Place-name evidence for an Anglo-Saxonanimal name: Oe *pohha/*pocca ‘fallow deer’

Anglo-Saxon England

Volumn 30, Issue , 2001, Pages 1-14

  Hough, Carole ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 34248739414     PISSN: 02636751     EISSN: 14740532     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675101000011     Document Type: Article

References (100)

1. A. H. Smith, English Place-Name Elements, 2 vols., EPNS 25-6 (Cambridge, 1956). Currently in preparation is a new edition, of which one fascicle has so far appeared: The Vocabulary of English Place-Names (Á-Box), ed. D. Parsons and T. Styles with C. Hough (Nottingham, 1997).
2. Smith, English Place-Name Elements, s.vv. Smith also treated OE hogg ‘hog’ as an unattested word, but this was corrected in the Addenda and Corrigenda published in JEPNS 1 (1968-9), 9-52, at 25.
3. This interpretation was regarded as uncertain by Smith, but is placed on a securer footing by P. Kitson, ‘Quantifying Qualifiers in Anglo-Saxon Charter Boundaries’, Folia Linguistica Historica 14 (1993), 29-82, at 72-4. The most recent discussion is in The Vocabulary of English Place-Names (Á-Box), ed. Parsons et al., pp. 36-37
4. C. Hough, ‘OE wearg in Warnborough and Wreighburn’, JEPNS 27 (1994-5), 14-20.
5. Smith, English Place-Name Elements II, 68, S.V. pohha, pocca.
6. J. Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. T.N. Toller (Oxford, 1898); T.N. Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement (Oxford, 1921); A. Campbell, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement: Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda (Oxford, 1972), s. vv. A. C. Amos and A. diP. Healey, Dictionary of Old English (Toronto, 1986-) defines the hapax legomenon cramming-pohha as ‘“a cramming bag or pouch”… or perhaps take as “bag of tricks”’, but has not yet reached letters Nor P.
7. All references are to the county boundaries preceding the local government reorganization of 1974.
8. M. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire, 3 vols., EPNS 49-51 (Cambridge, 1973-6) II, 290-291.
9. K. Cameron, English Place Names, new ed. (London, 1996), p. 181, notes cautiously: ‘It has been usual to interpret Poughill… as “Pohha's hill”, but a possible alternative meaning is certainly “pouch-shaped hill”.’ A. D. Mills, A Dictionary of English Place-Names, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1998), p. 277, s.n. Poughill, also gives both alternatives.
10. J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Devon, 2 vols., EPNS 8-9 (Cambridge, 1931-2) II, 415; I, 216.
11. M. Gelling, The Place-Names of Oxfordshire, 2 vols., EPNS 23-4 (Cambridge, 1953-4) II, 322.
12. O. J. Padel, A Popular Dictionary of Cornish Place-Names (Penzance, 1988), p. 145. A derivation from hyll is supported by the Domesday Book form, but all other early spellings are indicative of wiella. Since both generics are represented in other place-names from OE pohha, pocca, the matter is difficult to resolve.
13. The entry for each of these terms in Smith, English Place-Name Elements, includes a section for animals or wild creatures.
14. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire II, 331.
15. The Place-Names of Berkshire. II, 478. Unfortunately there are no early spellings, and so the etymology cannot be regarded as certain.
16. A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire, EPNS 2 (Cambridge, 1925), 195.
17. Gelling, The Place-Names of Oxfordshire II, 332.
18. J. P. Oakden, The Place-Names of Staffordshire: Part I, EPNS 55 (Cambridge, 1984), 152.
19. The Place-Names of Staffordshire: Part I. p. 162.
20. A. D. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part I, EPNS 52 (Cambridge, 1977), 236; A. D. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part III, EPNS 59/60 (Cambridge, 1989), 346.
21. A. H. Smith, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 8 vols., EPNS 30-7 (Cambridge, 1961-3) VII, 100.
22. Included in this corpus are place-names which may derive from later reflexes of the term, conventionally assigned to Old English etymons by the EPNS editors. The field-name Deelips in Rutland is attributed to ModE deer-leap ‘a low place in a hedge or fence over which deer may jump’ in B. Cox, The Place-Names of Rutland, EPNS 67/69 (Nottingham, 1994), 277, but has evidently been in existence long enough to undergo phonetic change.
23. J. K.Wallenberg, The Place-Names of Kent (Uppsala, 1934), pp. 249-250
24. A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Sussex, 2 vols., EPNS 6-7 (Cambridge, 1929-39) II, 331.
25. A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Worcestershire, EPNS 4 (Cambridge, 1927), 139.
26. J. McN. Dodgson, The Place-Names of Cheshire, 5 vols. in 7, EPNS 44-8, 54, 74 (Cambridge and Nottingham, 1970-97) [part 5.2 completed and ed. A. R. Rumble] II, 298.
27. A. H. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire, 4 vols., EPNS 38-41 (Cambridge, 1964-5) IV, 139. (f.n. B field name.)
28. Smith, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire VII, 205.
29. Cox, The Place-Names of Rutland, p. 277.
30. Dodgson, The Place-Names of Cheshire II, 302.
31. Oakden, The Place-Names of Staffordshire: Part I, p. 126.
32. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire IV, 139.
