Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/396

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382
Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.

being assimilated into one form of speech it is not difficult to suppose that Cwénena may have been written for Cwéna, the usual form of the genitive plural of Cwén, a Fin.

In east Gloucestershire there were also two distinct places called Quénintune at the time of the Domesday Survey—one near Fairford, the Domesday Fareford, and the other in the north-east, apparently the Cwéntan of the Anglo-Saxon period, of which Cwénena-broc was a boundary. It thus appears probable that there were two settlements of Quéns. That there were Scandinavian settlers with whom they probably came as allies, and in whose language Fins were called Quéns, also located on this borderland of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, is certain from the old place-names of the district. There are, or were, not less than nine places with the characteristic -thorp or -throp names in this locality. In Domesday Book, Dunetorp, Duchitorp, and Edrope, now Heythrop, are mentioned on the Oxfordshire side. In Gloucestershire there are Addlestrop, Hatherop, Southrop, and Wiiiiamstrop. Tadilsthorpe, the Domesday Tedestrop, and Burdrop, are also old place-names. Among others of Scandinavian origin in the district are Wickenford or Wickhamford; Meon, the Domesday Mene, which may be compared with the Jutish places called Meon in Hampshire; Fareford, Wormington, Guiting, and Sclostre, now Slaughter. Rollright, the Domesday Rollendri, also occurs on the Oxfordshire side of the border, and at this place there is a rude circle of stones of the Scandinavian type. These names, together with that of the Domesday hundred name Salemanesberie, apparently derived from the Salemen or Salings of one of the Danish islands, in which hundred Bourton, Broadwell, and Slaughter were situated, are evidence that there must have been in this district of north-east Gloucestershire many settlers who spoke the old Danish or Norrena language, in which Quén is the name for Fins. Moreover, at Sclostre, now Slaughter, at the time of the Domesday Survey, the