CHAPTER VIII.

WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA.—RUMANYOS.—PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.—DESCENT FROM THE DACI.—SARMATIAN ORIGIN.—SERVIA.—MONTENEGRO.

Wallachia and Moldavia.—The Wallachians and Moldavians are in the same relations to the Romans and ancient Daci as the French are to the Romans and Kelts, or the Spaniards to the Romans and Iberians. Like the degenerate Greeks of the Byzantine empire, they call themselvesRoman; and their language, like theRumonschof the Grisons and theRomaicof modern Hellas, is Romane.

As the two principalities represent only a portion of the ancient Dacia, the ethnological and political divisions differ; for, though all Wallachians and all Moldavians areRumanyosthe whole of the Rumanyos are not Wallachian and Moldavian. They are also indigenous to Transylvania and Bukhovinia. In Bulgaria, Thrace, and Macedonia, there are, probably, intruders. Light made, with dark skins, black eyes, and prominent features, they stand in strong contrastto both the Russians and the Slovaks, with which they are in geographical contact. Nor is it safe to refer this to Roman blood, since, according to Mr. Paget, the Dacians of Trajan’s column have similar features—at least as far as the profile goes, and as far as the description of a TransylvanianRumanyoapplies to those of Wallachia and Moldavia.

Of all the districts on the Danube, Wallachia and Moldavia have been the least disturbed during the last sixteen centuries. This, though it is saying but little for a country in the most afflicted part of Europe, is the inference from the continued existence of their language. Displaced in all the other Danubian provinces it is still the native tongue to upwards of 200,000 protected and half independent Rumanyi.

In detail, the ancient inhabitants of Wallachia were the Potulatensii, the Sensii, the Salrensii, the Kiageisi, and the Piephagi of Strabo.

In Moldavia, there had been a displacement as early as the time of Herodotus.

The Skoloti of Russia reached the Carpathians, inasmuch as they were conterminous with the Agathyrsi, and the Agathyrsi were on the Maros,i.e., in Transylvania.

Whether the Skoloti extended thus far westward, when Trajan conquered Decebalus is uncertain. I think that during the interval betweenthe time of Herodotus and the Dacian war, the Skoloti had either retired or become amalgamated; so that the Dacian population lay in one large uniform mass from theVallum Romanumin Hungary to theSolitude of the Getæin Bessarabia. The reasons for this are drawn from the language.

1. This is uniform throughout, and uniformity of speech in the case of exotic languages, isprimâ facieevidence of the uniformity in both the tongue which is introduced and the original tongue of the country. For identical fruits we must have like stocks as well as like grafts. The Roman in a Keltic country becomes French; in an Iberic, Spanish.

2. The terminations -ensiiand -davaare common to the whole Dacian area—Predan-ensii, Rhatac-ensii, Alboc-ensii, Burid-ensii, Potulat-ensii, Satr-ensii, S-ensii, Cot-ensii, Cauco-ensii—Comi-dava, Perobori-dava, Rhami-dava, Neter-dava, Burri-dava, Argi-dava, &c.

Of the uniformity of language no country, of which the early history is equally obscure, shows stronger proofs than ancient Dacia.

The reasons for believing this to have been Sarmatian will be given in the sequel.

Tolerably pure, for a Danubian population, the Rumanyos of Wallachia are Romano-Slavonic. In Moldavia there is a trace of Turk (Skolotic) blood.

Servia.—Our divisions are political; so Servia, as an independent principality, must be dealt with by itself; and as, from their complexity, the Austrian and Ottoman empires are reserved for the last, it will be separated from the areas with which it is most immediately connected—Southern Hungary and Bosnia.

Bounded by the rivers Drin and Timoc, the present principality coincides nearly, though not quite, with the Roman Province of Mœsia Superior.

The valley of the Margus is the famousPlain of the Triballi(Τριβαλλἱκον πἑδιον; the mountains, those of the Macedonian, Illyrian, and Bulgarian frontiers.

There is the special evidence of Strabo that the Triballi and Mœsi were Thracians, and that the Thracians and Dacians spoke the same language. On the other hand, we learn from the same writer, that immediately to the west of the Triballi, the Thracian type ended and the Illyrian began. Without at present asking what this class may be, it is important to know that three such large groups are reducible to any single class at all. Neither is internal evidence wholly wanting for Upper Mœsia, the only portion of the Lower Danube now under notice. There is but a short list of geographical names: it contains, however, a Thermi-davaand a Pic-ensii.

We know almost as much of the wars of theMacedonians against the Triballi, as of those of the Romans against the Mœsi. Philip and Alexander each imperfectly reduced them. The reign of Augustus is signalized by the Dalmatian and Pannonian triumphs. Upper Mœsia was reduced at the same time.

Montenegro.—In the small Republic of Montenegro, of which the southern side is bounded by Albania, the population is Slavonic, differing from that of Bosnia and Hertzegovna only in being independent of the Porte, and Christian instead of Mahometan. The impracticable character of the country, and the martial spirit of its occupants, have preserved this single spot free from Turkish conquest. How far the blood is pure is doubtful: since the influence of the Roman conquest of Dalmatia, as well as that of the Greek settlements about Epidaurus is undetermined, neither is there any clear line of demarcation between the earliest ancestors of the Skipetar and the early ancestors of Slavonians in regard to their respective frontiers, north and south. It is probable, indeed, that the very earliest occupants of the Montenegro (Czernogora, or,Black Mountain) may have belonged to the former population; at present, however, the antipathy between the two nations is extreme; and in no part of the whole Slavonic area are the Slavonic characteristics more marked than in Montenegro.

