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The Isle of Wight (British History)
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According to the OED the Isle of Wight is from L. Vectis (c.150), originally Celtic, possibly meaning "place of the division."

This accords with Dan's view:

Dan wrote:
A Dan Cruikshank(?) programme caught my eye a few years ago: alum shale mining and alum production up near Whitby. Very interesting.

They pointed to a ridge of rock offshore and said that's where the coast used to be before they dug it away. The Needles look much the same, only bigger. And, bugger me, the Needles are on the edge of Alum Bay... which the telly prog said was named because they didn't find any alum there when they were looking for domestic sources in the 15th century (or so)!!!

I'm seriously entertaining the notion that the Solent was dug out on the left hand side, making Wight an Isle.
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Mick Harper
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So Dan was correct in his assumption that the Isle of Wight was artifically created by cutting round the Solent, thus creating a mystical lozenge shape ie Wessex was "divided" at this point. Though of course he only got this idea because of my even more brilliant insight that the Straits of Dover were dug out to create the mystic shape of Britain. It should be noted that Ireland too is mystically shaped, with its four quarters being the unimaginably ancient Munster, Ulster, Leinster and Connacht. So the St George's Channel (not to mention the Giant's Causeway) are all artificial. Jesus, where's it ever going to end? Ladbroke Grove is precisely aligned north and south which means I am obliged to sleep every night precisely aligned east and west. But does anyone know whether I should have my head at the eastern or the western end?
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DPCrisp


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Place of the division, eh? Interesting.

The division is the Solent: the path of the Sun, or something to that effect.

Are the edges of the Isle of Wight parallel to the Icknield Way/Michael Line and other ancient roads?

Wight also means man, so it's another Isle of Man...?
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Hatty
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The Isle of Wight seems to have been named after the first Saxon King of the island, Wihtgar (d. 544), though he may have been a Jute. Wiht is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'rise' or 'rising' and was translated as Vectis in Latin.

One of the important families on the island up to WWII was the Worsley family whose coat of arms features a wyvern, which seems to be a compendium of Wye and Severn and is usually associated with the kingdom of Wessex.
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DPCrisp


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Hatty wrote:
Wiht is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'rise' or 'rising' and was translated as Vectis in Latin.

Umm... Ptolemy's Geography already called the Isle Wight Vectis only about a century after Roman occupation, long before any (known) Saxon king.

---

Tacking back to a place we've been before: on the subject of the Isle of Wight, Roman-Britain.org says

There is an oft-quoted passage by the great polymath Pliny the Elder (Natural History Book XVI, verse 104) dating to the late 70's AD which names the island Mictis as the centre of the British tin trade, stating that it lay off the south coast of Britain some six days sail from Gaul. This name has often been mistakenly associated with the Isle of Wight, but is now known to refer to Saint Michael's Mount off the Cornish coast opposite Marazion, known in ancient times as Ictis.

Wilkens mentions St. Michael's Mount as the centre of the tin trade, but I dunno whether he read it or postulated it.

On Ictis, Roman-Britain.org says:
St. Michael's Mount was widely known as a port and trading market from very early times. Prehistoric traders passing between the western parts of Britain and the Continent would not have wished to risk the rough and dangerous voyage around Land's End, and so sent their cargoes across the narrowest and most level part of Cornwall from the Hayle estuary to St. Michael's Mount.

Wilkens locates Scylla and Charybdis around there, which were perilous to pass. The Hayle is where St. Ives is, per an earlier discussion.

---

Notice how Ictis/Mictis gained or lost an M. I don't find any surprise there, since M can be an indistinct sound. Cf. "Okay" pronounced "M'kay", or Uh-huh" as "M-hm". Agua and Mayir as cognate words for water has been a bone of contention round here, but they look fine to me.
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Mick Harper
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Hatty wrote: Wiht is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'rise' or 'rising' and was translated as Vectis in Latin.

Umm... Ptolemy's Geography already called the Isle Wight Vectis only about a century after Roman occupation, long before any (known) Saxon king.

Hatty, check your source. If what you say is correct then we have an unambiguous example of either
a) the Anglo-Saxons borrowing a word from the native... um... Britons or
b) the Place-name industry getting something plumb wrong.

You might also try to find out how anyone (Anglo-Saxon or modern) can put an h before a t and for what purpose.

