Part 7

It is known that Scandinavian Vikings, and particularly Normans and Danes, conquered the French province afterwards called from the Northmen (Normænd) Normandy; and that the successors of Rollo, or Rolf (Ralph), continued to govern that land as dukes. From Normandy, Duke William, surnamed the Conqueror, passed over in 1066 into England, which he conquered by the battle of Hastings. The whole expedition, together with this battle, is represented in the old and extremely remarkable piece of tapestry, preserved in the cathedral of Bayeux, in Normandy, and said to have been worked by William the Conqueror’s own consort, Matilda; at all events it was made shortly after the conquest of England. There can, therefore, be no question about the fidelity of the figures represented, at all events, as far as regards the Normans. It is here seen that the Norman chiefs, after the old Scandinavian fashion, had each his ensign or banner of party-coloured cloth cut out into tongues or points, and fastened to the pole of a lance. But where William is represented on the Bayeux tapestry advancing to the battle of Hastings, the chief banner is borne by a mounted knight clad in chain armour, who rides before another knight, likewise clothed in armour, and having on his lance an ensign or flag with five tongues or points, and with a cross in it.

On the chief banner, the only one of that form among the many flags in the tapestry, but which in its whole shape and pendant fringes bears a striking likeness to the old Danish flags before mentioned, there is seen in the middle the figure of a little bird, which may, with the greatest probability, be taken for Odin’s raven. For it is very natural that the Scandinavian Vikings, or Normans, who had achieved so many and such famous conquests under Odin’s raven, should continue to preserve this sign, even after they had adopted Christianity; and that thus the Normannic dukes in Normandy should also long bear their forefathers’ venerable ensign with them as a Palladium in the combat.

After the conquest of England by the Normans, however, the Norman kings abandoned the old Scandinavian raven-mark, and adapted themselves more to the English customs. Probably each king had his own mark or flag, after the custom of that time, until the national banner afterwards received a settled form. But the remembrance of the Danish raven by no means became obsolete among the English nation. Whilst the raven-flag has almost been erased from the memory of the Danish people, the remembrance of it still exists freshly in the British islands; and both poets and artists who represent, however simply, the ancient combats of the Danes with the Anglo-Saxons, the Scotch, and the Irish, seldom neglect to make “the enchanted raven” wave in the Danish ranks.

On the often-mentioned Bayeux tapestry is also represented the fall of the English king, Harald Godvinsön, at the battle of Hastings. The king’s flag-bearer, or marksman, who, as well as the king, is on foot, bears a flag-staff, on which is fixed a figure, probably of cloth, cut in the resemblance of a dragon, which was the royal mark of the Anglo-Saxon king. Close before him lies a fallen knight, by whose side is seen a lance with the point downwards, and on which hangs a similar dragon.

This fallen knight is without doubt the king. From the form of his flag, or mark, we may conclude that the Danes’ raven-mark probably consisted at times of the figure of a raven fixed to a shaft, and cut out or sewed in a similar manner.

What colours were used for the raven-mark can now hardly be decided. The bird, or raven, on William the Conqueror’s war-flag appears to have been of a blue-black on a pale yellow, or light, ground. This colour in the tapestry may, perhaps, have been accidental; and the account of an English chronicler would lead us to suppose that the ground of the Danish flags, or marks, was, at least in time of peace, white. But the colours were certainly different at different times. There can be no doubt that the ground was often red; for, from the most ancient times, red was a very favourite colour in the north, especially in time of war. The old inhabitants of the north, when they came as friends, used to show a white shield, but when they appeared as enemies it was red; then “they raised the war-shield.” In Norway red seems to have been the national colour from an early period; and it was even ordered in Gulething’s laws, that every man who possessed six silver marks[6] should have a red shield. Something similar was probably the case in Denmark. An old legend preserved by the Scotch historians relates that, in a battle in Scotland about eight hundred years ago, the Danes wore red and white tunics. That red and white appear so prominently on the Danish national colours ever since the thirteenth century is certainly owing to an ancient predilection among the people for these colours. It is perhaps, therefore, most probable that the banners, or marks, of the ancient Danes were, in time of peace, of a light colour, but in war time of a blood colour, with a black raven on the red ground.

