ot confined,
however, to the names of families, towns, and villages; and we shall see
how the fables to which it has given rise have not only disfigured the
records of some of the most ancient families in Cornwall, but have thrown
a haze over the annals of the whole county.

Returning to the Jews in their Cornish exile, we find, no doubt, as
mentioned before, that even in the Ordnance maps the little town opposite
St. Michael's Mount is called _Marazion_ and _Market Jew_. _Marazion_
sounds decidedly like Hebrew, and might signify _Marah_, "bitterness,
grief," _Zion_, "of Zion." M. Esquiros, a believer in Cornish Jews, thinks
that _Mara_ might be a corruption of the Latin _Amara_, bitter; but he
forgets that this etymology would really defeat its very object, and
destroy the Hebrew origin of the name. The next question therefore is,
What is the real origin of the name _Marazion_, and of its _alias_,
_Market Jew_? It cannot be too often repeated that inquiries into the
origin of local names are, in the first place, historical, and only in the
second place, philological. To attempt an explanation of any name, without
having first traced it back to the earliest form in which we can find it,
is to set at defiance the plainest rules of the science of language as
well as of the science of history. Even if the interpretation of a local
name should be right, it would be of no scientific value without the
preliminary inquiry into its history, which frequently consists in a
succession of the most startling changes and corruptions. Those who are at
all familiar with the history of Cornish names of places will not be
surprised to find the same name written in four or five, nay, in ten
different ways. The fact is that those who pronounced the names were
frequently ignorant of their real import, and those who had to write them
down could hardly catch their correct pronunciation. Thus we find that
Camden calls Marazion _Merkiu_; Carew, _Marcaiew_. Leland in his
"Itinerary" (about 1538) uses the names _Markesin_, _Markine_ (vol. iii.
fol. 4); and in another place (vol. vii. fol. 119) he applies, it would
seem, to the same town the name of _Marasdeythyon_. William of Worcester
(about 1478) writes promiscuously _Markysyoo_ (p. 103), _Marchew_ and
_Margew_ (p. 133), _Marchasyowe_ and _Markysyow_ (p. 98). In a charter of
Queen Elizabeth, dated 1595, the name is written _Marghasiewe_; in another
of the year 1313, _Markesion_; in another of 13