FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[23]Chapter vii.[24]Here is one out of the thousand-and-one inconveniences arising from our present philological nomenclature. I amcontrastingtwo languages with each other: yet theirnamesare as like asGallicandGaelic.[25]Sabine—Sive quod hastaquirispriscis est dicta Sabinis.—Ovid.[26]This contravenes an opinion to which I have elsewhere committed myself (Man and his Migrations, pp. 161-162). Acting upon the doctrine that Ireland must be considered to have been peopled from the nearest part of the nearest land of a more continental character than itself, unless reason could be shewn to the contrary, I ignored the statement of Beda altogether, and peopled Ireland from the parts about the Mull of Cantyre. The present change of opinion has arisen out of no change in the valuation of Beda's statement. The extent to which the forms inaberare found in Scotland, and the extent to which the namesliabh(with a few others) is wanting, are the real reasons.

[23]Chapter vii.

[24]Here is one out of the thousand-and-one inconveniences arising from our present philological nomenclature. I amcontrastingtwo languages with each other: yet theirnamesare as like asGallicandGaelic.

[25]Sabine—Sive quod hastaquirispriscis est dicta Sabinis.—Ovid.

[26]This contravenes an opinion to which I have elsewhere committed myself (Man and his Migrations, pp. 161-162). Acting upon the doctrine that Ireland must be considered to have been peopled from the nearest part of the nearest land of a more continental character than itself, unless reason could be shewn to the contrary, I ignored the statement of Beda altogether, and peopled Ireland from the parts about the Mull of Cantyre. The present change of opinion has arisen out of no change in the valuation of Beda's statement. The extent to which the forms inaberare found in Scotland, and the extent to which the namesliabh(with a few others) is wanting, are the real reasons.

[232]

ANALYSIS OF THE GERMANIC POPULATIONS OF ENGLAND.—THE JUTE ELEMENT QUESTIONABLE.—FRISIAN ELEMENTS PROBABLE.—OTHER GERMAN ELEMENTS, HOW FAR PROBABLE.—FORMS IN -ING.

Thepresent chapter will examine the extent to which certain Germanic populations mentioned by Beda and other writers as having taken part in the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Great Britain actually did so; it will also inquire whether certain other populationsnotso mentioned may not, nevertheless, have joined in those invasions, although their share in them has been unrecorded.

The Jutes.—Did Jutes, rather than Angles or any other allied population, effect the conquest and occupancy of parts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight as they are said to have done?

Let us suppose the case of an American archæologist, in the absence of any authentic history, reasoning about the origin of the three populations of Plymouth, New Jersey, and Portsmouth, three populations lying within no great distance of each other. He knows that, as a general rule, they are to be deduced from England; and he studies the map of England accordingly. On[233]the south-coast he finds a Jersey, which he reasonably infers is theOldJersey, the mother-country of the Americans of theNew. He also finds a Plymouth, from which he draws the same equally reasonable inference. Lastly, he sees a town named Portsmouth—and here he repeats his reasoning—reasoning which is eminently logical, cogent, and apparently conclusive. It passes without challenge or objection, and the origin of the three populations gradually loses its inferential character, and assumes that of a fact founded upon evidence. A writer who adopts his views, perhaps the very writer himself, more or less unconsciously, next believes that his doctrine has an historical rather than a logical basis, and it passes for a fact founded upon records, or at least on tradition. In such a case a sentence like the following might easily be written—"they" (viz., the populations of New Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth) "came from three of the more powerful populations of England,i.e., those of Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. From those of Jersey came the men of New Jersey, from those of Plymouth the men of Plymouth, and from those of Portsmouth the men of the parts so-called." I say that such a sentence might be written, might pass as a fact, and whether fact or not, would contain an argument so legitimate as to stand against nine hundred[234]and ninety-nine objections out of a thousand. Yet the thousandth might set it aside, since certain facts might have been overlooked.

What if the name of an original Indian tribe had been Jersey (or some name like it), or Portsmouth, or Plymouth? The chances, I admit, are against such an occurrence. But what if it really happened? It cannot be denied that it would materially shake the inference. Nay more, however much that inference took the guise of a tradition or record, it would shake the statement of the author who made it, however unexceptionable.

