and other names which can be most satisfactorily accounted for by the Northern dialects. The name Rollestone Barrow, on the border of Wilts and Dorset, near to the dyke known by the Scandinavian name Grimsditch, points to the same conclusion.
In Wiltshire we find Burdorp and Salthorpe near Swindon, East Thorp and West Thorp on either side of Highworth, Ramsbury (with the old Estthropp and Westhropp[1] on either side of it), Rollestone, Buttermere, Normanton, Maniford, Burbage, Scandeburn, Grimstede, Hardicote, Ulfcote, and others, clearly denoting settlements of Norrena-speaking people. In the north of the county also is a circle of stones round an old burial-place near Winterborne-Basset, and the Kennet long barrow, very similar to those of Scandinavia. The barrow at Kennet so closely resembles that in which one of the Danish Kings is by tradition said to have been buried at Lethra in Zealand that Fergusson tells us the age of the one must be the age of the other.[2] Similarly, in Berkshire we find places with old Scandinavian names around Winterbourne.
In Dorset we also find proof of a large Scandinavian settlement in the Danish money computation mentioned in Domesday Book at Dorchester, Wareham, Bridport, and Shaftesbury, and at Ringwood, near its border.
When did this settlement take place? History is silent in reference to it, but the proof is clear that some Scandinavians did settle in all the counties of Wessex. Some of these may be accounted for by Goths and other Northern settlers among the early Gewissas. A large number probably settled in Wessex after the wars of Ethelred I. and his brother Alfred. It is certain that a considerable proportion of the fighting men of the old counties of Wessex had become exterminated before the peace between Alfred and Guthrum, and they were probably succeeded in many
