THENORWEGIANS IN SCOTLAND.

Nature of Scotland.—The Highlands and Lowlands.—Population.—OriginalInhabitants.

Nature of Scotland.—The Highlands and Lowlands.—Population.—Original

Inhabitants.

None of the seas of Europe are so rough and stormy as that which washes its northern and north-western coasts. Even in Jutland the effects of the cold north-west wind which sweeps down from the icy sea between Norway, Iceland, and Scotland, are severely felt. Along its west coast, for a distance of several miles inland, there are no woods, but only low stunted oak bushes, which in many places scarcely rise above the tall heather. Still farther eastward, and even in Funen and Zealand, which the north-west wind does not reach till it has passed over considerable tracts of land, it has such an influence on the woods, that in their western outskirts the trees are bent, and as it were scorched or blighted at the top. The North Sea, whose surges, breaking on the coast of Jutland, are heard even in calm weather far in the interior, rises to a fearful height during a storm. It would long since have washed over Jutland, and perhaps the whole of Denmark, if Nature had not placed sand-banks or shoals along the coast, as a sort of bulwark, against which the highest waves break harmlessly.

The North Sea is, however, an enclosed one, and little more than a bay of the Atlantic. Its swell is not so great, nor its storms so violent, as those of the open sea beyond, towards the north and west; where the Atlantic breaks on one side against Greenland and North America, and on the other against Norway, Scotland, and Ireland. The sand-banks and shoals which form a sufficient defence for Jutland against the North Sea, would there scarcely be able to resist the open and agitated ocean. On the extreme north-western coasts of Europe, the Atlantic has completely washed away the earth and sand; the bare cliffs, which often rise to a considerable height, alone remain, and still defy the fury of the waves. These rocky coasts, with their numerous towering and ragged crags, with their many and deeply-indented fiords, convey an idea of the power and greatness of the sea as striking as it is true. Everywhere outside lie rocky islands, which, like outposts, stop the advancing waves, and only allow them, if with increased speed, yet with diminished power, to approach the land through narrow channels, or sounds. During violent storms some of the islands are flooded by the sea, which, as it rolls forwards, strives to overtop the cliffs; whence it glides back, again to repeat the same vain attempt. The firm, rocky, isle-bound coasts of Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, are evidently for Europe what the sand-banks and shoals of Jutland are for Denmark.

It is natural, therefore, that those countries which in the north-westernmost part of Europe lie farthest out towards the Atlantic Ocean—such as the Scandinavian Peninsula, Scotland, Ireland, and part of England—should have their highest and wildest mountains and cliffs towards the west, and in the neighbourhood of the sea. This is more clearly seen the farther we proceed northwards: namely, in the Scandinavian Peninsula and in Scotland.

In Norway the rocks often rise almost perpendicularly out of the sea. In the neighbourhood of the coast they reach a considerable height, and then sink gradually towards the east, until they lose themselves in the broad and comparatively low valleys of Sweden. Whole rows of islands lie scattered along the west coast of Norway, round which the sea often whirls in impetuous eddies. On the coast itself, where the land is most exposed to the bleak sea winds, such extensive forests are not to be seen as in the interior of the country; nor do any fertilizing streams wind their way through the short and narrow valleys. It is only here and there that the water from the rocky springs or melted snows, leaps, after a short course, over the edge of the cliff into the open sea, or into the deep fiords with which the coasts are everywhere indented. The greatest rivers in Norway take a more eastern course, and often make their way from the Norwegian highlands through the richly-wooded lowlands of Sweden to the Baltic. In Sweden the coasts are neither so steep nor so indented as in Norway. The waves of the enclosed and comparatively quiet Baltic do not require to be resisted like those of the Atlantic Ocean.

Very similar features are found in Scotland. The whole of the northern and western coast lying towards the Atlantic is wild and rocky, with numerous islands, deep firths, and steep shores; behind which, rock towers upon rock, as if to form an impenetrable barrier against the sea. The country is almost without forests, the streams and the valleys are of small extent, and fertility consequently very limited. But by degrees the rocks sink down towards the south-east and east, till they terminate in the broad, well-watered, and fertile coast districts along the North Sea; which, on account of their inconsiderable elevation, are called the Lowlands of Scotland. Thus the Highlands answer very nearly to Norway, and the Lowlands to Sweden. But as the Scandinavian Peninsula is larger than Scotland, so also are its natural features on the whole on a grander scale. The rocks of Norway are mountains of primitive granite, which in some places rise to a height of 8000 feet, and of which large ranges are covered with eternal snow and ice. Scotland, on the contrary, has transition rocks, whose highest peak, Ben Nevis, which is only somewhat more than 4300 feet above the sea, is not even always covered with snow. Nor can the Scottish Lowlands be compared as to extent to the Swedish valleys, with their immense forests and their large rivers and lakes. Nevertheless the natural features of Scotland are in their way no less beautiful than those of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The sea, which indents the coasts on all sides; the well-cultivated, and partly also well-wooded plains, which, particularly towards the mountain districts, undulate in hill and dale; and lastly the Highland itself, with its many streams, waterfalls, firths, and lakes, afford the richest and most magnificent variety. To these features may be added a milder climate, and in the Lowlands a far richer fertility, than in Norway and Sweden; which have considerably contributed to give the landscapes of Scotland, even in the wildest districts of the Highlands, a somewhat softer tinge than is found in the high Scandinavian North.

