THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND.
 
 THE 
 
 LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND 
 
 AS IT ILLUSTRATES THE 
 
 DIALECT, PLACE NAMES, FOLK LORE, & ANTIQUITIES 
 
 OF CUMBERLAND, WESTMORLAND, AND 
 
 NORTH LANCASHIRE. 
 
 BY REV. T. ELLWOOD, M.A, 
 
 RECTOR OF TORVER. 
 
 KENDAL: 
 T. WILSON, PRINTER, 28, HIGHGATE. 
 
 1894.
 
 TT 
 
 WORKS AND AUTHORS REFERRED TO. 
 
 First I have tried to trace out the very close connexion between 
 the early Norse settlers in the North of Britain and Iceland, their 
 Language, Place Names, and Folklore, from a careful reading and 
 rendering of the Landnama itself, and on this I have based the 
 Introduction. 
 
 I have also obtained much help in Words and Early History from 
 the Icelandic English Dictionary of Cleasby and Vigfusson ; also 
 Sturlunga Saga (two vols.), Corpus Poeticum Boreale (2 vols.), all 
 from Clarendon Press ; also Saga Library, in several vols. (Morris 
 and Magnusson) ; Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland (Fer- 
 guson). 
 
 "A Bran Naw Wark," published at Kendal, in 1785, with a second 
 title " A Plain Address written in the provincial dialect of the Barony 
 of Kendal," by Rev. W. Hutton, Rector of Beetham from 1762 until 
 1811, I have found useful in looking out some of the older words and 
 phrases of the Old Westmorland Dialect. This work was edited by 
 the Rev. Professor Skeat, and published by English Dialect Society 
 in 1879. It contains a Glossary with about 320 dialect words, and 
 this as far I know is the only printed Glossary of the Westmorland 
 Dialect as distinct from those of Cumberland and North Lancashire. 
 
 To Professor Skeat, who presented me with this volume some 
 years ago, I here make my grateful acknowledgments. 
 
 I have also referred to the kind help received from Mr. Magnusson 
 in the passages where I have quoted that help, and I here acknow- 
 ledge the most cordial manner in which that help has been given.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 i. INTRODUCTION ..... i. 
 
 2. THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND AS IT ILLUS- 
 TRATES THE DIALECT, PLACE NAMES, FOLK 
 LORE, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CUMBERLAND, 
 \YESTMORLAND, AND NORTH LANCASHIRE . i 
 
 3. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE LANDNAMA BOOK . 30 
 4. THE FOLK LORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND . 36 
 
 5. GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES 
 CLOSELY ALLIED OR IDENTICAL IN LAKELAND 
 AND ICELAND . . . . -57 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS' NAMES . . . .67
 
 Introduction Including a Description of the Physical Charac- 
 teristics of Iceland and a brief sketch of its first Settlement 
 by the Norsemen. 
 
 TN the year 1869, and for one or two years following, 
 Dr. Kitchin, now Dean of Winchester, took up his 
 abode at Brantwood, near to this parish and on the oppo- 
 site margin of the Lake of Coniston, and while there he 
 had in hand as delegate of the Clarendon Press, Oxford, the 
 proofs of Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic Dictionary, 
 which was then passing through the press. 
 
 Knowing that I was a Cumbrian, he kindly asked me to 
 look over these proofs and see whether I could suggest 
 affinities to our Cumberland, Westmorland, and Furness 
 Dialect. I was able to point out a number of words which 
 were identical or nearly so in the Icelandic and the dialect 
 of Cumberland and this portion of Lakeland, but as a 
 considerable portion of the work had passed through the 
 press it was too late for many of the dialect words I have 
 noted to appear in the work. In looking over the proofs, 
 however, and reading the exhaustive introduction to the 
 joint labours of Cleasby and Vigfusson, those long and 
 self-sacrificing labours in which Cleasby spent and finished 
 his life, light seemed to be thrown upon our northern 
 language and customs, which placed them in a point of 
 view very different from anything I had ever thought of 
 before. 
 
 The language of the Northmen had at the time of the 
 Settlement, been carried to Iceland, and there, isolated 
 and remote from the contact of other languages, it had in 
 a great measure preserved its primitive grammar and 
 vocabulary, so that the Icelandic Classics of a thousand 
 years ago, could with little difficulty be read by the Ice- 
 landic
 
 11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 landic peasant of the present day. It occupied, moreover, 
 much the same relationship to the Danish and the other 
 Norse tongues, that Latin does to the Romance language 
 of Europe and hence its vocabulary was the best means 
 of acquiring a radical knowledge of them. 
 
 It occured to me that the task of collecting such words 
 of the dialect of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Furness 
 as seemed to have identity or close affinity in form and 
 usage with the Icelandic would be the best means of 
 tracing out the origin of this dialect, and hence in some 
 measure the origin of those by whom this dialect was 
 spoken, and as we have here words and usages almost as 
 primitive as they have in Iceland, we could, I thought, 
 trace the language a great way towards its primitive or 
 parent stock. 
 
 It occured to me also that as many of the old customs 
 and superstitions in Lakeland are fast dying out, just as 
 the old Norse words that represent them have become or 
 are rapidly becoming obsolete, it must be now or never 
 with me in commencing the undertaking, if I wished per- 
 manently to note down the customs and vocables of the 
 people amongst whom the whole of my life has been spent. 
 
 I have worked at intervals at the task of collecting 
 these words for a period of now nearly 25 years, and 
 though I have doubtless in some instances done over 
 again what others have done much better before me, yet 
 in other instances I imagine I have unearthed and identi- 
 fied words and customs of the Northmen yet to be found 
 amongst our dalesmen of which not any notice had been 
 taken before. 
 
 Dr. A. J. Ellis, :;: in his exhaustive work upon the Dia- 
 lects of Britain, has shown that there are several varieties 
 
 * In his fifth volume of " Existing Dialects, as compared with early English 
 Pronunciation," Dr. Ellis gives fifteen varieties of the Cumberland Dialect, ten of 
 the Westmorland, and seven of the dialects of Furness and Cartmel. These per- 
 haps can hardly with strictness be called varieties. There are, however, differences 
 in every case, though mostly only phonetic. 
 
 of
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ill 
 
 of dialect in the district of which I am treating, which 
 includes the whole of Cumberland, Westmorland, High 
 and Low Furness and Cartmel, and is thus in some 
 measure conterminous with the Carlisle Diocese. 
 
 But the varieties of which he treats are purely phonetic 
 in their character, and do not include any radical or deri- 
 vative differences, and if you find one undoubted Norse word 
 in the dialect of any portion of that area of which I have 
 spoken the chances are that it has survived in every other 
 rural portion of that district provided that portion has an 
 " oldest inhabitant " with years long enough and memory 
 keen enough to retain the customs and vocables of sixty 
 or seventy years ago. I refer to Dr. Ellis in this con- 
 nexion with great pleasure. I corresponded with him on 
 the subject of the Cumberland and Furness dialect from 
 1872 close up to the time of his death ; at times, for 
 weeks, numerous and voluminous letters passed between 
 us on the subject: we were making up word lists however 
 upon very different lines and from very different stand 
 points, for he took the dialect in a purely phonetic while 
 I took it so far as I could in a purely derivative aspect, 
 but throughout this correspondence Dr. Ellis was always 
 most willing to communicate anything I required from his 
 extensive and unrivalled word lists and researches, and 
 the last communication I received from him was a present 
 of the concluding volume of his immense work upon the 
 Dialects, and shortly afterwards, having completed in 
 these volumes what may well be regarded as his life work, 
 when his task was over he fell asleep. 
 
 It seems in many instances to be the opinion of philolo- 
 gists who have treated upon our dialect, as derived from 
 the Norsemen, that as they were plunderers, so all our 
 names and habits of plundering must in a great measure 
 be referred to them. A careful study however of the 
 Norse words in these dialects has led me to a very dif- 
 ferent conclusion. The remarkable thing about those 
 
 words
 
 IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 words is that they evince the peaceful disposition of those 
 Norsemen who first settled here and left their customs 
 and language. The great bulk of the words are field * 
 names and farm names, the terms applied to husbandry 
 operations, and names applied in the keeping and rearing 
 of sheep and cattle or used in their cure and management, 
 words applied to butter making, cheese making, knitting, 
 and all the domestic duties and concerns of everyday life. 
 
 Another consideration that adds interest to this study is 
 that the words correspond in the two languages not only 
 in their original idea and meaning, but in most of the 
 secondary and consequent meanings that are derived from 
 them and show that we have in Lakeland retained not 
 only many of the original vocables, but also the habits, 
 the customs and the superstitions, the folklore and the 
 modes of life which are common to the nations of the 
 northern stock. In pursuing this study it has been of 
 immense service to me that I have never lived outside the 
 district in which these Norse words, habits, and fashions 
 are still retained, and that I have lived generally in the 
 most rural, isolated and consequently unchanged portions 
 of it, that my inquiries, my word lists, and my everyday 
 life have been formed amongst a people where the earliest 
 words and customs are still retained if they are retained 
 anywhere, and that I have had leisure to read through, 
 more than once, for the purposes of comparison with the 
 dialect, the whole of the stupendous work of Cleasby and 
 Vigfusson, taking it throughout page by page and word by 
 word. 
 
