. Marshall (_MSS. Jun. 15_.). It
also occurs, further on in the MS., without any various reading. I
have therefore inserted it in the text." {258}

Dr. Marshall seems to have understood the passage. What King Alfred
says and means is this:--"On the north are the Apdrede (Obotritae), and
on the north east of them are the Wylte, who are called Haefeldi."

The anonymous Saxon Poet, who wrote the life of Charlemagne, gives the
same situation as Alfred to the Wilti:--

"Gens est Slavorum Wilti cognomine dicta,
Proxima litoribus quae possidet arva supremis
Jungit ubi oceano proprios Germania fines."[5]

Helmold says that they inhabited the part of the coast opposite to the
island of Rugen; and hereabouts Adam of Bremen places the _Heveldi_,
and many other Slavonic tribes.[6] I am not aware that any other
author than Alfred says, that the Wilti and Heveldi were the
same people; but the fact is probable. The Heveldi are of rare
occurrence, but not so the Wilti.[7] Ptolemy calls them [Greek:
Beltai]--Veltae or Weltae--and places them in Prussian Pomerania,
between the Vistula and Niemen. Eginhard says that "they are
Slavonians who, in our manner, are called Wilsi, but in their own
language, Welatibi."[8] Their country was called Wilcia,[9] and,
as a branch of them were settled in Batavia about 560, it does not
seem very improbable that from them were derived the Wilsaeton of the
Anglo-Saxon chronicles, meaning the _Wilts seated_, or settlers in
Wilts-shire. The name, as Eginhard has noticed, is Slavic, and is an
adoption of _welot_ or _weolot_, a giant, to denote the strength and
fierceness which rendered them formidable neighbours. _Heveldi_ seems
to be the same word made emphatic with a foreign addition.

Two other names have been given much trouble to the translators,
as well as to Mr. Forster. These are, _Maegtha Land_ and _Horiti_
or _Horithi_, for both occur, and the latter is not written with
the letter _thorn_, but with a distinct _t_ and _h_. Alfred has,
unquestionably, met with the Slavic _gorod_, which so frequesntly
occurs as the termination of the names of cities in the region where
he indicates the seat of his Horiti to be. It signifies a city, and
is an etymological equivalent of Goth. _gards_, a house, Lat. _cors,
cortis_; O.N. _gardr_, a district, A.-Sax. _geard_, whence our _yard_.
The Polish form is _grodz_, and the Sorabic, _hrodz_. He places the
Horiti to the east of the Slavi Dalamanti, who occu