Legendary Landscapes

close
more_vert
Littlestone L
Littlestone Nov 6, 2005 12:42:38
Replying to StoneLifter

>...is that right about the Kennet ?<

Yes StoneLifter, it does appear that the word Kennet is related to the word cunt. Michael Dames* devotes several pages to the subject and gives related words in Latin, Old Norse, Old Frisian and Basque. The Middle English spelling of cunt is cunte. The word cunning (and thus cunning man and cunning woman) is also related. I think the word 'craft' may also be related. There was quite a discussion about this on the Stones List earlier in the year and perhaps PeterH might be able to give us more information.

Have also just noticed that the Welsh word 'cunnog' is 'a posset to hold milk' - interesting, because in Wiltshire folklore Silbury was created while a posset of milk simmered :-)

*<b>The Silbury Treasure</b> by Michael Dames. ISBN 0-500-27140-2. pp 110-114.

S StoneLifter
StoneLifter Nov 6, 2005 13:03:26
Replying to Littlestone

Is it art or craftas Kun st in German ? I have one of these objects carved on a stone. Early Bronze Age - I would guess - the archaeologists don't want to know (for obvious reasons). There were two but the larger one from the front of the stone has chipped off. I guess it beats the footprint on one of the Calderstones and I'm going to try and photograph it, well, over the winter. The stone brings me terrific luck - perhaps the Placebo Effect - and is my 'Koh-I-Noor'.

P PeterH
PeterH Nov 6, 2005 14:05:09
Replying to Littlestone

Well this is going to be difficult to sort out. Ekwall doesn't link the River Kennet with "cunt". He sees it as a British (or Celtic if you prefer that term) river name "Cunetio" and identical to Cynwyd in Merioneth. There are variations at Countisbury, Coundon, Kentwell etc. As regards East and West Kennett – he gives Cyneton in 939, Cynetan in 972 and Chenete in 1086 in the Domesday Book. Celticists tell us that in Old Celtic, the element "kuno" means "high" as in High King. S o we have personal names like Cunotamos, Cunobbaros and Cunobellinus (Shakespeare's Cymbelin. Later scholar disagree and reckon that the word is "cuno" a plural word meaning dogs and identical to the Welsh "cwn" with the singular "ci" for dog.

Then you have the Saxon place-names where the "ken" element is going to be a personal name – Cena as at Kenninghall and Kennington i.e. Cena or Chena's hall and tun

I cannot link Kennet with "cunt" at all. Cunt is Middle English from the Germanic and is akin to Middle Dutch "kunte" and Old Norse "kunta". In Anglo-Saxon the vagina is referred to variously as "cwith", "cwithe" and "wamba". Cwith is pronounced as cuuith. The closest I can get to "cunt" is the lovely word for genitals-

I cannot see how craft and cunning connect to cunt. Words for cunning certainly implied the meaning of "clever " rather than sly as we do now. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "cunnen" meaning to know.