SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

202 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
and the place-names and field-names of the easternmost division,
Macclesfield Hundred. Regrettably, there is no map of the
county nor one showing the township boundaries within the
hundred. From the point of view of a study of the interaction
of different languages in local nomenclature, Cheshire is one of
the most interesting of the English counties. The problems
presented by the name-forms are often complicated and
occasionally, it seems, insoluble. Several British names survive
from the time of the Cornovii, not only those of large regions such
as The Lyme (discussed pp. 2-6), and of rivers such as the Dee
(pp. 21-22), but also settlement-names such as Werneth (p. 302),
which is identical in origin with Vernetum in Gaul, and Cheadle
(p. 246), whose present form is a tautological combination of
PrimWelsh *cfd and OE leah, both meaning "wood". Chester
became the fortress of the Roman Twentieth Legion and some of
the localities in the county received Latin or latinised names.
The British river-name Dee, for example, was employed by the
Romans, in the form Deva, for Chester, the city on its banks.
After the arrival of the Angles in Britain, Cheshire became part
of the kingdom of Mercia and the majority of its townships bear
Anglian names, e.g. Northenden (p. 234), "noroig» (enclosure)
in the north", and Saxfield (p. 236), which seems to indicate the
presence of some Saxons among the Angles. After the Angles
came the Danes and the Norwegians. The former must have
crossed the Pennines from Yorkshire and Derbyshire, the latter
came across the sea from Viking settlements in Ireland. The
Vikings were followed by the Normans, who created the County
palatine of Cheshire and left their linguistic mark on some of its
p.ns., e.g. Delamere (pp. 8-9). In the Middle Ages Cheshire was
the scene of a confrontation between the Welsh and the English and
the fact that Cheshire marches with Wales is reflected not only in
the p.ns. containing Welsh elements, such as Fluellens Brooke
(p. 25), in which the Welsh personal name Llewellyn has replaced
OE Ltofuiine, but also in the double forms of some p.ns., such as
English Wirrall beside Welsh Cilgwri (pp. 7-8). The most recent
invasion of Cheshire has issued from Manchester. Wythenshawe
(p. 234), the "willow copse" in Northenden, has been developed
by the city into an overspill satellite town for about 90,000 people.
Wealthier Mancunians have penetrated even further into the
Cheshire countryside, causing the natives of Bollington to coin
a new name for Prestbury, namely Mansionville (p. 212).
The history of the settlements in Cheshire has been an eventful
one but for the readers of this journal it is probably the
evidence which the place-names provide for the Scandinavian