A very marked difference exists between the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands, not only with regard to the nature of the country, but also to the original descent and the characteristics of the present population. The Lowlands, which are the seat of a highly-developed agricultural, domestic, and manufacturing industry, are inhabited by a strong and laborious people, speaking a peculiar dialect of the English language, and descended partly from the Celtic Scots, but more particularly from immigrant Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, Normans, and Flemings. Commerce and trade, carried on by means of canals, railways, steamships, and similar easy means of communication, thrive vigorously in large and wealthy cities.

The Highlands, on the contrary, which only a century ago were almost inaccessible from the land side, have scarcely a large town. Rocks and heaths are found instead of the fruitful fields of the Lowlands. With the exception of a few districts farthest towards the north-east, where the soil is more fertile, there are only seen in the valleys, along the firths, and by the sea, small fields of barley and oats, which would not yield the most scanty subsistence to the poor inhabitants if the rocks did not afford pasture for cattle and numerous flocks of sheep; and if the sea, the firths, which abound with fish, as well as the rivers and lakes, did not contribute some part of their riches. The hardy Highland Scots, a great part of whom do not understand, or at all events do not speak English, but still commonly use the Celtic or Gaelic tongue, live here thinly scattered in poor and low peat cabins, which it is often difficult to distinguish from the surrounding rocks. The Highlanders in the districts farthest towards the west and north have preserved their language and other national characteristics purest; for farther towards the Lowlands, a more modern civilization has gradually forced its way forwards, in spite of the mountains. The old warlike dress which formerly distinguished the Highlander, particularly so long as clanship was in full vigour, has, since the annihilation of that system, become every day more rare. The kilt, or short skirt, has almost entirely given place to more modern clothing; the tartan plaid alone is still seen wrapped in the old fashion round the shoulders of the Highlander.

In our days the various tribes of the Highland and Lowland populations live in peaceful union under one and the same government. But during several centuries Scotland was the theatre of the most sanguinary contests between the Celtic Highlanders and the Teutonic Lowlanders. The former, who were animated with an inveterate hatred of the Lowlanders, continually made hostile incursions into the Lowlands, and, after burning and ravaging the country, retired with cattle and other booty to their mountains, whither they knew well the Lowlanders durst not follow them. The exasperation and hatred of the Highlanders were not entirely without foundation. In ancient times they had been sole masters in Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea; and they had retained this mastery even long after their kinsmen, the Britons in England, had been compelled to yield to the Romans and Anglo-Saxons.

The celebrated Roman commander, Agricola, had, it is true, in the first century after the birth of Christ, made his way so far into the Lowlands that, as a defence against the Highlanders—the much-dreaded Caledonians, or Picts—he constructed a wall with a deep ditch before it, from the Firth of Forth to that of Clyde, in the low tract through which the Glasgow Canal has since been conducted. The Romans even extended their conquests farther northwards, as far as Burghead on the Moray Firth, to which place they formed regular high roads. But they were not able to defend themselves against the persevering attacks of the Caledonians, or Picts, and were soon obliged to retreat to the south of the Cheviot Hills; where the great wall, with its many towers and deep ditches, which they had built from the Solway Firth to the River Tyne, became their chief defence against the harassing inroads of the Highland warriors. But this wall also was surmounted by the Picts, whose courage and daring increased in proportion as the power of the Romans, both at home and abroad, was rapidly waning. At last the Picts destroyed the wall, and after the fall of the Roman dominion, made incursions into England, where neither the descendants of the Romans, nor the Britons, found any means to repel them. It was not till the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England that the Picts were again compelled to fly towards the north over the Cheviot Hills, where they found sufficient employment in defending their own homes.

For, whilst they were spreading themselves over the rich plains of the north of England, a foreign, though nearly related, Celtic people, the Scots from Ireland, had taken possession of their south-western frontier districts. Hence they spread themselves to such a degree over the Lowlands that both these and the Highlands, though the latter were almost entirely independent of the Scottish sovereigns, were called by one name, Scotland. After many battles the older Pictish inhabitants were, about the year 900, entirely amalgamated with the Scots in the Lowlands. Meanwhile a storm had gathered which threatened no less danger to the Scots in the Lowlands, than to their kinsmen, the Picts, in the Highlands. The dominion of the Celts, which had long before ceased in other and more accessible lands, was no longer to find a sure place of refuge even in Scotland, though its coasts were protected by the stormy Northern Sea, and its interior filled with rocks and warlike men.

The Anglo-Saxons.—The Danes and Norwegians.—Effects of theirExpeditions.

The Anglo-Saxons.—The Danes and Norwegians.—Effects of their

Expeditions.

The same want of unity and the same internal disputes which had brought ruin on the Celts in other places, prepared the way for foreign conquerors in Scotland. An indomitable fate decreed that the newer and higher civilization of Christianity should here, as in the rest of Europe, be founded and promoted by a Teutonic people. But though the Anglo-Saxons had conquered almost all England, they were not able, by their own power, to subdue the Celts in Scotland. The Anglo-Saxon kings undertook, indeed, several expeditions against that country, in which they were at times pretty successful; but they were not able to hold steady possession even of the Lowlands. Subsequently, however, the Anglo-Saxons wandered by degrees, and in a more peaceful manner, from the northernmost parts of England over the Scottish border, and established themselves both in the towns and in the rural districts. The number of these emigrants appears to have increased very considerably after the conquests of the Danes and Norwegians in the midland and northern districts of England in the ninth and tenth centuries, when a great part of the Anglo-Saxons were driven from their old dwellings, and obliged to fly towards the north. Saxon institutions may even have been introduced into the Lowlands in the tenth and eleventh centuries, after an expedition of the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar. But the rocky highlands of the interior constantly defied all conquest; and the northern and western coasts, together with the surrounding islands, could be subdued only by considerable fleets, which the Anglo-Saxons did not possess.