Still the doctrine might be correct, and not only correct, but capable of having its correctness demonstrated. Let the name in question be the one last mentioned—New Jersey. Let the Old Jersey people of England be like those of Plymouth, but different from them in some definite characteristics. Let those characteristics re-appear in the New Jersey men of America. In such a case, the exceptions taken to the statement from the present existence of an aboriginal Indian population calledNujersi(for such we will suppose the name to be) would fall to the ground.

But what if no ethnological acuteness, no etymological sagacity, no minute analysis of names, traditions, or dialect had ever succeeded in detecting[235]suchdifferentiæ, so that, despite of the endeavours of learned antiquarians, the men of New Jersey could not be shewn to differ from those of Plymouth and Portsmouth, whilst all the while theOldJersey men did so differ. In such a case the objection that was originally taken from the previous name of the Indian tribe would stand valid.

Mutatis mutandis, this applies to Beda's statement concerning the Jutes—the statement being as follows:—"Advenerant autem de tribus Germaniæ populis fortioribus, id estSaxonibus,Anglis,Jutis. DeJutarumorigine suntCantuariietVectuarii, hoc est ea gens, quæ Vectam tenet insulam, et ea, quæ usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium SaxonumJutarumnatio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam. DeSaxonibus, id est ea regione, quæ nunc antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venereOrientales Saxones,Meridiani Saxones,Occidui Saxones. Porro deAnglis, hoc est de illa patria, quæ Angulus dicitur et ab eo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur,Orientales Angli,Mediterranei Angli,Mercii, totaNordhumbrorumprogenies, id est illarum gentium, quæ ad boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant, ceterique Anglorum populi sunt orti."—Beda 1, 15.

Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occurred within[236]comparatively narrow limits in Great Britain, and, within equally narrow limits, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occurred in Northern Germany and Denmark.

The Angles of England undoubtedly came from Germany; so did the Saxons.

But did theJutes? Let us look to the different forms their name took; and also to those of that of the Jutes of Jutland; and, when we have seen that occasionally they both took the same, let us ask whether the objection which has just been suggested against the supposed American speculations do not apply to the real English one.

The Jutes of England were calledJutna-cyn, or theJute-kin; their locality was the Isle of Wight, and from that island they were calledWiht-ware,Vect-ienses orVecti-colæ. Beda himself identifies these two populations, saying that theVect-uarii(Wiht-ware), "who held the Isle of Wight, were of Jute origin." And, lest this be insufficient, both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alfred repeat (or rather translate) the assertion:—

Of Jotum comon Cantware and Wihtware, þæt is seo mæiað, þe nú eardeþ on Wiht, and that cynn on West-Sexum ðe man gyt hæt Jútnacynn.Of Jutes came the Kent-people, and the Wiht-people, that is the race which now dwells in Wiht, and that tribe amongst the West-Saxons which is yet called the Jute tribe.

[237]

Comon di of þrym folcum þa strangestan Germaniæ; þæt of Seaxum, and of Angle, and of Geatum; of Geatum fruman sindon Cant-wære and Wiht-sætan, þæt is seo þeód se Wiht þat ealond on eardað.Came they of three folk the strongest of Germany; that of the Saxons, and of Angle, and of the Geats. Of the Geats originally are the Kent-people and the Wiht-settlers, that is the people which Wiht the Island live on.

Now this nameWihtnever came from the Jutes at all; since it existed three hundred years before their supposed advent, as the wordVectis=the Isle of Wight; and was a British, rather than a German, term.

And theWiht-warewere, partially at least, no Germans but Britons, and as Britons, rather than as Jutlanders, did they stand in contrast with the Saxons of the neighbourhood. The proof of this is in Asser, who says that Alfred's mother "Osburg nominabatur, religiosa nimium fæmina, Nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere; quæ erat filia Oslac—qui Oslac Gothus erat natione, ortus enim erat de Gothis et Jutis; de semine scilicit Stuf et Wihtgar—qui acceptâ potestate Vectis Insulæ—paucos Britannos, ejusdem insulæ accolas, quos in eâ invenire potuerant, in loco qui diciturGwitigaraburghocciderunt, cæteri enim accolæ ejusdem insulæ ante sunt occisi aut exules aufugerant."—Asserius,De Gestis Alfredi Regis.

