Hampshire Meon, in the valley of which people from Moen were probably among the Jutish settlers. That the identity of the Jutes and the Goths, or the very close affinity between them, was known locally in Wessex as late as the end of the ninth century is proved by a statement made by Asser,[1] that King Alfred’s mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac, a Goth by nation, descended from the Goths or Jutes of the Isle of Wight. The name of Gutæ, as already mentioned, is found in very early Gothic runes in Scandinavia, and Stephens places their date as early as A.D. 400. The evidence of the connection of the Goths with the Isle of Wight is also supported by the discovery of a runic inscription within it. This is on the inner side of the scabbard mount of an iron sword found at Chessell Down about the middle of the nineteenth century, and is in the British Museum, where, many years after its discovery, it was taken to pieces to be cleaned. During this process the staves of the runes, which could not previously be observed, were seen to have been clearly, but not deeply, incised by a sharp instrument on the elegant silver mount. The words ‘Æco Sœri,’ which are clearly visible in runic characters, Stephens places between A.D. 500-600 in date, and interprets as an imprecation against the foe with whom the sword might come into contact.[2]
The Jutes of Hampshire are probably referred to in the old name Ytene, for the district which is now the New Forest. This word is apparently a later form of the Anglo-Saxon Ytena, genitive plural of Yte, a form of the word Jutæ used by Bede. This part of the county was known as Jutish for centuries. Florence of Worcester, writing at the end of the eleventh century, mentions the ‘provincia Jutarum,’ in which the New Forest was formed. The Goths occupied the south parts of the county east and west of Southampton Water, as well as the Isle of Wight.