33. J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire, EPNS 17 (Cambridge, 1940), 284.
34. Smith, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire VII, 205.
35. P. H. Reaney, The Place-Names of Essex, EPNS 12 (Cambridge, 1935), 65.
36. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire I, 156-157.
37. Gover et al., The Place-Names of Devon I, 232.
38. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part I, p. 49, suggests a link with Richard Lucas, rector of Studland 1536-78, but notes an alternative tradition that the allusion may be to ‘a greyhound which fell from the cliff here while coursing a hare’.
39. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire II, 34-5. The etymology of this place-name is uncertain. Alternative possibilities discussed by Smith include an unattested Old English personal name *Pott or a transferred topographical use of OE pott ‘pot’ to refer to a pit or deep hollow. Since the latter would represent an anomalous formation out of line with all other known place-names from OE hlep, hlype, a personal name must be preferred.
40. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire III, 267.
41. Reaney, The Place-Names of Essex, p. 135.
42. Mawer and Stenton, The Place-Names of Worcestershire, p. 145.
43. Dodgson, The Place-Names of Cheshire I, 324.
44. Smith, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire III, 87. (st.n. Bstreet-name.)
45. Reaney, The Place-Names of Essex, p. 73.
46. J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Middlesex, EPNS 18 (Cambridge, 1942), 46-7. The etymology of this place-name is uncertain. Gover et al. suggest a compound of OE rysc, risc ‘rush’ with OE hlype ‘leap’, but comment that ‘the application of the second element here is uncertain’. E. Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th ed. (Oxford, 1960), p. 396, s.n. Ruislip, prefers a derivation from OE rysc, risc ‘rush’ with OE slæp ‘slippery spot’, which is topographically more appropriate. The fact that Ruislip is outside the general pattern of place-names from OE hlype may throw further doubt on the EPNS etymology.
47. P. H. Reaney, The Place-Names of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, EPNS 19 (Cambridge, 1943), 331, also identifies a usage of OE hlype ‘in the special sense Fyshynglepys (1441), as in Horesdescroft-, Newe-, Nordonelepes (1240), Vtlep (1277)’.
48. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire II, 291.
49. M. Gelling, The Place-Names of Shropshire: Part II, EPNS 70 (Nottingham, 1995), 118.
50. Oakden, The Place-Names of Staffordshire: Part I, p. 66.
51. M. Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape (London, 1984), p. 244.
52. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part III, p. 11.
53. Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape, p. 169.
54. Cf. the many publications by M. Gelling and A. Cole, and in particular the survey of topographical vocabulary presented in Gelling's Place-Names in the Landscape.
55. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part III, p. 11. 59 Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape, p. 71.
56. A. diP Healey and R. L. Venezky, A Microfiche Concordance to Old English (Toronto, 1980), s.vv. poholte, pohweg, pohweges.
57. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire I, 276.
58. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire II, 290. ((p) Bpersonal name or surname.)
59. Gover et al., The Place-Names of Devon I, 216.
60. The Place-Names of Devon. II, 415. The page number is wrongly cited as 445 in Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire II, 290, s.n. Poughley Fm.
61. As noted for instance by M. G. Williamson, ‘The Non-Celtic Place-Names of the Scottish Border Counties’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Edinburgh Univ., 1942), p. 234, and Kitson, ‘Quantifying Qualifiers in Anglo-Saxon Charter Boundaries’, p. 33. For further discussion, see C. Hough, ‘Carolside in Berwickshire and Carelholpit in Lincolnshire’, Nomina 23 (2000), 79-86.
62. Gover et al., The Place-Names of Devon II, 691.
63. Reaney, The Place-Names of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, p. 272.
64. Reaney, The Place-Names of Essex, p. 587.
65. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire II, 290.
66. A. H. Smith, The Place-Names of the North Riding of Yorkshire, EPNS 5 (Cambridge, 1928), 72. Pockley is not included in Gelling's discussion of names from OE pohha, pocca, and neither is the derivation from a personal name challenged by Mills, A Dictionary of English Place-Names, pp. 274-5, s.n. Pockley. However, the place-name seems to me almost certain to represent a doublet of Poughley in Berkshire.
67. Mawer and Stenton, The Place-Names of Worcestershire, pp. 223-224.
68. Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part I, pp. 143-4, suggests an OE *poc(c)e ‘frog’ related to MLG, MDu pogge as an alternative possibility, and notes that the same first element may occur in the nearby Pixon Barn (The Place-Names of Worcestershire. p. 214). The second element is taken to be probablyOE(ge)swell(e) ‘steeply rising ground’ rather than OE wiella ‘spring, stream’, but a combination of the latter with a strong personal name *Poc is not entirely ruled out.OE*poc(c)e ‘frog’ was proposed by Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, s.n. Polebrook, as the first element of Polebrook in Northamptonshire, and is at least as likely as a personal name in Pockington and Pockham Moor in Gloucestershire (The Place-Names of Gloucestershire II, 235). An interpretation as ‘frog’ may also be possible in some of the other place-names attributed to OE pohha/pocca-particularly those in combination withwater-words-but does not fit the toponymic context in a majority of instances.
