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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE NAME. The ancient Britons, and after them the Rcm mans, had probably some name for the village of Swine, or the place where it stands, although no record of the name has been preserved. The Saxons came into Holderness about the middle of the sixth century, and there is no doubt they gave the village the name of Swiit, or Swine, whatever might be its former name. Sometimes the Saxons translated the old names of places into their own language; and it might afford some amusement to the antiquary, to endeavour to discover from the Saxon names, the ancient British or Roman names, and thus improve the system of ancient topography. There were " very few cities, towns, villages, " passages, rivers, woods, fields, hills or dales," to which the Saxons did not give new names; and this has involved the ancient topography of Britain in great confusion and uncertainty. The Saxons often gave such names to places in England, as in their own language were suited to the situation or nature of the places themselves; or they gave names similar to the names of like places in Germany, from which they came. Thus the name of Oxford, or Oxenford, on the river Thames, was given after the town of the same name in Germany, on the river Oder; and chapter{Section 4the same may be said of Hereford, Swinford, Bradford, Mansfield, Swinefield, and many other places, Some of the Saxons who settled at Swine, might have emigrated from a place of the same name in Germany; or, as the Saxons of Holder- ness probably kept numerous flocks and herds at Swine, and in the neighbourhood, this circumstance might tend to fix the name of the place. The name is undoubtedly of Saxon origin, and is, in fact, the Saxon word Swin (porcus) with the addition of the final letter. Suillus was sometimes used in ancient wri...