The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 3 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 3 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
[These opposed camps have no other pretence to a Danish origin, than
what a Cornish critic should be ashamed to own, the mere coincidence
in sound of Din or Dines with Danish. This is the sole foundation for
all the Danish camps, with which the antiquarian oscitancy of Cornwall
has replenished the county. All built upon hills, they naturally take
the name of Din, Dinas, or Don, in Cornish, to denote their site; and
while the common people, unseduced by the surmises of literature,
still retain the name in its original purity, the scholars come
forward and mould it to their own follies. We see this very livelily
in the name of the former of these two camps, which the common people
call Caer _Don_, but the critic writes it Caer _Dane_, and then
interprets into the Danes’ camp, but it signifies only the hill
fortress. Opposed to this, on another hill, and beyond a rivulet, is
another camp, which is called Caerkief, the companion or mate of the
other. Kyfel, says Mr. Tonkin, signifying similar or like in Cornish,
Kyvedk (C.) being a fellow, or colleague, Kyvadhas (C.) a companion,
and Kuf (C.) a wife, Cyfaill, Cyfailt (W.) a friend, a companion, and
Cyfalle, (W.) a husband or wife, a partner, a fit match. The very
opposition of the camps is thus denoted in the name. But then Caer Don
is considered as the principal, and Caer Kief has its appellation from
its relation to that. They are a British and a Roman camp. The Roman
appears from the smallness, lying “on a small hill,” from the finished
state of its intrenchments, from its having no less than three, and
from its having even a fourth begun, to encircle all. These marks of
military attention and of patient industry, all unite to point it out
decisively for a Roman one. Nor has the other a signature less lively
of its British origin; it is “but just begun, and not finished in any
part.” The Romans, probably seeing the Britons begin to fortify their
ground, desisted from their fourth work, marched out of their own
camp, and attacked the Britons in theirs, before they could form it;
and in this view of the camps, the barrow, which is over the Roman,
and not between it and the British, could have no reference to either,
and was only the tomb of some family residing in the vale below.
WHITAKER.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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