The Viking Age. Volume 1 (of 2): The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nationsDu Chaillu, Paul B. (Paul Belloni)
History
The Viking Age. Volume 1 (of 2): The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nations
Some writers assert that the new settlers gave to their new home in
Britain the name of the country which they had left, called _Angeln_,
and which they claim to be situated in the southern part of Jutland; but
besides the Angeln in Jutland there is in the Cattegat an Engelholm,
which is geographically far more important, situated in the land known
as the Vikin of the Sagas, a great Viking and warlike land, from which
the name Viking may have been derived, filled with graves and
antiquities of the iron age. There are also other Engeln in the present
Sweden.
In the whole literature of the North such a name as Engeln is unknown;
it may have been, perhaps, a local name.
In the Sagas the term _England_ was applied to a portion only of
Britain, the inhabitants of which were called _Englar_, _Enskirmenn_.
Britain itself is called _Bretland_, and the people _Bretar_.
“Öngulsey (Angelsey) is one third of Bretland (Wales)” (Magnus
Barefoot’s Saga, c. 11).
Another part of the country was called _Nordimbraland_.
It is an important fact that throughout the Saga literature describing
the expeditions of the Northmen to England not a single instance is
mentioned of their coming in contact with a people called _Saxons_,
which shows that such a name in Britain was unknown to the people of the
North. Nor is any part of England called Saxland.
To make the confusion greater than it is, some modern historians make
the so-called Saxons, who were supposed to have come over with the
mythical Hengist and others, a distinct race from the Northmen, who
afterwards continued to land in the country.
In the Sagas we constantly find that the people of England are not only
included among the Northern lands, but that the warriors of one country
are helping the other. In several places we find, and from others we
infer, that the language in both countries was very similar.
“All sayings in the Northern (norræn) tongue in which there is truth
begin when the Tyrkir and the Asia-men settled in the North. For it is
truly told that the tongue which we call Norræn came with them to the
North, and it went through Saxland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and part of
England” (Rimbegla, iii. c. i.).
“We are of one tongue, though one of the two, or in some respects both,
are now much changed” (Prose Edda, ii.)
“Then ruled over England King Ethelred, son of Edgar (979). He was a
good chief; he sat this winter in London. The tongue in England, as well
as in Norway and Denmark, was then one, but it changed in England when
William the Bastard won England. Thenceforth the tongue of Valland
(France) was used in England, for he (William) was born there” (Gunnlaug
Ormstunga’s Saga, c. 7).
That the language of the North should have taken a footing in a great
part of England is due, no doubt, to the continuous flow of immigration,
from the northern mother country, which entirely swamped the former
native or British element.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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