 Whoever has read the life of Cleasby and the account 
 which it gives of his efforts to obtain a full knowledge of 
 all that was concerned in the elucidation of the early 
 language of the Norsemen, must remember how perti- 
 naceously he went time after time to Upsala to consult 
 
 *See Glossary of Norse Fell, Field and Farm names at the end of this volume. 
 
 and
 
 INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 and collate the Moeso-Gothic Bible of Ulphilas, of which 
 the most valuable copy (the Argentine) is contained in the 
 University Library of that place. There is a very close 
 correspondence between this and the Icelandic. I have 
 found also remarkable affinities between our northern dia- 
 lects and this, the only remnant of the Language and 
 Literature of the Moeso-Goths. Who was Ulphilas? He 
 was a Bishop of the Moeso-Goths, and lived between A.D. 
 311 and 381. His version of the Bible, which was made 
 about A.D. 370, is also valuable as a critical evidence to 
 the New Testament. By it he contrived both to fix the 
 Gothic language and to. perpetuate Christianity amongst 
 the Gothic people. 
 
 All that now remain of this version are fragments of the 
 Four Gospels about forty verses of Epistle to Romans, 
 also portions of the other Epistles of St. Paul, and very 
 small and fragmentary portions of certain books of the 
 Old Testament. The term Moeso in Moeso-Gothic is 
 taken to denote the language of the Visigoths who at 
 one time dwelt in Moesia. The Visigoths are the West 
 Goths as distinguished from the Ostrogoths or East Goths. 
 
 Some of the older words in our Northern Dialect seem 
 to be identical both in sound and meaning with the words 
 found in the existing fragments of Ulphilas. I have care- 
 fully collated what remains of Ulphilas with the words to 
 be found in our dialect, and I think I shall be able to 
 subjoin evidence that we have words in everyday use in 
 Cumberland and here in High Furness, identical both in 
 form and meaning with the words used by Ulphilas in his 
 translation fifteen hundred years ago.* 
 
 * In John X., i verse,, Card is used of the sheep fold, a place enclosed for 
 their protection. In Cumberland we have Cards of the enclosed fields; it is also 
 used of land near Coniston. The Icelandic form of the word is Carth, which we 
 have very commonly of the enclosed field near a house. In place-names in this 
 form it occurs most abundantly in Lakeland. In the same chapter of St. John, 
 the Shepherd is called Hairdeis (from Hairda, a herd or flock), and the keeper 
 of sheep and cattle upon the Cumberland marshes is still always called The 
 Hurd. The moudiwarp is a Cumberland and Furness name for the mole and in 
 
 And
 
 VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And this is the more remarkable, as Ulphilas had to 
 reduce in some measure a spoken to a written language, 
 and had himself to frame the characters by which he 
 represented the words. 
 
 These fragments of the Moeso-Gothic have a remark- 
 able resemblance to early English, but the resemblance, 
 as will be seen in the passages I have given, is most 
 especially marked in those early English words that still 
 linger on in our Northern Dialects, and it is in these 
 words that we can trace out how clearly the Moeso-Gothic 
 and our own dialect are both allied to the Norse. 
 
 The Moeso-Gothic and the Icelandic have each as it 
 were stereotyped a language and preserved its original 
 grammar and vocabulary including its inflections which 
 are so very different from anything that is used in modern 
 language. 
 
 In Moeso-Gothic there is preserved in a Bible Transla- 
 tion the language of 1500 years ago, and in the Icelandic 
 is preserved if not the same language as the Moeso- 
 Gothic at anyrate a twin brother of that language cor- 
 responding most evidently in words, in inflexion and in 
 origin, stereotyped and perpetuated through a long line of 
 legends, sagas, and other historical records for more than 
 a thousand vears. 
 
 the Moeso Gothic Bible Molda is earth and Wairpan to cast up, and surely there 
 could be no more appropriate name for the mole than "the caster up of earth or 
 mould." 
 
 In Furness a farmer is said to smit or smear his sheep, and his peculiar smeared 
 mark is called his smit we have the same word smeitan in Ulphilas for smear or 
 anoint. There is a remarkable correspondence in Ulphilas between the Icelandic 
 and our northern dialect in the custom of reckoning- years as winters. In three 
 instances in the Bible of Ulphilas years are called winters. At Luke II., 42, 
 Matthew IX., 20, and at Luke VIII., 42, namely in giving the age of Christ 
 Himself, in describing how long the woman had the issue of blood, and in giving 
 the age of the daughter of Jairus. In the Landnama years are also frequently 
 called winters, notably in that passage which describes the first landing of Ingolf 
 in Iceland as 6073 winters from the creation of the world. Vigfusson says that 
 at present in Iceland peoples' ages are reckoned by winters instead of years. In 
 tbis part of Lakeland a sheep of two years old is called a twinter, that is, two 
 winters, and a sheep of three years old is called a trinter, that is, three winters, 
 and Mr. Magnusson informs me that they have precisely the same terms for the 
 age of sheep in Iceland. 
 
 And
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 And this language and its literature is the channel I 
 think almost the only channel through which have flowed 
 to us interesting old time records not of Iceland alone 
 but of all that concerned the early history, environments, 
 and settlements of the whole of the northern race. 
 
 This is notably the case in the Heimskringla :|: or History 
 of the Early Kings of Norway. It has an introduction 
 containing a history of about thirty generations, of what 
 are called Ynglings, who are the progenitors of the early 
 Kings of Norway, and these Ynglings it derives from the 
 race of Woden and the Gods. No doubt a good deal of 
 the early portion of this history is mythical and legendary 
 yet not more mythical and legendary than other his-' 
 tories which profess to derive the early origin of Nations, 
 and which, however authentic they may be for later times, 
 generally set out from a region of fable and myth. In its 
 later history the Heimskringla is always referred to as an 
 authority, and its records are granted as the truth. And 
 as the Icelanders have thus carefully preserved a record 
 of external history, so they have been equally careful in 
 the preservation of the history of their own island. 
 
 The very earliest record of the Settlement, and History 
 of Iceland, is contained in the Landnama Book. 
 
 This book, at once the Domesday and Golden Book of 
 Iceland, is worthy to be ranked with the Bible of Ulphilas ; 
 the Saxon Chronicle, and the Norman Survey, amongst 
 foremost monuments of the history of our race. Opening 
 with a brief sketch of the Settlement, it proceeds to give 
 a notice of each settler (some 400 in all), his pedigree and 
 descendants, and his claim in geographical order, begin- 
 ning with the south firths and going completely round the 
 island from west to east. This plan is rilled in with a 
 great mass of interesting detail, short accounts of famous 
 
 * Heims Kring'a = compass of the world, and these are the two first words of the 
 Introduction. 
 
 men
 
 Vlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 men and women, notices of old customs, laws, rites, and 
 nomenclature, verses and sayings, references to events 
 which took place abroad in England, Ireland, Scotland, 
 and the Eastern Scandinavian countries. 
 
 Arngrim who wrote in 1594, says of the early settlers, 
 that their names are recorded in those annals, together 
 with those of their numerous descendants, and also their 
 relations and their friends ; we are told therein what 
 coasts or inland territories they each of them settled and 
 occupied, and in what manner, and for what reason, the 
 first settlers gave names to the homesteads, nesses, hill- 
 ocks, brooks, rivers, dales, firths, creeks, mountains, and 
 islands, and how those early names are often retained, 
 and in use even to the present day. And this science of 
 the derivation of its early place-names, gives a peculiar 
 value to the Landnama Book in a comparison with our 
 own country, for by the explanation thus given, the mean- 
 ing and original application of existing place-names in 
 Iceland becomes very interesting, and throws a great 
 light upon our own local place-names, many of which 
 have evidently been given in the same language and by 
 the same race. 
 
 There is hardly anything more striking in the history 
 of the nations and languages of Europe, than that a 
 people numbering at various epochs of its history not 
 more than from 70,000 to 100,000 in all, should preserve 
 for over 1,000 years, its language intact, its literature, 
 rich, independent, and increasing in all its branches and 
 its mythology certainly much the most perfect of any of 
 those that take Asgard for the abode of their divinities 
 and trace their origin to Woden and Thor. 
 
 The history of the preservation of this language in its 
 ancient form is remarkable. 
 
 The Icelandic language, called also the Norse and the 
 Danish, was spoken by the four great branches of the 
 Scandinavian race who people the countries bounding the 
 
 waters
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 waters of the Baltic the Northmen the Swedes the 
 Danes, and the Goths.* 
 
 At the beginning of the ninth century the growing 
 population of these countries, together with political 
 changes and the naturally enterprising character of the 
 people, caused a great outward movement of the race. 
 Under the guidance of their chieftains they set forth to 
 seek for new homes in other lands, and thus the ninth 
 century came to be known as the age of the Vikings. Two 
 main currents of emigration by sea may be traced. First, 
 the Danish, which directed its course to the north-east of 
 England, and at length occupied that district so com- 
 pletely that it received the name of Dana-lagu. 
 
 The second migration was Norse. These settlers 
 gradually peopled the coasts of Ireland, the Isle of Man, 
 the shores of Morecambe Bay, and the western seaboard 
 of Cumberland, the Orkneys and Shetland and the 
 northern counties of Scotland, Ross, Moray, and especi- 
 ally Caithness. In the year 852 A.D., the Norse sea king 
 Olave the White reached Ireland with a large fleet, and 
 founded a Norse principality at Dublin. The foremost 
 man amongst the Norsemen in Scotland and most closely, 
 as we learn from the Landnama Book, concerned in its 
 conquest was Sigard, the intimate friend of Thorsteinn, 
 the son of King Olave the White. 
 
