^* Actually the word hereman (not herman) does occur once in the whole of Anglo-Saxon literature, meaning not a ‘military road’ but a soldier; and the real origin of the name Ermine Street is clearly and authoritatively stated by the Editors of the English Place-Name Society (‘What is now the name of the whole road from London to Lincoln was originally given to that stretch of it which ran through the land settled by the Earningas, i.e., by Earn and his people’. Beds. Hunts., 1926, p. 3).