old Slavonic parts of Germany, and the type was in all probability brought to this country by some Wends or Germanized Slavs. If a few villages here and there are of a Wendish rather than of a purely Germanic type, we may reasonably look for traces of Slavonic influence in the customs, folk-lore, and in some at least of the names of the district.
From the circumstance that various old dialects were spoken in England during the Anglo-Saxon period, it follows that we may look for the origin of some of our place-names in the Old Norrena of the northern runic writing, or in the Icelandic tongue, as well as in those of old Germanic origin, and perhaps in some few instances in the Old Slavic dialect that was spoken by the Wends, of whose settlement in England evidence will appear. It was from these elements, with some admixture of the Celtic, that the Anglo-Saxon language was formed on English soil.[1]
In the Hundred Rolls of A.D. 1271 there are many people mentioned who bore the surname of Scot, which was no doubt originally given to them or their forefathers because they were Scots who had settled in England. Unless we are to believe the existence of the mythological ancestors of various tribes, such as Angul, the eponymous ancestor of the Angles; Saxnote, of the Saxons; Dan, of the Danes; Gewis, of the Gewissas, and so on, we must allow that the earliest individuals who were called by a tribal name derived it in some way or other from that of the tribe, as those first called Scot did from the early Scots. Such names as Scot, Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Frank, Fleming, and others, were apparently given to the individuals who bore them by people of other descent near whom they lived, because those so designated were people of the nations or tribes denoted by these names. We may also trace such mediæval names as Pickard,
- ↑ Marsh, G. P., ‘Lectures on the English Language,’ First Series, 42, 43.