So that Gwit-garaburgis nowCaris-brook, and[238]Caris-brookin the time of Stuf and Wihtgar, was the last stronghold of theGwitæ,Vitæ,VecticolæorVectienses, who were simply Britons confounded withJut-æ.

Who then were theJutnacyn, who lived in Hampshire, as opposed to those of Carisbrook in the Isle of Wight? I imagine, without pressing the point, or supposing that anything important depends on it, that they were theExulesof Asser, the remnants who escaped from the exterminating swords of Stuf and Wihtgar, in their conquest of the island. That they existed in the time of Beda is true; not however as Danes from Jutland, but as Britons from the land of theWiht-ware.

I do not profess to say why there was the double formVit, andJut—nor should I have identified them myself. It is not I who have done this, but Beda and Alfred; as must be admitted by any one who cannot shew a difference between theWiht-wareand theJutna-cyn—both authors deriving each from theJutes.

Neither can I say howJutlandcame to be calledVit-land; I can only say that the change is noassumption. In a document ofA.D.952 we find it so called—Dania Cismarina quamVitlandappellant.—SeeZeuss inv.

As stated above, all this falls to the ground if any separate substantive reasons for considering[239]theWiht-wareto beJutlanderscan be shewn. But such are wanting. If either they or the Jutnacyn of the opposite coast of Hants were Danes in the time of Alfred and Beda, where were the signs of their origin? Not in their language; since no mention is made of the Danish in Beda's list of British tongues. Not in the names of geographical localities. Neither -ware, nor -burgh, (inGwith -wara -burg) are Danish terms. Where are such signs now? The Danish termination for towns and villages is -by. There is no such ending in either Hampshire or the Isle of Wight.

Did Jutes rather than Angles or any other allied population effect the conquest and occupancy of Kent, as they are said to have done?

It is only the Jute origin of theJutnacynorWihtwareof Hants that the preceding reasoning impugns. The Jute origin of the Cantware, or people of Kent, is a separate question.

I only suspect error here: the reasons for doing so being partly of a positive, partly of a negative nature:—

1. As far as traditions are worth anything, they make Hengist aFrisianhero.

2. No name of any Kentish King is Danish.

3. No Danish forms for geographical localities occur in the county.

That the Kentish population has certain peculiarities is highly probable; and it is also probable[240]that similar peculiarities on the part of the population of Hants brought the two within the same category. And hence came the extension of the Jute hypothesis to theCantware.

Were there Frisians in England?—The presumption is in favour of the affirmative; since the Frisians were eminently the occupiers of the German sea-coast.

Again—

1. A native tradition makes Hengist a Frisian.

2. Procopius writes that "three numerous nations occupy Brittia—the Angili, the Phrissones, and the Britons."—B. G., iv. 20.

3. In one of Alfred's engagements against the Danes the vessels are said to have been "shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish," and that there were killed in the engagement "Wulfheard the Frisian, and Æbbe the Frisian, and Æthelhere the Frisian—and of all the men, Frisians and English, seventy-two."—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,A.D.897.

In Mr. Kemble's "Saxons in England," a fresh instrument of criticism is exhibited. A local name like that of the present town ofKetteringis in Anglo-SaxonCytringas. Here the -asis the sign of the plural number, and the -ing- a sort of Anglo-Saxon patronymic, or, (if this expression be exceptional) a Gentile form. Hence,Cytr-ing-asmeans theCytrings, and is the name[241]of acommunity—i.e., it is a political or social rather than a geographical term.

Now nearly two hundred such terms occur in the Anglo-Saxon Chartas as names of places.

But besides the simple form in -ing(Anglo-Saxon -ing-as) there is a series of compounds in -wíc, -ham, -weorð, -tun, -hurst, &c., as Bill-ing, Billing-ham, Billing-hay, Billing-borough, Billing-ford, Billing-ton, Billing-ley, Billings-gate, Billing-hurst, &c., most of which it is safe to say mean the -hurst, the -town, &c., of theBillings. Now—

1. The distribution of these forms, either simple or compound, over the counties of England is as follows. There are in—

York, 127; Norfolk, 97; Lincolnshire, 76; Sussex, 68; Kent, 60; Suffolk, 56; Essex, 48; Northumberland, 48; Gloucester, 46; Somerset, 45; Northampton, 35; Shropshire, 34; Hants, 33; Oxford, 31; Warwick, 31; Lancashire, 26; Cheshire, 25; Wilts, 25; Devon, 24; Bedford, 22; Berks, 22; Nottingham, 22; Cambridge, 21; Leicester, 19; Durham, 19; Stafford, 19; Surrey, 18; Bucks, 17; Huntingdon, 16; Hereford, 15; Derby, 14; Worcester, 13; Middlesex, 12; Hertford, 10; Cumberland, 6; Rutland, 4; Westmoreland, 2; Cornwall, 2; Monmouth, 0.