But what in this respect the Anglo-Saxons were obliged to leave undone, was for the most part accomplished by the warlike and shrewd men of the Scandinavian North, who were then masters of the sea. Even from the oldest times, connections, both of a warlike and peaceful nature, had existed between Scotland and the opposite shores of Scandinavia. The old Sagas, for instance, bear witness that the Danish king Frode’s daughter, Ulfhilde, was married to “the founder of the Scottish kingdom;” and that the Danish prince Amleth (Hamlet) married the Scotch queen, Hermuntrude. From Denmark, moreover, and particularly from Jutland, many colonists afterwards emigrated to the Scotch Lowlands, whose coasts were, besides, plundered by the Danish Vikings.

The Danish colonists, even in the north of England, were much mixed with Norwegians, and this was still more the case in the Scottish Lowlands. The more north the districts lay, the farther were they removed from Denmark, and the nearer did they approach Norway; whilst the features of the country much more resembled the Norwegian fiords, valleys, and rocks. Whilst, therefore, the Scandinavian colonists in the Lowlands were of Norwegian-Danish descent, the Highlands and islands farthest towards the north and west, were conquered, and in part peopled, by Norwegians only. This happened about the same time as the Danish conquests and settlements in England. The Norwegians founded kingdoms on the northern and western coasts of Scotland, which existed for centuries after the destruction of the Danish power in England. They introduced their own manners, customs, and laws, and gave Norwegian names to the places colonized by them. They appear not unfrequently to have married native Celts; at least it is often stated that Norwegian chiefs married daughters of the Celtic, or Pictish, and Scotch aristocracy, whose pure nationality and power were thus gradually broken down. The unfortunate Celts were now in a painful position. The Celtic Scots in the Lowlands were pressed upon by the Anglo-Saxons and Northmen, whilst the Pictish Highlanders were assailed both from the Lowlands and from the Norwegian kingdoms in the west and north. The most essential result of the Norwegian conquests and settlements in the Scotch Highlands was, that the Northmen, in conjunction with the Norwegian-Danish colonists in the Lowlands, and with the Anglo-Saxons who dwelt there, overthrew the Celtic dominion, and, like the Danes in England, prepared the way for the eventual triumph of the Norman spirit and Norman institutions. In the Lowlands this took place in the twelfth century, but much later in the Highlands and surrounding islands.

As a close union was thus effected between the long-separated Highlands and Lowlands, and a higher and more widely-diffused civilization introduced among the people in both, it may justly be asserted that the Norwegian conquests in the Highlands, and the Norwegian-Danish settlements in the Lowlands, were particularly fortunate for Scotland. It must always, indeed, be a subject of regret that so brave, and in many respects so noble, a people as the Caledonians and their descendants, should be exterminated. Who can observe without a feeling of sadness how the last feeble remnants of Scotland’s ancient masters, after having been expelled from the glorious Lowlands, cannot even now find rest among the barren rocks, and in the few arable valleys of the Highlands, but are obliged, year after year, in increasing numbers, to seek another home farther west, in the new world beyond the Atlantic? But, viewing the matter as it regards enlightenment and civilization, no charge can be reasonably brought against the Norwegians or Northmen, for having co-operated in Scotland to expel a people whose brethern and kinsmen had in every country which they occupied shown themselves incapable of adopting the new and milder manners of Christianity; and who, once before subdued by the Romans, had been compelled to yield to the fresher and more powerful Teutonic tribes of the Franks and Anglo-Saxon.

No small portion of the present population of Scotland, both in the Lowlands and on the remotest coasts and isles of the Highlands, is undoubtedly descended from the Northmen, and particularly from the Norwegians. Both the Norwegians and Danes, wherever they established themselves, introduced their Scandinavian customs, and preserved, in all circumstances, the fundamental traits of their national character. It becomes, therefore, probable that the Norwegian settlers in Scotland must, in certain districts at least, have exercised a vast influence on the development of the more modern life of the Scotch people, and on their national character. This is indeed actually and visibly the case. Yet, although the Norwegian kingdoms on the coasts of Scotland subsisted long after the downfall of the Danish power in England, still the effects of the Norwegian conquests in Scotland were far from being so great, or so universally felt there, as the results of the Danish conquests were in England. The Norwegian language was completely supplanted in the Hebrides by old Celtic or Gaelic; and on the Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, and the north coast of Scotland, by English. The Norwegian laws and institutions either entirely disappeared in these parts, or were formed anew after quite different models. Not even in the purely Norwegian Orkneys and Shetland Isles, though they remained united with Norway and Denmark until far in the fifteenth century, could the inhabitants maintain the ancient freedom which they had inherited from their forefathers. The free tenure of land, or right of “Udal,” was, for the most part, annihilated by the most shameful oppression. Established on many small, poor, and widely-separated islands, the Norwegians in Scotland could neither obtain such influence for their laws and institutions, nor concert so united and powerful a resistance against oppression, as their more fortunate Danish kinsmen in the open, rich, and densely-peopled plains of northern England.

