BOUNDARY OR PROTECTION.
The idea of a river as a protection or as a boundary seems to indicate a
more settled state of society, and therefore not to belong to the
earliest order of nomenclature. And consequently, though this chapter is
not quite so bad as the well-known one "Concerning Owls," in Horrebow's
Natural History of Iceland, the sum and substance of which is that
"There are no owls of any kind in the whole Island"--it will be seen
that the number of names is very small in which such a meaning is to be
traced.
The word _gard_, which in the Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, and other
tongues has the meaning of protection or defence, must, I think, have
something of the same meaning in river-names. Or it may perhaps rather
be that of boundary, for the two senses run very much into each other.
1. _France._ The GARD. Joins the Rhone.
_Germany._ GARD(AHA), 8th cent. The GART(ACH).
The KART(HAUE) in Prussia.
2. _With the ending en._
_Scotland._ The GAIRDEN. Joins the Dee.
_France._ The GARDON. Joins the Rhone.
_Greece._ JARDANUS ant. in Crete--here?
In the Gael. _sgia_, Welsh _ysgw_, guard, protection, and in the Welsh
_ysgi_, separation or division, we have two senses, of which the latter
may be more suitable for the following. The Editor of Smith's Ancient
Geography suggests that the Scius of Herodotus may be the present Isker
in Bulgaria: in an etymological point of view this seems probable, for
as Scius = Welsh _ysgi_, so Isker = Welsh _ysgar_ of the same meaning.
_Netherlands._ The SCHIE by Schiedam.
_Danub. Prov._ SCIUS ant., now the ISKER?
From the Gael. _scar_, _sgar_, Welsh _ysgar_, Ang.-Sax. _scêran_, to
divide, in the sense of boundary, may be the following. The small river
Scarr in Dumfriesshire forms for six miles a boundary between different
parishes.[65]
1. _England._ The SHERE. Kent.
_Scotland._ The SCARR. Dumfriesshire.
The SHIRA. Argyle.
_Germany._ SCERE, 11th cent. The SCHEER.
2. _With the ending en._
_England._ The SKERNE. Durham.
_Germany._ SCHYRNE, 11th cent., not identified.
Any names in which the sense of _land_, terra, occurs, may, I think, be
explained most reasonably in the sense of boundary or territorial
division. To this Grimm places the FULDA of Germany, FULD(AHA), 8th
cent., referring it to Old High Germ. _fulta_, Ang.-Sax. _folde_, earth,
ground.
Perhaps also to a similar origin may be referred the MOLD(AU) in
Bohemia, and the MOLD(AVA) of Moldavia. But the Gael. and Ir. _malda_,
_malta_, gentle, slow, Anglo-Sax. _milde_, Eng. _mild_, may be perhaps
more suitable: the MULDE, which joins the Elbe, and which in the 8th
cent. appears as MILDA, seems more probably from this origin.
The BORD(AU), formerly BORDINE, which forms for some distance the
boundary between East and West Friesland, may, as suggested by
Förstemann, be derived from Old Fries. and Anglo-Saxon _bord_, border.
Another river of the same name (p. 33) may perhaps be otherwise derived.
I am inclined to bring in here the GRANTA, and to suggest that it may
have been a Sax. or Angle name of the Cam, or of a certain part of the
Cam. This river seems to have formed one of the boundaries of the
country of the Gyrvii;[66] its name appears in Henry of Huntingdon as
Grenta; and the Old Norse _grend_, Mod. Germ. _grenze_, boundary, seems
a probable etymon.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] Statistical account of Scotland.
[66] See an article by the Rev. W. Stubbs on "The Foundation and early
Fasti of Peterborough," in the Archæological Journal for Sept., 1861.