More Bedwyn and Savernake Ancient Landmarks (Pt 4): The Excitement Continues

[@iainmc9859]

'Beyond the Pale' is specifically linked to the English Pale around Dublin. Beyond the Pale they had different laws, a different language and a different religion. Dublin was considered the most English city in Ireland right up to the War of Independence. It was of course largely founded, like most of Ireland's cities, by the Norse Vikings.

[@rhysjones9736]

Thanks yet again

[@AllotmentFox]

Thanks Rhys

[@robertwheeler6520]

The house is called the Ruins.whats left ot the big house after the fire. Belongs to Lord Cardigan.

[@harper5892]

While I don't have your interest in ancient times(well not so much) I share the interest in word roots and language. I can't walk so far these days, but enjoy yo perambulations. Thanks a lot.

[@AllotmentFox]

Thanks Harper. I was so unfit before I started this, I didn’t even like stairs. I have a hip issue which I am mending (according to the physio) by the walking, climbing etc.

[@WC21UKProductionsLtd]

We have several Dodd Hills up in the north west, so that’s “Hill Hill”, so you might be looking at a “Pond Pond”. The valorous dead is more appealing to my antiquarian sensibilities, though. The Roman Road looked good. Cheers.

[@AllotmentFox]

Pond fits which is annoying because there are two references to Wæl here and I really wanted it to be it. Next episode is þyrs “ogre”

[@jacquelinevanderkooij4301]

In modern dutch big/zwijn. Big is a young zwijn. Old english swine is in old frisian swin. Other word for dutch Zwijn is varken. How does that fit in in english?

[@Sheilanagig]

The corpse road idea doesn't seem consistent with what I understand about them. Corpse roads only existed to allow parishioners from satellite churches without burial rights to transport their dead to the main church to be buried without using the main roads. The "valorous dead" translation seems like it would date from pagan Anglo-Saxon beliefs, before they converted to Christianity, hence a time before churches. I'm not even sure they'd developed corpse roads in the days of the early church yet. The lichway system is interesting enough to merit its own research. They usually had to cross running water, to prevent the soul escaping and going back to haunt its relatives. People tried not to be on them at night.

[@AllotmentFox]

Firstly, most of the time I base what I do on the judgment of academics and if I remember correctly this was OGS Crawford, the Ordnance Survey archæologist. That is not to say I don’t use my own judgment-see 20 minutes of it in my Avebury vid-but someone else’s is useful when justifying what choices I make when presenting this stuff. With wæl there are three choices for interpretation: wall, Welsh and the valorous dead. Wæl is a cognate word of the val- part of valorous so it is not just the dead but those who have died in battle, picked up by a Wælcyrie, a valorous-dead chooser, or in Norse Valkyrie, and taken to the Wælheall. Now none of that exists in English except for the word Wælcyrie and wæl and the context of the use of the word Wælcyrie is as a witch in the sermon of a bishop. So yes, pre-Christian perhaps. And yes, because of that one speech and the etymology of the word means I think English pagan religion included valkyries. The main point of this channel is to fish out ancient and prehistoric place names, the majority of our placenames come from some time between the end of Roman rule and say AD850. The Welsh and Latin-based ones are much older but are a minority. There are explicitly pagan names included in place names such as Wodnes, Thundres, Enta, Fri, Drake, but we don’t know how pagan they are. King Alfred, a great christian, has a pagan name. Being a devotee of the prince of peace he still didn’t change his name, it was still important in some way. But these place names exist. As for your later period, I would add that parishes in Savernake didn’t appear until-don’t quote me!-the 1800s. It was extra-parochial. Thanks for commenting and watching!

[@Sheilanagig]

@@AllotmentFox My apologies if you felt as if I were arguing or calling you wrong. That was not my intention. I can be a little pedantic sometimes and it doesn't always come over as kind. What I was trying to say is that you could be right, but if I had to date a corpse road I would start with a date after the establishment of churches. People reused things all of the time, so names live on that belong to other times and other traditions. That's all.

[@AllotmentFox]

Not at all. Your points are interesting and needed answering. The sources I used (if I remember rightly) are in the 1300s and 900s. How you interpret the data is not always certain …