In spite of the acknowledged fact that the Norwegians were the most numerous of all the Scandinavian colonists in Scotland, we constantly hear Norwegian achievements and Norwegian memorials referred to “the Danes.” Under this common appellation are also generally included, as in England, Norwegians and Swedes. The causes of this must probably be sought in the long dominion of Denmark over Norway, in the brisker and more uninterrupted communication which Scotland maintained with Denmark, in comparison with any other part of the North, and lastly, in the reciprocal marriages between the ancient Scotch and Danish royal families, which in former times contributed, in no small degree, to bind the Scotch and Danish people together. But the preponderance of the Danish name must also be attributed to the pre-eminent power of the Danes in ancient times, and in the early middle ages; and, of course, more particularly to that supreme dominion which they had so gloriously won for themselves in the neighbouring country—England.

The Lowlands.—Population.—Language.—Norwegian-DanishNames of Places.

The Lowlands.—Population.—Language.—Norwegian-Danish

Names of Places.

The boundaries between Scotland and England were anciently very unsettled. After the time of the Romans, the Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings speedily extended their dominion over the Cheviot Hills, and frequently to the Firths of Clyde and Forth; whilst considerable tracts of the north of England, particularly in the north-western districts, were sometimes united with the Scotch Lowlands, or with kingdoms which existed there. Until England and Scotland were at length united under one crown, the north of England was almost uninterruptedly the theatre of the bitterest border warfare. The blood of many thousands of bold warriors has been spilt on that land which now teems with the blessings of wealth and peace.

Part of this old border land, or the most southern part of the present Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to the narrow neck of land between the Firths of Clyde and Forth,—a tract of about sixty English miles—has not a much more mountainous character than the north of England. The hills undulate in the same gentle forms; and it is only here and there that a single rugged mountain shows its heath-covered or bare and peaked top. Large and well-cultivated plains alternate with charming valleys, which are frequently narrow, and so fertile that in some places creeping plants, bushes, and trees, almost entirely conceal the rivulets that wind through them.

The Highlands extend themselves from the Firth of Clyde to the north-west and north; whilst the Lowlands take a direction from the Firth of Forth along the eastern border of the Highlands, and by the coasts of the North Sea. To the Firth of Tay, and northwards to the Grampian Hills, the Lowlands are not very broad or extensive, whilst the Highland mountains nearly approach the seashore. It is not till we have crossed the Grampian Hills that those large level plains open upon us which comprehend the north-easternmost part of Scotland, particularly the present Aberdeenshire. From these less-wooded plains we turn towards the north-west into the fertile and well-wooded Moray; whence a transition again takes place to the Highlands, which begin in the adjoining shire of Inverness. At this extreme point the Lowlands have, as it were, exhausted all their splendour and abundance. Down towards the coast the land is filled with gently-sloping hills, and intersected by rivers, whose rapid currents remind one of the neighbourhood of the mountains. At a distance from the coast the land rises, the tops of the mountains become barer and sharper, the valleys have a greater depth, and the roaring of the streams over fragments of rock is heard more distinctly. The mountains, as they rise from the Lowlands to the Highlands, afford in a still higher degree than the more southern border mountains, the most enchanting prospects over the coasts and sea. It is with difficulty that the spectator tears himself from the view of the charms of the Lowlands, to bury himself in the dark mountains that rise so solemn and menacing before him.

Throughout the Lowlands, the people, both in personal appearance and character, very much resemble the inhabitants of the north of England. This is particularly the case with the inhabitants of the southern borders, between the Cheviot Hills and the Firths of Clyde and Forth. The same light-coloured hair and the same frame of body, which, in the north of England, remind us of the people’s descent from the Scandinavians, indicate here also considerable immigrations of that people into the southern part of Scotland, and thence farther up along the east coast. According to a very common saying here, even the language of the Lowlands is so much like that of Scandinavia, that Lowland seamen wrecked on the coasts of Jutland and Norway have been able to converse without difficulty in their mother tongue with the common people there. This is undoubtedly a great exaggeration; but this much is certain, that the popular language in the Lowlands contains a still greater number of Scandinavian words and phrases than even the dialect of the north of England. We must not unhesitatingly believe that the Saxon language did not extend itself from the north of England to the Scotch Lowlands till after it had been mixed with Danish; although the remote situation of the latter, so high towards the north, was certainly far more adapted to preserve the old Danish forms of words than that of north England, which was more exposed to the operation of newer fashions. But the Danish or Scandinavian elements in the popular language of the Lowlands are too considerable to admit of such a supposition, not to speak of the Scandinavian appearance of the inhabitants. These necessarily indicate Scandinavian immigrations; and, to judge from the present popular language, we might be easily tempted to believe that a far greater number of Northmen had settled in the Scottish Lowlands than in the middle and northern districts of England. We might, consequently, also expect to meet with a proportionately greater number of Scandinavian names of places in the Lowlands than in England.

But this is very far from being the case. Extremely few places with Scandinavian names are to be found in the Scotch Lowlands; and even those few are confined, almost without exception, to the old border land between the Cheviot Hills and the Firths of Clyde and Forth, and to the counties nearest the English border. Dumfriesshire, lying directly north of Cumberland and the Solway Firth, forms the central point of such places. Northumberland and Durham, the two north-easternmost counties of England, contain but a scanty number of them; and consequently must have possessed, in early times at least, no very numerous Scandinavian population. Cumberland, on the contrary, was early remarkable for such a population; whence it will appear natural enough that the first Scandinavian colonists in the Scotch border lands preferred to settle in the neighbourhood of that county. On the south-easternmost coast of Scotland, they would not only have been separated from their countrymen in the north of England by two intervening counties, but also divided by a broad sea from their kinsmen in Denmark and Norway. Such a situation would have been much more exposed and dangerous for them than the opposite coast, where they had in their neighbourhood the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, inhabited by the Northmen, as well as the Scandinavian colonies in Ireland and the Isle of Man.

