Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/344

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
330
Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.

known association of Danes and Norse with the Jomberg Wends of Pomerania.

The Yorkshire Domesday names Scotona, Scotone, Englebi, and Engleston, point to family settlements of people who were Scots and Engles. Similarly, there can be little doubt that the Domesday names Danestorp, Danebi, Wedrebi, Leccheton, and Lecchestorp, point to settlers who were Danes, Wederas or Ostrogoths, and Lechs, who were their allies. Traces of Swedes are met with in the old names Suanebi in Yorkshire and Suenesat in Agremundreness in Lancashire,[1] and other names similar to those of tribal allies of the Danes may be traced.

The name Wensleydale and the old Semer names which it contains suggest some connection with Wends, and this is strengthened by the folk-lore. A special characteristic in the folk-lore of the Northern Slavs is that of magic horses, of which many examples occur in Russian folk-tales.[2] In Wensleydale folk-lore the kelpie or water-horse comes up occasionally out of the water,[3] and, like the Russian horses, is a wonderful beast. The place-name Semer also occurs in Cleveland, near Stokesley,[4] and Domesday Book tells us of Semser in the North Riding and Semers in the West Riding, these names being, apparently, of old Wendish origin, from zieme, the land. Their parallels may be found in Slavic countries, and other examples of their occurrence in Wiltshire and Sussex have already been mentioned.

The earliest frontier between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia on the west of the Pennine Range, along the Mersey, appears to have been subsequently altered to the Ribble. There is some documentary evidence relating to this later boundary. In 923 King Edward ordered a body

  1. Dom. Bk.
  2. Ralston, W. R. S., ‘Russian Folk-Tales,’ 243-258.
  3. Gomme, G. L., ‘Ethnology in Folk-Lore,’ 78.
  4. Abbrev. Rot. Originalium, vol. i., 181.