tribe may have lost its original meaning, and have been confused with that of winter, the season; and there are other instances of names having a tribal origin, which subsequently had meanings attached to them which were foreign from their original ones.
The name Winterborne appears to have been used at first for considerable districts in Dorset and Wilts that were subsequently divided into manors. It is worth noting also that one of the manors called Wintreburne in Wiltshire was held at the time of the Domesday Survey by Godescal,[1] a man of the same name and perhaps a descendant of Godescalc the Wendish Prince, who was a notable person in England in the time of King Cnut, and who married that King’s daughter. To the Norrena-speaking people this Wendish Godescalc was a Vintr.
Another fact which supports the evidence of Norrena-speaking settlers at an early date in Dorset is the name Thornsæta for the people of that district, corresponding to the Wilsæta and Sumersæta. This name Thornsæta is mentioned by Asser in his Life of Alfred, is repeated in some charters, and passed into Dornsæta or Dorsæta. As the word thorn is the name of one of the old Northern runes, it must have been familiar to the people whose name was connected with it. The inventors of the runes were certainly the Northern Goths, and the circumstance of the use of such a name supports the evidence of a settlement of Goths in parts of Dorset.
It is certain that during the later Saxon period Wends were connected with Dorset, for there is documentary evidence to that effect. In a charter dated 1033 King Cnut gave land at Horton in Dorset to one of his huscarls,[2] and, as is well known, these were originally a force of Wends. This was presumably a case in which Cnut, who was also King of Wendland, rewarded one of his Wendish subjects. Domesday Book tells us of payments from the boroughs of Dorchester, Bridport, Wareham, and Shaftes-