The Scandinavian population in Dumfriesshire evidently appears to have emigrated from Cumberland over the Liddle and Esk into the plains which spread themselves westward of those rivers; at least the names of places there have the very same character as in Cumberland. Not only are the mountains called “fell” (Fjeld) and “rigg” (Ryg), as is also the case in the other border lands, but, what is more peculiar to Dumfriesshire, the terminations of “thwaite,” “beck,” and “garth,” not to mention “by,” or “bie,” are transplanted hither from Cumberland: as, Thornythwaite, Twathwaites, Robiethwaite, Murraythwaite, Helbeck, Greenbeck, Botchbeck, Torbeck, Stonybeck, Waterbeck, Hartsgarth, Tundergarth, Applegarth, Locherby, Alby, Middlebie, Dunnaby, Wysebie, Perceby, Denbie, Newby, Milby, Warmanbie, Sorbie, Canoby, and others.

These Scandinavian names of places are chiefly met with between the rivers Esk and Nith. Various authors have also endeavoured to show that the fishermen on the Nith have to the present day characteristic and original Scandinavian terms for their tackle and modes of fishing:—for instance, “pocknet,” Icelandicpokanet; “leister,” or “lister,” Icelandicljóstr, DanishLyster; “haaving,” Norwegianhaave,i.e., to draw small nets in the water, &c., &c. Somewhat east of the river, and north of the town of Dumfries, lies the parish of “Tinwald,” a name undoubtedly identical with Thingvall, or Tingvold; which, as the appropriate Scandinavian term for places where theThingwas held, is found in other districts of the British Isles colonized by the Northmen. And it was, indeed, natural that the Scandinavian colonists in the south-east of Scotland should fix their chiefThingplace in the district most peopled by them.

From Dumfriesshire the Scandinavian names of places branch off as it were in an arch towards the west and east. Some few appear at intervals towards the west, as in Kircudbright (Begbie, Cogarth), in Wigton (Sorby, Killiness), in Ayr (opposite little Cumbray, Crosby, Sterby, Bushby, and Magby), and also in Lanark (Bushby, close to the south-west of Glasgow). Towards the east, some few are met with in Roxburgh, as, for instance, on the borders of Cumberland, “Corby,” and “Stonegarthside,” and on the frontier of Northumberland several inhaugh(Höi, a hill) andholm. But on the whole only a few inbyare still to be found on the borders between Berwick and Haddington (such as Humbie, Blegbie, and Pockbie). Towards Glasgow and Edinburgh the mountains are no longer called “fell” and “rigg.” The Scandinavian names of places cease entirely in these districts; and only the Scandinavian word “fjörðr,” or Fjord, is heard here, as well as farther towards the north in the names of fiords (or firths) namely: Firth of Forth, Firth of Clyde, Firth of Tay, Moray Firth, and Dornoch Firth.

In the Lowlands, the number of Scandinavian names of places is quite insignificant when compared with the original Celtic, or even with the Anglo-Saxon names. Whence we may conclude that though a considerable immigration of Northmen into the Lowlands undoubtedly took place, it must have occurred under circumstances which prevented them from being sufficiently powerful to change the original names of places. We must, in particular, assume that the immigration took place much later than the Danish conquests in England; and on the whole we shall not be far from the truth in asserting, that as the Danish conquests in England must have driven many Anglo-Saxons into Scotland, so also the subsequent Norman conquest must have compelled many Danes and Norwegians, settled in the north of England, to cross the Scottish border.

According to this view, most of the Scandinavian settlements in the middle and northern parts of the Lowlands are to be referred at the earliest to the close of the eleventh century; and at so late a period an entire change of the ancient names of places then existing there, could not, of course, be effected.

Traditions concerning “the Danes.”—The Southern and NorthernLowlands.—Danish Memorials.—Burghead.

Traditions concerning “the Danes.”—The Southern and Northern

Lowlands.—Danish Memorials.—Burghead.

We cannot venture to conclude, from the few Scandinavian names of places found in the Lowlands, that the immigrant Scandinavian population was but inconsiderable; nor can we presume to infer either the extent or the period of the immigration from the numberless traditions respecting the Danes preserved throughout that district. For, although the Lowlands were far from being conquered by the Danes and Norwegians so early as England was, still the number of alleged Danish memorials, even of a remote age, is proportionately as great in the former as in the latter country. Tradition has gradually ascribed almost all the memorials existing in the Lowlands which are of any importance to “the Danes;” nay, even the learned have, down to the present day, been too much inclined to recognise traces of thebloody Danesin the much more ancient Pictish, Roman, and Scottish monuments.

The traditions about the Danes have much the same character in the Lowlands as in England. They depict in vivid and touching traits the misery of the people and of the country under the repeated attacks of the wild sons of the sea, whose arrival, departure, and whole conduct, were as variable as the wind. When large bands of Vikings had landed, and the Scots had assembled an army to oppose them, it would sometimes happen that in the morning, when all was ready for the attack, the foreign ravagers were sought for in vain. In the darkness of the night they had taken the opportunity secretly to re-embark, and rumour soon announced to the army that the Vikings had again landed in quite a different part of the country, where they were spreading death and desolation. The Lowlander tells with horror of the many innocent women and children, not to speak of the numbers of brave men, who were slaughtered; of the churches, convents, and towns, that were destroyed by fire; and of the numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, which, together with valuables of all sorts were carried off to the ships of the Vikings.