FRISIAN, SAXON, DUTCH, AND GOTHIC GERMANS.—GERMANIZED KELTS.—GERMANIZED SLAVES.—PRUSSIA.—ISOLATION OF ITS AREAS.—EAST AND WEST PRUSSIA.—PRUSSIAN POLAND.—POMERANIA.—PRUSSIAN SILESIA.—PRUSSIAN SAXONY.—BRANDENBURG.—UCKERMARK.—SOUTH-WESTERN PORTION.—WESTPHALIAN AND RHENISH PRUSSIA.—MECKLENBURG.—SAXONY.—LINONES OF LUNEBURG.—HANOVER AND OLDENBURG.—HOLLAND.—HESSE-CASSEL, HESSE-DARMSTADT, NASSAU.—BADEN.—WURTEMBURG.—WEIMAR.—RHENISH BAVARIA.—DANUBIAN BAVARIA.

ASa general rule the Germanic, or Gothic, stock has not only held its own area from the earliest time, but has encroached on that of others, so that although there are many parts of Europe, which, once the occupancy of non-Germanic populations, have now become more or less German, the converse rarely, if ever, can be shown to have taken place. Hence, almost all the districts which were originally German, are German now. The chief exception, if it be one, occurs in Belgium, where the Gallo-Roman family, has,perhaps, encroached on the Gothic.

But, though the Old Germany be Germanicstill, there is a great part of the Modern Germany which was not so even at the beginning of the historical period. Some portion of the present area was Keltic, and a still greater was Sarmatian. Besides which, the original population of no inconsiderable section is uncertain. All this somewhat reduces the simplicity of the ethnology. And to this, it must be added, that the Teutonic (or German) branch of the great Gothic stock falls into some important divisions. The Frisians of Friesland represent one of these, our Anglo-Saxon ancestors another, the Old Saxons of Westphalia a third, the Low Dutch of Holland a fourth, the High Dutch of Bavaria a fifth, the Goths of the Old Ostrogoth and Visigoth conquests a sixth. Now the intestine movements of these different divisions have always been great; so that, although we shall rarely hear of any Germanic population having been overlaid by Slavonians or Kelts, the phenomenon of Saxons superseded by Low Dutch, Low Dutch by High and other similar displacements will be common.

The divisions, then, of the Germanic area are as follows:—

1st. There is the pure and proper country of the indigenous Germans, wherein all the important elements of admixture are limited to the different divisions and subdivisions of the Germanic family.

2nd. There is the area which was originally Sarmatian falling into—

a.The Lithuanic, and—

b.The Slavonic districts.

3rd. There is the tract which was originally Keltic.

4th. The parts whose original ethnology is uncertain.

The details of the different political divisions supply us with the commentary on this classification.

Prussia.—The kingdom of Prussia well illustrates the difficulty of making ethnology and politics agree. It falls into two parts separated from each other. Of these the first, with the possible exception of its south-western corner, was wholly Sarmatian in the tenth century; as Sarmatian as England was Keltic, or Spain Iberic. The population, too, was referable to both branches of the Sarmatian stock—the Slavonic as well as the Lithuanic.

In East Prussia it is easily seen that the geographical names are not German. Neither are they Russian. The Old Prussian, a member of the Lithuanic family of languages, was spoken here as late as the sixteenth century, remains of which, in the shape of a catechism, are extant. This is the language of the ancientÆstyi, orMen of the East, which Tacitus says was akin to the British, an error arising from the similarityof name, since a Slavonian (if such were the original source of his information) would call the two languages by names so like asPrytskaiaandBrytskaia, and a German (if the authority were Germanic) by names so like asPryttiscandBryttisc. The Guttones, too, of Pliny, whose locality is fixed from the fact of their having been collectors of the amber of East Prussia and Courland, were of the same stock. The name by which they were known to the Slavonians within the historical period wasGuddon=Gothones,Guttones.

In West Prussia the extermination or amalgamation of the native Lithuanians was earlier. We have no specimens of their language. We know, however, that the country took its name from them. They seem to have been the most western members of their family. The southern frontier of the present Prussia is Polish.

Prussian Poland—the Duchy of Posen—is now, as it always has been, Sarmatian, Slavonic, Lekh, Lygian.

Pomerania, too, retains vestiges of its Slavonic population in theKaszeb,Kassubes, orKassubitæ, occupants of the peninsula and islands at the mouth of the Oder. The name, too, of the province at large, is Slavonic;po=on+more=sea=coast-land.

The Isle of Rugen was one of the last strongholdsof Slavonic Paganism, as is shown by its numerous antiquities, and by the evidence of history. The famous temple of theObotriteSlavonians was there; though Mecklenburg rather than Pomerania was the part of the continent to which they belonged.

In Prussian Silesia, theSerskieof Lower and theSrbieof Upper Lusatia, still Slavonic, retain their language, and represented the older population of the whole country.

