One of the chief traditions of this locality, and one that doubtless has more truth in it than most of the stories the natives tell you, relates that two hundred years ago people were frequently murdered at Ready Token inn when returning with their pockets full of money from the big fairs at Gloucester or Oxford.  A labouring friend of mine was telling me the other day of the wonderful disappearance of a packman and a “jewelrer,” as he called him.  For very many years nothing was heard of them, but about twenty years ago some “skellingtons” were dug up on the exact spot where the inn stood, so their disappearance was accounted for.

This same man told me the following story about the origin of Hangman’s Stone, near Northleach:—­

“A man stole a ‘ship’ [sheep], and carried it tied to his neck and shoulders by a rope.  Feeling rather tired, he put the ‘ship’ down on top of the ‘stwun’ [stone] to rest a bit; but suddenly it rolled off the other side, and hung him—­broke his neck.”

Hangman’s Stone may be seen to this day.  The real origin of the name may be found in Fozbrooke’s History of Gloucestershire.  It was the place of execution in Roman times.

“As illuminations in cases of joy, dismissal from the house in quarrels, wishing joy on New Year’s Day, king and queen on twelfth day (from the Saturnalia), holding up the hand in sign of assent, shaking hands, etc., are Roman customs, so were executions just out of the town, where also 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