In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the raven, the Danebrog of heathenism, waved victoriously in the western lands. It was with Canute the Great at Ashingdon, with the Norman William at Hastings, and was thus present at two conquests of England. But the battle of Hastings was the last important battle that the raven won. Heathen Scandinavia had exhausted its strength by numerous and far-extended conquests. Christianity, and with it a new and a higher civilization, advanced with a power not to be checked even among the ancient followers of Odin. The raven, Odin’s mark, to which the heathen Danes had attached themselves with all the strength of religious faith, no longer inspired them as before when the warriors had lost the hope of the joys of Valhalla. If they now fought, it was mostly against heathens who would not bow before that cross on which Christ bled and suffered for the sins of mankind. In order to inspire the combatants, it was necessary that the banner which they followed should be an expression of the spirit which stirred among the people, of that living hope which animated them respecting the manner of their existence in another world. The raven, the symbol of heathenism, paled by degrees, as antiquated and meaningless, and at last quite gave place to the symbol of Christianity, the holy cross.

Footnote 6:

A mark was half a pound of silver.

The same representations on ancient coins and tapestry, which exhibit the raven, and the old flags, also show the sign of the cross. The flag on Olaf’s and Regnald’s coins (p. 53) has a figure in the middle resembling the cross. This is still more distinct on the Bayeux tapestry, where William’s chief banner is borne (p. 59), for immediately after the raven follows a flag with the cross. This last, moreover, certainly represents the identical consecrated banner with the figure of a cross, which the Pope sent to William on the occasion of his expedition against England.

The sign of the cross must by degrees have naturally superseded the raven, not only among the descendants of the Danes and Norwegians in England, but also, though perhaps somewhat later, in the north itself. If we may not assume that the present “Danebrog,” with its white cross on a red ground, became the Danish national flag immediately after the introduction of Christianity, it is at least certain that the Danish kings, in the first two centuries after that event, bore flags with crosses as their personal banners, or marks; and particularly in the twelfth century, when the crusades against the heathen Wends began. An old Saga, or legend, relates, that during one of the crusades of King Waldemar the Victorious in Livonia, in 1219, the “Danebrog” fell from heaven among the Danish army. This much, however, is certain—that it is not till after these crusades that the “Danebrog” appears as the established national flag of the Danes; and ever since that time, for more than six centuries, it has continued to wave unchanged in the Danish fleets and armies. It is remarkable that, as the flag of the fleet, and of all fortified places, and as the royal flag, it is split; and it can scarcely be doubted that this form must have originated from the fringes and tongues, or points, with which the old Danish and Scandinavian flags were ornamented in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Scandinavian people is the only one which from remote antiquity has uninterruptedly borne this split flag; and it is possible that Sweden, as well as Norway, obtained theirs, which is of comparatively late origin, by imitating the old Danebrog.

Other European countries also derived from the crusades flags with crosses as their national banners; as, for instance, England the St. George’s banner, which was white with a red cross; and Scotland a blue flag divided by a white St. Andrew’s cross. About the same time the different kingdoms began to adopt a fixed national coat of arms. Thus Denmark assumed that still in use,—three blue leopards, or lions, on a golden shield, strewed with red hearts; which was originally the family arms of the royal house. It has, however, undergone a few slight changes. With regard to this subject, it is remarkable that three leopards were also borne by the Norman dukes, who were of Norwegian descent, and who, after the conquest, introduced the leopards, or lions, into the arms of England. Generally the lion was not, nor is indeed at present, found on coats of arms in England and France, whereas it appears very frequently in those of the north. Sweden has, besides others, the Gothic lion; the Norwegian national coat of arms is a lion with a halberd; and Denmark has, besides the proper national arms, the Cymbric lion, and the two Sleswick lions. But the lion is so peculiarly Scandinavian that it does not even cross the Eider; Holstein, which is German, has an entirely different coat of arms—a nettle-leaf. There is also this similarity between the Danish and English lions, that they are represented standing, whilst those on the other national arms are depicted springing. Would it, therefore, be quite groundless to trace, even in the armorial bearings of England, one of the many proofs of the influence which the Northmen, and the Scandinavian elements, still continued to exert there at the time when the national arms were adopted, and when the foundations of an entirely new and superior social system had already been laid?

SECTION VII.

Danish-Norwegian Names of Places.

