An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and IrelandWorsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen
History
An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland
Worsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen
Great Britain -- Civilization -- Scandinavian influences; Northmen -- Great Britain; Northmen -- Ireland
A surer and more decisive proof than all written historical accounts of
the Danish-Norwegian settlements and diffusion in the midland and
northern districts of England is, that the above-named places, namely,
Grimsby (“the town of Grim”), Whitby (Hvidby, “the White town”), and
Deoraby Dyreby (“town of deer”), contracted to Derby, are to be found to
this day in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire; and also that in
these old Danish districts there is, moreover, a very considerable
number of towns with names of just as undoubted Danish origin. A close
inspection of even a common map of England will soon show that there are
not a few names of places in the north of England, whose terminations
and entire form are of quite a different kind from those of places in
the south.
The greater number of names of places in the south of England end in
——ton, ——ham, ——bury, or ——borough, ——forth or ——ford, ——worth, &c.
These, which are of Anglo-Saxon origin, and which also serve still
further to prove the preponderating influence of the Anglo-Saxons in
that part, are, it is true, also spread over the whole of the north of
England. But, even in the districts about the Thames (in Kent, Essex,
Suffolk, and Norfolk) they already begin to be mixed with previously
unknown names ending in ——by (_Old Northern_, býr, first a single farm,
afterwards a town in general), ——thorpe (old Northern Þorp, a collection
of houses separated from some principal estate, a village), ——thwaite,
in the old Scandinavian language Þveit, tved, an isolated piece of land,
——næs, a promontory, and ——ey, or öe, an isle; as in Kirby, or Kirkby,
Risby, Upthorpe and others. As we approach from the south the districts
west of the Wash, such as Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, the number
of such names constantly increases, and we find, among others, Ashby,
Rugby, and Naseby. As we proceed farther north, we find still more
numerous names of towns and villages having in like manner new
terminations; such as, ——with (_i.e._ forest), ——toft, ——beck, ——tarn
(_Scandinavian_, tjörn, or tjarn, a small lake, water), ——dale, ——fell
(rocky mountain), ——force (waterfall), ——haugh, or, how (_Scand._,
haugr, a hill), ——garth (_Scand._, garðr, a large farm); together with
many others. The inhabitants of the north will at once acknowledge these
endings to be pure Norwegian or Danish; which is, moreover, placed
beyond all doubt by the compound words in which they appear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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