fortification, the name of which in the second century was Lētocēton,[1] meaning 'grey wood'. As the British language changed, the name came to be pronounced Luitcoit. In early Welsh writers Cair Luitcoit (cair, now caer, meaning fortress) is mentioned as an ancient city. When the Angles conquered the country, they seem to have left the old fortified town uninhabited (as they often did), and made their own settlement in the 'Luitcoit-field'—that is to say, in the tract of country adjacent to the old Lētocēton. The alteration of Luitcoit into Lyccid is not very great. A name of similar origin, by the way, is Chesterfield; the 'chester' or Roman station is a mile away from the town that has arisen in its 'field '.
It is worth while to mention that in the twelfth century the historian Henry of Huntingdon,[2] finding the name Cair Luitcoit in a list of ancient cities, chose to identify it with Lincoln. No doubt Luitcoit does sound something like Lincoln as pronounced by a man with a bad cold; but the names have etymologically nothing in common, and there is sufficient evidence to prove that the real Luitcoit was Lichfield. Nevertheless, the historians of Lincoln go on telling us that an ancient name of the city was Cair Luitcoit; and some of them, to make the story look more plausible, have turned Luitcoit into 'Lindcoed'.
The British name of Dorchester was Durnovaria (the v being pronounced as w). Now as durno- means 'fist', and war is the root of the Welsh gware, play, it seems possible that the town got its name because it was adjacent to a place set apart for pugilistic encounters. However this may be, the Saxons at first called the place Dornwara-ceaster (retaining the contemporary British form of the name unchanged),
- ↑ This is, in the Roman documents, recorded in two forms which are due to scribal errors. In the Antonine Itinerary it is Etoceto (ablative), and in the Ravenna Geographer Lectocetum.
- ↑ The mistaken identification is found also, a few years later, in Geoffrey of Monmouth.