On the extremity of the tongue of land which borders on the north the entrance of the Humber, there formerly stood a castle called Ravnsöre (raven’s point—in old Scandinavian, Hrafnseyri), and afterwards Ravnsere. _Öre_ is, as is well known, the old Scandinavian name for the sandy point of a promontory. Ravn (or Raven) may possibly have been either the name of the man who first conquered the surrounding district and built the castle; or, what is certainly far more probable, the Northmen, on erecting this important castle on one of their first landing places on the greatest river in north England, named it after the bird sacred to Odin, which fluttered in their banner, and prognosticated to them victory in the fight. In that case it was a singular coincidence that Harald Haardraade’s son Olaf should, after the battle of Stamford Bridge, have embarked at Ravnsöre for the Orkneys and Norway with the feeble remnant of the Norwegian army. The very place which had before so often seen multitudes of Northmen, intoxicated with victory, land with Odin’s raven-flag, now beheld the flight-like departure of their successors, after they had combated in vain under that celebrated banner “Landöde” (the land-ravager), which had accompanied Harald Haardraade in his expeditions to the East, against the Saracens and other enemies of Christianity. It was one of the many proofs that “White Christ” was not yet for the Northmen, at least in battle, what Odin had been previously.

It is, however, at least certain that the name “Ravenspurn” (Ravnsöre) is derived from the Scandinavian conquerors. An Icelandic Saga, written a hundred and fifty years after the conquest of England by the Normans, or after the battle of Hastings (1066), says that “Northumberland was mostly colonized by Northmen; for after Lodbrog’s sons, who conquered the country, had again lost it, the Danes and Norwegians often harried it; and there are still many places to be found in the district that have names taken from the Scandinavian tongue, such as Grimsby, Hauksfliot, and numerous others.”

Old English chroniclers also state that many towns in England had new names given to them by the Northmen; for instance Streaneshalch came to be called Whitby, and Northweorthig was named in the Danish language “Deoraby.”

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.

It is not of course very easy to point out the meaning of every name of a place that has a Danish or Norwegian termination; the original form having been partly corrupted by later differences of pronunciation, and partly changed, by the ancient Scandinavians having often merely added a Scandinavian ending to the older names, or at most re-modelled them into forms that had a home-like sound to their ears. Still there are names enough of places whose signification is quite clear. To instance some derived from the situation or nature of the place: Eastby (_Dan._, Ostby; _Eng._, the eastern village), Westerby (_Eng._, the western village), Mickleby (_Dan._, Magleby; _Eng._, the large village), Somerby, Markby (_Eng._, the field village), Newby (_Dan._, Nyby; _Eng._, the new village), Upperby (_Dan._, Overby; _Eng._, the upper village), Netherby (the lower village), Langtoft (the long field), Kirkland (church-land), Stainsby (the stone village), Haidenby (_Dan._, Hedeby; _Eng._, the heath village), Raithby (_Dan._, Rödby, from _rydde_, to clear away), Dalby (village in the dale), Scawby and Scausby (village in the wood), Scow, Askwith (_Dan._, Askved, or Askeskov, _i.e._ Ashwood), Storwith (_Dan._, Storved, or Storskov; _Eng._, the large wood), Lund (Danish for _grove_), Risby (the beech village), Thornby (the thorn village), Birkby (_Dan._, Birk; _Eng._, the birch village), Ings (_Dan._, Enge; _Eng._ meadow), Brackenthwaite (Bregentved, from Brackens), Northorpe (_Dan._, Nörup; _Eng._, north village), Millthrop (_Dan._, Möldrup; _Eng._, mill-village), Staindrop (_Dan._, Stenderup; _Eng._, stone village), Linthorpe (_Dan._, Lindrup; _Eng._, lime-tree village), Stonegarth (_Dan._, Steengaard; _Eng._, stone farm), Dalegarth (_Dan._, Dalsgaard; _Eng._, valley farm), Fieldgarth (_Dan._, Fjeldgaard; _Eng._, rocky farm), with others. A village on the river Eden in Cumberland is called Longwathby (from a long ford, or wading place; _Danish_, at vade); and north and south of the Humber, at a spot where there is a ferry over the river (_Dan._, Færge), lie north and south Ferriby! Almost all these names, to which a great number of similar ones might be added, answer to names of places still in use in Denmark, only with this difference, that _thwaite_ has there passed into _tvede_, or _tved_, and _thorpe_ into _trup_, _drup_, or _rup_.

The following examples may be cited of Danish-Norwegian names of places in England, called after animals: Codale (Cowdale), Swinedale, Swinethorpe, Hestholm (_Eng._, Horse-holm), Calthorpe, and Hareby.

Names of places containing personal names are, however, beyond comparison far more numerous, and were probably taken from the first Scandinavian conquerors; as, for instance, Rollesby (Rolfsby), Ormsby (Gormsby), Ormskirk, Grimsdale, Grimsthorpe, Haconby, Gunnerby, Aslackby, Swainby, Swainsthorpe, Ingersby, Thirkelsby, Asserby, Johnby, Brandsby, Ingoldasthorpe, Osgodby, Thoresby, and several others.