The Saale was the original boundary between the Germans and the Slaves, all between Thuringia and Poland belonging to that stock. Certain as this is from the accounts of the conquest under the Carlovingian empire, the details are difficult for Prussian Saxony, Altmark, and Brandenburg. TheHevelliwere on the Hevel: theStoderani,Brizani,Bethenici,Dossani, andSmeldingifilled up much of the valleys of the Oder and the Elbe: we cannot, however, fill up the whole tract. Yet, the names of theMarches, orBorders, show that the encroachment was gradual. First, and nearest to Germany, is theoldmarch (Altmark); after this, the Middle march (Mittel mark); and then the March of the Ukrians (Uckermark), all originally frontiers between the encroaching Germans and the retiring Slavonians, and all frontiers within the historical period.

ButUcker-mark was a Border, or Debatableland in the eyes of the Slavonians, as well as their conquerors; and the name of its original occupants signifiedBorderers. Thekr-is thekr-in U-krain-, as well as in the wordGrenz, which, though German at present, is in origin, Slavonic. The formUckri,Ucrani, andUncrani, indicate this. Perhaps, though onlyperhaps, this Ukrian March—this Brandenburg Ukraine—may have separated the most western Lithuanians of Prussia from the Slavonians of the water-system of the Oder; if so, the word is an instrument of criticism, as it certainly is in many other interesting instances.

In part of the circle of Kotbus, the Sorabian of Silesia is still spoken.

The south-western districts of Prussia east of the Saale, Hesse, an outlying portion of Hanover, and Weimar, along with a narrow strip on the Brunswick frontier, are the only parts of the western half of the Proper Brandenburg Prussia that began with being Germanic; and even here there seems to have been intermixture. The Hanoverian frontier seems to have been wholly Slavonic.

Of Rhenish Prussia, Westphalia was originally Saxon—not exactly Angle or Anglo-Saxon, but slightly differing from the Anglo-Saxon in language. It wasOld-Saxon. The Old-Saxon language, however, is extinct, and the blood considerablymixed. Encroachment and conquest of Low Dutch and High Dutch Germans from the South, in the ninth and tenth centuries, effected this. There were, also, a few Slavic colonies. Otherwise the blood is German; though neither wholly Dutch nor wholly Saxon. The old tribes of Westphalian Prussia were the Chamavi, Bructeri, and Angrivarii.

In Berg, Cleves, and the parts about Cologne, the Ubii, Tenchteri, Sicambri, and other allied tribes, were, probably, Dutch rather than Saxon, and Low Dutch rather than High. On the French frontier there is a Keltic basis; Cologne claims a notable amount of Roman blood.

Mecklenburg.—The great Slavonic nation of Mecklenburg was the Obotrites; after them the Wilzi, the Tollenzi, and the Rethrarii of the old pagan town ofRethre. The dukes of Mecklenburg alone, of all the numerous dynasts of Germany, are of Slavonic extraction.

Saxony.—Either conquered from Westphalian Saxony, or settled by Saxon colonies, the kingdom to which Dresden is the metropolis, originally the country of the Semnones, is German only in language. In blood it belongs to the same division with Silesia; indeed theSorabianfrontier (for so theSrbie, andSerskiemay conveniently be called) extended as far westwards as the Saale.

Hanover.—From Hanover, the north-east quarter (there or thereabouts) must be deducted as Slavonic. Luneburg took its name from the Slavonic Linones, whose language was spoken in a few villages as late as the last century.

The remaining three-fourths are German; and from the extent of the kingdom and the irregularity of its outline, four out of the six divisions of the old Germanic populations may have been contained in it.

From the Ems to the Elbe, extended to an undetermined distance inland, the ancient tribes were the Chauci and Frisii, who wereFrisians. Embden is the capital of East Friesland, where the Frisian language was general until the seventeenth century, and where, in one or two localities, it is still spoken at the present moment.

A line drawn from the Dutch district of Drenthe to the Hartz would pass through the country of theOldSaxons; one from Hamburg to Minden, through that of theAnglo-Saxons. The Longobardi, Chatti, and Cherusci, some portions of whom, whether High or Low, wereDutch, extended towards the Hartz. Soon after this the Slavonic area began.

Oldenburg.—Undoubtedly Frisian in its northern, Oldenburg was either Frisian or Old Saxon in its southern, parts.

Holland.—If the Dutch of Holland be the indigenousdialect of any part of that country, it is only so for the southern third of it. TheFrisiansare the oldest occupants.

Hesse-Cassel,Hesse-Darmstadt, andNassau, the two former, the localities of theChatti, take us from the Saxons and Frisians to the true Dutch or Germans. At present their language is High German. Probably, it was so at the beginning. I do not, however, pretend to say where the Low-Dutch form of speech originated. It has encroached upon the Frisian and Saxon; and, in all the parts where it is now spoken, with the exception, perhaps, of the parts below Cologne, is of foreign origin. On the other hand, however, the High German of Franconia, Suabia, and Bavaria has encroached on it.

