Note 39 — I The Settlement of the South-and East-Saxons

‘Wihtmund minister’ is found in 938 (Earle’s ‘Land Charters,’ p. 326), and ‘Widmundesfelt’ in the earliest extant Essex charter (Ib. p. 13). It is, therefore, amazing that Professor Earle, dealing with the phrase “æt Hwætmundes stane” (Ib. p. 317), should have gone out of his way to adopt a theory started by Mr. Kerslake in the ‘Antiquary,’ connecting it with the “sculptured stone in Panier Alley,” writing: “If now the mund of ‘Wheatmund’ might be this mand [basket], then hwætmundes stane would be the stone of the wheatmaund, and the ‘antiquum petrosum ædificium’ may have been the block of masonry that was once the platform or basis of a market cross which had become the usual pitching-place of cereal produce” (Ib. p. 318). This is an admirable instance of that perverse Folk-etymology which has worked such havoc with our place-names. Morant’s derivation in the last century of ‘Widemondefort,’ from ‘a wide mound,’ is comparatively harmless in its simplicity.