The Ethnology of the British Islands Part 19

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 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 -_by_ are almost wholly wanting in Scotland and Ireland.

Hence--_Northman_ or _Scandinavian_ means a _Dane_ in South Britain, a _Norwegian_ in Scotland and Ireland, and a Dane _or_ Norwegian, 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 Yorks.h.i.+re; where in Holdernesse we have the Frisian forms News-_om_, Holl-_ym_, Arr-_am_, and the compound Fris-_marsh_. The Leicesters.h.i.+re Fris-_by_ is more evidently _North_-Frisian.

Again, a writer who, like the present, believes that, until a comparatively recent period, South 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; the _a posteriori_ evidence scanty. Two personages of our popular mythology, however, seem Slavonic--Old _Bogy_ and Old _Scratch_. _Bog_ in Slavonic is _G.o.d_, or _Daemon_; so that Czerne-_bog_=_Black G.o.d_, and Biele-_bog_=_White G.o.d_; whereas no Gothic interpretation is equally probable.

Old _Scratch_ is the _Hairy one_, or _Pilosus_, as his name is rendered in the glosses. In Bohemian we have the forms _scret_, _screti_, _scretti_, _skr'et_, _s'kr'jtek_=_demon_, _household G.o.d_; in Polish, _skrzot_ and _skrzitek_; in Slovenian, _shkratie_, _shkrately_. 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 reason to criticize them? For the fact of Danes having wintered in England A.D. 787 they are unexceptionable. For the fact of their having never done so before, they only supply the unsatisfactory a.s.sertion 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 gloss _dal_[34], combined the exception which can be taken to the words _penn fahel_,[35] gives a probability to the Scandinavian origin of the _Picts_ which 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 the _Picts_ from _Scythia_. 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 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 pa.s.s 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 the _Pict_.

Could this _Pictish_ have 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 word _dal_ (=_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 the _t.i.thic Valley_, or the Valley of _t.i.thys_ (_Thetis?_). In one out of the two MSS. which deviate from the form _t.i.thecam Vallem_, the reading is _Aticam_, and in the other _Styticam_.

I give the texts of Gildas in full. They may serve to shew his style:--"Itaque illis ad sua remeantibus, emergunt certatim de curucis, quibus sunt trans t.i.thecam vallem vecti, quasi in alto t.i.tane 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 terrae partem, pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt."--_Historia_, --. 15.

But, perhaps, Gildas readily wrote Scythica; for there _was_ a 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...o...b..m, Eoasque domos Arab.u.m, _pictosque Gelonos_."--G. xi. 115.

That either Gildas or Beda knew of the line or translated it as if the _Picts_ were _Geloni_ cannot 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 the _Geloni_, who are believed to have drawn their origin from _Scythia_. Concerning whom, the poet writes _Pictosque Gelonos_; and from that time till now they are called _Picts_."[36] _Sagittiferi_ is as Virgilian as the word _Picti_--

"Hic Nomadum genus et discinctos Mulciber Afros, Hic Lelegas, Carasque sagittiferosque Gelonos Finxerat."--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-colae), _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 word _dal_, and the exceptions which can be taken to the gloss _penn fahel_, are all elements of importance. The present writer believes that there _were_ Nors.e.m.e.n in Britain anterior to A.D. 787, and also that those Nors.e.m.e.n _may_ have been the Picts.

The Danish and Norwegian subjects of Canute give us a _direct_, the Normans of William the Conqueror an _indirect_, 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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 Frank _n.o.blesse_, 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 a.n.a.lysis of the blood of the _Norman_, or _North-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 Lincolns.h.i.+re, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. They are liable to being claimed as Norwegians, and liable to be claimed as Danes; they may or 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 of _Saxon_, 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 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, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] These are Danish forms throughout--_Asgar_-, _Hacon_-, and _Carl_- being as little Anglo-Saxon as -_by_. _Carl-by_ in Anglo-Saxon would be _Charl-ton_.

[28] North-_avon_-ton-s.h.i.+re.

[29] Also _Caster_-ton=_Chester_-ton. The numerous forms in _thwaithe_ are shewn by Mr. Worsaae to be Norse.

[30] Doubly Danish: the Anglo-Saxon form of _Orm_ being _Worm_.

[31] Doubly Scandinavian: the Anglo-Saxon form would be _Worm-church_.

_Generally_ in compounds of this kind the Danish form _Kirk_ is a prefix, the Anglo-Saxon _church_ an affix; _e.g._, _Kirk_-by, Off-_church_.

[32] See p. 240.

[33] See p. 177, &c.

[34] See p. 226.

[35] See p. 229.

[36] From Mabillon.--Zeuss, p. 198.

[37] The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.--By Prof.

Creasy,--_Hastings_.

THE END.

LONDON: T. E. METCALF, PRINTER, 63, SNOW HILL.