Weimar, Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Schwartzburg, Coburg, and the south-western corner of Prussia, are considered to form the area of the ancestors of those Germans who, in the second, third, and fourth centuries played so conspicuous a part on the Lower Danube, under Alaric, Theodoric, and others. The following is submitted as a sketch of their history. As the Hermunduri of the country in which the Albis (the Saale rather than the Bohemian Elbe) rises, they are known to Tacitus; but their power, as elements of the great empire of Maroboduus has been felt by the Romans of Rhætia and Vindelicianearly a century earlier. Encroaching southwards, and crossing the watershed of the Elbe and Danube (the Fichtelgebirge) they displace the probably Slavonic occupants of the valley of the Naab; press on further both southwards and eastwards; form, along their line, with the nations to the north, aMarch, but not of a character so hostile as to exclude the formation of confederacies formidable to Rome, under the name of Marcomanni; make their permanent settlements on the northern side of the Lower Danube; harass the Roman provinces, Thrace and Mœsia, until, themselves harassed by the Huns, they cross the Danube and effect settlements in Mœsia, where they become Arian Christians, and read the Gospel of Ulphilas, in their native tongue. Portions retrace their steps, still marking their way by conquest. Ataulphus in Gaul, Wallia in Spain, Theodoric in the Italy of the sixth, and Alaric in the Italy of the fifth century, all having been Goths of this division. They leave Germany as Grutungs and Thervings (Thuringians), become Marcomanni along the Bohemian and Moravian frontiers, Goths,[17]Ostrogoths and Visigoths, on the Lower Danube (or the land of theGetæ), and Mœsogoths (from the locality in which they became Christian) in Mœsia.

Wurtemburg, Baden, and Hohenzollern coincide with theAgri Decumatesof the Roman writers. The original inhabitants, I believe, to have been Slaves and Kelts; then Kelts more exclusively (the Gauls of the western bank of the Rhine having encroached); then a heterogeneous mass of Gauls, Boii, Suevi, and Vindelicians, occupying a sort of Debatable Land between the Roman and non-Roman areas; lastly Alemanni and Suevi, the latter being Germans, the former a mixture of populations with the Germanic element preponderating. From these are descended the present occupants.

Bavaria, like Prussia, falls into two divisions; the Bavaria of the Rhine, and the Bavaria of theDanube. In Rhenish Bavaria the descent is from the ancient Vangiones and Nemetes, either Germanized Gauls, or Gallicized Germans, with Roman superadditions. Afterwards, an extension of the Alemannic and Suevic populations from the right bank of the Upper Rhine completes the evolution of their present Germanic character.

Danubian Bavaria falls into two subdivisions.

North of the Danube the valley of the Naab, at least, was originally Slavonic, containing an extension of the Slavonic population of Bohemia. But disturbance and displacement began early. The Thervings and Grutungs from the north ofthe Fichtelgebirge made their way to the Danube along these lines.

In the third and fourth centuries, the Suevi and Alemanni extended themselves from the upper Rhine.

The western parts of Bavaria, on the Wurtemburg frontier, perhaps as Slavonic as the valley of the Naab, differ, in their subsequent history, by having witnessed displacements from the south and west, from the Helvetians of Switzerland, and the Boii of Gaul, rather than from the Germans on the north. The later changes are the same in both cases.

The north-western parts of Bavaria were probably German from the beginning.

South of the Danube the ethnology changes. In the first place the Roman elements increase; since Vindelicia was a Roman Province. What, however, was the original basis? Probably, Slavonic on its eastern, Helvetian or Keltic on the western side. Its present character has arisen from an extension of the Germans of the upper Rhine.

GREAT BRITAIN.—DENMARK.—THE ISLANDS.—THE VITHESLETH.—FYEN.—LAUENBURG.—HOLSTEIN.—SLESWICK.—JUTLAND.—ICELAND.—THE FEROE ISLES.—NORWAY.—SWEDEN.—LAPPS.—KWAINS.—GOTHLANDERS.—ANGERMANNIANS.—THEORY OF THE SCANDINAVIAN POPULATION.

ASthe ethnology of the British Islands is made the subject of a separate volume,[18]the present notice will be confined to the simple statement of the Irish, the Scotch Gaels, the Manksmen, and the Welsh being Kelts, and the English, Germans; the Keltic populations being indigenous, the German, intrusive.

Scandinavia comes next in order, the arrangement being strictly natural; since, whatever may have been the original population of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the present is of Germanic origin, and speaks a language belonging to the great Gothic class; the Danish and Swedish being mutually intelligible.

The Islands.—The Danish Islands fall into two groups, one containing the Isle of Fyen, the otherthe ancientVithesleth, or the four islands of Sealand, Laaland, Moen, and Falster. This division is ancient, and in the eyes of some of the older writers of considerable import; since the true country ofDan, the eponymus of theDanes, was not Jutland, not yet Skaane (the southern part of Sweden), nor yet Fyen. It was the Four Islands of the Vithesleth:—“Dan—rex primo super Sialandiam, Monam, Falstriam, et Lalandiam, cujus regnum dicebaturVithesleth. Deinde super alias provincias et insulas et totum regnum.”—Petri Olai Chron. Regum Daniæ. Also, “Vidit autem Dan regionem suam, super quam regnavit, Jutiam, Fioniam,Withesleth, Scaniam, quod esset bona.”—Annal. Esrom. p. 224.