There is an oft-quoted passage by the great polymath Pliny the Elder (Natural History Book XVI, verse 104) dating to the late 70's AD which names the island Mictis as the centre of the British tin trade, stating that it lay off the south coast of Britain some six days sail from Gaul. This name has often been mistakenly associated with the Isle of Wight, but is now known to refer to Saint Michael's Mount off the Cornish coast opposite Marazion, known in ancient times as Ictis.

This is hugely important. St Michael's Mount is the terminus of the St Michael Dragon Line, the most important ley-line in the world (see passim). Since my own megalithic theory claims that ley-lines are trade routes, and tin is the most "strategically" important trade-good of them all, then Bob appears to be one's uncle.

NB Marazion is one of the Cornish 'z' places (z doesn't turn up elsewhere in Britain...er...does it?), that revisionists - and latterly some orthodoxists - have postulated as being "Middle Eastern" in origin. Ditto Camelford!

Wilkens mentions St. Michael's Mount as the centre of the tin trade, but I dunno whether he read it or postulated it.

I'd like to hear more on this even though I am not a huge fan of Wilkens. Since to exist at all, the Bronze Age requires both copper and tin, and since copper is mined everywhere but tin only in highly specific (and it would seem very distant) places, it follows that "tin-traders" are the key to more or less the whole of Bronze Age history. "Trojan" Wars in Britain would make a whole bunch more sense if they were Greeks vs Trojans for control of the Cornish tin-trade.

On Ictis, Roman-Britain.org says:
St. Michael's Mount was widely known as a port and trading market from very early times. Prehistoric traders passing between the western parts of Britain and the Continent would not have wished to risk the rough and dangerous voyage around Land's End, and so sent their cargoes across the narrowest and most level part of Cornwall from the Hayle estuary to St. Michael's Mount.

This is typical over-specialised rubbish. Historians have worked out that St Michael's Mount is vital to the Ancients and so have concocted a theory compatible with the existing paradigm i.e. traders (probably Phoenicians since they are mentioned in the sources) looking for a safe haven. Unfortunately for them St Michael's Mount is an absolutely crap place for a harbour. And as for wanting to avoid "the dangerous voyage around Land's End" any yachtsman would tell them that trying to approach St Michael's Mount from the west (i.e. from the Mediterranean) is, because of the Scilly Isles, far more dangerous than passing right round the whole shooting match and entering the Hayle Estuary from the north.

It never occurs to orthodoxy that if the Ancients are "choosing" the point in Britain that happens to be the western end of the longest east-west landline in Britain, there must be some reason for it -- and being handy for the Hayle Estuary is unlikely to be it.
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DPCrisp


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Hatty, check your source.

Yes, please do. All I can find is that wiht means a being, a creature, a person. I wonder whether anyone else has an Isle of Wight or Isle of Man (or an Isle of Wight and an Isle of Man). Actually, there is a supernatural angle to wiht. Maybe it's the Isle of Man and the Isle of Heaven or of Daemons... Come to think of it, Shetland is supposed to mean "High Land" and Orkney seems to refer to the Underworld...

A vectis, a surgical lever, is compatible with 'raising up', but is that really what the Anglo-Saxon means? Why isn't it Isle of Wightgar? As Latin, vect- is all about travelling, traversing, carrying, conveying... which is pretty much what Solent means. But the name Vectis is reckoned to be Celtic, meaning "place of the division", which, while being dubious on the same grounds as all English placename scholarship, is absolutely perfect for my proposition that the Isle of Wight was separated from the mainland by coastal mining.

NB. In that area we have the Needles (for obvious reasons); Alum Bay, where the sands are and the shale has been removed; Totland Bay, "dead land"?, like an open cast pit?; Colwell Bay, "coal well", hole in the ground you get black stuff out of?; Sconce Point, which has to do with lanterns, but also earthworks and partitions!

NB. Iman Wilkens, who argues that Troy was in England, identifies the Isle of Wight as Lesbos, but has to admit that Homer doesn't say it's an island. Perfect!

You might also try to find out how anyone (Anglo-Saxon or modern) can put an h before a t and for what purpose.

Is it before the T or after the I?

Anglo-Saxon and Norse put H at the front quite often: HJ-, HL-, HN-, HR-, HV-, HW-. In some cases, I'm sure it's just the same as putting the H second. Remember the discussion about HW- and WH-?

my own megalithic theory claims that ley-lines are trade routes

You shoulda read that Jacobs stuff: the trade routes between cities will have existed even before there were any agricultural villages filling the gaps in between. That's why we have long straight roads quite distinct from the higgledy-piggledy village lanes.

