Here, then, in our Celtic place-names lies a wide and as yet, for large districts, but little worked field for exploration. Civilisation has advanced less rapidly and ruthlessly in the Celtic-speaking parts of the country, where, too, there are fewer historical records of progress and change. But the topographical names when carefully worked out supply a good deal of information regarding former conditions of surface whereof every other memorial has perished. Our Saxon progenitors, also, gave appropriate local names; but with a sturdy self-assertion, and prosaic regard for plain fact, they chose to couple their own _cognomina_ with them. If a settler fenced in his own inclosure he called it his 'ton' or his 'ham.' If he felled the trees of the primeval woodlands and made his own clearance, it became his 'fold.' If he built himself a mud cottage, it was his 'cote,' or if he attained to the dignity of a farm, he called it his 'stead.' As he and his brethren increased their holdings and drew their houses together for companionship and protection, the village kept their family name. But besides these patronymic epithets, which are of such value in tracing out the early settlement of the country, the English gave more or less descriptive local names. In their 'holts' and 'hursts,' 'wealds' and 'shaws,' we can still tell where their woods lay. In their 'leighs,' 'fields,' and 'royds,' we can yet trace the open clearings in these woods. But for the broad landmarks, rivers, and larger natural features of the country, the Saxons were generally content to adopt, in some more or less corrupted form, the names already given by the Celtic tribes who had preceded them.