Although the Vikings are renowned in England for drunkenness and other kinds of dissipation, yet in Scotland tradition still more highly magnifies the inclination of the Danes for intoxicating liquors, and particularly for ale. It is also a general belief among the common people throughout Scotland and Ireland that the Danes brewed their strong ale from heather; a tradition which probably arose from the circumstance that in ancient times the Northmen spiced their ale with herbs; as, for instance, in Denmark with Dutch myrtle, or sweet willow (Dan., Porse), which grows in marshy heaths.

For the rest, there can be no doubt that the Scotch stories about the drunkenness of the Danes were a good deal multiplied in far later times, at the period, namely, when the Princess Anne, a sister of Christian the Fourth, was married to the Scotch king James the Sixth, or James the First of England. Queen Anne was accompanied to Scotland by several Danish noblemen, who introduced at court, and among its hangers-on, the same carousing and revelling which at that time prevailed in far too high a degree at the court of Denmark. Burns, in his poem of “The Whistle,” celebrates an ebony whistle still preserved in the family of Ferguson of Craigdarrock, which is said to have originally belonged to one of Queen Anne’s Danish courtiers.

This Dane, who, even among his own countrymen, had the reputation of a great drinker, challenged the Scotch to drink with him for a wager, and promised the whistle to him who could drink him under the table. At the same time he produced evidence to show that in all his many drinking bouts at various northern courts in Russia and Germany, he had never been vanquished. However, after drinking three consecutive days and nights with Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, the Dane fell under the table, and Sir Robert gained the whistle. Sir Robert’s son afterwards lost it again at a similar drinking bout with Walter Riddel of Glenriddel, from whose descendants it passed in the same way into the family which now possesses it.

But as a contrast to the many naturally exaggerated tales about the excesses committed by the Danes both in earlier and later times, it is refreshing to meet with romantic traditions about Danish warriors, whose bravery and comeliness could win the hearts of Scottish maidens, even whilst the curses of the Scots were heaped on “the Danish Vikings.” A Danish warrior had been carried off by the Scots during an expedition into Morayshire, and imprisoned in a strong tower, where a speedy death awaited him. But the daughter of the lord of the castle, who had fallen in love with him, and found a requital of her affection, opened his prison door one night, and fled with him. When morning came the lord of the castle set off in pursuit of the fugitives, and overtook them on the banks of the river Findhorn, which runs through Morayshire. The lovers, who were both on one horse, attempted to swim the river; but the jaded animal could not make head against the stream, and the fugitive couple found a watery grave in the depths of the Findhorn. Near Dalsie, in Nairnshire, is a small sequestered valley on the banks of the Findhorn, inclosed by smooth sloping banks, overgrown with weeping birches. In the midst of this charming spot is seen a grave composed of stones heaped up, at one end of which stands a tall monumental slab, ornamented with carvings of a cross and other antique figures. This slab, the people say, is a monument to the unfortunate lady.

There is nothing intrinsically improbable in this tradition, since history testifies that the daughters of Scottish kings married Norwegian-Danish kings; whilst they, or at all events their countrymen, were making war in Scotland. In the beginning of the tenth century, the Scotch king, Constantine the Third, in conjunction with the more northern Anglo-Saxons, beat the Danes, who had passed over from Dublin under Reginald and Godfrey O’Ivar (Godfred Ivarsön), in a great battle near the Clyde. Although Constantine, during nearly the whole of his reign, had to fight against Danish and Norwegian Vikings, yet he gave his daughter in marriage to Anlaf, or Olaf, king of the Danes in Dublin and Northumberland; nay, he even fought with Olaf and his Danish-Norwegian army against the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Brunanborg. Sigurd, Jarl of the Orkneys, was also married to a daughter of the Scotch king, Malcolm the Second (1003-1033), although he had made devastating incursions and conquests in Malcolm’s lands.

The attacks of the Norwegians and Danes on the Scottish Lowlands were so continuous that out of seven monarchs who reigned over the Scots from 863 to 961, or about a century, three are related to have fallen whilst fighting against the Danes. These monarchs are, however, said to have purchased decisive victories with their blood. If we compare the unsuccessful expeditions of the Northmen into the Scottish Lowlands with the great conquests made by the Danes in England, we shall not wonder that the inhabitants of the former country relate with a sort of pride the many victories of their forefathers over “the Danes;” nor shall we be surprised that the popular traditions, which point out the ancient battle fields, scarcely admit even the possibility of the Danes having been victorious.

In the southern and middle Lowlands (to the south of the Grampian Hills) the Firths of Forth and Tay afforded excellent landing places for the ancient Vikings. Many battles, therefore, were fought in their neighbourhood. In the vicinity of a rampart called “the Danes’ dyke,” in the parish of Crail, close to Fifeness, and between the firths just mentioned, the Scotch king Constantine, Kenneth’s son, is said to have fallen in a battle against the Danes in 881. Forteviot, or Abernethy, the ancient capital of the Picts, which the Vikings often tried to plunder, lay in the innermost part of the Firth of Tay. The defence of this place, by King Donald the Fourth, in 961, cost him his life. Near Redgorton, in Perthshire, is a farm called “Denmark;” close to which are to be seen remains of intrenchments, besides tumuli, and monumental stones, said to originate from a defeat suffered by the Danes at this spot.

