Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

within the surrounding shrubberies lawns. Chaucer says of Theseus on hunting bent

To the launde he rideth him ful right

There was the hart wont to have his flight.

In the 'Morte Arthur,' too, we are told of hunting--

At the hartes in these hye laundes.

This is the source of more surnames than we might imagine. Hence are sprung our 'Launds,' ' Lands,'Lowndes,' 'Landers,' in many cases, and our obsolete Landmans.' The forms, as at first met with, are equally varied. We have ' atte-Lond,' 'de la Laund,'and ' de la Lande,' while the origin of our 'Lunds'shows itself in 'de la Lund.' 'De la Holme'still flourishes in our 'Holmes,' while the more personal form is found in our 'Holmers' and 'Holmans.'An holm was a flat meadow-land lying within the windings of some valley stream. Our 'Platts,'found in such an entry as 'Robert del Plat,' are similarly sprung, but in the 'plat' there was less thought of general surroundings. As an adjective it was in common use formerly. For instance, in the 'Romaunt of the Rose,' when the God of Love had shot his arrow, it is said

When I was hurte thus in stound

I fell down plat unto the ground.

Our 'Knowles,' 'Knowlers,' and 'Knowlmans' carry us to the gently rising slopes in the woods, grassy and free of timber, the old form of the first being 'de la Cnolle' or ' atte Knolle.' Our 'Lynches,' once written ' de Linches,' I should surmise, are but a dress of the

LOCAL SURNAMES.

still familiar link across our northern border — the flat-land running by the river and sea-coast, while our 'Kays' (when not the old British 'Kay') represent the more artificial 'quay,' reminding us of the knittingtogether of beam and stone. It is but the same word as we apply to locks, the idea of both being that of securing or fastening.

Though it is to the more open plains and wood-lands we must look for the majority of our place-names, nevertheless, looking up our steeps and into the fissures of the hills, we may see that every feature in the landscape has its memorial in our nomenclature. 'De la Hill' needs no remark. 'De la Helle' and 'atte Helle' are somewhat less pleasant to look upon, but they are only another form of the same. 'De la Hulle,' again, is but a third setting of the same. Gower says

Upon the hulles hyhe

Of Othrin and Olympe also,

And eke of three hulles mo

She fond and gadreth herbes sweet.

'Mountain' is the 'de la Montaigne' of the twelfth century, but of course of Norman introduction. This sobriquet reminds us of the story told of a certain Dr. Mountain, chaplain to Charles II., who, when the king asked him if he could recommend him a suitable man for a vacant bishopric, is reported to have answered, ' Sire, if you had but the faith of a grain of mustard seed, the matter could be settled at once.' 'How?'inquired the astonished monarch. 'Why, my liege, you could then say unto this mountain (smiting his own breast), ' 'be thou removed to that