Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/167

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ii6 Devon Notes and Queries, Devon. It is not improbable that this corner corresponded to the Triggshire of Alfred's will, and was shorn off from Cornwall as the result of Egbert's campaign ten years before, when he *' harried the West Weala from eastward to westward." Triggshire was probably identical with the ancient hundred of Stratton, comprising the present hundreds of Trigg, Lesnewth, and Stratton. The two deaneries of Trigg Major and Trigg Minor cover approximately the same area. A letter from Archbishop Dunstan to King Ethelred {Crawford Collection, p. i8) states that the West Welsh rose against King Egbert, who then went thither and subdued them, and disposed of the land as it seemed fit to him. Three estates — Polltun, Caellwic, and Landwithan — he gave to the see of Sherborne. These estates, which were afterwards assigned to Eadulf, the first bishop of Crediton, have been identified respectively with the manor of Pawton, in the parish of St. Breock, near Padstow; with Callington; and with Lawhitton, a parish near Launceston. It will be seen that each of these is situated just beyond the border line between Devon and Cornwall, assuming that Triggshire was then in the former county. The theory that Triggshire became English before the rest of Cornwall receives strong support from the distribution of place names. By examining any good map, it will be seen that in the south of Devon the English names stop abruptly at the Tamar; but in the north they continue, with almost equal frequency, into the present hundred of Stratton and the part of Devon west of the Tamar. The names ending in

  • cott,' "which shows the fullest evidence of individual

action, and on the smallest scale," are almost entirely confined to the quarter north and west of Exeter, and extend slightly beyond the boundary. Those ending in •worthy,* which indicates a protected homestead or group of homesteads, are more widely distributed, but they are thickest at the extreme north-west and the neighbourhood of Dartmoor, where the English were most likely to come into conflict with their Cornish neighbours. The large number of grave-mounds in both localities is perhaps an indication of the severity of the contest between the two races. The distribution of the dialects also supports the