localities by colonists of Scandinavian descent. History is silent for the most part concerning the Anglian and Danish settlements in Lincolnshire and Norfolk, but these settlements cannot be doubted, nor can the settlements of Goths and Northmen in Wessex, either among the original Gewissas or after the Danish wars of the ninth and tenth centuries. In any district in which Scandinavian freemen were settled at a subsequent date to that of the original settlers some changes in land tenure and in the customs of inheritance would be likely to follow, as well as a change in some of the local names, which may account for the disappearance here and there of some very early customs.
In Dorset the Domesday names Windresorie and Windelhā occur, and the old names Windleshor’ Hundred and Windregledy also are known. These apparently refer to men who were Vandals, or Windr, as they would be called by Scandinavian Goths and others who spoke some dialect of the old Northern tongue.
This old name Windr for Wends used by the Northern nations is a link in the chain of evidence by which Wendish settlements may be traced in our country. The name Winter in place-names occurs most frequently in Dorset, but also in Wiltshire and some other counties. It is chiefly attached to the word bourn, but by no means exclusively, the place-names Winterstoke, Winterhead (anciently Wintret), and Winterburge, being known in the southern counties; also Wintrinton in Dorset, Wintringham in Huntingdonshire, Wintrington in Lincolnshire, and Winterset in Yorkshire.
The name Windresorie for the place now called Broad Windsor in Dorset had its origin apparently under similar circumstances to those which gave rise to the name Windlesore, now Windsor in Berkshire. Among other early Dorset names that may be connected with people known as Windr are Windrede-díc or Windryth-díc, a boundary ditch near Shaftesbury, and Windærlǽh mǽd,
