Gyrwe

Gyrwe can mean:
*"Gyruum", representing Anglo-Saxon " [æt] Gyrwum" = " [at] the marsh dwellers", from Anglo-Saxon "gyr" = "mud", "marsh", from which
**Gyrwe, Saxon name for Jarrow
***The Gyrwe, reconstructed Saxon farm at Bede's World at Jarrow
*Gyrwe name of an Anglo-Saxon population of the Fens, divided into northern and southern groups and recorded in the Tribal Hidage; related to the name of Jarrow.

However, compare "gyrwyr", the plural of "gyrrwr", the modern Welsh noun for drover or driver (whether of animals or a motor vehicle).

Hugh Candidus, a 12th century chronicler of Peterborough Abbey, describes its foundation in the territory of the Gyrwas, under the name of Medeshamstede. Medeshamstede was clearly in the territory of the North Gyrwas. [ Potts, W.T.W., 'The Pre-Danish Estate of Peterborough Abbey', in "Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society" 65, 1974: this paper contains some substantive errors, but is of interest.] Hugh Candidus explains "Gyrwas", which he uses in the present tense, as meaning people "who dwell in the fen, or hard by the fen, since a deep bog is called in the Saxon tongue "Gyr". [Mellows, William Thomas (ed. & trans.), "The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus", Peterborough Natural History, Scientific and Archæological Society, 1941, p2] The territory of the South Gyrwas included Ely. Æthelthryth founded Ely monastery after the death of her husband Tondberht, who is described in Bede's "Ecclesiastical History" as a "prince of the South Gyrwas". [Bede, "Ecclesiastical History", iv, 19]

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