That this wordVitheslethis a compound, that its first element is a Gentile name, and that the population which bore it was other than the modern Danes will be suggested in the sequel. At present it is enough to remember that the existing population of the four eastern islands is Germanic on a hitherto unvestigated basis. The men of theVith-es-leth it is convenient to callVitæ.

In Fyen the Gothic elements are the same as in the Vithesleth, thedifferentiæconsisting in the difference of the original basis, provided that such existed. This may or may not have been the case; since it by no means follows that because theislands of the Vithesleth differed from Fyen, that difference was ethnological. It may have been only political.

Lauenburg.—In the tenth century Lauenburg is Slavonic; its occupants being a population calledPo-labi; called alsoPo-lab-ingii. Aspomeanson, andLabais the Slavonic form for theElbe, the name is a compound, likePomerania(on the sea). ThePolabi, then, were the Slavonians of the Elbe. They were an extreme population; since the river Bille divided them from the Germans of Stormar, Holstein, and Ditmarsh. But though thePolabiof Lauenburg were a frontier population they were not isolated. They were in geographical continuity with the Linones of Luneburg, and the Obotrites of Mecklenburg. Reduced by the Carlovingian Franks, Lauenburg became Low German; as it is at the present time.

Holstein.—The name of the duchy is German, and derived from a German population—theHolsati. But the Holsati were neither the only occupants, nor the only Germans of these parts. The Stormarii of Stormar, and the Dietmarsi of Ditmarsh are equally mentioned by the writers of the eighth century. Earlier still we hear of the Sabalingii and Sigulones. The Holsati, Dietmarsi, and Stormarii, were either Angles or Frisians.

So much for the western half of the duchy. The eastern was Slavonic; even as Lauenburg was Slavonic, the particular population being that of theWagri. They are a frontier population; and this may,possibly, be denoted by the name, which contains the same elements as that of theUcriofUckermark, and the Malorussians of theUkraine.

Sleswick.—With Slavonians on the Baltic, and Frisians on the Atlantic, the original ethnology of Sleswick seems to have been that of the sister duchy. In Sleswick, however, the Frisian population still exists, extended from Husum to Tondern. In Sleswick also we have a portion of the Jute population of Jutland.

Jutland.—If the combination,J+tas it occurs in the wordJute, being the same as theG+tinGot, orGoth, we have a reason in favour of one of its earlier populations having been Lithuanic.

Then we have the Slavonians of Holstein and Sleswick to the south. How far these extended northwards is uncertain. Between the two, however, I believe that eastern Jutland, at least, was Sarmatian before it was German.

The next elements were Frisian; since traces of the Frisian occupancy are found as far north as the Liimfjord—and beyond it.

The present language is Danish.

Originally the area of the non-GermanicJutæ,Jutland, took its first Germanic population from the Frisian area, its second from that of the early Scandinavians. Where this was, and what the Jutæ were, however, are complex questions which will be noticed towards the end of the chapter.

Iceland.—The Icelanders are one of the purest populations in the world. Foreign elements arising out of the admixture of any population antecedent to the present there are none. Foreign elements in the original stock are but few; since it was from Norway and not from Denmark that, in the ninth century, the island was peopled; and the Norwegians are the purest portion of the Scandinavian stock. As a general rule, the islanders are somewhat taller than the Norsemen of the continent. In the other external points of appearance they are similar. But an observation of Dr. Schleisner’s respecting their animal heat is important. “The internal warmth of the human body is between 36.50° and 37° centigrade, and this passes for being the general temperature in all latitudes, and in all climates, for all human beings, except new-born children. But with a very delicate thermometer, well-fitted for the purpose and which had previously been tried by other excellent instruments, I have found from experiments on twelve healthy individuals that the temperature within the cavity of the mouth was as follows:—

As far as this differs from that of the Norwegians—a point upon which our information is so incomplete as to make the previous table suggestive rather than conclusive—the difference must be put down to climate and similar external influences, rather than to that of what is calledrace.

The Icelandic language has altered so little within the last one thousand years that it is nearly the same as that of the old Sagas and poems; Sagas and poems which every Icelander can read. On the other hand, the change on the continent has been so great that no modern dialect of Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, is intelligible to an Icelander. Neither is any dialect that of the old Scandinavian literature.

Feroe Isles.—Here the population is from Norway, as pure as that of Iceland; and the form of speech is Icelandic also. The popular songs of the Feroe Islanders have drawn considerable attention, and been well illustrated. They read the critic a lesson of caution, in showing the extent to which a foreign subject may be thoroughly naturalized; so much so as to wear the appearance of being indigenous. Yet the subjects are those of the Nibelungen-Lied, and, as such, continental in their origin; in their immediate origin, Scandinavian, in their remote origin, German.

Norway.—The population of Norway is essentially Lapp and Norwegian, with the addition of a few Kwain settlements.

The Norwegian calls the Lapplander aFin, so that the district ormarchof the Lapp population of Norway is called Fin-mark. But it is found considerably southwards as well.

The following table shows the distribution of the Fin (Lapp) population of Norway in 1724, 1845, and four intermediate periods:—

No census was taken for the years and districts to which no number is assigned. The table, however, invalidates the current notion that all the so-called savage races are in a state of decrease.

