Re: Legendary Landscapes | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

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.

PeterH Nov 6, 2005 14:11:15

Replying to PeterH

That should have read "The closest I can get to "cunt" is the lovely word for genitals- gecyndelicu"

Littlestone Nov 6, 2005 19:05:42

Replying to PeterH

That's very interesting Peter and I thank you for the information. Dames deals with the name Cunetio as follows, "The antiquity of the form is clearly shown by the Roman riverside settlement called Cunetio - their principal town in the entire Kennet valley."

So, with Ekwall's and Dames' info placed side by side, we seem to have a Roman town called Cunetio on the banks of a river called Cunetio. I'm not quite sure where we go from there except, perhaps, back a bit to the source of the Kennet, which appears to be the point where the waters from the Swallowhead spring join with the Winterbourne stream - and that is practically at the foot of Silbury (with a bridge called Pan Bridge, which originally was almost certainly Roman, crossing the stream before joining with the waters from the Swallowhead).

So? Well, Dames goes on to say that, "...Stukeley reported: 'I took notice that apium grows plentiful about the springhead of the river Kennet. To this day the country people have a particular regard for the herbs growing there, and a high opinion of their virtue.' The magic knowledge also resided in the water itself, which was accordingly carried from the 'sacred spring to the area, not a little famous among them', to be drunk on the Silbury summit, so passing from birthplace to birthplace, and from eye to eye. '<i>For a woman, they say, has an eye more than a man</i>'."*

* Italics mine.