Grimm draws attention to the circumstance that Loki is apparently connected with the widespread root which appears in English in the forms lock and latch. Here is a very striking analogy,
and it is supported by an instance from the present German: Höllriegel = vectis infernalis, brand of hell, is still recognised as = teufel; or for an old witch = devil's dam.
And even in Latin documents we find the same idea represented. Thus, in a charter of King Edgar (Cod. Dipl., No. 487.), which begins with a recital of the fall of man, and the need of escaping the consequent misery, we have the following:
"Quamobrem ego Eadgar, totius Britanniæ gubernator et rector, ut hujus miseriæ repagulum quam protoplastus inretitus promeruit ... evadere queam, quandam ruris particulam ... largitus sum," &c. &c.
As to the application of this name to localities, it seems to represent the same sentiment as the prefix of Giant, Grim, or Devil: and this sentiment would be that of the grand or awful in Nature, and mysterious or unaccountable in artificial works. I think we may then safely conclude, that all dikes, ditches, camps, cromlechs, &c., which have such titles attached to them, date from an age previous to the Saxons being in England. For example, if we did not know from other sources the high antiquity of Wayland Smith's Cave in Berkshire, we might argue that it was at least pre-Saxon; from the fact that the Saxons called it by the name of their Vulcan, and therefore that it appeared to them so mysterious as to be dignus vindice nodus.
If your correspondent C. G., or any of your readers, can, either from their reading or from local knowledge, add any further illustrations or examples of this ancient heathen word, I, for one, shall receive them gratefully.
I. E.
Oxford.