In the copper districts of the north of Norway there is a considerable number of Kwain settlers, chiefly employed as steady and industrious labourers in the mines. There is also a Kwain colony in the districts of Soloers calledFinskoven(theFin Wood) in the southern part of Norway and on the frontier of Sweden.

The rest of the population is of the same Germanic origin as the Danes and Swedes; though purer than either. The recent and superadded elements are but few, German being the chief; and Bergen and Christiania being the towns where they are commonest. Of the Danish elements no account is taken; the two populations being so closely allied. Jewish blood is non-existent; owing to rigorous laws of exclusion, ill-assorted with the liberal constitution of the most republican government in Europe.

A Lapp population common to Russia and Norway is common to Sweden also; the districts in the last-named countries being calledLap-mark, and the populationLapps.

Populations more or less allied to the Lapps, covering the southward extension of the presentLapp area were originally the native population of both Sweden and Norway. This is generally admitted. So it is that the present Germanic populations are not aboriginal.

That the Swedes and Norwegians are the newest elements, and that certain Ugrians were the oldest, is undoubted. But it by no means follows that the succession was simple. Between the first and last there may have been any amount of intercalations. Was this the case? My own opinion is, that the first encroachments upon the originally Ugrian area of Scandinavia were not from the south-west, but from the south-east, not from Hanover but from Prussia and Courland, not German but Lithuanic, and (as a practical proof of the inconvenience of the present nomenclature) although not German,Gothic.

Sweden to the south of the Malar-See is calledGoth-land. The opposite coast of Prussia and Courland was the land of theGutt-ones,Goth-ones, orGyth-ones; in the eyes of a German and in the German language, aGoth-land also. An island in the Baltic, midway, is called Goth-land as well. What is the natural inference from this? Surely, the close relationship of the three populations.

When the main argument rests upon some single fact of primary weight or importance, a single fact to which nothing of equal magnitudecan be opposed, the neglect of subordinate details is excusable—at least, in a short work. If they come spontaneously, and are of a satisfactory character—well and good. They are no part of the leading argument.

In some cases, perhaps, it should be a matter of principle to abstain from them; for example, when the leading argument, although good in itself, is liable, either from its novelty or from the amount of previous opinions which it contradicts, to be undervalued. In such a case, the display of subsidiary minutiæ subtracts from its weight. They make it look weaker than it is; weak enough to require all the support that the skill of its author can devise. In deducing the Greeks from Italy, the relations between the Greek and Latin tongues, the great difficulty of explaining them otherwise than by a geographical continuity, and the equal difficulty of effecting this continuity by any of the ordinary means formed the palmary argument. Such details as fell in with this view were put down to gain (apposita lucro). They were also good against similar details on the opposite side. But they wereex abundanti—at least in the first instance. To have neglected them altogether would not have been too bold. To have paraded them unnecessarily would have subtracted from the value of the real argument.

A comparative depreciation of subsidiary detailsappears in the present question; wherein it is held that certain members of the Lithuanian family extended their area across the Baltic into parts of Scandinavia, and peopled the southern provinces of Sweden. These were the Goths of Gothland, the Jutes of Jutland, the Vites of Withesleth, the old name of the Danish islands, anterior to their occupation by the Danes. The critic who doubts whether the names are the same as that of the Goths, on the strength of the difference of form, is free to do so; but by doing so, he will only impugn a part of the present doctrine. That the Goths of Gothland are the Gothones, Guttones, or Gythini of the opposite coast of Prussia and Courland is the important inference; and that the appearance of identical or similar names on the opposite coasts of an inland sea of no considerable breadth is a phenomenon which, until it can be explained otherwise, must be presumed to denote ethnological affinity is the principle which supports it. Whether the Gothones of Courland were really and truly Lithuanian is a point upon which there may be a difference of opinion; but there should be no difference of opinion as to the explanation of the presence of Goths in the opposite country of Gothland. The common-sense view of the matter, and the ordinary habits of interpretation should take their course.

This may be admitted, and yet an objection be taken to the effect that theGothsof the southernGothland(theGoth-ones,Gyth-ini,Gutt-ones) were not Lithuanic but German. The primary argument on this point lies in the undoubted fact of the Goths of the Lower Danube, in the third and fourth centuries, being German.

But this primary argument is considerably invalidated by the fact, too often overlooked, of those Germans having been known under the name ofGothsonly when they have settled in the country of theGetæandGaudæ, a fact which makes the name just as foreign to the Teutonic dialects asBritonwas to the Anglo-Saxon. From which it follows that all other populations which were, in respect to theirname, in the same predicament as the Goths of Alaric and Theodoric, were connected not with the German invaders, but with the occupants of the country invaded; just as the Bretons of Brittany are connected not with such Englishmen as call themselves patriotically and poetically “Britons,” but with the Welsh representatives of the original occupants of the Keltic islandBritannia. Now the populations thus linked together by some such name asG-th,G-t,J-t,[21]andV-t(all of which have been admitted to be but differentforms of the same word) are numerous; three of them being now before us.

The real Goths, like the real Britons, were something very different from their German conquerors.

