| 释义 |
Dene-hole, Dane-hole|ˈdiːn-, ˈdeɪnhəʊl|
Also 9 Danes' hole.
[app. from the national name Dane, Danes, ME. Dene, OE. Dęne + hole.
There is no doubt that this is popularly and traditionally the local interpretation of the name: see the first quot. In various parts of the country, e.g. the county of Durham, other ancient caves and excavations are attributed to the Danes, and called Danes' holes or Dane-holes. It is not quite certain that dene-hole is a genuine popular form anywhere; but if so, it may possibly represent a ME. Dene-hol(e:—OE. Dena-hol, Danes' hole (cf. OE. Dena-lagu, ME. Dene-lawe, mod. Danes' law, Dane-law), or it may be merely a local pronunciation. But it has suggested to recent writers connexion with dene n.1, or with other of the ns. so spelt, or with den (which is phonetically impossible); and either on this account, or because it does not countenance any theory about the Danes, it has been generally adopted by the archæologists who have investigated these holes since c 1880. Some have very reprehensibly shortened the name dene-hole into dene, conformably to their erroneous conjectures as to its connexion with dene and den.]
The name applied to a class of ancient excavations, found chiefly in Essex and Kent in England, and in the Valley of the Somme in France, consisting of a narrow cylindrical shaft sunk through the superincumbent strata to the chalk, often at a depth of 60 or 80 feet, and there widening out horizontally into one or more chambers. Their age and purpose have been the theme of much discussion.
They are mentioned (but not named) by Lambarde 1570, by Camden 1605 as putei, in Plot's Oxfordshire, 1705, as ‘the Gold-mine of Cunobeline, in Essex’, and described in a letter from Derham to Ray 17 Feb. 1706. For later history see Mr. Spurrell's paper cited below, and Trans. Essex Field Club, 1883 III. 48, Journal xxviii, lvi.
1768Morant Hist. Essex I. 228 [The Dane-holes at Grays] The Danes are vulgarly reported to have used them as receptacles or hiding-places for the plunder and booty which they took from the adjoining inhabitants during their frequent piracies and descents upon this island, and hence they have been styled Dane or Dene holes. 1818Cambrian Reg. III. 31 The controversy relative to the original intention of the Deneholes. 1863Murray's Handbk. Kent & Sussex (ed. 2) 16 They are here called ‘Daneholes’ or ‘Cunobeline's Gold Mines’. Ibid. 20 In a chalk-pit near the village of E. Tilbury are numerous excavations called Danes' Holes..Similar excavations..exist in the chalk and tufa on either bank of the Somme..The tradition still asserts that these caverns were used for retreat and concealment in time of war, whence their ordinary name Les souterrains des guerres. 1871R. Meeson in Palin Stifford & its Neighbourhood 41 The Dane-holes as they are called by the country people. 1881F. C. J. Spurrell in Archæol. Jrnl. (title), On Deneholes and Artificial Caves with Vertical Entrances. 1883Trans. Essex Field Club III. Jrnl. 17 June 1882, An account of the Club's first visit to the ‘Denes’ in Hangman's Wood. 1887T. V. Holmes in Essex Naturalist I. 225 (title) Report on the Denehole Exploration at Hangman's Wood, Grays, 1884–1887. 1891Proc. Soc. Antiq. 5 Feb. 245 On the discovery of a dene-hole containing Roman remains at Plumstead. |