69. K. I. Sandred, The Place-Names of Norfolk: Part II, EPNS 72 (Nottingham, 1996), 9.
70. Smith, The Place-Names of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York, p. 182.
71. W. G. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum: a List of Anglo-Saxon Proper Names From the Time of Beda to That of King John (Cambridge, 1897), p. 390. Searle also cites Pohanleah from BCS 366, but this is an early spelling of Poughley Farm in Berkshire discussed above.
72. Smith, The Place-Names of the North Riding of Yorkshire, p. 72; Mills, The Place-Names of Dorset: Part I, p. 144.
73. Gelling, The Place-Names of Shropshire: Part II, p. 148.
74. Compare for instance OE puca, pucel ‘goblin’, OE *putta ‘kite’, pyttel ‘hawk, mousehawk’ (Smith, English Place-Name Elements, s.vv.).
75. J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Northamptonshire, EPNS 10 (Cambridge, 1933), 215. Additional spellings cited at 209 under the entry for Polebrook Hundred are Pocabroc a.1076, Pochebroc 1086, Polebroke 1316, 1346.
76. Reaney, The Place-Names of Essex, p. lviii.
77. Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape, p. 205. Another possibility is Hattersley in Cheshire, where the first element may be OE heah-deor ‘a stag, a deer’ (Dodgson, The Place-Names of Cheshire I, 307).
78. Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape, p. 171.
79. Place-Names in the Landscape. p. 31.
80. Place-Names in the Landscape. p. 71.
81. Smith, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire I, 95.
82. Mawer and Stenton, The Place-Names of Sussex II, 365-366.
83. Gover et al., The Place-Names of Devon I, 221.
84. Smith, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire II, 290.
85. For a description of the Historical Thesaurus, which is currently in preparation in the Department of English Language at the University of Glasgow, see C. Kay and I. Wotherspoon, ‘Historical Thesaurus of English’, Dictionaries of Medieval Germanic Languages: a Survey of Current Lexicographical Projects, ed. K. H. van Dalen-Oskam, K. A. C. Depuydt, W. J. J. Pijnenburg and T. H. Schoonheim, International Med. Research 2 (Turnhout, 1997), pp. 47-54. I am particularly grateful to Mrs Flora Edmonds for her expert help and advice in using the Historical Thesaurus database.
86. Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. Toller; Toller, Supplement, with addenda by Campbell, s.vv. Mr Victor Watts points out in a private communication that Toller is wrong to postulate a Celtic origin on the basis of related terms in Irish and Gaelic, since Gaelic pòca, pòcaid, Irish póca, pócait are borrowed from Modern English poke, poket.
87. W.W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (Oxford, 1882), p. 453, s.vv. pock, poke.
88. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1989), S.V. pock sense 1 (a) and (b).
89. Oxford English Dictionary. S.V. dapple sb. sense 3.
90. Oxford English Dictionary. S.V. deer 2.a.
91. I owe this point to Professor Richard Coates.
92. J. Roberts and C. Kay with L. Grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English, 2 vols. (London, 1995).
93. A Thesaurus of Old English. I, 85.The flag g is used to indicate a word form recorded in glossed texts or glossaries; the flag o to indicate a word form recorded very infrequently.
94. See also Oxford English Dictionary, S.V. hind-calf.
95. A similar interpretation to the one I propose here for OE pohha, pocca may well underlie the first element of a West Riding field-name recorded in the twelfth century as Frakildakelda and attributed by the county editor to ME fracled ‘spotted’, a term otherwise unknown in English place-names (Smith, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire VII, 189). The second element, ON kelde ‘spring, well’, is found elsewhere in combination with animal names, as in the field-names Gosekeld (1202) and Musekelde (1210) in the same county (See also Oxford English Dictionary. VII, 214). The combination ‘spotted spring or well’ makes little sense, and I suspect that this may be an instance of an adjective used substantively to represent a spotted animal.
96. Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, s.n. Fawsley.
97. Gelling, The Place-Names of Berkshire II, 298, s.n. Fawley; III, 867, S.V. fealu.
98. See for instance the wide variety of terms listed under individual animal names in Roberts et al., A Thesaurus of Old English I, 81-86
99. T. F. Hoad, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford, 1986), p. 167, S.V. fawn1.
100. A version of this paper was read by invitation at the annual meeting of the English Place-Name Society on Wednesday 14 July 1999 in the rooms of the British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1. I am grateful to those present for their comments.