[Illustration: UPHILL.] In Domesday Book Uphill is found as “Opopille,” a form which takes the place-name almost entirely out of the category of names descriptive of the physical features of the spot, and places it in that of personal names. For “Uphill” is, in short, not what it seems, and does by no means refer, in its true form, to the hill. It is, reduced to the name first given, “Hubba’s Pill”; that is to say, Hubba’s Creek, or harbour. All creeks, and many small streams on either side of the Bristol Channel, are “pills.” This particular name was first conferred in A.D. 882, the year when these Channel coasts in general were attacked by Danish raiders under the leadership of one Hubba, who was slain in battle with Alfred the Great, either near Appledore, on the North Devon Coast, at a place still known as “Bloody Corner,” or at Cannington, near the river Parret, in the neighbourhood of Bridgwater, supposed to be the “Cynuit” of ancient chronicles where the “heathenmen” were also utterly defeated by the great King. Those sea-rovers were naturally attracted by the safe harbours afforded by such estuaries as these of the Parret and Axe, and laid up their piratical craft here. Probably Hubba’s flotilla first anchored in the Axe before moving on to final disaster at Cynuit; and the stay, it might be supposed, could not have been short, for the place to have been given his name. Moreover, between Uphill and Bleadon we have the ferry known at this day as “Hobbs’s Boat,” this name itself hiding, in another corrupted form, that of the ancient chieftain. Here, then, is good news for the Hobbses of modern times, writhing perhaps under the possession of so ungainly and apparently plebeian a name, and wishing they were Mount joys or Mauleverers, or something of equally aristocratic sound. Any Hobbs may, it is clear, derive from Norse berserkers, and who knows but Biggs and Triggs also, and their like! Oh! what a chance of high romance Lies hid in names like Hobbs; There’s balm therein for all their kin, And eke for Squibbs and Dobbs. And Viking blood its daring flood May pour in veins of Snooks: Crusaders’ dash with conduct rash Inflame the frame of Jukes. _Per contra_, oft a noble name Is borne by alien loon, And Rosenberg is “Rossiter,” Cohen becomes “Colquhoun.” Around Park Lane, with might and main, You hear the rumour wag That “Gordon” may be Guggenheim, And “Mervyn,” “Mosenbag.” Romance we trace in commonplace, And fact that custom shocks. Thus we come daily face-to-face, With cunning paradox.