 Iceland seems to have formed the final and abiding 
 limit of this stream of Norsemen. It had first been dis- 
 covered by Naddod,t a Viking. He discovered no trace of 
 population or any evidence of settlement. A deep snow 
 fell upon the mountains while he remained there, so he 
 called the country Snaeland or Snowland, which may 
 remind us of Snaefell or Snowfell the name of the most 
 
 *The relationship of the Moeso-Gothic to the Icelandic and to our own dialect 
 will thus be easy traced, 
 f Landnama, p. 26. 
 
 prominent
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 prominent mountain in the Isle of Man. The next dis- 
 coverer as we have it in the Landnama Book was Gardar.* 
 He sailed round it and so evidenced it to be an island. 
 He spent one winter in the north, in Husavik or house- 
 creek, evidently so called because he reared his temporary 
 house there. He gave his name to the island and from 
 him it was known as Gardarsholm. Thirdly, as we are 
 told in the Landnama, it was visited by a noted Viking 
 named Floki.t There is a curious sketch of his taking 
 
 * Landnama, p. 27. 
 
 f Landnama, p. 28. 
 
 The following description of the physical features of the island of 
 Iceland will give an idea of the hardships encountered by the early 
 discoverers and the original settlers : 
 
 Iceland is an island in the most northern part of the Atlantic on 
 the confines of the Arctic Ocean; in north latitude 63 23' to 66 33' 
 and west longitude 13 22' to 24 35', distance about 600 miles from 
 Norway, 250 from Greenland, 250 miles from the Faroe Islands, 
 and about 500 miles from the north of Scotland. It belongs to the 
 kingdom of Denmark. Its extent is about 39,207 square miles. Its 
 extreme length from east to west is upwards of 300 miles, and its 
 greatest breadth from north to south about 200 miles. Its coasts 
 particularly on the north and west are very much broken by bays 
 or fjords. It consists in part of lofty mountains, many of which are 
 active volcanoes ; only certain level districts along the coast, and a 
 few dales, are habitable or in any degree capable of cultivation, 
 whilst even there scarcely a tree is to be seen. The interior of the 
 island is almost entirely occupied by rugged traces of naked lava, 
 and other volcanic products, vast icefields in many places connecting 
 the high mountain summits, among which are prodigious glaciers in 
 some instances descending even to the coasts, they and the torrents 
 which gush from them, rendering communication between one in- 
 habited spot and another, very difficult and dangerons. The highest 
 mountain in the island is Ocrafa Jokul, which attains a height of 
 6,426 feet above the level. of the sea. It is situated in the south east 
 and is connected with a vast mountain mass, of which several of the 
 summits are active volcanoes, no less than 3,000 square miles being 
 perfectly covered with ice and snow at an elevation verging from 
 3,000 to 6,000 feet, whilst all underneath seems to be full of either 
 active or smouldering volcanic fire, The most celebrated volcano is 
 
 three
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 three ravens with him that he might be directed by them 
 in his approach in the Island. The first let loose flew 
 around the mast, the second flew up into the air and so 
 to and from the ship, the third flew from him without 
 returning, and in following it he discovered the land. 
 
 He went up into a high mountain, and looking to the 
 north over the fell he saw the Frith all filled with drift 
 ice, and from this he called the country Iceland, which 
 name it has ever since retained. Another word used by 
 this northern Viking in his description of Iceland, as we 
 have it in the Landnama, is of interest in connexion with 
 our own dialect. He speaks of their temporary dwelling 
 as Skalatoft, that is a shed used as a toft or dwelling. It 
 will be seen from what I have said about those words 
 elsewhere that we still retain them in the dialect in 
 almost exactly their original meaning and form. 
 
 None of these, however, made more than a very tran- 
 scient stay in the Island, the longest period hardly seems 
 to have extended over a year. 
 
 Heckla. Krafla is perhaps the most noted of a great group of active 
 volcanoes in the north of the island. The eruptions of Heckla have 
 caused terrible destruction, while more terrible still have been those 
 of Oerafa Jokul and others of the same volcanic mass. In repeated 
 instances volcanic islets have been thrown up in the bays and near 
 the coast of Iceland, which have generally disappeared again within 
 a short time. Connected with the volcanic fires, are hot springs in 
 great numbers, some of which flow gently, and others, called Geysirs, 
 gush up at intervals and with ebullitions of great violence numerous 
 hot springs may in many places be seen sending up their steam in a 
 single valley. The water of some is merely luke warm, whilst lhat 
 of others is boiling ; some are pure and some are sulphureous. They 
 are subject to great variations, and appear and dry up very 
 suddenly. 
 
 Earthquakes are frequent and the island suffered very severely from 
 this cause in 1755 and in 1783. In the southern parts of Iceland the 
 longest day lasts 20 hours and the shortest 4 hours. In the northern 
 districts in summer the sun never sets for a whole week, and in win- 
 ter never rises above the horizon for an equally long period of time. 
 
 The
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The first settler was Ingolf the son of Orn, and his 
 foster-brother Leif,"' ;: who set sail about 870, and reached 
 Iceland ; they soon, however, passed on to Ireland, 
 whence after a few years they returned to Iceland, taking 
 with them a few Irish slaves. The date of this settlement 
 seems to have been finally fixed as 874 A.D. 
 
 Leif had his name changed to Hjorleif on account of 
 one of his exploits in Ireland, and in the description of his 
 settlement in Iceland we have the use of two of what may 
 be called test words of the identity between Icelandic and 
 the dialect in the words he used for naming the house he 
 built. It is said of him : " Leif let |?ar gjora skala tva, 
 ok er onnur to/tin xviii faiSma, en onnur xix," which 
 means being translated: "Leif caused them to make 
 two scales or places of shelter, and one toft or dwelling 
 was 18 fathoms and the other 19 in length." The defini- 
 tion of the skala, as given elsewhere, being that it was a 
 square piece of ground with walls but without roof. 
 
 Leift was drawn into an ambush and murdered by the 
 colonists he had brought with him from Ireland, and then 
 Ingolf remained, and so is regarded as the first settler in 
 the Island. 
 
 About the same time Harald the Fairhaired had seized 
 the throne of Norway, and by the establishment of 
 despotic power had become unbearable to the 'high- 
 spirited and independent chiefs, and therefore the Island, 
 bleak and barren though it was, offered a welcome home 
 to men who had hitherto lived in equal and undisputed 
 rights. In the account of Harald the Fairhaired, as given 
 in the Heimskringla or History of the Early Kings of 
 Norway, by Snorri, it is said that a maiden called Gyda 
 would consent to be his wife only on condition that he 
 would subdue to himself the whole kingdom of Norway 
 
 * Landnatna, p. 35. 
 f Landnama, p. 35. 
 
 and
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 and all its tribute and all rule over it. He accepted those 
 conditions and made a solemn oath to the Gods that he 
 would not cut his hair nor comb it until he had fulfilled 
 his vow. 
 
 This process of subjugation went on for the next ten 
 years, and had the effect of subduing many of the Nor- 
 wegian chieftains, and of driving them with their scattered 
 forces to Iceland. 
 
 Chapter xxiii. of his history, as given in the Heims- 
 Kringla, describes the final accomplishment of his vow, 
 and records that then his hair was combed and sheared 
 for the first time of ten years after he had made his vow. 
 While unkempt he had been called Shock Head, but now 
 Ea_rl Rognavoldjhaving combed and sheared him called 
 him Harald Fairhaired, as all said he had most abundant 
 and comely hair. 
 
 In connexion with this ten years war, the defeat at 
 Hafursfirth seems to have been the most terrible discom- 
 fiture which Harald inflicted upon the recalcitrant 
 Norwegian chieftains, and often, in the Landnama, it is 
 said at the commencement of a settler's history that he 
 came to Iceland from the defeat at Hafursfirth, having 
 fled to Iceland doubtless because he was afraid to take 
 refuge anywhere else. 
 
 Again, after the Norsemen in the British Isles had 
 become unsettled by the death of King Thorsteinn the son 
 of King Olave the White, in the year 874 A.D., they seem 
 from that time to have begun to migrate to Iceland. The 
 Landnama especially dwells upon the emigration of 
 Queen Aud the widow of King Olave, who upon the death 
 of her son, who was slain in battle, set forth for Iceland 
 with almost all her kinsfolk and friends. 
 
 The number of those who sailed from the British 
 Islands is probably about the same as that of those who 
 had gone there from Norway. They carried with them 
 their families, and such cultivation as they possessed. 
 
 They
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 They spoke that form of the Scandinavian tongue which 
 prevailed upon the western coast of Norway, whence they 
 had originally come, and as time went on, while the new 
 dialects formed themselves throughout Scandinavia, in 
 Iceland the old tongue rose to the dignity of a literary 
 language and thereby retained its old form. It has thus 
 been preserved to our days. 
 
 The first settlers formed an independent aristocracy or 
 republic which continued for nearly four hundred years. 
 Up to the end of the tenth century, they held the heathen 
 faith and practised the rites of heathen worship. Chris- 
 tianity was accepted as the faith of the island in the year 
 1000 A.D. In this respect, however, there must be a 
 distinction made between the Norsemen who came directly 
 from Norway or the east, and those Norsemen who having 
 first settled in the British Islands are said to have come 
 to Iceland from there or the west, or the western islands, 
 by sea. It would seem from the following passage which 
 I translate from page 321, that those last brought Chris- 
 tanity to Iceland with them but when they died there was 
 a relapse to the old heathen faith. The passage is as 
 follows :; ' : " So have wise men said that some of the 
 settlers who come from the west by sea (er komu vestan 
 um haf) and colonized Iceland had been baptized, these 
 were named Helgi the Lean, and Orlygi and Helgi, and 
 Jorundr the Christian, and Aud the Deep-eyed, and Ketil- 
 Flatnose, and more men who came from the west by 
 sea. Some of these retained Christanity to the day of 
 their death, but that became extinguished in the course of 
 generations so that some of their sons raised a heathen 
 temple and sacrificed, and the land was altogether heathen 
 for nearly one hundred otherwise one hundred and twenty 
 winters." 
 
