The name is absent

Wunsch, Wysc¹. In Devonshire to this day all
magical or supernatural dealings go under the com-
mon name of Wishtness : can this have any refer-
ence to Woden’s name Wyscl So again a bad or
unfortunate day is a wisht day : perhaps a diaboli-
cal, heathen, accursed day. There are several places
which appear to be compounded with this name ;
among them: Wishanger JVischangra or Woden’s
meadow), one, about four miles S.W. of Wanbo-
rough in Surrey, and another near ■ Gloucester ;
Wisley ( Wiscledh) also in Surrey ; Wisborough (pro-
bably Wiscbeorh) in Sussex; Wishford (probably
Wiscford) in Wiltshire.

2. pUNOR, in Old-norse pORR, in Old-german
BONAR.—The recognition of Dunor in England
was probably not very general at first : the settle-
ment of Danes and Norwegians in the ninth and
following centuries may have extended it in the
northern districts. But though his name is not
found in the genealogies of the kings, there was
an antecedent probability that some traces of his
worship would be found among the Saxons. Thunar
is one of the gods whom the Saxons of the con-
tinent were called upon to renounce, and a total
abnegation of his authority was not to be looked
for even among a race who considered Woden as
the supreme god. That the fifth day of the week
was called by his name is well known : Thursday

¹ Oisc in the form in which the earliest authorities give this name.
Æsc is certainly later, and may have been adopted only when the ori-
ginal meaning of Oisc had become forgotten.

is Dunres dæg, dies Jovis ; and he is the proper
representative of Jupiter, inasmuch as he must be
considered in the light of the thundering god, an
elemental deity, powerful over the storms, as well
as the fertilizing rains¹. His peculiar weapon, the
mace or hammer, seems to denote the violent,
crushing thunderbolt, and the Norse myth repre-
sents it as continually used against the giants or
elemental gods of the primal world. In a compo-
sition whose antiquity it is impossible to ascer-
tain, we may still discover an allusion to this
point : in the Christian Bagna Bavk, or TwiligM of
the Gods, it was believed that a personal conflict
would take place between the divinity and a devil,
the emissary and child of Satan : in the course of
this conflict, it is said : “se Dunor hit jtyrsce¾ mid
^ære fyrenan æxe,” the thunder will thresh it with
the fiery axe²; and I am inclined to see a similar
allusion in the Exeter Book, where the lightning
is called rynegiestes wæpn, the weapon of Avkv
Dorr, the car-borne god, Thunder³.

The names of places which retain a record of
Dunor are not very numerous, but some are found :
among them Thundersfield, Dunresfeld, in Surrey⁴;
Thundersley, Dunresleah, in Essex, near Saffron
Walden; Thundersley, Dunresleah, also in Essex,
near Baylegh, and others in Hampshire⁵. Near

See the quotation from Adam of Bremen, p. 337.

² Salomon and Saturn, pp. 148, 177.

^s Cod. Exon. p. 380.1. 8.

⁴ Cod. Dipl. Nos. 270, 314, 363, 413.

. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 450, 781, 784, 1022, 1038. Some of these are not
ɪn Essex, but Hampshire.

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