Dr. Guest propounded the theory that the city was founded by Plautius, the general of Claudius: “When in 43 he drew the lines round his camp, he founded the present metropolis.... The name of London refers directly to the marshes.”[3] Dr. Guest is here apparently in agreement with Godfrey Fausett’s view that the name London represents Llyn-din, the Lake-fort.[4] Many attempts have been made to explain the name, by Camden and others, from other Welsh roots, but nothing is more uncertain than the origin of place-names.[5]
Fig. 2.—Stone Weapons from the Thames.
The tradition given by Geoffrey of Monmouth was that London was called Caer-Lud after a King Lud. Recent writers compare this name with Lydney, on the Severn, where a temple has been found dedicated to Nodens (or Lud), and say that London means Lud’s-town,[6] thus coming round to Geoffrey.[7] This Nodens, who was worshipped at Lydney “as god of the sea,” appears “in Welsh as Nudd and Lludd, better known in English as Lud.”[8] Another Celtic deity, Lug or Lleu, is said to have left his name in a similar way to Lyons, Leyden, and Laon, “each originally a Lugdunum or Lugo’s Fort.”[9]
Fig. 3.—Centre of Celtic Bronze Shield from the Thames.
Fig. 4.—Celtic Bronze Swords.
All these derivations seem mere conjectures, but the last from Lud is at least in harmony with tradition. Yet that very tradition may be founded on an attempt to provide an origin for the name, according to the principles which derived Gloucester from Claudius and Leicester from the Welsh Lyr.[10]