On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire: And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.Hardwick, Charles
History
On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire: And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.
Hardwick, Charles
Battles -- England; Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066; Lancashire (England) -- History
Simeon of Durham says the battle was fought near Weondune, or
_Ethrunanwerch_, or Brunnan byrge. I have never seen any attempt to
identify this Ethrunanwerch with any modern locality in any part of the
country. There is no such name to be found now, nor anything suggestive
of it, in a gazetteer of England and Wales, and I therefore presume that
it has either entirely disappeared or become so altered as to be
unrecognizable. Consequently, if I fail in an attempt to identify it,
not much injury will result therefrom. The termination _werch_ presents
no difficulty. It is evidently _worth_, as in Saddleworth, Shuttleworth,
etc., and could easily give place to some other suffix indicating
residence or occupation, or even locality. The prefix Ethrunan is more
difficult to deal with, and I should perhaps not have attempted its
solution, if I had not seen on a map the name Rother applied to one of
the head waters which, uniting near Stockport, form the Mersey. This
stream is generally called the Etherow.[38] This is the nearest approach
to Ethrunan that I have been able to meet with. If _rother_, by a kind
of metathesis, is an equivalent to _ether_, perhaps I can detect two
distinct remains of the word Ethrunanwerch, in the neighbourhood of
Wearden. On the ordnance map we have, about a mile from Werden Hall,
Rotherham Top, and a stream, recently diverted for the purpose of the
Liverpool water supply, named the Roddlesworth. This word implies a
place on the bank of a stream, and as the _d_ and _th_ are phonetic
equivalents, it may be read Rothelsworth or Ethrunlesworth; indeed, Mr.
Baines expressly says, "Withnall, or Withnell, also a part of the
lordship of Gunoldsmores, containing Rothelsworth, a name derived from
Roddlesworth, or Mouldenwater, a rapid stream." On the one-inch to the
mile ordnance map there is a name which preserves the form of the first
part of the word without the transposition, or metathesis, to which I
have referred. Not far from Worden Hall is a small hamlet named
"Ethrington." The fact that these names exist in the neighbourhood
strengthens the probability that the etymology is not altogether
fanciful, and consequently lends support to the presumption that the
locality suggested may be the true site of Athelstan's great victory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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