In valuing this list the size of the county must be borne in mind. Subject to this qualification, the proportion of the forms in -ing, is a[242]measure of the Germanism of the population. It is at themaximumin Kent and Norfolk, and at theminimumin Cornwall and Monmouth.

2. The simple forms (e.g.,Billings) as opposed to the compounds (Billing-hay) bear the following proportions:—

InEssex as21to48InNorthumberl. as4to35"Kent25—60"Nottinghamsh.3—22"Middlesex4—12"Northamptonsh.3—48"Hertford3—10"Derbyshire2—14"Sussex24—68"Dorsetshire2—21"Surrey5—18"Cambridgeshire2—21"Berks5—22"Oxfordshire2—31"Norfolk24—96"Gloucestersh.2—46"Suffolk15—56"Bucks1—17"Hants3—16"Leicestershire1—19"Hunts6—33"Devonshire1—24"Lincolnshire7—76"Wilts1—25"Yorkshire13—127"Warwickshire1—31"Bedfordshire4—22"Shropshire1—34"Lancashire4—26"Somersetshire1—34

Now the simple forms Mr. Kemble considers to have been the names of the older and more original settlements with the "further possibility of the settlements distinguished by the addition of -hám, -wic, and so forth, to the original names, having being filial settlements, or, as it were, colonies, from them."—Saxons in England, i. 479.

3. The same names appear in different localities,e.g.:

ÆscingsinEssex, Somerset, Sussex.Alings"Kent, Dorset, Devon, Lincoln.[243]Ardings"Sussex, Berks, Norths.Arlings"Devon, Gloucester, Sussex.Banings"Herts, Kent, Lincoln, Salop.Beádings"Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Isle of Wight, &c.

This leads to the doctrine that either one community was deduced from another, or that both were deduced from a third; this being more especially the case when—

4. The name is found in Germany as well as in Britain. This happens with—

TheWalsingasinferred fromWalsing-ham,"Harlingas"Harling,"Brentingas"Brenting-by,"Scyldingas"Skelding,"Scylfingas"Shilving-ton"Ardingas"Arding-worth"Heardingas"Harding-ham"Baningas"Banning-ham"Thyringas"Thoring-ton, &c.

If all these names are to be found not only in Germany but in theAnglepart of it, the current opinion as to the homogeneous character of the Anglo-Saxon population stands undisturbed. Each, however, is foundbeyondthe Angle area, and so far as this is the case, we have an argument in favour of our early population having been slightly heterogeneous.

[244]

THE SCANDINAVIANS.—FORMS IN -BY: THEIR IMPORT AND DISTRIBUTION.—DANES OF LINCOLNSHIRE, ETC.; OF EAST ANGLIA; OF SCOTLAND; OF THE ISLE OF MAN; OF LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE; OF PEMBROKESHIRE.—NORWEGIANS OF NORTHUMBERLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND, AND ISLE OF MAN.—FRISIAN FORMS IN YORKSHIRE.—BOGY.—OLD SCRATCH.—THE PICTS POSSIBLY SCANDINAVIAN.—THE NORMANS.

A.D.787.

Inthe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle we find the following notices:—"This year King Beorhtric took to wife Eadburg, King Offa's daughter; and in his days first came three ships of Northmen, out of Hæretha-land. And then the reeve rode to the place, and would have driven them to the king's town, because he knew not who they were; and they there slew him. These were the first ships of Danish-men which sought the land of the English race." Again:—

A.D.793.

"This year dire forewarnings came over the land of the North-humbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds, and lightnings; and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens: and a little after that, in the same year, on the 6th of the Ides of January, the ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarn, through[245]rapine and slaughter. And Siega died on the 8th of the Kalends of March."

