The Sussex Coast - online book
A Literary & Historical travel guide to the Sussex Coast
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V. Arundel & Littlehampton |
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So ends the mediaeval romance about the knight after whom a tower of Arundel Castle is called, and after whose horse it is fabled that the town itself was named. On the latter point wrote Selden: "It were so as tolerable as Bucephalon from Alexander's horse, Tymenna in Lycia from a goat of that name, and such like, if time would endure it: but Bevis was about the conquest, and this town is by name of Erundele known in time of King Alfred who gave it with others to his nephew Athelm." Some derive Arundel from hirondelle, a swallow, which appears as a rebus, like the well-known ox wading through a ford, in the town arms. Michael Drayton in his Poly-olbion (1613-1622) asserts that the river " did name the beauteous " town, which, standing against the
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