THE ORIGIN OF " OXFORD " AND "CAMBRIDGE."
[To THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR:] SIR,—Mr. Francis Darwin has scarcely gone deep enough in his discussion. Cam in Celtic certainly means "crooked," but Cam in Cam-bridge does not" of course " mean "crooked," far from it. In the Antonine Itinerary, c, 380 A.D., there is a place Camborico, which possibly—only possibly—stood on the site of Cambridge. The name probably is Old Celtic, camb or, "crooked river," with adjectival -ie. It was doubtless this Roman name which induced scholars long afterwards to fix the river name as Cam. But, as Dr. Skeat has so well worked out the matter for us, the earliest name of this river, c. 700, in Felix of Crowland, is Gronta, whilst Bede tells of Grantacwstir. (The modern (Irantchester is two and a half miles from Cambridge.) Only in 1436 do we begin to find Canbrigge ; 1449 Kaumbrege; 1462 Cambryge ; and in 1586 in Camden we perhaps first get Camas as the river-name. Granta originally became assimilated to or towards Cam through Norman mispronunciation. Granta is probably cognate with Gaelic granda, "ugly," as in the Alit-Grand, Dingwall. As to bridge, there is no proof that it means, or ever meant, "a pavement going into water." They spoke no English in early days in remote Iona. But bridge or brig, when this word is of Scandinavian origin, as it generally is in Yorkshire and most of northern England, is the representative of 0. Norse bryggja, "a landing-stage, a movable pier." This will be the meaning of Filey Brig; at least, according to the great Oxford Dictionary, the sense "a narrow ledge of rock" does not occur until 1812. It is worth adding that a few miles from the writer's door stands Bridgeness, near Bo'ness, a name which has long been a great puzzle. How could there be a bridge on a point jutting into the sea ? Of course the name is Norse, "landing-stage point." Ford, of course, means in its root nothing more than " a way, a road," but from the earliest times ford has meant specifically "a road through a river." Bede is practically our earliest source for English place-names, and in Bede -ford and -caster are by far the commonest name-endings. It may be taken as practically certain that all the -fords in Bede were "roads through rivers." In these early days, when England had hardly any bridges, the ford was just about the most important point in many a district. Forth is but the northern or softer form of ford. However, the Welsh for "road, passage" is fordd (dd=th); and it has been claimed that nearly all the fords in Devonshire have this origin. This seems possible, but it is certainly not probable ; though the writer is bound to add that all the places in -ford in his own Scottish county—Bainsford, Rumford, Wyndford, &c.—seem
to mean " road " and not "road through a river." In Stirling. shire, however, all such names must be quite recent. As to Oxford, the Ox- may be the same Celtic root as Axe, Exe, and Ux-bridge, but this cannot be absolutely proved. The oldest mention of Oxford is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 912, " Ornalorda," which certainly means "ford where the oxen crossed." Curiously, however, Geoffrey of Monmouth, c. 1145, thinks the name Celtic, and speaks of " Boso of Ridoc, that is Oxford," Ridoc being Welsh rhyd, O.W. rit "a ford," and O.W. oe "water, stream."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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