After this the notices of the formidable Danes become numerous and important. But it is not in the pages of history that the influence of their invasions is to be found. The provincial dialects of the British Isles, the local names in the map of Europe, the traditions and (in some cases) the pedigrees of the older families are the best sources.

If we study the local names of Germany and Scandinavia, we shall find that when we get North of the Eyder a change takes place. In Sleswick the compound names of places begin to end in -gaard, -skov, and -by; in -bymost especially, as Oster-by, Wis-by, Gammel-by, Nor-by, &c. In Jutland the forms in -byattain theirmaximum. They prevail in the islands. They prevail in Sweden. They are rare (a fact of great importance) in Norway. In Germany they are either non-existent or accidental. In respect to its meaning,by=town,village,settlement; andBy-en=the town, is a term by which Christiania or Copenhagen—the metropoles of Norway and Denmark—are designated. Such forms as Kir-ton, Nor-ton, and New-tonin German would, in Danish, be Kir-by, Nor-by, New-by.

Now the distribution of the forms in -byover the British Isles has the same import as its distribution[246]in Germany and Scandinavia. It indicates a Danish as opposed to a German occupancy. Again—the Anglo-Saxon forms areChurchandShip, as in Dun-churchandShip-ton; whereas the Danish areKirkandSkip, as in Orms-kirkandSkip-ton. The distribution of these forms over the British Isles closely coincides with that of the compounds in -by.

With these preliminaries we will follow the lines which are marked out by the occurrence of the places in -by; beginning at a point on the coast of Lincolnshire, about half-way between the entrance to the Wash and the mouth of the Humber; the direction being south and south-west. Ander-byCreek, Willough-byHills, Mum-by, Or-by, Ir-by, Firs-by, Reves-by, Conings-by, Ewer-by, Asgar-by,[27]Span-by, Dows-by, Duns-by, Hacon-by,[27]Thurl-by, Carl-by[27]take us into Rutlandshire, where we find only Grun-byand Hoo-by. Neither are they numerous in Northamptonshire; Canons' Ash-by, Cates-by, and Bad-bygiving us the outline of the South-eastern parts of their area. For Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Beds, nothing ends in -by, whilst the other forms are insh, andch—asCharlton,Shelton,Chestertonrather thanCarlton,Skelton,Casterton. Leicestershire is[247]full of the form, as may be seen by looking at the parts about Melton, along the valleys of the Wreak and Soar; but as we approach Warwickshire they decrease, and there is none south of Rug-by. More than this, the form changes suddenly, and three miles below the last named town we have Dun-churchand Coach-batch. Tradition, too, indicates the existence of an old March or Debateable Land; for south of Rug-bybegins the scene of the deeds of Guy Earl of Warwick, the slayer of theDunCow. Probably, too, the Bevis of Hampton was a similar[28]North-amp-ton-shire hero, notwithstanding the claim of the town of Southampton.

The line now takes a direction northwards and passes through Bretby (on the Trent) to Derby, Leicestershire being wholly included. And here the frontier of the forest which originally covered the coal-district seems to have been the western limit to the Danish encroachments, Rotherham, Sheffield, and Leeds lying beyond, but with the greater part of Nottinghamshire and a large part of Derby within, it. In Yorkshire the East Riding is Danish, and the North to a great extent; indeed the western feeders of the Ouse seem to have been followed up to their head-waters, and the watershed of England to have been crossed. This gives the numerous -bys[248]in Cumberland and Westmoreland[29]—Kirk-by, Apple-by, &c.

So much for the very irregular and remarkable outline of the area of the forms in -byon its southern and western sides. In the north-east it nearly coincides with the valley of the Tees—nearly but not quite; since, in Durham, we have Ra-by, Sela-by, and Rum-by. The derivatives ofcastra, on the other hand, are in -ch-;e.g., Ebchester,Chester-le-street, Lanchester (Lan-caster). In Northumberland there are none.

