_Wallingford_ was the home of the Wallings. Places whose names ended in _ford_ were generally situated where a ford, or means of crossing a river or stream, had to be made. Oxford was in Old English _Oxenford_, or "ford of the oxen." Towns whose names end in _borough_ are often very old, but not so old as some of those ending in _ham_ and _ford_. There were _burhs_ in the first days of the English Conquest, but generally they were only single fortified houses and not villages. We first hear of the more important _burghs_ or _boroughs_ in the last hundred years or so before the Norman Conquest. _Edinburgh_, which was at first an English town, is a very early example. Its name means "Edwin's borough or town," and it was so called because it was founded by Edwin, who was king of England from 617 to 633. The special point about boroughs was that they were really free towns. They had courts of justice of their own, and were free from the Hundred courts, the next court above them being the Shire court, ruled over by the sheriff. So we know that most of the towns whose names end in _burgh_ or _borough_ had for their early citizens men who loved freedom, and worked hard to win their own courts of justice. There are other endings to the names of towns which go back to the days before the Norman Conquest, but which are not really English. If a child were told to pick out on the map of England all the places whose names end in _by_ or _thwaite_, he or she would find that most of them are in the eastern part of England. The reason for this might be guessed, perhaps, by a very thoughtful child. Both _by_ and _thwaite_ are Danish words, and they are found in the eastern parts of England, because it was in those parts that the Danes settled down when the great King Alfred forced them to make peace in the Treaty of Wallingford. After this, of course, the Danes lived in England for many years, settling down, and becoming part of the English people. Naturally they gave their own names to many villages and towns, and many of these remain to this day to remind us of this fierce race which helped to build up the English nation.