 I shall elsewhere give evidence that Queen Aud con- 
 
 * Landnama pp. 321 and 322. 
 
 linued
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 tinued a Christian to the time of her death, yet the crosses 
 that she had ordered to be reared at the place of her first 
 settlement eventually became to her descendants objects 
 of idolatrous veneration and worship. The place is called 
 Kross holar on that account, and there are in the nomen- 
 clature of the island many other names with Kross prefixed 
 to them which probably originated in the same way.* 
 
 The emigration by which the Norsemen sought Iceland 
 from Britain seems to have been a gradual process of 
 passing from island to island. They settled for a time, 
 colonized and sonetimes intermarried with the former 
 settlers and then proceeded to go further north. The 
 history of Queen Aud as given in the Landnama will give 
 an illustration of what I mean, and it is probable from the 
 distinguished position which she occupied amongst her 
 countrymen, that she was the leader of a great many of 
 them to Iceland and that they went by the same slow and 
 gradual process by which she herself had gone. Upon 
 the death of her husband she went to what, in the Land- 
 nama, are called the Sudreyjart or Southern Islands, or 
 Hebrides. There Thorsteinn her son married and there 
 they seem to have staid for a considerable time. 
 
 In, Scotland her son joined Sigurd in his conquest and 
 they conquered more than half of Scotland, and over this 
 Thorsteinn was made king. Like his father, however, he 
 was slain in battle and Aud who had settled in Scotland 
 
 * Kross, Kross-a or Kross stream, Kross-dalr, Kross-ass, Kross-nes, Krossa-vik, 
 Kross-vikingar, Kross-holt, Kross-holar, Kross-sund, and Krysi-vik in southern 
 Iceland, probably from a harbour cross being erected. In this (the Carlisle) 
 diocese there are at least seven parishes with names commencing in this way with 
 cross, as Crosby-on-Eden, Crosby Garrett, Crosby Ravensworth, Cross Canonby, 
 Crosscrake, Crosthwaite, Kendal, and Crosthwaite, Keswick. In Cumberland 
 and Westmorland the Icelandic form Cross is used as distinguished from Krysi 
 (cruci), the Anglo-Saxon form and by thwaite and crake forming the other por- 
 tion of those words are undoubtedly Norse. 
 
 f We retain this word in the title of a Bishopric Sodor and Man Sodor being 
 Sudrey, or South Islands, or Hebrides which together with Man formed a Norse 
 Bishopric with a metropolitan at Nidaros, this Bishopric continued until the four- 
 teenth century. 
 
 while
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 while her son was in power there, upon his death set out 
 for the Orkney Islands where another of her descendants 
 was given by her in marriage and where she seems for 
 sometime to have continued in settlement. She then set 
 off for Iceland carrying with her most of her relations and 
 dependents, the knowledge of agriculture, and Christanity 
 as her religious creed. 
 
 She held, however, first to the Faroe or sheep islands, 
 about half way between Great Britain and Iceland, and 
 she staid long enough apparently to found a colony, and 
 she gave in marriage Alofa, the daughter of her son 
 Thorsteinn the Red. She then went on to Iceland and 
 settled Broadfirth in the best portion of the new country. 
 
 And there she exercised a mighty influence over the 
 future history of Iceland. From her and her connections 
 seem to have descended all that was great, noble, or 
 learned in its history, and she secerns to have sent on to 
 many a generation the telling example of a virtuous and 
 a devoted life. 
 
 In connection with the history of Queen Aud, her rela- 
 tions, and her numerous descendants as found in the 
 Landnama may be noted the use of some of the most 
 characteristic words and institutions that are common to 
 the north English and Icelandic stock. 
 
 She settled the Dale lands about the year 892, and 
 apparently gave land and liberty to all the slaves she had 
 brought with her, for there is a detailed account of their 
 settlement as wejl. 
 
 The crosses she reared on her first arrival resulted 
 afterwards in cross worship. 
 
 Her Arval Banquet, an account of which I have given 
 elsewhere, is the most remarkable instance of the kind 
 mentioned in the Landnama and abounds in words cog- 
 nate forms of which in our Dialect have survived almost 
 to the present in connection with such occasions. The 
 How or Burial Mound erected near to where she was 
 
 interred
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV11 
 
 interred* seems by its name and institution to mark a close 
 connection with something similar in the various countries 
 where she had resided and which she had assisted in 
 settling as she went on in her journey to the north. 
 
 The Howt or burial mound was looked upon as a great 
 mark of distinction and there is a verb derived from this 
 noun How or Haugr having a like meaning as applied to 
 describe the burial of the father and son of Thoralf at 
 page 92 of the Landnama. The How or burial mound of 
 the Norse Chieftains was considered by their descendants 
 as a sort of entrance to Valhalla or the world of the 
 departed, and as such they came there that they might 
 die into it, that is as has been explained elsewhere, that 
 they might reside within it after their death. 
 
 * Queen Aud's directions about her burial in the space between high and low 
 watermark do not seem to have been carried out in their literal acceptation. 
 
 f The How is a note of honourable burial and marks perhaps as well as any 
 place-name our close connection with the Norse. In the north of England How 
 originally meant a grave mound, and Miss Powley in a " Plea for Old Names," 
 says that How- is still in use for grave mound in Cumberland and Westmorland. 
 In his " Forty Years in a Moorland Parish," Atkinson gives many instances of 
 Hows having been exhumed in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and bones having 
 been found in them. At a place in Torver parish called Bull How Moss, cairns 
 have been examined and human remains found underneath. 
 
 Edmoston says that Howie still means a tumulus-mound or knoll in the Shetland 
 and Orkney Islands. Tne Hill of Howth, near Dublin, maybe quoted as marking 
 the vicinity of one of the early stations of the Norsemen. As a place name in Cum- 
 berland and Westmorland the word How is applied to a mound or knoll, many 
 instances of which are given in the Glossary at the end of this volume. In some 
 cases actual examination has shown them to be graves, presumably of Norsemen.
 
 The Landnama Book of Iceland, as it Illustrates the Dialect, 
 Place Names, Folklore, and Antiquities of Cumberland, 
 Westmorland, and North Lancashire. 
 
 By the Rev. T. Ellwood, M.A., Rector of Torver, Coniston. 
 With Notes and Additions by Eirikr Magnusson, M.A. 
 
 rriHE title of the "Landnama Book," like many other 
 names when closely considered, contains within itself 
 an epitome of its own meaning. With regard to the first 
 portion of it, the word " Land " means land in Iceland as 
 in England, and " nam," n., in gen. pi., "nama," from 
 the strong verb nema, to take, means a taking possession 
 of, or settlement ; hence the " Landnama Bok " is the 
 book describing the taking possession of or settlement of 
 land in Iceland by those heads of families of Norsemen 
 who colonised the island.* As I shall show presently, by 
 an extract, the first date of this settlement is in A.D. 87/1, 
 when Ingolf, four years after he discovered Iceland, made 
 his home at Ern's-knoll (Arnarb.611) on the eastern side of 
 the small bay of Reykjavik, round which is clustered the 
 present capital of Iceland. And as this process of settle- 
 ment was going on, at any rate for the next sixty years, t 
 you will see that it synchronises well with the period 
 when those same Norsemen first began to make their 
 settlements upon the British and more especially upon our 
 northern coasts ; and I think it well in the outset to lay 
 some stress upon this very close connection between the 
 
 * " Landnam," and "nema land," are namely, acts of purely private character, 
 no idea of State interest or public policy being implied. E.M. 
 
 t "Sixty years." Ari the Learned, in Islendingabok, ch. 3, says: "Sva, 
 hafa oc spakir menn sagt, at a Ix vetra yrdi Island albyggt, sva at eigi vaen 
 meirr sidan " : So have also wise men said that in Ix. winters was Iceland fully 
 settled so that no further (settlement) there has been since. E.M. 
 
 time
 
 2 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 time of the Icelandic and the time of the early British- 
 Norse settlement, for it has an essential bearing upon the 
 conclusion which I think will be more or less brought out 
 in this paper, which is that the same stock of Norsemen, 
 having at the same time colonised those two countries, 
 have left in each the same language, the same place- 
 names, and the same customs; and that a wonderful coin- 
 cidence can still be made out between them even at this 
 distance of over one thousand years. 
 
 There are striking differences between the mode in 
 which the Norsemen colonised England and the mode 
 in which they colonised Iceland. In England they 
 had a continual warfare; in Iceland, as we learn from 
 the Landnama B6k, they made at first a quiet and un- 
 resisted settlement, because in the one case they went 
 to a well settled, in the other to an absolutely vacant 
 territory ; the one in short was a conquest, the other, as 
 the name implies, was a quiet taking possession of land. 
 And yet the Landnama Bok shows sufficiently that it was 
 the same race, the same tribes, and sometimes even the 
 very same men that were doing both the one and the 
 other. In the Landnama Bok we have the names of the 
 men most familiarly known in our early English history, 
 who seem in that unquiet spirit that marked the early 
 Norsemen to have gone first to Iceland, and then to 
 Scotland and the north of England, or else for a time to 
 have tried Scotland or the north of England and to have 
 gone to Iceland after all. In the Landnama Bok we 
 have also a record of the discovery of America by the 
 Norsemen. It is there called Vineland and also Greater 
 Ireland, because the Norsemen drifted thither over the 
 ocean from Ireland, and thought the tongue of the people 
 reminded them of, or was identical with, Erse. 
 