But the Gothic historian Jornandes, deduces the Goths of the Danube first from the southern coasts of the Baltic, and ultimately from Scandinavia. I think, however, that whoever reads his notices will be satisfied that he has fallen into the same confusion in respect to the Germans of the Lower Danube and the Getæ whose country they settled in, as an English writer would do who should adapt the legends of Geoffroy of Monmouth respecting the British kings to the genealogies of Ecbert and Alfred or to the origin of the warriors under Hengist. The legends of the soil and the legends of its invaders have been mixed together.

Nor is such confusion unnatural. The real facts before the historian were remarkable. There were Goths on the Lower Danube, Germanic in blood, but not Germanic in name; the name being that of the older inhabitants of the country. There were Gothones, or Guttones, in the Baltic, the essential part of whose name was Goth-; the -n- being, probably, and almost certainly, an inflexion.

Thirdly, there were Goths in Scandinavia, andGoths in an intermediate island of the Baltic. With such a series ofGoth-lands, the single error of mistaking the oldGeticlegends for those of the more recent Germans (now calledGoths), would easily engender others; and the most distant of the three Gothic areas would naturally pass for being the oldest also. Hence, the deduction of the Goths of the Danube from the Scandinavian Gothland.

The exception, then, to the Lithuanic origin of theGothlander, which lies in the application of the nameGothto a population undoubtedly Germanic, is itself exceptionable; and the common-sense interpretation of the existence of similarly designated populations on the opposite coasts of an inland sea must take its course.

The exact degree to which Jornandes confounded the German invaders with the original Goths is uncertain. Some of his facts are unequivocally Getic, as his notice of Zamolxis. Others are as truly Germanic. The name Hermanric is this.

Each, however, is an extreme instance, and it is only at its extremities that the question is easy. In my own mind, I think that Getic legends and Getic history is the rule, Germanic the exception; in other words, that the so-called Gothic history is the history of theindigenærather than that of the invaders of the soil. It is even likelythat Hermanric’s empire was German only as the present Austrian empire is German,i.e., German in respect to its chief. Zengis-Khan’s was Mongolian in the same way, the mass of his subjects and major part of his area being Turk. What leads to this is the likelihood of even the names of the royal families amongst the Ostrogoths and Visigoths—Amalung and Baltung—being Lithuanic. They have every appearance of having arisen out ofeponymias. At any rate it is a strange coincidence to find one of the localities of the amber-district called sometimesAbalus, and sometimesBaltia—the latter name being connected with theBeltandBaltic. Pliny (writes Prichard) “in giving an account of the production of amber says, that, according to Pytheas, there was an estuary of the ocean called Mentonomon, inhabited by the Guttones, a people of Germany. It reached six thousand furlongs in extent. From this place an island named Abalus was distant about one day’s sail, on the shore of which the waves throw up pieces of amber. The inhabitants make use of it for fuel, or else sell it to their neighbours the Teutones.” Pliny says that Timæus gave full credit to this story, but that “he called the island not Abalus, but Baltia.”

Out of thisAbal-, and thisBalt-, I believe the eponymic names ofAbal-ung (Amal-ung andBalt-ung) grew, just as Hellen did out of Hellas.And that they were other than German is shown by Tacitus, since the amber country was the country of the Æstyii, whose language wasBritannicæ proprior—BritannicæmeaningPrussian, as I have shown elsewhere.

In bringing within the same class all the population denominated Gothini, Gothones, Guttones, Gothi, Gautæ, Gaudæ, Getæ, Jutæ, and Vitæ, I only do what nine out of ten of my predecessors have done before me. I differ, however, from them in determining the character of the class by that of the Guttones of the amber country, instead of that of the Goths of Alaric and Theodoric—these last being Goths only as the English are Britons, or the Spaniards, Mexicans. At the same time I am fully aware that any evidence whatever showing that the Germans of the Lower Danube were calledGothsanterior to their arrival in the land of theGetæ, would shake my doctrine, and that unexceptionable evidence would throw it to the ground altogether.

The theory of the Scandinavian populations is different for the three different kingdoms.

1.Norway.—Norway agrees with Sweden in the likelihood of its earliest population having been Ugrian—Ugrian of the Lapp type, and continued southwards from Lapland or Finmark. Upon these the ancestors of the present Norwegians encroached.

2.Sweden.—In Norway the Germanic population came in immediate contact with the Ugrian; in Sweden it was, to a great extent, preceded by one from Courland and Prussia—the Goths. Hence, the ethnological elements in Sweden are one degree more complex.

3.Denmark.—Denmark differs from both Norway and Sweden in respect to its primary population; inasmuch as it is bounded on the north by the sea, so that its relations to the Ugrian area of the aboriginal Scandinavia are those of an island.

