Elpenor, relates how the dead man and his arms were burned, how he and his comrades heaped up a barrow, how they set thereon a pillar, and on the top of the mound set a well-shapen oar:— [N.B. The transcriber does not read Greek, so cannot vouch for the accuracy of the following transcription.]
- Aύτὰρ ἐπεὶ νεκρός τ ἐκάη καὶ τεύχεα νεκρού,
- Τύμβον χεύαντες καὶ ἐπὶ στήπην ἐρύσαντες,
- Πήξαμεν ἀκοτάτψ εὐὴρες ἐρετμόν.
- Odess., xxii. 13.
The glossary was printed to the end of the letter R before I began to peruse Dr. Sweet's Oldest English Texts. This work, despite its inconvenient arrangement, i found most useful and valuable, and I regret that it did not come earlier into my hands. By its help explanations of a few local names, otherwise impossible, have been attempted with greater or less degrees of certainty. I now see that a larger proportion of these obscure words is to be referred to personal names than I hitherto thought to be the case. I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is better to derive, or to attempt to derive such words from natural features of the country, or from bygone systems of agriculture and ancient manners, manufactures, customs, and mythology, if one can do so consistently with the received axioms or rules of etymological science, than to attribute their origin to personal names; although it is manifest, and indeed can be shown on the clearest documentary evidence, that many local names are the names of former possessors of the land. These are often the names of persons, or of clans or septs, who cleared the forests from wood. Thus in the 'foundation charter,' as it is called, of Beauchief Abbey, the boundaries of the monastic estate are expressed to run 'A Grenhilheg par sartum Clebini usque ad sarta Gervasii et Gamelli et Gerardi per sepe, usque ad cilium montis qui dicitur Dorehegset; its descendendo per cilium ejusdem montis usque ad sartum Rogeri, et sic per sepem ejusdem Rogeri ultra aquam per semitam usque ad saetum Roberti forestarii, et sic per viam que ducit usque ad predictum Grenhilhef.'[1] In these few words we find mentioned the names of no less than seven forest clearings, each of which is called after the name of the occupant, or
- ↑ Pegge's Beauchief Abbey, p. 215.
