chapter xi

of the same author's Words and Places (Everyman Library). See also Johnston's Place-names of England and Wales, a glossary of selected names with a comprehensive introduction. There are many modern books on the village names of various counties, e.g. Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Suffolk (Skeat), Oxfordshire (Alexander), Lancashire (Wyld and Hirst), West Riding of Yorkshire (Moorman), Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire (Duignan), Nottinghamshire (Mutschmann), Gloucestershire (Baddeley), Herefordshire (Bannister), Wiltshire (Elsblom), S.W. Yorkshire (Goodall), Sussex (Roberts), Lancashire (Sephton), Derbyshire (Walker), Northumberland and Durham (Mawer).] Thus the name Oakley must generally have been borne by a man who lived on meadow land which was surrounded or dotted with oak-trees. But I should be shy of explaining a given village called Oakley in the same way, because the student of place-names might be able to show from early records that the place was originally an ey, or island, and that the first syllable is the disguised name of a medieval churl. These four simple etymons themselves may also become perverted. Thus -ham is sometimes confused with -holm ( Chapter XII ), -ley, as I have just suggested, may in some cases contain -ey, -ton occasionally interchanges with -don and -stone, and -lord with the French -fort (