 The Landnama Bok itself bears the impress of two 
 different hands. It was originally written by Ari Frodi, 
 that is Ari the historian who lived between 1067 and 
 
 1148
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 3 
 
 1148, and who was both a historian and a learned divine, 
 but it was worked into its present form by Sturla Thordar- 
 son, who was born 1214 and died 1284.* It contains a 
 register of the name of every man that settled in Iceland, 
 and in most instances a record of his descendants and 
 where they went, and it contains also a register of every 
 house farm and tribe or family name. There are 4,588 
 men's names, and 1,949 place, farm, or tribe names, and 
 I mention these last more especially, as it is from them 
 that I have taken the names that I have used in com- 
 paring their place names with our own. I have made 
 my translations from the Copenhagen edition of 1843, 
 which is the last edition that has appeared, and the 
 numbers I have given in reference denote the page in that 
 edition from which my translation was made. The Clar- 
 endon Press announced an edition some time ago, but I 
 judge from latest inquiries that it has not yet appeared. 
 I give the translation of eight passages. Seven of these 
 I have made myself, but in the second, and much the 
 most difficult and important passage, I have had the very 
 
 * The history of the composition of the Landnama Bok is briefly this : 
 
 1. Ari Thorgilsson, the Learned, wrote the history of the settlements of the 
 
 South, West, and North Quarter. 
 
 2. Kolskegg Asbiornson, the Learned, his contemporary, described the East 
 
 Quarter. Cfr Landnama Bok, p. 249 : Nu heifir Kolskeggr fyrir sagt 
 hedan fra um landnam=" Now has Kolskegg dictated (the story) 
 henceforth as to the settlements. 
 
 3. 1 he joint work of these two was again edited by 
 
 (a) Styrmir, the "Learned," son of Kari (ob. 1245). This edition was 
 
 again gone over and revised, and no doubt added to by 
 (1) Sturla Thordson (1214-1284) ; which recensions (a & 1} 
 (c) Hauk Erlendsson re-edited, his edition, the " Hauksb6k," forming one 
 of the principal texts of the Landnama Bok. There is a special recen- 
 sion also based on a and b, the so-called " Melabok," the author of 
 which is not known, though there is no doubt that he was a Sturlung; 
 if not Marcus Thordson of Melar himself, then his son or grandson. A 
 prior Brand Halldorsson the Learned, of the I2th century, is also men- 
 tioned, not exactly as a writer of Landnama, but as author of the 
 genealogies of the men of Broadfirth, " Briedfirdin^akyn." He may be 
 a possible primary contributor to the great work that bear's Aris' name. 
 What the later editors of Landnamabok did add to it, did no doubt, chiefly consist 
 in genealogical lore; they brought the lines down to their own immediate prede- 
 cessors. E.M. 
 
 able
 
 4 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 able help of Eric Magnusson, assistant librarian of the 
 Cambridge University Library, a native Icelander, and a 
 distinguished philologist in England as well as in Iceland, 
 and moreover one of the kindest and most willing helpers 
 that ever it has been my good fortune to meet. 
 
 Bound up with the Landnama Bok, and forming a por- 
 tion of it, is a chronological table of the chief events that 
 happened in Iceland, together with the names of the 
 speakers of the parliament of the commonwealth (log- 
 sogumenn), and when and where they flourished ; and 
 commencing with the first settlement in 874. I have 
 given the record of this table for a period of about 400 
 years. The first translation is from the portion that 
 records the very first settlement in Iceland 874. The 
 original occurs at page 33, chapter vi. of Landnama Bok. 
 It is as follows : 
 
 " Sumar j?at, er ]?eir Ingolfr foru til at byggja Island 
 hafdi Haraldr harfagri verit xii. ar konungr at Noregi ; 
 J?a var lidit fra upphafi )>essa heims vi. ]?usundir vetra ok 
 Ixxiii. vetr, en fra holdgan drottins dccc. ok Ixxiiii. ar. 
 |3eir hofdu samflot, ]?ar til er )?eir sa Island ; ]?askildi meet 
 ]?eim ]?a er Ingolfr sa Island, skaut hann fyri bord ondugis 
 sulum sinum til heilla ; hann maelti sva fyrir, at hann 
 skyldi ]?ar byggja er sulurna kaemi a land.* Hann var 
 enn Jmdja vetr undir Ingolfsfelli fyrir vestan Olfusa. pau 
 missari fundu ]?eir Vifill ok Karli ondvegissiilur hans vid 
 Arnarhval fyri ne]?an heidi. Ingolfr for um varit ofan um 
 heidi ; han tok ser bustad J>ar sem ondvegissulur hans 
 hofdu a land komit ; hann bjo i Reykjarvik ; ]?ar eru enn 
 ondvegissulur J?aer i eldhusi." This passage I have ren- 
 dered as follows : 
 
 " That summer, when Ingolf and his companions went to settle in 
 Iceland, Harold the Fairhaired had been king of Norway for twelve 
 
 * I have here omitted the portion that refers to the fortunes of Ingolf's com- 
 panions, and continued the narrative when it again alludes to himself. T.E. 
 
 years
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 5 
 
 years. At that time had passed from the beginning of the world 
 6,073 winters, and from the Incarnation of our Lord 874 years. 
 They sailed together until they sighted Iceland, then they separated. 
 When Ingolf saw Iceland he threw overboard his high-seat posts 
 for good luck (or as an omen), and took a solemn oath that he would 
 there build, where the high-seat posts should come upon shore. He 
 passed the third winter at the foot of Ingolfsfell (a mountain named 
 from him), on the west of Olfuswater. This year (his men) Vifill 
 and Karli found his high seat posts near the Ern-knoll (Arnarhval), 
 beneath] the heath. * Ingolf went in that spring down across this 
 heath, and he took up his abode where his seat posts had come to 
 land. He dwelt at Reykjarvik, and his high-seat posts are still in 
 the eldhouse " literally fire-house (fire-hall). 
 
 I have quoted this passage at the outset, as it fixes 
 with a sufficient degree of exactness the date of the first 
 settlement of Iceland, namely, as given in this text 874 
 (less correctly given in the list of dates at the end of the 
 Landnama B6k as 875). 
 
 The most remarkable description in this and the follow- 
 ing passage is the mode which those Norsemen took to 
 guide them in the selection of their future home. The 
 word I have translated high-seat posts is ondugis sulur,^ 
 and referred to the two pillars of the high-seat of the 
 
 * " Beneath the heath." You have here to deal with a very peculiar phrase of 
 topography. The upland plateau which in a south-westerly direction runs down 
 from the extinct volcano of Skjaldbreid, which lies far inland N.E. of Reykjavik, 
 and terminates in the promontory of Reykjaness, is, for that portion which 
 divides the lowlands of the Reykjavik region from those south and south-west of 
 Ingolfsfell, called Mossfell's Heath, shortened generally in the sagas into Heath 
 simply. Now all localities which lie in the western watershed of this heath are 
 said to be "beneath," or "below," the Heath, while those eaxt of it are said to 
 be above the heath. This peculiar topographical expression must have arisen 
 originally in the household of Ingolf at Reykjavik, or at Erno Knoll, while he. 
 and his were under the impression that all localities east of the heath, being 1 
 inland localities from the point of view of Ernknoll, were necessarily at a higher 
 level above the sea than Reykjavik and its seaboard surroundings. We may, 
 therefore, safely date this phrase as first originating- in 874. E.M. 
 
 t "Ondugis stilur" ondugis gen. of ondugi, n., contracted from ond-vegi, 
 which is the common form. The derivation of the word is not quite settled yet. 
 But the most probable derivation is from 6nd = porch, doorway, and vegr way. 
 Ondvegis saeti is probably the original expression : the seat that faced the way 
 along which arrivals to the hall made their progress up to the chief's presence. 
 It is a noteworthy fact that no pillars or high-seat posts are mentioned dedicated 
 to any other god but Thor. In the main the pillars were emblems of tribal chieftain- 
 ship in its two principal aspects : martial leadership and priestly authority. E.M. 
 
 father
 
 6 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 father of the family, or chief, or priest, for they were all 
 included in the same person. These were ornamented 
 with carved figures of Thor ; hence you will find in the 
 next passage it is called a Thor, and the place where 
 it came ashore is called Thorness, just as Thursby, in 
 Cumberland, is literally the dwelling of Thor. These 
 seats then, or seat pillars, they brought with them when 
 they sought new homes, and when near Iceland cast 
 them overboard into the sea and let them drift ashore in 
 whatever direction the tide took them ; and wherever they 
 found them cast ashore there they built their home and 
 formed their settlement, as the place marked out for them 
 by the god. The high-seat, or chair so named, with its 
 ornamented or carved posts, was looked upon as a symbol 
 of the father's authority as a priest or a parent, and there 
 is a record that the son was not allowed to sit in his 
 father's seat until he had avenged his death. The curious 
 way in which those chairs, or seat-posts, were carved and 
 ornamented with figures was a very marked characteristic 
 of them, and the very curious carved arm-chairs and high- 
 backed chairs, yet to be found in old country houses in 
 this neighbourhood, and highly prized and much sought 
 after by collectors of carved work, may have had their 
 origin from these ornamentally carved chairs, which were 
 such an essential element in marking out the original 
 homes of the Norsemen. 
 
