FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   12   13   14   >>  
hern Scotland may extend even into the 11th Century. The name Dingwall (O.N. _Ethingvoellr_) in Dumfries, the place where the laws were announced annually, indicates a rather extensive settlement in Dumfries, and the dialect of Dumfries is also characterized by a larger number of Scandinavian elements than the rest of the Southern counties. 4. SETTLEMENTS IN ENGLAND, NORSE OR DANISH? THE PLACE-NAME TEST. That the Danes were more numerous than the Norsemen in Central and Eastern England from Northumberland down to the Thames there can be no doubt. The distinctive Norse names _fell_, _tarn_ and _force_ do not occur at all, while _thorpe_ and _toft_, which are as distinctively Danish, are confined almost exclusively to this section. In Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire _thorpe_ is comparatively rare, while _toft_ is not found at all. On the other hand, _fell_, _dale_, _force_, _haugh_, and _tarn_ (O.N. _fjall_, _dalr_, _foss_ and _fors_, _haugr_, _tjoern_) occur in large numbers in Northwestern England. _Beck_ may be either Danish or Norse, occurs, however, chiefly in the North. _Thwaite_ Worsaae regarded as Danish "because it occurs generally along with the Danish _by_." We find, however, that this is not exactly the case. In Lincolnshire there are 212 _by's_, in Leicestershire 66, in Northampton 26; _thwaite_ does not occur at all. In Yorkshire there are 167 names in _by_ and only 8 in _thwaite_, and 6 of these are in West Riding. It is only in Cumberland and Westmoreland that the proportions are nearly the same, but on _by_ see below Sec.5. _Tveit_ is far more common in Norway than _tved_ in Denmark. The form of the word in place-names in England is, furthermore, more Norse than Danish. In the earliest Scandinavian settlements in England, those of Lincolnshire, for instance, _thwaite_ might be Danish if it occurred, for monophthongation of _aei_ to _e_ did not take place in Danish before about the end of the 9th Century; by about 900 this was complete (see Sec.6). The Scandinavian settlements in Northwestern England, however, did not take place so early, consequently if these names were Danish and not Norse we should expect to find _thwet_, or _thweet_ (_tweet_), in place of _thwaite_. It is then to be regarded as Norse and not Danish. _Thwaite_ occurs almost exclusively in Northwestern England--43 times in Cumberland as against 3 in the rest of England south of Yorkshire. _Garth_ (
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   12   13   14   >>  



Top keywords:

Danish

 

England

 

thwaite

 

occurs

 
Scandinavian
 

Dumfries

 

Cumberland

 

Northwestern

 

exclusively

 

Lincolnshire


Thwaite

 

regarded

 

Yorkshire

 
Westmoreland
 
thorpe
 
Northumberland
 

Century

 

settlements

 

Riding

 

thweet


expect

 

Leicestershire

 

Northampton

 
complete
 

earliest

 

instance

 
Denmark
 
Norway
 

common

 
occurred

monophthongation
 

proportions

 
SETTLEMENTS
 

counties

 
Southern
 

larger

 

number

 
elements
 

ENGLAND

 

DANISH


characterized

 
Dingwall
 

Scotland

 

extend

 
Ethingvoellr
 

extensive

 

settlement

 

dialect

 
announced
 

annually