lso
the executioner resided. In Anglo-Saxon times this officer was a man of
high dignity."

A very common name in Gloucestershire for a field or wood is "conyger"
or "conygre." It means the abode of conies or rabbits.

Some farms have their "camp ground"; and there, sure enough, if one
examines it carefully, will be found traces of some ancient British
camp, with its old rampart running round it. But what can be the
derivation of such names as Horsecollar Bush Furlong, Smoke Acre
Furlong, West Chester Hull, Cracklands, Crane Furlong, Sunday's Hill,
Latheram, Stoopstone Furlong, Pig Bush Furlong, and Barelegged Bush?

Names like Pitchwells, where there is a spring; Breakfast Bush Ground,
where no doubt Hodge has had his breakfast for centuries under shelter
of a certain bush; Rickbushes, and Longlands are all more or less easy
to trace. Furzey Leaze, Furzey Ground, Moor Hill, Ridged Lands, and the
Pikes are all names connected with the nature of the fields or
their locality.

Leaze is the provincial name for a pasture, and Furzey Leaze would be a
rough "ground," where gorse was sprinkled about. The Pikes would be a
field abutting on an old turnpike gate. The word "turnpike" is never
used in Gloucestershire; it is always "the pike." A field is a "ground,"
and a fence or stone wall is a "mound." The Cotswold folk do not talk
about houses; they stick to the old Saxon termination, and call their
dwellings "housen"; they also use the Anglo-Saxon "hire" for hear. The
word "bowssen," too, is very frequently heard in these parts; it is a
provincialism for a stall or shed where oxen are kept. "Boose" is the
word from which it originally sprang. A very expressive phrase in common
use is to "quad" or "quat"; it is equivalent to the word "squat." Other
words in this dialect are "sprack," an adjective meaning quick or
lively; and "frem" or "frum," a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon
"fram," meaning fresh or flourishing. The latter word is also used in
Leicestershire. Drayton, who knew the Cotswolds, and wrote poetry about
the district, uses the expression "frim pastures." "Plym" is the
swelling of wood when it is immersed in water; and "thilk," another
Anglo-Saxon word, means thus or the same.

A mole in the Gloucestershire dialect is an "oont" or "woont." A barrow
or mound of any kind is a "tump." Anything slippery is described as
"slick"; and a slice is a "sliver." "Breeds" denotes the brim of a hat,
and a deaf man is said to