 This passage is interesting in another point, for Reykja- 
 vik,* of which it records the settlement, is, though but a 
 village of somewhat about 4000 inhabitants, the present 
 capital of the island. It is literally reek town, or smoke 
 
 * The meaning of the name is Reek-wick ; wick meaning bay, or bight not 
 the wick which descends from Lat. vicus, hamlet, township. The name arises 
 from the fact that in the close neighbourhood there are warm, steaming springs. 
 Do you mean Reykjaor Reyk-holt by Reck wood ? If so, the word "holt" in 
 Iceland does not mean wood (holz) but a hill-rise, bare and exposed ; perhaps 
 Reek-Knoll would come near enough. E.M. 
 
 town,
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 7 
 
 town, reminding us of Auld Reekie, or Edinburgh of 
 Burns. We all know what reek is in Cumberland, and 
 reek as a place name occurs abundantly in Iceland ; there 
 is Reek River, Reek Dale, Reek Ness, and Reek Wood, 
 Reek Hole, and Reek Strand. We have the word most 
 familiar in the dialect, but as a place-name it seems to be 
 almost peculiar to Iceland. The pillars of transparent 
 steam from the hot springs and geysers, as seen afar off, 
 must have struck the minds of the first settlers, who gave 
 names to the localities. 
 
 The word eldhiis, or fire-house, used in this passage to 
 describe the room where the high-seat was kept with 
 superstitious reverence, is, I think, interesting, as the 
 word eld for fire is a word that may be taken as a test of 
 Scandinavian races as distinguished from the Teutonic, 
 who usefeuer fire which is wanting in Scandinavian.* 
 We have elding for fuel all over Furness at any rate ; in 
 fact, in High Furness, it seems until lately almost the 
 only word thus used ; here then we have a very marked 
 and close relationship. 
 
 The superstition of keeping up a sacred fire, as this 
 passage seems to indicate, was by no means peculiar to 
 Iceland ; the fire tended by the vestal virgins is suffi- 
 ciently recorded, and one marked command about the 
 Jewish Tabernacle was that the fire shall not go out ; the 
 word " couvre feu," from which " curfew" is derived, 
 would appear to mean to cover, or rake, and not alto- 
 gether extinguish the fire. The fire was raked or covered 
 in Iceland, and thus kept up from day to day continually, 
 and anyone who is conversant as I have been almost all 
 my life with our own portion of Lakeland, knows with 
 
 * Feuer, Engl. fire, does exist in Scandinavian, hut only in technical usages; 
 and in Icelandic it only occurs in the anrient poets in the form of furr, fyrr. By- 
 the-way, does "elding" ever occur in Cumberland in the sense of lightning? 
 You know the word means fuel in Icelandic as well as in Cumberland, so the 
 relationship is not only close, but identical. E.M. 
 
 what
 
 8 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 what superstitious reverence the old hearth fire was raked 
 or put in a condition of smouldering at nights, and so kept 
 up from day to day, from month to month, from year to 
 year, and from generation to generation, and, I certainly 
 knew, in more instances than one, homes where the fire 
 had heen kept up for three generations ; and during all 
 that time had been so zealously guarded that it had not 
 been once allowed to go out. There is a well-known in- 
 stance in our own neighbourhood where a man had what 
 he called " his grandfather's fire ;" that is a fire that was 
 known to have been kept up without extinction for at 
 least three generations, that when it once accidentally 
 went out he went to some woodcutters who had lighted 
 their fire from his, and brought back from their fire a fire 
 to his own hearth, that thus he might preserve, as it 
 were, the seeds of his ancestors' original fire. 
 
 The next passage which I have, with the assistance of 
 Mr. Magnusson, translated from the Landnama B6k, 
 refers to the settlement of Thorolf, and the establishment 
 of the Things, or local Legislative Assemblies, and I have 
 quoted it in connection with the first passage, as the date 
 of the first passage will enable us to fix the date of the 
 second with a tolerable degree of exactness, for Ingolf, 
 who is mentioned in the first, and Thorold, who is men- 
 tioned in the second, both left Norway for Iceland in the 
 reign of the same King (Harold the Fairhaired), and they 
 seem both to have been driven away by the unbearable 
 tyranny of his government, and they both went forth trust- 
 ing in the auspices of Thor as the guardian deity who 
 should guide them in safety to their future home. The 
 passage I now quote respecting Thorold is chap. 12 in the 
 second part of the Landnama Book, and it commences at 
 p. 96. I have translated it without any omission to the 
 end ; it is as follows : 12 porolfr, son Ornolfs fiskreka, 
 bjo i Mostr, Jm var hann kallaiSr Mostrarskegg ; harm 
 var bl6tma^>r mikill, ok trudi ti por ; hann for fyrir ofriki 
 
 Haralcls
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. g 
 
 Haralds konungs harfagra til Islands, ok sigldi fyrir 
 sunnan land ; en er hann kom vestr fyrir Breictafjorct, ]>a 
 skaut hann fyrir bord ondvegis sulum sinum ; Jar var 
 skorinn a porr ; hann maelti sva fyrir, at porr skyldi ]>ar a 
 land koma, sem hann vildi at porolfr bygSi, het hann 
 ]?vi, at helga ]x5r allt landnam sitt, ok kenna vrS hann. 
 porolfr sigldi inn a fjorSinn, ok gaf nafn firSinum, ok 
 kallafti BrerSafjorS ; hann tok land fyrir sunnan fjorSinn, 
 nser mrSjum firSinum, ]?ar fann hann ]?6r rekinn i nesi einu; 
 ]?at heitir nu J?6rsnes. peir lendu ]?ar inn fra i vaginn, er 
 porolfr kallaiSi Hofsvag; ]?ar reisti hann bae sinn, okgjor'Si 
 J?ar hof mikit, ok hegal'Si ]>6r, }>ar heita nu Hofsta^ir. 
 FjorSrinn var]?abygSr litt ei5r ekki. porolfr nam land frfi 
 Stafa inn til ]?6rsar, ok kalla'Si ]?at allt ]?6rsnes, hann hafSi 
 sva mikinn atruna^ a fjall ]?at, er sto'S i nesinu, er hann 
 kallaiSi Helgafell, at J>angat skyldi engi ma]7r 6]>veginn lita, 
 ok ]?ar var sva mikil fri^helgi, at aungu skyldi granda i 
 fjallinu, hvarki fe ne monnum, nema sjalft gengi a braut ; 
 ]?at var trua J^eirra porolfs frsenda, at J>eir dsei allir i fjallit. 
 par a nesinu, sem ]?6rr kom a land, hafSi ]?6r61fr doma alia, 
 ok J>ar var sett hera^sj>ing me^ raiSi allra sveitarmanna. En 
 er menn voru J>ar a J?inginu, ]?a skyldi vist eigi hafa alfreka 
 a landi, ok var aetlat til J?ess sker )>at, er Dritsker heitir, 
 ]?viat ]?eir vildu eigi saurga sva helgan voll sem ]?ar var. 
 En ]?a er porolfr var daud:r, en }>orsteinn, son hans, var 
 ungr, ];a vildu ]?eir porgrimr Kjallaksson ok Asgeirr, magr 
 hans, eigi ganga i skerit orna sinna ; ]?at ]?oldu eigi J6rsnes- 
 singar, er ]?eir vildu saurga sva helgan voll, )?vi bor^ust 
 ]?eir porsteinn porskalratr ok porgeirr Kengr vi'S J>a ]?or- 
 grim okfellu Jar nokkurir menn, en margir ur'Su sarir, a"Sr 
 Jeir urSu skildir. pordr gellir ssetti ]?a ; ok me~S J?vi at 
 hvarugir vildu lata af sinu mali, ]?a var vollrinn oheilagr 
 af heiptar blo^i. pa var ]?at ra^ tekit, at fsera brutt ];a"San 
 }>ingit, ok inn i nesit, ]?ar sem nu er; var J?ar J>a helgista~Sr 
 mikill ok ]?ar stendr enn J?6rs steinn, er ]?eir brutu Jni menn 
 um, er ]?eir blotuSu, ok ]?ar hja er sa domhringr, er menn 
 
 skyldu
 
 10 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 skyldu til blots dsema. par setti ok ]?6r$r gellir fjnr- 
 *b'ungsj>ing meiS raSi allra fjorSungs manna. Son porolfs 
 Mostrarskeggja var Hallsteinn porskafjarSargo'Si, fa'Sir 
 porsteins surts ens spaka ; Osk var moSir ]?orsteins surts, 
 dottir porsteins rairSs. Annarr son ]?6r61fs var ]?orsteinn 
 J?orskabitr, hann atti J>6ru, dottur Clafs fcilans, systur 
 JjerSar gellis, J?eirra son var borgrimr, fa'Sir Snora gofta, 
 ok Borkr enn digri, fa~3ir Sams, er Asgeirr va. 
 
 "Thorolf, son of Ornolf ' Fishdriver,' dwelt in Most-isle. He 
 was called Mostbeard ; he was a great man of blood offerings, and 
 believed in Thor. 
 