Among this species of names of places are found such as Tursdale, Baldersby, Fraisthorpe, and Ullersthorpe. Now it is certainly probable that these were only derived from men named Thor, Balder, Freyer, and Uller, or Oller; yet we cannot avoid thinking of the old gods who bore these names, particularly as it was a common custom among the ancient Scandinavians to name towns and estates after them. In England also are found Asgardby, Aysgarth (or Asgaard, in Yorkshire), as well Wydale and Wigthorpe, or Wythorpe; which two names have undoubtedly the same origin as the old sacrificial and assize town Viborg, in Jutland (from Vébjörg, or the holy mountains); namely, from _vé_, a sacred place. Even the name of one of the most important sacrificial places in the Scandinavian north, is to be found in Yorkshire, in Upsal (from Upsalir, the high halls). The names of places in England which have preserved traces of the Danes after they had become Christians, may all the more assure us that we are not mistaken in regarding the names just mentioned as remarkable remains of the short period of their domination when heathens. The names of Bishopsthorpe (Bispetorp), Nunthorpe (Nonnetorp), Kirkby, Crosby, and Crossthwaite, sufficiently prove that Christian had succeeded to sacrificial priests, and that church and cross were now erected where heathen altars and temples had formerly stood.

The name of the village of Thingwall[7] in Cheshire affords a remarkable memorial of the assizes, or _Thing_, which the Northmen generally held in conjunction with their sacrifices to the gods; it lies, surrounded with several other villages with Scandinavian names, on the small tongue of land that projects between the mouths of the rivers Dee and Mersey. At that time they generally chose for the holding of the _thing_, or assizes, a place in some degree safe from surprise. The chief ancient _thing_ place for Iceland was called like this Thingwall, namely Thingvalla (originally “Þingvöllr,” “Þingvellir,” or the _thing-fields_).

Footnote 7:

Wall, _Dan._, Vold, a bank or rampart.

The before-mentioned names Bishopsthorpe and Nunthorpe apply to estates that belonged to the church; the following ones, viz., Coningsby, Coneysthorpe, Coneysby, Kingthorpe, and Kingsby, denote property belonging to the kings, or destined for their maintenance. Some towns are named after the trade or business of the original inhabitants as Smisby (Smithby) Weaverthorpe, and Copmanthorpe (Kjöbmandsthorpe, _i.e._, merchants-thorpe); others point to the descent of the inhabitants, such as Romanby, Saxby, Flemingsby, Frankby, Frisby and Fristhorpe (but this possibly came from “Freyr”), Scotby, Scotsthorpe, Ireby, Normanby, Danby or Denby, and Danesdale.

It also deserves to be mentioned that many of these names of places have by degrees become family ones, which are constantly heard in England; for instance, Thoresby, Ashby, Crosby (whence again Ashby and Crosby Streets in London), Thorpe, Sibthorpe, Willoughby, Scoresby, Derby, Selby, Wilberforce, &c.

In order, lastly, to convey an idea of the abundance of Scandinavian, or Danish-Norwegian, names of places, which occur in the midland and northern districts of England, a tabular view of those most frequently met with is here subjoined from the English maps. This list, which is principally drawn up for the use of those readers who have not a comprehensive map of England at hand, will, with all its deficiencies, clearly and incontestably prove the correctness of the historical accounts, which state that the new population of Danes and Norwegians that immigrated into England during the Danish expeditions, settled almost exclusively in the districts to the north and east of Watlinga-Stræt, and there chiefly to the west and north of the Wash. Norfolk, Northamptonshire, and Lancashire, have each only about fifty names of places of Scandinavian origin; Leicestershire has about ninety; Lincolnshire alone, nearly three hundred; Yorkshire above four hundred; Westmoreland and Cumberland each about one hundred and fifty. The colonization has clearly been greatest near the coasts, and along the rivers; it had its central point in Lincolnshire (the Northmen’s “Lindisey”), and in the ancient Northumberland, or land north of the river Humber. Yet it was not much extended in Durham and the present Northumberland, each of which contains only a little more than a score of Scandinavian names.

A TABULAR VIEW OF SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DANISH-NORWEGIAN NAMES OF PLACES IN ENGLAND.

(_Extracted and collected from “Walker’s Maps,” London, 1842._)

Part A