Most islands are attached portions of the nearest mainland, severed in prehistoric times by subsidence of the intervening soil and the action of strong currents. Thus even England is a portion of the Continent, as its fauna and flora proclaim, while Ireland was severed earlier still. Thus also the Isle of Wight is Hampshire. So our Kentish islands, now only two and neither now to be effectually circumnavigated, are practically absorbed in the mainland. “Sheppey, Thanet—what else?” most would say. Yet the early geographer Nennius, writing in the eighth century, has the following quaint passage:—“The first marvel is the Lommon Marsh” (i.e., Limen, now Romney), “for in it are 340 islands with men and women living on them. It is girt by 340 rocks, and in every rock is an eagle’s nest, and 340 rivers run into it, and there goes out of it into the sea but one river, which is called the Lemn.” Truly a picturesque account of the numerous spots, where dry land first appeared in the shallow bay, and the countless sluices which intersected them.

“Romney” is probably formed by the addition of the Saxon Ige, By, or Ea—island, to the earlier Celtic Ruim—marsh, and so gives an idea of what the district was before the Romans reclaimed much by building their great Rhee Wall. Certain names in Romney Marsh preserved the same history. Oxeney (still we have the Island and the Hundred of Oxney, containing Wittersham and Stone parishes) is even now insulated by two branches of the Rother, and here, in the ancient and now diverted channel, was found in 1824 an oaken ship buried deep in sand and mud. Its name is said to mean the isle of the fat beeves. On pagan altars discovered there oxen were carved, and still it is a great cattle-raising district. We should look now in vain for the three ferries by which it was once entered. In its centre is Ebony, no doubt originally a sort of island, once called “Ebeney in Oxney,” and in an early document it appears as Hibbene. It has been suggested that the first part of the word is the old Celtic Avon, i.e., water or river, and I find that a Saxon charter of 793 A.D. calls the Gloucester Avon by the name of Aben. The third syllable is, of course, the Saxon word for island. Scotney Court, Lydd, and Scotney Castle, Lamberhurst, no doubt preserve the name of the Barons de Scotini, who came from Scotigny in North France, and possessed, in the 12th century, much land, which they held until the reign of Edward the Third, while Scot’s Hall, near Smeeth, was the seat of Knights of that name down to the time of the Armada. But for this history one might have classed Scotney with Oxney and Ebony.

Coming now to Sheppey, still an island, washed on the north by the estuary of the Thames, on the west by that of the Medway, and insulated by the Swale (Saxon Suala), crossed by a railway bridge and two ferries, the Celtic name is said to have been Malata, from Mohlt, a sheep, which the Saxon conquerors translated into Sceap-ige, Sheep Isle. It includes Elmley and Harty, once its little islands, and now peninsulas. An old name for Harty was Hertai, in which we may perhaps find the Saxon Heorat—stag, hart—as in Hartlip and Hartbourne, and ea—island. And Elmley, which island would simply denote the ley or glade in the forest in which elms were frequent, might here be Elm-isle. And another islet was Graven-ea, the grain island, on the opposite side of the Swale, now in the Faversham marshes.

Thanet, the best known and most important island, was in the 5th century separated from the mainland by the Wantsum and the estuary of the Stour, which gave an expanse of water mainly two miles broad, so that vessels from or to London sailed from Reculver to Richborough, and avoided the longer and rougher route round the North Foreland. To guard this sea-way the Romans had placed their forts of Regulbium (Reculver) and Rutupia (Richborough) at its northern and eastern entrance. Now, and for long, by the dwindling of the Stour and the practical extinction of the Wantsum, Thanet is but in name an island. Even writing in 1570, Lambarde calls it a peninsula. It is said that its Celtic name was Rimn—a headland, and that its later Saxon name, Tenet, means a beacon. Solinus, who wrote about A.D. 80, calls it Ad-Tanatos (Thanatos, Greek for Death, because its soil killed snakes even when exported for that purpose!). Nennius, in the 8th century, says Guorthigern handed to Hengist and Horsa the island, “which in their language is called Tenet, but in British speech Ruoihm,” or Ru-oichim. In a charter of 679 it appears as Tenid. The name, says McClure, may involve the Celtic Tann for oaks, as in Glastenec, an early form of Glastonbury, surviving in the English, Tanner, Tanyard, etc. From this root is derived the Breton place-name Tannouet. Tenid is its oldest Saxon form, and the Saxon Chronicle records that in 969 Eadgar ordered Tenetland to be pillaged.