Chapter XIX

), or may come from Mid. Eng. graefe, a trench, quarry. Compounds are Hargreave (hare), Redgrave, Stangrave, the two latter probably referring to an excavation. From Mid. Eng, strope, a small wood, appear to come Strode and Stroud, compound Bulstrode, while Struthers is the cognate strother, marsh, still in dialect use. Weald and wold, the cognates of Ger. Wald, were applied rather to wild country in general than to land covered with trees. They are probably connected with wild.

Similarly the Late Lat. foresta, whence our forest, means only what is outside, Lat, foris, the town jurisdiction. From the Mid. Eng. waeld we have the names Weld and Weale, the latter with the not uncommon loss of final -d. Scroggs (Scand.) and Scrubbs suggest their meaning of brushwood. Scroggins, from its form, is a patronymic, and probably represents Scoggins with intrusive _r_. This is perhaps from Scogin, a name borne by a poet who was contemporary with Chaucer and by a court-fool of the fifteenth century--

"The same Sir John, the very same. I saw him break Skogan's head at the court gate, when he was a crack, not thus high." (2 Henry IV., iii. 2.)

With Scrubb of cloudy ammonia fame we may compare Wormwood Scrubbs. Shrubb is the same word, and Shropshire is for Anglo-Sax. scrob-scire.

FOREST CLEARINGS

The two northern names for a clearing in the wood were Royd and Thwaite (Scand.). The former is cognate with the second part of Baireut and Wernigerode, and with the Rütli, the small plateau on which the Swiss patriots took their famous oath. It was so called--

"Weil dort die Waldung ausgerodet ward."

(SCHILLER, Wilhelm Tell.)

Among its compounds are Ackroyd (oak), Grindrod (green), Murgatroyd (Margaret), Learoyd (lea), Ormerod, etc. We also find the name Rodd, which may belong here or to Rudd ( Chapter VII ), and both these names may also be for Rood, equivalent to Cross or Crouch ( Chapter II ), as in Holyrood. Ridding is also related to Royd. Hacking may be a dim. of Hack (