Even now, I need scarcely remind my readers, we talk of a ‘newt,’ which is nothing but a contraction of ‘an ewt’ or ‘eft,’ and it is still a question whether ‘nedder,’ provincially used for ‘an adder,’ was not originally contracted in a similar manner. ‘Nale,’ or ‘Nail,’ thus locally derived, still lives in our directories as a surname.[[107]]
While ‘atte’ has been unquestionably the one chief prefix to these more familiar local terms, it is not the sole one that has left its mark. Our ‘Bywaters’ and ‘Bywoods’ are but the descendants of such mediæval folk as ‘Elias Bi-the-water,’ or ‘Edward By-the-wode,’ and our ‘Byfords,’ ‘Bytheseas,’ and ‘Bygates,’ or ‘Byatts,’ are equally clearly the offspring of some early ancestor who dwelt beside some streamlet shallow, or marine greensward, or woodland hatchway.
In this pursuit after individuality, however, this was not the only method adopted. Another class of names arose from the somewhat contrary practice of appending to the place-word a termination equally significative of residence. This suffix was of two kinds, one ending in ‘er,’ the other in ‘man.’ Thus if the rustic householder dwelt in the meadows, he became known among his acquaintance as ‘Robert the Fielder,’ or ‘Filder;’ if under the greenwood shade, ‘Woodyer,’ or ‘Woodyear,’ or ‘Woodman’—relics of the old ‘le Wodere’ and ‘le Wodeman;’ if by the precincts of the sanctuary, ‘Churcher’ or ‘Churchman’ in the south of England, or ‘Kirker’ or ‘Kirkman’ in the north; if by some priory, ‘Templer’ or ‘Templeman;’ if by the village cross, ‘Crosser,’ or ‘Crossman,’ or ‘Croucher,’ or ‘Crouchman;’ if by the bridge, ‘Bridger’ or ‘Bridgman;’ if by the brook, ‘Brooker,’ or ‘Brookman,’ or ‘Becker,’ or ‘Beckman;’ if by the well, the immortal ‘Weller,’ or ‘Welman,’ or ‘Crossweller,’ if, as was often the case, it lay beneath the roadside crucifix; if by some particular tree, ‘Beecher,’ once written ‘le Beechar,’ or ‘Asher,’ or ‘Hollier,’ or ‘Holleyman,’ or ‘Oker,’ and so on.
A certain number of names of the class we are now dwelling upon have arisen from a somewhat peculiar colloquial use of the term ‘end’ in vogue with our Saxon forefathers. The method of its employment is still common in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The poorer classes still speak of a neighbour as dwelling ‘at the street end;’ they never by any chance use the fuller phrase ‘the end of the street.’ Chaucer uses it as a familiar mode of expression. The Friar, in the preface to his story, says slightingly—
A Sompnour is a rener up and doun
With mandments for fornication,
And is beaten at every tounes ende.
In the ‘Persones Prologue,’ too, the same poet says—
Therewith the moons exaltation
In mene Libra, alway gan ascende