 He emigrated to Iceland on account of the tyranny of Harold the 
 Fairhaired, and sailed by the southern part of the land; but when 
 he was came west, off Broadfirth, he threw overboard the high-seat 
 posts, whereon Thor was -carved. And he prayed thereover that Thorr 
 (as he called the pillars) should come to land where the god wished 
 him to settle, and he promised that he would dedicate all the land of 
 his settlement (landndm sitt) to Thor, and name it after him. Thorolf 
 then sailed into the frith, and gave a name to the frith and called it 
 Broadfrith. He took land on the south side, near the middle of the 
 frith. There he found Thor cast ashore, upon a point of land which 
 is now called Thorsness on that account. They landed further 
 up the ness in the bay which he called Temple Bay (Hofsvdg). 
 There he reared his home, and there he built a large temple and 
 consecrated it to Thor, and now the place is called Temple Stead 
 (Hofstadir). The frith had been very sparsly settled before this time, 
 or not at all. Thorolf took land (nam land) from Staffriver inwards to 
 Thorsriver, and called all that part Thorsness. He had so great a 
 reverence for that fell which stands on the ness, and which he called 
 Helgafell Holy Fell, that he enjoined that thither should no man 
 unwashen look; and there was so great place-hallowness (sanctuary) 
 that nothing should be destroyed on the mountain, neither cattle 
 nor people, unless it should go away of its own accord. That was 
 the belief of them, Thorolf and his kinsmen, that they should die 
 into the mountain.* There on the ness, where Thorr (Thor's pillar, 
 the high-seat post carved with Thor's image) came aland, Thorolf 
 had all the dooms (law courts), and there was set up the district- 
 
 * " Die into the mountain," i.e., would dwell within the mountain after their 
 death. E.M. 
 
 assembly
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. II 
 
 assembly (legislative) by the advice of all the men of the country- 
 side (the dependents of Thorolf, who formed his temple parish, 
 as it were, he being their temple priest). But while men were 
 at the Thing, easements should surely not be had on land (it 
 was strictly forbidden to men to go on nature's errands on the 
 land),* and for that purpose was set apart that skerry (sea clift) 
 which is called Dirt Skerry, for that they should not defile such a 
 holy field as was there. But then when Thorolf was dead, and 
 Thorstein, his son, still young, then they Thorgrim Kiallakson and 
 Asgeir, his son-in-law, would not go into the skerry on their errands. 
 This the Thoressings would not stand, that they should wish to defile 
 so holy a field, therefore fought they, Thorstein Codbiter and 
 Thorgeir Staple, against those Thorgrim and Asgeir, there at the 
 Thing about the skerry, and certain men fell there and more got 
 wounded, or ever they could be parted. Thord the Yeller appeased 
 them, and whereas neither side would yield, the field having been 
 already defiled with the blood of the deadly feud (heipt, implacable 
 or mortal hostility), this counsel was taken, to remove away from 
 there the Thing (assembly) and take it up into the ness, where it 
 now is ; was there then a place of great hallowedness (sanctity), and 
 there stands still the stone of Thor, over which they broke those 
 men whom they sacrificed, and thereby is that doomring where 
 people should be doomed (condemned) to sacrifice. 
 
 There also Thord the Yeller placed the quarter parliament, with 
 the counsel of all the men in the quarter. 
 
 The son of Thorolf (Mostbeard) was Hallsteinn, priest of the men 
 of Codfirth, father of Thorstein the Black, a wise man;t Osk was 
 the mother of Thorsteinn the Black, and daughter of Thorsteinn 
 the Red. 
 
 Another son of Thorolf was Thorsteinn Codbiter. He had Thora 
 to wife, the daughter ot Olaf Feilan,t sister of Thord the Yeller. 
 Their son was Thorgrim, father of Snorri the Priest, and Bork the 
 Big, father of Sam whom Asgeir slew." 
 
 I may remark here, with regard to what I have trans- 
 lated as the quarter parliament (fjordungs thing), that the 
 
 * Alf-rek (elf-chase), that which by its impurity drives away the pure and 
 tender guardian spirits of the soil. E.M. 
 
 t He was called the Wise because he reformed the calendar of Iceland, c. A.D. 
 960. Cfr. Islendingabok, ch. iv. E.M. 
 
 t Feilan is a nickname, a word of Celtic origin, and uncertain sense. T.E. 
 
 whole
 
 12 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 whole of Iceland was divided into four divisions called 
 North, South, East, and West Quarters, and these divi- 
 sions exist up to the present time.* Each of these divi- 
 sions had a fjordungs thing, or quarter parliament, and 
 each had also a fjordungs domr, or quarter court. t 
 
 It will been seen at once that a good deal of the mean- 
 ing of this passage, of its place names, proper names, and 
 that which more especially directed those Norsemen to 
 their early settlements, turns upon their devotion to Thor. 
 The high-seat post, of which I have here translated the 
 fortunes, was a carved image of Thor, carved upon the 
 back of the high chair used in his temple : hence it is 
 called the Thor, and marked out the place where they 
 should land and settle. The place that Thor occupied in 
 Scandinavian mythology is well known ; he was the god of 
 thunder, the keeper of the hammer, the ever fighting slayer 
 of trolls and thequeller and destroyer of all evil spirits, the 
 defender of the earth and the friend of mankind. There 
 are giants ready to assail the earth and its inhabitants in 
 the Scandinavian as in the classical mythology. Thor, 
 like Jupiter, meets them in a hard fought conflict, and some 
 of the finest lays and legends of the Edda, like the sublime 
 Metamorphoses of Ovid, are devoted to describing those 
 battles of the gods. It is Thor and his hammer who go 
 number one in these conflicts, and he and his attendant 
 divinities are always sketched as driving off those giants 
 as those malign and opposing influences who would destroy 
 and overturn the earth. Jack the Giant Killer, Tom Raw- 
 head and much of our northern nursery lore may have had 
 
 * The Quarter Division does exist no more for any administrative purpose. It 
 merely exists as a remembered item of antiquity, and a convenient geographical 
 expression. E.M. 
 
 f You had better make it clear, that the institution of the Quarter Courts, by 
 Thord Yeller at the Althing in 964, had no connection with this fight between the 
 men of Thorness and the followers of Kiallak the Old. This feud raged A.D. 
 03 2 '34 > The Quarter thing here spoken of was the rural court, or first instance, 
 before which cases out of the quarter could come. The Quarter Courts at the 
 Althing were of a quite different constitution. E.M, 
 
 its
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 13 
 
 its origin from Thor and his conflicts. The stones and 
 cairns, like the law mounds and doomcircles, were con- 
 secrated to him, and Vigfusson quotes this inscription from 
 a heathen Danish Runic stone: "]>urr vigi ]?assi runar." 
 " Thor consecrate these runes." We certainly have 
 evidence of such a worship and such an influence in some 
 of our northern names. Thursday marks this, and I 
 think it is very likely that the name was first so applied 
 in the northern portion of England, for yet those who 
 speak in the dialect do not call it Thursday but Thorsday. 
 The derivation of the place-name Thursby is very directly 
 shown in the passage I have just translated. Thur is no 
 doubt, I think, Thor ; and by=bae, which in the Icelandic 
 means a homestead or dwelling, and this bae is the very 
 word in the original Icelandic for homestead in that 
 passage which I have translated.* " There he raised his 
 homestead, and there he built a large temple, and con- 
 secrated to Thor the place." Runic and other stones 
 dedicated to the divinity were called Thor's stones or 
 Thorsteinn ; hence by an obvious transition became place- 
 names or personal names. We have an evidence of this 
 in more than one instance in the north. You have 
 Thurstonfield near Carlisle, and the old name of Coniston 
 Lake in High F&rness was Thurston, or Thurstone Water, 
 and the name is still preserved in Thurston Ville, a resi- 
 dence at a short distance from the foot of the Lake. 
 
 There is one place in this passage which, from the 
 institution connected with it, is of very considerable im- 
 portance, and that is the word domhringr Doomcircle 
 the doom r^ng or judgment ring. The courts of the 
 heathen Norsemen were surrounded by this domhringr, 
 about a bowshot from the centre where the benches were 
 placed ; and no evildoer might enter this ring, or commit 
 
 * The declension of bser : Baer, b?e, by, a dwelling-. 
 
 an
 
 14 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 an act of violence within it ; if he did so he was called a 
 vargri veunt "a wolf in the holy place." We have the 
 date of the institution of those quarter courts, one for 
 each of the four political divisions of the county, as they 
 are here instituted by Thord the Yeller, namely, in the 
 year 964 ; and at a later date a Fifth High Court, called 
 Fimtar-domr, was instituted about A.D. 1004. 
 
 In this connection occurs the dura-domr, or court at the 
 door of the defendant, of which we have an accurate 
 description in the Icelandic, and which, with the uproar 
 which accompanied them would appear to have left their 
 mark in the word durdom, or doordom, of our own dialect. 
 
 The domhringr, or divisional law court, appeared to 
 me to be so interesting, especially in the mode and manner 
 in marking them out, that I wrote to Mr. Magnusson, 
 who is a native Icelander, and has spent the whole of his 
 earlier life in Iceland, to ask him whether there were any 
 traces of these original courts yet to be found in that land. 
 He wrote back and said that there were traces of them 
 still be found scattered up and down that country. 
 
 The stone circles which are to be found scattered here 
 and there in various parts of Cumberland and other por- 
 tions of Lakeland have never, I think, been accounted for, 
 nor has any hypothesis been brought forward that would 
 more completely meet the case than the doom rings which 
 marked the ancient law courts of the Norse.* They are 
 called Druidical, certainly, by some writers, but I am not 
 
 * At a discussion which followed the reading of this paper at Sedbergh, it was 
 remarked by some members of the Society that the date of the Cumberland 
 megaliths was probably much earlier than the first immigration of the Norse. 
 Without positively deciding either way, I may make the following 1 quotation from 
 Ferguson's Northmen. Speaking of Long Meg and her daughters, he says : 
 " Even if it could be shown to have been used by the Northmen it would not 
 prove that they erected it, or if it could be proved to be of ancient British origin, 
 would it show that they did not make use of it ? For it would be as natural for 
 the Northmen, finding such a magnificent structure ready made to their hand, to 
 adopt it for their own purposes, as for the Moslems to convert the Christian 
 Church of St. Sophia into a Mahommedan mosque." T.E. 
 