Does this prevent us from assuming a continuity of population? I cannot say. Although the north of Jutland is separated by a considerable breadth of water from the south of Scandinavia, Sealand is within sight of the southwestern coast of Sweden, and the south-western population of Sweden might easily have been extended into Denmark. On the other hand, however, the population which occupied the neck of the Chersonesus may with equal, if not greater reason, be considered to have been continued northward. But this population is itself complex, for instead of belonging to a single stock, we find, at the beginning of the historical period, Germans on the western, and Slavonians on the eastern half of Holstein. Which of these populations was continued into the Cimbric Chersonese? Or was there a third stock different from either?Or did each fill up a portion of the area, and if so, in what proportions? My own opinion in respect to these complexities is, that originally the southern half (at least) of the Cimbric Chersonese was Slavonic, even as the Mecklenburg and Lauenburg frontiers were Slavonic; and that, subsequently, a twofold displacement set-in—the Vitæ having invaded the islands and the north-eastern parts of Jutland from Prussia and Courland by sea, and the Frisians having pressed forwards from the Lower Elbe by land. Still, it would be hazardous to assert, that, during those primitive periods, when the whole of Norway and Sweden were Ugrian—as they, once, unquestionably were—the Danish Isles and the Cimbric Chersonese were not Ugrian also. It would be hazardous even to pronounce that the whole of the southern coast of the Baltic was not Ugrian also—since both the Slavonic populations of Mecklenburg and Pomerania, and the Lithuanians of Prussia and Courland belonged to the encroaching divisions of our species. That a Ugrian population extended as far southward and westward as the Elbe is a doctrine that may be maintained without going to the full recognition of the so-called Finnic hypothesis; which carries the populations akin to the Ugrian as far south as the Pyrenees, and sees in the Basques of Biscay and the Lapps of Lapland, the fragments of a vastpopulation once continuous, but, subsequently, broken up and displaced by the Keltic and Germanic occupancies of Gaul and Germany respectively.

The history of the present Scandinavians, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians—must be considered in respect to (1) the line of conquest; (2) the date of the invasion; (3) the amount of foreign blood introduced.

1. Ptolemy’s notice of Scandia is, that “the western parts are occupied by theChadeinoi, the eastern by thePhauonaiandPhiræsoi, the southern by theGautæandDaukiônes, the middle by theLeuônoi.”—Lib. 11. ii. 33. We are not in the habit of considering thesePhiræsoito beFrisii, yet it would be difficult to give a reason against doing so. The Frisian occupancy of Jutland, at an early period, is undoubted, and it is equally undoubted that, of all the German dialects, the Frisian is the likest to the Scandinavian.

It is on the eastern side ofNorwaythat thesePhiræsoimust be placed, probably to the south of the Miösen, where they came in contact with theChad-einoi ofHede-marken. There is a little forcing of the geography here. The Goths were, at the same time, in possession of the south of Sweden. These Goths seem to have been harder to reduce than the Ugrians, so that the line of the Frisian (Phiræsian) conquest ran, at first, fromsouth to north, but afterwards changed its direction, and effected the reduction of the parts between the southern border of Lapland and the Malar Lake; the Goths of Gothland being the last to be reduced.

What justifies these details? The Goths of Gothland have already been considered. They reached as far as the parts about Stockholm. Now,Northof these come the men of theSouth,i.e., ofSuder-mannaland, orSuder-mania; a name which is explained if we make them the most southern of the invaders from Norway, but not easily explicable otherwise. This is the case of our own county ofSuther-land repeated; which was the most southern part of Norway, though the most northern part of Britain. Further details of distribution are necessary to account for the name of the province ofWestmannaland nearly, but not quite, on theeasterncoast of Sweden. The district between it and the sea was reduced first.

2. The date must have been earlier than the time of Ptolemy; indeed, early enough to allow for the development of the differences between the Norse and Frisian languages. Reasons for believing that this requires no inordinate length of time I have given elsewhere.[22]

3. The intermixture of blood, and, consequently, the purity of the present stock, I believe to have varied with the different populations with which the Germanic invaders came in contact. Although both the Lapp and Kwain (i.e., the Laplander and the Finlander) are Ugrian, there is this important difference in respect to their relations to the Swedes and Norwegians. The Kwain and Scandinavian intermarry; the Lapp and Scandinavian do not. Hence we infer that in proportion as the original Ugrians of the southern and central parts of Scandinavia approached the Lapp type, displacement and extermination was the rule, intermixture the exception; whereas, on the other hand, the natives of the Kwain type may have amalgamated with their invaders. If so, the present Scandinavian stock is pure or mixed in proportion as the area it occupied was Lapp or Kwain. The details of this question are difficult. As a rough rule, however, we may say that the basis becomes less and less Ugrian as we proceed northwards; inasmuch as the type became more and more Lapponic, and the Germanic intermixture less and less.

The Gothlanders from the first were, probably, half-bloods,i.e., Ugrian on the mother’s side, as the invasion was maritime. The extent to which they are, at present, Germanic in blood as well as language, is uncertain.

The Goths from Prussia effected settlements in Sweden, why not also the Kwains of Finland? I think I find traces of their having done so in the nameAnger-man-land, orAngria, which can scarcely be supposed to resemble the name of theInger-man-land orIngria, on the Gulf of Finland, by accident. But what if the name were not native, as I think it was not? In that case it is Goths who give it—both to the Ingrians and the Angrians. If so, Gothland must, at one time, politically, at least, have reached as far as 64° north latitude, the parallel of Angermania.

But the name may have been acommonrather than aproperone, and have meant simply theMarch. If so, a Kwain settlement is unnecessary, andAnger-manna-land=theLand of the men of the frontier, that frontier being Lapp. If so,Lapp-mark is its Swedish equivalent.

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