The most famous battle in these parts is, however, related to have taken place on the northern shore of the mouth of the Firth of Tay. In the reign of Malcolm the Second, after the Danes had already made themselves masters of England, the attacks of the Vikings began to assume a more dangerous character. A number of them landed in the Bay of Lunan, in Forfarshire, whence they plundered and laid waste the country for many miles around. But to the east of Dundee, near Barry, they encountered a Scotch army, which defeated them, and compelled them to make a retreat, during which they were again repeatedly beaten. Even to the present day tradition points out a line of Danish monuments extending from Barry to Aberlemno, in the neighbourhood of which place the last battles were fought, and where human bones of a remarkable size are said to have been often found in the tumuli. At Camuston, not far from Barry, stands a stone cross called “Camus Cross,” on which are carved various kneeling figures in an attitude of prayer. According to the statements of the common people the cross was erected in memory of the Danish general Camus, who fell at this spot. At Kirkbuddo were formerly seen the remains of a Danish camp called “Norway dikes.” In the parish of Inverkeilor, and near the farm called “Denmark,” traces of Danish ramparts are also to be found; and at Aberlemno, Murphy, and many other places, are seen sculptured monuments, said to have been erected in commemoration of the before-mentioned fortunate victories over the Danes.

It is of course by no means incredible that a great battle may have been fought between the Scots and the Scandinavian Vikings in this district, and at about the time mentioned. But it is perfectly clear that most of the Danish monuments before noticed have no connection whatever with this frequently-mentioned battle. The nameCamusis not at all a Scandinavian one; and it is, besides, not only certain that the village of Camuston was, in more ancient times, called “Cambestowne,” but also that there are several similar names of places in the Lowlands, which are most correctly derived from the old Celtic language. The sculptured monuments in question have not, in fact, the least appearance of having been erected after any battle. In a splendid work lately published (P. Chalmers, “The Ancient Sculptured Monuments of the County of Angus,” Edinburgh, 1848, folio), are to be found correct delineations of a number of stones of the same kind, which are spread over Perthshire, Forfarshire, Kincardineshire, and Aberdeenshire; and still more are to be met with along the coasts of the northern Lowlands and north-eastern Highlands. One, near St. Vigean, in Forfarshire, has an ancient Celtic inscription; but, with this exception, no inscriptions are found upon them. They are usually ornamented on one side with a cross and various fantastic scrolls and ornaments, and on the other with biblical representations, such as Adam and Eve at the tree of knowledge, Daniel in the lion’s den, Samson with the jawbone of an ass, &c. Sometimes all sorts of strange figures are found on them, such as crescents, sceptres, mirrors, combs, and other articles; as well as serpents, lions, elephants, horses, dogs, stags, elks, sphinxes, &c. On some stones we find representations of the chase, with huntsmen, hornblowers, stags, and hounds. The carving is for the most part executed with much skill, and the whole style of the work seems referrible to the tenth or eleventh century. It is beyond all doubt that these stones cannot be ascribed to the Danish or Norwegian settlers, though several authors have asserted the contrary. They are evidently Christian-Scotch monuments, and have been erected with a very different aim from that ascribed to them: some, probably, as boundary stones of landed possessions and hunting-grounds; others as monumental stones to deceased persons.

One of the Aberlemno stones—a rare exception to the rest—which stands close by the church, represents on one side a battle, in which both foot and horse are engaged, and in which a bird attacks a man wearing a helmet, who tries in vain to cover himself with his shield. (See the annexed woodcut.) Above is seen a mirror, and one of those inexplicable figures which appear so frequently on stones of this kind. But in this there is the peculiarity, that the figure intersected by the cross-bar with the sceptres (?) at each end, is square, whilst in other instances it is generally in the form of a crescent. On the back of the stone is carved a cross covered with the finest scrolls and ornaments, and surrounded by fantastic figures of animals interlaced together. The height of the stone is about six feet. This monument might possibly have been erected after a victory; but it still remains uncertain, whether after a victory over the Danes. At all events, the stone is Scotch, and not Scandinavian.

[++] Aberlemno Stone

[++] Aberlemno Stone: Reverse

The case is much the same with most of the so-called “Danish” forts, camps, stone circles, and bauta stones; which are in general of Pictish or Celtic origin. Had they really been erected by the Danes and Norwegians, those nations must evidently have held confirmed dominion in these parts for a length of time; but it is well known that, in the early period in which these monuments were raised, they can be regarded as masters, in the south and central Lowlands, only at very short and far-distant intervals.

North of the Grampian Hills, and particularly in the district of Moray (the “Mærhæfi” of the Sagas), the Norwegians and the Danes, it is true, firmly established themselves for a somewhat longer period of time. In the beginning of the eleventh century, for instance, they defeated the Scots in a great battle near Kinloss, took the towns of Elgin and Nairn, whose garrisons they put to the sword, and afterwards settled themselves on the sea coast. But the kingdoms which they founded were speedily destroyed without leaving any remarkable traces behind them; so that, even in this district, we cannot place implicit reliance upon the many different stories about the Danish monuments. According to a common and not improbable tradition, the district of Moray, and the present Aberdeenshire, were the theatres on which the last battles between the Danish Vikings and the Scots were fought. Thus it is said that, in the reign of Malcolm the Second, the Danes, after the battle of Kinloss, suffered a great defeat at Mortlach in Banffshire, where Malcolm, as a thank-offering to God, caused a convent to be built. This, again, was partly the cause of Mortlach’s becoming the seat of a bishop. Popular tradition states that the Scottish leader vowed during the battle to add to the church in Mortlach as much as the length of his spear if he succeeded in driving away the Danes. An ancient sculptured stone near the church is mentioned as pointing out the Danish leader’s grave; and the skulls of three Danish chiefs are still shown, built into the north wall of the church, as a perpetual memorial. A similar tradition is preserved about the church of Gamrie, also in Banffshire. The Earl of Buchan vowed, in the heat of the battle, to build a church to St. John, to replace that which the Danes had destroyed, if he gained the victory over them. Three of the sacrilegious Danish chiefs, by whose command the church had been desecrated, were found upon the field of battle, and in a description of the church lately published we read as follows:—“I have seen their skulls grinning horrid and hollow in the wall where they had been fixed, inside the church, directly east of the pulpit, and where they have remained in their prison house 800 years!”

