of the consonants nd into nn, which is very
common in Celtic. Probably this modifica-
tion of the word is to be seen in the name
of Vannes, in Brittany, so called after the
ancient Veneti, who dwelt on the coast, and
of whose skill in navigation and commercial
enterprise mention is made by Caesar. Next
we know that original v passes frequently
into m, thus giving the form of the word
seen in Mona, Dumnonium (where du stands
for the second numeral), Menevia, Clack-
mannan, and the rest. As to the change of
a into o in Mona, it is what is seen when
man is pronounced as mon ; and in Welsh
words borrowed from English it almost
invariably takes place. And there is another
modification which the root under considera-
tion, vat or vad, might undergo, viz., by the
m passing into n, which is also very common.
In this form we meet frequently with it, as
in the river-names Nith, Neath, Neathey,
and Nen ; Namnates (?), ancient name of
Nantes, in France ; Nantwich (Cheshire) ;
Bradninch (Devonshire) ; Dinan (Brittany) ;
Dinant (Belgium) ; in the word tri-nani,
occurring in a Gaulish inscription ; in the
Welsh word nant, which always means a
place where the water collects ; and once
more, in the name of the Celtic sea-god
Nodens, to whom, in the Romano-British
period, a temple was dedicated in what is
now South Wales, and in the tribal names
Novantes and Trinovantes (where the d or t
of the root is changed into v ; cf. Latin
medius and mefms), meaning, the former the
tribe whose territory was defined by the
Nith, and the latter the people of the three
rivers, comparable as a geographical designa-
tion with the Indian Penjaub.
Lastly, the initial letter v of our root might be dropped, as happens in Greek and in Welsh and Norse words. Probably this modification is seen in the Welsh name Glan Adda, or Adda side, and the river- name Annan, in Scotland and elsewhere. These different modifications of an initial v or w (the digamma) may be seen by com- paring English personal pronoun we with Greek hemeis, Latin nos, and Greek oida with Latin vidi. And in passing I may
