Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/155

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Danes and other Tribes from Baltic Coast.
141

Swein.[1] In addition, Stephens tells us of the words suin, suain, and suen being used.[2]

There was another ancient Baltic nation that may well have sent emigrants to England, the Burgundians of Bornholm and the country near the Vistula. They were closely allied in race to the Northern Goths. The island of Bornholm, called Burgunda-ea[3] by Wulfstan in the time of King Alfred, was named after them. They were a tall, blonde people,[4] and we know that there is historical evidence of the Emperor Probus having transported a great number of them from the Continent to Britain. Some of these may have been among the ancestors of the English race, as well as others who may have come in with the Angles, Jutes, or Danes.

We read in the old chronicles of Danes and Northmen, but there are few references to Swedes. They must, however, have been among the Danish forces, and were probably included under the names of Danes or Northmen. The rare mention of the Swedish name points either to the relative weaker state of the Swedes at the period of the settlement of England, or to their expansion on the east side of the Baltic. At that time the Northern Goths were the more important race, but later on the Swedish tribes advanced in power, and the Goths in the Scandian peninsula declined in relative importance. The more study we give to the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the more clearly we see evidence of a greater part having been taken in that settlement by Baltic races than has been commonly ascribed to them. The oldest settlement was not all German. Even the poem of Beowulf, one of the oldest examples of Anglo-Saxon literature, the scene of which is largely in Sweden, bears witness to this, for its substance must have come over with the conquerors, and its existence in Old English literature

  1. Tudor, J. R., ‘The Orkneys and Shetlands,’ p. 344.
  2. Loc cit., i. 24.
  3. Alfred’s ‘Geography of Europe,’ p. 55.
  4. Ripley, W. Z., loc cit., p. 144.