It is further stated that, on account of the repeated defeats which the Danes and Norwegians had suffered in the Scotch Lowlands, King Svend Tvskjæg sent, in the year 1012, his son Canute, who afterwards became king of England, with a large fleet and army to the northern part of the Lowlands. Canute landed on the coast of Buchan (Aberdeenshire), near the Castle of Slaines, in the parish of Cruden (or Crudane). Here a very fierce battle was fought, which can scarcely have been favourable to the Danes, since a treaty was afterwards concluded between them and the Scotch, according to which the Danes were to evacuate the fortress called “Burghead,” in Moray, then occupied by them, as well as the rest of their possessions in the kingdom of Scotland. According to the same treaty the field of battle was to be consecrated by a bishop as a burial-place for the Danes who had fallen on it, and a chapel was to be built there in which masses should be continually sung for their souls. In this neighbourhood also there was certainly, at one time, a chapel dedicated to the Norwegian saint, Olave; but the ruins of this chapel, as well as the old churchyard, have since been destroyed by quicksands. The wind, however, by blowing away the sand, still brings, at times, the fragile bones of the Danes to the light of day.

Straight out of the town of Forres, in Nairnshire, stands a stone nearly twenty feet high, on one side of which is seen a large and handsome cross, and under it some indistinct human figures. On the other side is carved a number of horsemen and people on foot, evidently representing an execution on a great scale; several bodies are seen, and by the side of them the dissevered heads. The sculpture is executed with the greatest care, and displays some very tasteful ornaments, which, however, are now partly effaced through the action of time on the soft stone. The pillar is commonly called “Svenós stone,” and tradition relates that it was erected to commemorate the treaty of peace concluded between Svend Tveskjæg and King Malcolm, and the expulsion of the Danes from the coasts of Moray. But the sculptures at present existing on the stone do not in the slightest degree represent anything of the kind. The stone belongs to the same class of monuments as the sculptured Scotch stones before described, which are so numerous in the Lowlands, and in the north-eastern Highlands, particularly Inverness-shire, Ross-shire, and Cromartyshire.

One of the few places in the Lowlands, which may with reason be assumed to have preserved considerable traces of the Danish expeditions, lies in the neighbourhood of the towns of Forres and Elgin. It is a promontory which projects in a north-western direction almost a mile into the sea. Towards its head its steep craggy shores are from eighty to a hundred feet high. This extreme point, which incloses a small harbour, and which presents a level surface on its top, where the fishing village of “Burghead” is situated, was formerly separated from the main land by three immense parallel ramparts, fifteen to twenty feet high, with cross ramparts lying between, as well as deep and broad ditches, of which there are still considerable remains. That the Romans had a fortress here (said to have been named “Ultima Ptoroton”) was clearly proved several years ago, when a Roman well, which is still used, was discovered cut in the rock. But for Vikings, like the Norwegians and Danes, this place afforded a still better refuge than for the Romans. Towards the land side, which is in some degree barren and uninhabited, they could easily defend themselves; and from the sea, the Scots could attack them only by entering the harbour, where the well-equipped vessels of the Northmen of course prevented their landing. In all probability, therefore, the Norwegians and Danes still further fortified this important point, and gave it, perhaps, its present name. Tradition, at least, relates that the Danes, after taking Nairn, isolated the town or fortress, and called it “Borgen” (the castle); in which account it is very probable that the names of Nairn and the neighbouring Burghead have been confounded. The latter place gradually gained such importance that it was the last stronghold the Danes possessed in the Lowlands.

It is therefore clear that the Danes, or rather the Norwegians and Danes, have scarcely a right to claim many of the numberless monuments in the Lowlands which both the learned and unlearned ascribe to them. In fact, the whole eastern coast of Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to Moray Firth, is entirely destitute of characteristic and undoubted Scandinavian monuments. It must, however, be remembered, that the actual Scandinavian immigrations into the Lowlands certainly took place after the Norman conquest of England; or, at all events, at so late a period that the Northmen could not remould the Scotch names of places into Scandinavian forms. Nor is it strange that the Scandinavian colonists in the Lowlands, who at the close of the eleventh century had long been Christians, and influenced by the civilization prevailing in England, should neither have erected such monuments as stone circles, bauta stones, cairns, and barrows, which presuppose a state of heathenism among a people, nor have impressed their characteristics generally on that district by means of peculiar memorials. For at that time they played a subordinate part there, and afterwards gradually became very much mixed with Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and subsequently even with Normans.

The very circumstance, however, that so large a tract of land as the Scottish Lowlands lay out of the path of the Scandinavian conquerors during the ninth, tenth, and first half of the eleventh centuries, was the cause not only that the Danes were able to direct all their power with more effect against England, but also that the Norwegians could more easily subdue the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, the Hebrides, and various tracts in the northern and western Highlands. In these districts much more perceptible traces of the Norwegian settlers, and of the results which they produced, are still preserved, than in the Lowlands of the in general transient devastations of the Danes and Norwegians.

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