I look upon this as the one large main Danish area of Great Britain, its occupants having been deduced from a series of primary settlements on the Humber. It coincides chiefly with the water-system of the Trent, makes Lincolnshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire the mother-countries, and suggests the notions that, as compared with the Humber, the rivers of the Wash, and the river Tees were unimportant. The oldest and most thoroughly Danish town was Grimsby. The settlements were generally small. I infer this from the extent to which the names are compounded of -byand a noun in the genitive casesingular(Candel-s-by, Grim-s-by, &c.). Danish names such as Thorold, Thurkill, Orme, &c., are eminently common in Lincolnshire; and, at Grimsby,[249]a vestige of the famous Danish hero Havelok is still preserved inHavelok-street. On the other hand, the number of Danish idioms in the provincial dialects is by no means proportionate to the preponderance of the forms in -by. In Lincolnshire it is but small, though larger in Yorkshire and Cumberland.

The extent to which the rivers which fall in the Wash arenotcharacterized by the presence of forms in -byis remarkable. The Witham and Welland alone (and they but partially) have -byson their banks. Again—

Just above Yarmouth, between the Yare, the North River and the sea, is a remarkable congregation of forms in -by. These are more numerous in this little tract than the rest of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex together—Mault-by, Orms-by[30](doubly Danish), Hemes-by, &c. This may indicate either a settlement direct from Scandinavia, or a secondary settlement from Lincolnshire.

However doubtful this may be, it is safe to attribute the -byson the West of England, to the Danes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, the Danes of the Valley of the Eden. These spread—

A. Northwards, following either the coast of Galloway or the water-system of the Annan, Locker-bie, &c.[250]—

B. Westwards into the Isle of Man—

C. Southwards into—

a.Cheshire, Lancashire, and Carnarvonshire (Orms-head), always, however, within a moderate distance of the sea—Horn-by, Orms-kirk,[31]Whit-by, Ire-by, Hels-by, &c.—

b.Pembrokeshire; where in Haver-fordand Mil-fordthe elementfordis equivalent to the DanishFiord, and the ScotchFirth, and translates the Latin wordsinus—notvadum.Guard- in Fish-guardis Danish also; as are Ten-byandHarold-stone.

Such is the distribution of one branch of the Scandinavians, viz.: those from Jutland, the Danish Isles, and (perhaps) the South of Sweden. That of the Norwegians of Norway is different. Shetland, the Orkneys, Caithness, and Sutherland, the Hebrides, and Ireland, form the line of invasion here. In Man the two branches met—the Danish from the east, and the Norwegian from the north and east.

The numerous details respecting the Scandinavians in Britain are to be found in Mr. Worsaae's "Danes and Northmen;" and, besides this, the proof of the distinction just drawn between the[251]Danes of South Britain and the Norwegians of Scotland, the Hebrides and Ireland. It lies in the phenomena connected with the form -by.

a.Common as they are in Denmark and Sweden, they are almost wholly wanting in Norway.

b.Common as are other Scandinavian elements, the forms in -byare almost wholly wanting in Scotland and Ireland.

Hence—NorthmanorScandinavianmeans aDanein South Britain, aNorwegianin Scotland and Ireland, and a DaneorNorwegian, as the particular case may be, in the Isle of Man, Northumberland, and Durham. This is well shewn, and that for the first time, in the valuable work referred to.

Can this analysis be carried further? Probably it can. Over and above the consideration of the Frisians of Friesland,[32]there is that of the North-Frisians.[33]Some of these may easily have formed part of the Scandinavian invasion. The nearest approach to absolute evidence on this point is to be found in the East Riding of Yorkshire; where in Holdernesse we have the Frisian forms News-om, Holl-ym, Arr-am, and the compound Fris-marsh. The Leicestershire Fris-byis more evidentlyNorth-Frisian.

Again, a writer who, like the present, believes that, until a comparatively recent period, South[252]Jutland, the Danish Isles, and the South of Sweden,at least, were Sarmatian, is justified in asking whether members of this stock also may not have helped to swell the Scandinavian host. The presumption is in favour of their having done so; thea posteriorievidence scanty. Two personages of our popular mythology, however, seem Slavonic—OldBogyand OldScratch.Bogin Slavonic isGod, orDæmon; so that Czerne-bog=Black God, and Biele-bog=White God; whereas no Gothic interpretation is equally probable.

