Avebury forum 222 room
Image by Chance
Avebury

Wale-dich, the Saxon name for Avebury

close
more_vert
FourWinds F
FourWinds Jul 20, 2004 09:13:48
Replying to Rhiannon

'Walled Dyke' is actually a poor interpretation of the name. It actually means "Ridge-Ditch"

wale - O.E. wale "ridge," as of earth or stone, later "ridge made on flesh by a lash" (related to weal (2)); from P.Gmc. *walo. Used in reference to the ridges of textile fabric from 1583.

wale doesn't have any manmade implications, so 'walled' is not correct.

Dich is the Middle English for ditch, which is a very, very global word and comes from the Old English 'dc' which has roots in the Indo-European 'Dhg'. Dig and dyke obviously come from there too.

So, with Wale-dich you actually have a half Middle English, half Old English name.

F FourWinds
FourWinds Jul 20, 2004 09:28:24
Replying to FourWinds

Just in case you are wondering, 'wall' doesn't come directly from 'wale', but had a separate word in Old English - weall, which comes from the Latin vallum, a palisade.

The Indo-European roots are obviously the same, but by Saxon times the words had already split. Therefore, if the Saxons had meant Walled Ditch they would have called it Weall-Dich.