I'd like to hear more on this even though I am not a huge fan of Wilkens.

I haven't got the book anymore. I think he says Scylla is the lifting gear on St. Michael's Mount that snatches things (people) off the decks of ships. Dunno how specific he is or can be about Charybdis, but it has to do with the dangerous waters. I note with interest that the waters around Anglesey and Great Orme's Head, an important copper mine, are known for their treachery, too.

"Trojan" Wars in Britain would make a whole bunch more sense if they were Greeks vs Trojans for control of the Cornish tin-trade.

That's exactly what he says it's all about. But not Greeks.
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Hatty
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Why isn't it Isle of Wightgar?

Quite. Maybe "Wihtgar" was just another Jutish or Saxon self-styled chieftain coveting a bit of land and used the existing name of Wiht to validate his claim, -gar means spear in AS; the House of Wihtgar has very obscure origins and the geneaological links are extremely tenuous in places.

The PEDIGREE of
Oslac (Thane) of the ISLE OF WIGHT
the Royal Cupbearer; Grand Butler of England
Born: abt. 785

Wife/Partner: (NN), first wife
Child: Osburga (Osburgh Osburh) of ISLE OF WIGHT

( many missing generations)

---------

His Grandchildren: Alfred `the Great' (1st/3rd King) of ENGLAND ; Aethelred I (King) of WESSEX ; Judith of WESSEX

Osbourne House, IoW, must have been the family home. Oslac sounds Scandinavian though maybe I'm thinking of Oslo. Goths and Jutes tend to get lumped together, viz. RootsWeb.com:

Oslac, the famous butler of King Ethelwulf [=AETHELWULF], which Oslac was a Goth by nation, descended from the Goths and Jutes, of the seed, namely, of Stuf and Whitgar [= WIHTGAR in trans. by K & L], two brothers and countes; who, having received possession of the Isle of Wight from their uncle, king Cerdic, and his Unknown Cynric their cousin, slew the few British inhabitants whom they could find in that island, at a place called Gwihtgaraburgh [FOOTNOTE: Carisbrooke, as may be conjectured from the name, which is a combination of Weight and Caraburgh.]; for the other inhabitants of the island had either been slain or escaped into exile."
NOTE: In the translation by Keynes and Lapidge, the place is called Wihtgarabyrig. A footnote states that this is the name given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, although (they say) the text of Asser has Guuihtgaraburhg which "has been identified in the past as Carisbrooke

From Wihtgarabyrig to Carisbrooke (Castle), quite a lot of transcription went on.
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DPCrisp


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According to the OED the Isle of Wight is from L. Vectis (c.150), originally Celtic, possibly meaning "place of the division."


What the OED fails to appreciate is that the Latin name could be borrowed from the English name (or a Belgic name, or...) or have no connection at all.

English relentlessly derived from Latin is the mould that needs to be broken.
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Hatty
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What the OED fails to appreciate is that the Latin name could be borrowed from the English name (or a Belgic name, or...) or have no connection at all.

English relentlessly derived from Latin is the mould that needs to be broken.


I'd have thought a Belgic (Germanic?) source as you suggest more likely, wicht, thing, creature, daemon, is closer than vectis. Wihtgar is sometimes written as Whitgar to make matters worse though the islanders are called Wihtware in the AS Chronicles.
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DPCrisp


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I'd have thought a Belgic (Germanic?) source as you suggest more likely


The Belgae are supposed to have occupied the swathe from the Isle of Wight to Bristol. But if they spoke a Germanic language, it was no more or less Germanic than English!


the islanders are called Wihtware in AS Chronicles.


Yes, ware/wara refers to people or inhabitants... but now you raise the reverse possibility: that Wihtgar means Inhabitant of Wight {which at best might mean he was the first Anglo-Saxon king born there}. G = U/W, y'see, so Wihtgar looks like it ought to mean "raised spear", but might be an alternative spelling of Wihtuar, Wihtwar, Wihtwara, Wihtware.


Maybe "Wihtgar"... used the existing name of Wiht...


Ah-hah! We have come to the same conclusion.


Oslac sounds Scandinavian...


Several names begin Os, meaning god, apparently. Lac means play, sport; strife, battle; sacrifice, offering; gift, present; booty; message (according to http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/old_to_new_english_l.htm), any of which fits the prefix. But the same list says lacu means stream (or pool, pond, i.e. lake): as does bourne, so Osbourne and Oslac might mean the same thing. (Os is also Gaelic for deer: a likely component of English placenames.)