OldScratchis theHairy one, orPilosus, as his name is rendered in the glosses. In Bohemian we have the formsscret,screti,scretti,skr'et,s'kr'jtek=demon,household god; in Polish,skrzotandskrzitek; in Slovenian,shkrátie,shkrátely. On the other hand, in the Old High German, the Icelandic, and some of the Low German dialects, the word occurs as it does in English. Still the combination of sounds is so Slavonic, and the name is spread over so great a portion of the Slavonic area, that I look upon it as essentially and originally belonging to that family.

The ethnological analysis of the Scandinavians is one question; the date of their first invasion, another. The statements of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle opened the present chapter. Is there[253]reason to criticize them? For the fact of Danes having wintered in EnglandA.D.787 they are unexceptionable. For the fact of their having never done so before, they only supply the unsatisfactory assertion of a negative.

For my own part I should not like to deny the presence of Scandinavians in certain parts of Great Britain, even at the very beginning of the Historical period. That this was the case with Orkney and Shetland few, perhaps, are inclined to deny. But the glossdal[34], combined the exception which can be taken to the wordspenn fahel,[35]gives a probability to the Scandinavian origin of thePictswhich has not hitherto been generally admitted—the present writer, amongst others, having denied it.

When the Britons had occupied the greater part of the Island they were met by thePictsfromScythia. It was not, however, on any part of Great Britain that the Picts first landed.

It was on the north coast of Ireland, then held by Scots. But the Scots had no room for them, so they told them of the opposite island of Britain, and recommended them to take possession of it; which was done accordingly. "And as the Picts had no wives, and had to seek them from the Scots, they were granted on the sole condition, that whenever the succession became[254]doubtful, the female line should be preferred over the male; which is kept up even now amongst the Picts." This peculiarity in the Pict law of succession is interesting; and as Beda speaks to it as a cotemporary witness, it must pass as one of the few definite facts in the Pict history. Another statement of true importance is, that the Scriptures were read in all the languages of Great Britain; there being five in number: the Latin, the Angle, the British, the Scottish, and thePict.

Could thisPictishhave been Scandinavian, a language closely allied to the Anglo-Saxon, without Beda knowing it? I once answered hastily in the negative, but the fact that he actually overlooks the Gothic character of the worddal(=part), has modified my view.

On the other hand, their deduction from Scythia goes for nothing. The text which supplied Beda with his statement has come down to us, though, unfortunately, with three different readings. It is from Gildas, and seems to be one of that author's least happy attempts at fine writing.

He calls the German Ocean theTithic Valley, or the Valley ofTithys(Thetis?). In one out of the two MSS. which deviate from the formTithecam Vallem, the reading isAticam, and in the otherStyticam. I give the texts of Gildas in full. They may serve to shew his style:—"Itaque illis[255]ad sua remeantibus, emergunt certatim de curucis, quibus sunt trans Tithecam vallem vecti, quasi in alto Titane incalescente caumate de aridissimis foraminum cavernulis fusci vermiculorum cenei, tetri Scotorum Pictorumque greges, moribus ex parte dissidentes, et una eademque sanguinis fundendi aviditate concordes, furciferosque magis vultus pilis, quam corporum pudenda pudendisque proxima vestibus tegentes, cognitaque condebitorum reversione, et reditus denegatione, solito confidentius, omnem Aquilonalem extremamque terræ partem, pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt."—Historia, §. 15.

But, perhaps, Gildas readily wrote Scythica; for therewasa reason, as reasons went in the sixth century, for his doing so. It was, probably, the following lines in Virgil:—

"Aspice et extremis domitum cultoribus orbem,Eoasque domos Arabum,pictosque Gelonos."—G. xi. 115.

That either Gildas or Beda knew of the line or translated it as if thePictswereGelonicannot be shewn; but that an author not very much later than Beda did so is shewn by the following extract from a Life of St. Vodoal, written about the beginning of the tenth century—"The Blessed Vodoal was (as they say) sprung from the arrow-bearing nation of theGeloni, who are believed to have drawn their origin fromScythia. Concerning[256]whom, the poet writesPictosque Gelonos; and from that time till now they are calledPicts."[36]Sagittiferiis as Virgilian as the wordPicti—

"Hic Nomadum genus et discinctos Mulciber Afros,Hic Lelegas, Carasque sagittiferosque GelonosFinxerat."—Aen. viii. 725.