From Wihtgarabyrig to Carisbrooke (Castle), quite a lot of transcription went on.


The history of G is perhaps the greatest mystery in the English language. It is a vowel and we have made a lot of mileage from the equations G = Y and G = U/W. Hence Guuiht = Wiht; and -burgh, -borough, -burg, -burh and -bury are all the same, meaning a stronghold or fortified town. -Byrig is another variation of -bury {Y = U and G = Y}. On that basis, -gara- ought to be the same as -wara- and Wihtgarabyrig "the fortified town of people of Wight (or of the king who called himself "Man of Wight")".

However, G is also a consonant with a pronunciation utterly different from Y/U/W: the hard GG, voiced equivalent of K. {Perhaps a third sort of G is cognate with one sort of J.} If Wihtgar is "raised spear", then it has this voiced pronunciation. Unless the two Gs in Wihtgarabyrig are of opposite types, we might suggest "Wihtgar Bridge".

How the same symbols came to have such disparate uses, I do not know, but the most powerful influence on modern English appears to be literacy: learning to speak the language in conjunction with learning to read and write the language in accordance with standardised rules of spelling and pronunciation. We can not but pronounce G as a consonant these days [ You can see that guarantee and warranty mean the same thing, but can you look at guarantee and pronounce it "warranty"? ] and that is where it is easy to see (Wiht)garabyrig being rendered Carisbrooke rather than Warborough or Warbury.

{As a matter of interest, it's broadly divided: -burgh in Scotland, -borough in middle/eastern England and -bury in south/western England.}

If Wihtgarabyrig really is Carisbrooke (and it is not certain that it is) then it is a matter of written rules superceding the pronunciation handed down orally.
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DPCrisp


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Having looked across from Keyhaven to Alum Bay, I don't think the Needles and Hurst beach together suggest the left-hand corner of the Isle of Wight was detached from the mainland by mining: Hurst beach is a long shingle spit enclosing a load of salts flats, not at all like the Needles.

The Needles do still look like a telltale sign of mining and if Wight was made into an Isle, then there is no such telltale on the other side, that's all.

'Course, Durdle Door is an example of the sort of arch the Needles are said to have been spanned by and I don't know of a case for Durdle Door being man-made, nor any particular reason to come up with one.
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DPCrisp


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I thought I had seen an odd cluster of Angles, Saxons and Jutes... but since legendary "Saxon" mercenary Hengist is reckoned to be a Jute, the Saxons drop out of the frame...

Most of the Wiki article on the Jutes is about not being sure who they are.

According to Bede, they ended up settling in Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight.

i.e. Jutes in the Isle of Wight is one of the few things we 'know' about them.

A little to the left, at Christchurch*, is a right-angled promontory, Hengistbury Head. And on the right hand side, at Gosport, is a right-angled promontory called Anglesey.

* That's funny: Hengist, as king of Kent, is supposed to have brought Christianity at a very early stage.

Apart from any Anglo-Saxon curiosities, there's a bit of a case for "Anglesey" to be geometrical.

But also: I gather it used to be taught that the Jutes came from the thereabouts of Belgium, which echoes (or was because of?) the Belgae being placed in a 'corridor' reaching from the Isle of Wight to the Bristol Channel.

Is this a 'line of weakness' between Celtland and England...? Anglesey in North Wales is an oddly non-Celtic (or not-necessarily-Celtic) place in the midst of Celtland. The very top and the very bottom of Wales are the two places the Beaker people 'intrude' from the obviously-English side; where the two Worms Heads are: not a Celtic name. Is there something going on here?
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Jack Cade



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See:
Durham, A. (2011) 'The origin of the names Vectis and Wight'. Proc. Isle Wight Nat. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 25, 93-97.

Summary:
The etymology commonly stated for Vectis is wrong. A precursor of the word Wight, in a Germanic language ancestral to English and meaning a small companion island, may have come first. Vectis was just the best way of writing that word in Latin.
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Mick Harper
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Welcome, Jack Cade. We need some peasants round here! Far too many chiefs as it is. Since 'small companion islands' are a Phoenician speicality (Tyre, Carthage, Cadiz, St Michael's Mount) it is far more likely that we are looking for a Semitic root.

What, Mr Cade, is your Germanic Wight word? The buggers don't even have a W, do zey? Come on you Hebrew experts, give us some possibilities.
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