Another element in the reasoning upon the date of the earliest Scandinavians is the fact that more than one enquirer has noticed in the nomenclature of a writer so early as Ptolemy, words with an aspect more or less Scandinavian—e.g., Ar-beia, Leucopi-bi-um,Vand-uarii(Aqui-colæ),Lox-ius fluvius (=Salmon River), and, perhaps, some others.

To argue that there were Scandinavians amongst us in the second century, because certain words were Norse, and then to infer the Norse character of the words in question from the presence of Scandinavians is a vicious circle from which we must keep apart. At the same time, the insufficiency of the early historians to give a negative, the oversight of Beda in respect to the worddal, and the exceptions which can be taken to the glosspenn fahel, are all elements of importance. The present writer believes that therewereNorsemen in Britain anterior toA.D.787, and also that those Norsemenmayhave been the Picts.[257]

The Danish and Norwegian subjects of Canute give us adirect, the Normans of William the Conqueror anindirect, Scandinavian element.

"The latest conquerors of this island were also the bravest and the best. I do not except even the Romans. And, in spite of our sympathies with Harold and Hereward, and our abhorrence of the founder of the New Forest and the desolator of Yorkshire, we must confess the superiority of the Normans to the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes, whom they met here in 1066, as well as to the degenerate Franknoblesse, and the crushed and servile Romanesque provincials, from whom, in 912, they had wrested the district in the north of Gaul, which still bears the name of Normandy."[37]

This leads us to the analysis of the blood of theNorman, orNorth-man. Occupant as he is of a country so far south as Normandy, this is his designation; since the Scandinavians who in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries ravaged Great Britain, extended themselves along the coasts of the Continent as well. And here they are subject to the same questions as the Scandinavians of Lincolnshire, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. They are liable to being claimed as Norwegians, and liable to be claimed as Danes; they may or[258]they may not have had forerunners; their blood, if Danish rather than Norwegian, may have been Jute or it may have been Frisian; they may have been distinct from certain allied conquerors known under the name ofSaxon, or they may be the Saxons of a previous period.

They seem, however, in reality, to have been Norwegians from Norway rather than Danes from Jutland and the Danish Isles; Norwegians, unaccompanied by females, and Norwegians who preserve their separate nationality to a very inconsiderable extent. They formed French alliances, and they adopted the habits and manners of the natives. These were, from first to last, Keltic on the mother's side; but on that of the father, Keltic, Roman, and German. That this latter element was important, is inferred from the names of the Ducal and Royal family: William, Richard, Henry, &c., names as little Scandinavian as they are Roman or Gallic.

Hence, the blood of even the true Norman was heterogeneous; whilst (more than this) the army itself was only partially levied on the soil of Normandy—Bretons, who were nearly pure Kelts, Flemings who were Kelto-Germans, and Walloons who were Kelto-German and Roman, all helped to swell the host of the Conqueror. What these effected at Hastings, and how they appropriated the country, is a matter for the civil[259]rather than the physical historian; the distribution of their blood amongst the present Englishmen being a problem for the herald and genealogist. The elements they brought over were only what we had before—Keltic, Roman, German, and Norse. The manner, however, of their combination differed. There was also a slight variation in the German blood. It was Frank rather than Angle.

Kelts, Romans, Germans, and Scandinavians, then, supply us with the chief elements of our population, elements which are mixed up with each other in numerous degrees of combination; in so many, indeed, that in the case of the last three there is no approach to purity.

However easy it may be, either amongst the Gaels of Connaught, or the Cambro-Britons of North-Wales, to find a typical and genuine Kelt, the German, equally genuine and typical, whom writers love to place in contrast with him, is not to be found within the four seas, the nearest approach being the Frisian of Friesland.

It is important, too, to remember that the mixture that has already taken place still goes on; and as three pure sources of Keltic, without a corresponding spring of Gothic, blood are in full flow, the result is a slow but sure addition of Keltic elements to the so-called Anglo-Saxon stock,[260]elements which are perceptible in Britain, and which are very considerable in America. The Gael or Briton who marries an English wife, transmits, on his own part, a pure Keltic strain, whereas no Englishman can effect a similar infusion of Germanism—his own breed being more or less hybrid.

The previous pages have dealt with the retrospect of English ethnology. The chief questions in the prospect are the one just indicated and the effects of change of area in the case of the Americans.

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