 aware
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 15 
 
 aware that there is anything, excepting mere hypothesis, 
 to warrant the application of such a title as this. The 
 earliest published account of them is by Camden, who 
 made a survey of Cumberland in 1599 ; and the editor 
 suggests that with regard to the stone circle at Little 
 Salkeld, known as " Long Meg and her Daughters," that 
 they were Norse in their origin, and were monuments used 
 at the Investiture of Danish kings. A paper, entitled '* A 
 Group of Cumberland Megaliths," was read before the 
 members of this Society on June i6th, 1880, by C. VV. 
 Dymond, in which he deals with and gives accurate plans 
 and measurement of four such circles, namely, the one I 
 have mentioned, known as Long Meg and her Daughters, 
 the circles at Swinside and at Keswick, and the principal 
 circle on Eskdale Moor. I have carefully read over all he 
 has said about them, more especially what he has said 
 about the stone circle at Keswick, and the long list of 
 varied authorities he and other writers have quoted on the 
 subject, and I cannot find any positive evidence for sup- 
 posing that they were Druidical, rather than for supposing 
 they were Norse. In the Orkney Islands the Standing 
 Stones of Stennis, which are 70 or 80 in number, and 
 form two circles of 100 feet and 360 feet in diameter, bear 
 a strong resemblance to the stone circle at Keswick, there 
 is no reason to suppose that the Druids ever occupied any 
 part of the Orkneys, and tradition, as well as history, 
 ascribes the stones of Stennis to the Scandinavians. I 
 cannot see, therefore, why in those Domhringer, or Doom 
 Circles, of the Landnama Book we may not find the 
 origin or at any rate the use of those stone circles that are 
 still existing amongst our own mountains, for I think I have 
 shown with sufficient clearness that the same race, whose 
 doings are recorded in the Landnama Book, came to Scot- 
 land and the northern portion of England at the same time 
 that they went to Iceland, and it is well known that all 
 those northern nations marked by such huge enclosures 
 
 their
 
 l6 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 their places of popular meeting, either for religious worship 
 or for the transaction of public business of a temporal 
 character ; and the passage itself seems to point out with 
 sufficient clearness that such stone circles were used for 
 purposes of judicial and religious assemblies, and had 
 existed down to the time of the writer, for the words 
 " Ok ]?ar stendr enn ]?6rs steinn, er )>eir brutu ]>a menn 
 urn, er J?eir blotudu, ok )?ar hja er sa do-nhringr, er menn 
 skyldu till blots daema," are literally 
 
 " There still stands the stone of Thor, over which they broke those 
 men whom they sacrificed, and there is that Domhringr, or Doom- 
 circle, where the people should be judged," i.e., doomed, or con- 
 demned to sacrifice. 
 
 In a district that is very near to us, are preserved both 
 the terms Dom and Thing, as applied to those assem- 
 blies. For the Deemster, or Doomster, of the Isle of Man 
 was originally so-called because he pronounced doom or 
 judgment in the legal assemblies, and the Tynwald Hill* 
 (upon which the laws were promulgated) contains within 
 it the root " }>ing," the title applied to the popular and 
 legal assemblies of the Norse. In connection with these 
 legal assemblies, I may note from the Landnama Book, 
 his office who was the principal personage at such places, 
 the Logsogumadr, or law-speaker : In the ancient Ice- 
 landic commonwealth, the community or State had its 
 own laws, its own parliament, and its own lawsayer. This 
 law-speaker was the first commoner, and the spokesman 
 of the people at public assemblies and elsewhere. He was 
 the guardian of the law, and the president of the legisla- 
 
 * The word Thingwald, or, as you give it. Tynwald, is preserved in a better 
 form in Orkney and Shetland, where it is Thingwall ; wall being the same as Icel. 
 vollr (gen. vallar, dat. velli) = a field, Thingwall, therefore = Thingfield or Thing- 
 mead. 
 
 You have Thingwall in Cheshire, Tinwald close by Dumfries in Scotland, 
 where, too, on the Cromarty Firth, there is a Uingwall; in the neighbourhood of 
 Whitby is a Thingwall. E.M. 
 
 rive
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. IJ 
 
 tive body. As in heathen times, laws were not written ; 
 the law-speaker had to say what was the law of the land 
 in any case of doubt. In the general assemblies in Ice- 
 land he had to say the law from memory to the assembled 
 people from the law-hill ; hence in the Icelandic common- 
 wealth he is called the law-speaker or law-sayer, and his 
 office law-speaking. As early Iceland was a common- 
 wealth, the names and dates of those early law-speakers 
 are given in the Landnama Book in the very same way 
 that the names and dates of kings and their reigns are 
 given in other histories ; one of the earliest and most 
 famed of them was porkell Mani, who held that office for 
 fifteen years, from A.D. 970. He was grandson of Ingolf the 
 first settler, and that is a most interesting passage in the 
 Landnama Bok which describes his character and death. 
 It is as follows : " Son porsteins var porkell mani log- 
 sogumadr, einn heictinna manna hefir bezt verit siiSaiSr 
 at ]?vi er menn vita daemi til. Hann let sik bera i 
 solargeisla i banasott sinni, ok fal sik a hendi J?eim guSi 
 er solina hafSi skapat, hafSi hann ok lifat sva hreinliga, 
 sem J?eir kristnir menn er bezt eru srSaSir." I have thus 
 
 translated it : 
 
 % 
 
 The son of Thorsteinn was Thorkell Moon, a lawspeaker, or law- 
 sayer, who, so far as men can judge of exemplary conduct, was 
 the best of all the heathen folk. In his last illness he caused him- 
 self to be borne to where the beams of the sun shone upon him, and 
 commended himself, when so dying, into the hands of that god who 
 had shaped (skapat) the sun. His life had been pure as that of the 
 most religious of Christians. 
 
 . Solar, the sun god, was an object of of worship amongst 
 the early Norsemen, and Sunday has a Norse as well as 
 an Anglo-Saxon significance. This passage shows very 
 plainly what they thought of their deity. 
 
 I am still dealing with the second extract which I have 
 translated from the Landnama Bok, and wish to draw 
 
 your
 
 l8 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 your attention to one expressive word in that passage, 
 where it is said : " Thorolf reared his homestead the 
 words are in the original, barr reisti hann bae sinn there 
 raised he his dwelling" That word dwelling, in the 
 original Icelandic, is " baer" b and 3d dipthong ; the 
 word bae is from the Icelandic " bua," to dwell, and 
 means, therefore, a dwelling; It is " Bo," in Norway ; 
 " By," in Denmark and Sweden, and the unnumbered 
 " bys" that we have as the termination of village names 
 in the north of England are really the " baer" that we 
 have in this passage of the Landnama Bok and in the 
 map of northern England. The use of this word " By" 
 in the village and place-names may well serve to mark 
 out the limit and extent of the Norse immigration. 
 Anderson, our local dialect poet, who does not as a rule 
 go in much for derivation, has nevertheless noted the 
 frequent recurrence of this place-name, for in the 
 "Thuirsby Witch" he says : 
 
 There's Harraby an Tarraby, 
 
 An Wigganby beseyde ; 
 There's Oughterby an Souterby 
 
 An " Bys" baith far and weyde. 
 
 A passage which occurs at page 126 of the Landnama 
 Bok, gives an interesting instance of how this " baer" was 
 compounded as a proper name in Iceland. It is said of 
 Steinolf when he came to settle : " Hann sa eitt rjodr i 
 dal ]?eim, bar let hann bae gjora, ok kallafti Saurbae, pviat 
 bar var myrlent mjok, ok sva kalla^i hann allan dalinn." 
 I have translated this as follows : 
 
 He saw a clearing in the dale (otherwise grown with wood) and 
 there he built his bse (dwelling), and called it Saurbas sour or 
 swampy dwelling, because there was much swampy land, and by the 
 same name he called the whole dale. 
 
 That is, he called the whole dale Saurbae, or Sowerby, 
 the swamPy dwelling. You will see this dale Saurbae, 
 
 or
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 19 
 
 or Sowerby, marked upon this map of Iceland, and there 
 is another instance upon this same map of precisely a 
 similar application of the same name of Saurbaer. Such 
 swampy or boggy land is still called sour land in Cumber- 
 land, and with regard to this Saurbae, or swampy dwell- 
 ing, we have precisely the same name in Cumberland, in 
 Sowerby, Castle Sowerby, and Temple Sowerby. Myr, 
 or Mire, which also in this passage is used for boggy or 
 swampy ground, has also illustrations in Cumberland, in 
 " Mire" Mire-House, Mire-Side, Pelutho-Mire, and The 
 Mires. I have singled out the case of Saurbae, or 
 Sowerby, as an instance because in Iceland and in Cum- 
 berland the place-names derived therefrom are, as I may 
 say, identical ; and it serves well to show from what 
 natural circumstances the early Norsemen in both coun- 
 tries first fixed their dwellings, and named their homes. 
 
 From this verb " bua," to dwell or settle, we get 
 another Norse word, "buandi," or "bondi,"* which meant 
 a tiller of the ground, but always involved the idea of 
 ownership, and hence especially marked the class repre- 
 sented in Cumberland, by the word " yeomen," who owned 
 the land which they tilled. 
 
 In some cases in Iceland, as elsewhere, trees seem to 
 have formed the origin of place-names, and in more in- 
 stances than one, we find places in the Landnama Bok 
 called Reynir, or Reyni this is almost without altera- 
 tion, our Cumberland name of the mountain ash, or 
 rowan tree ; the Danish brings it nearer still, it is ronne 
 tree. Places in Iceland, therefore, called " Reynir," really 
 mean the rowan trees, t or mountain ashes, and this 
 word marks perhaps more than any other the intimate 
 
 *The surname " Bond" may have had its origin from this. T.E. 
 
 f The fowler's service, mountain ash or rowan tree, one of the most elegant of 
 British trees, conspicuous in the flowering season by its delicate green foliage 
 and large bunches of blossom, and in autumn by its clusters of scarlet berries or 
 pomes, used for catching birds; hence one of its names. T.E. 
 
 connection
 
 20 THE LANDNA'MA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 connection between the words and superstitions of Scan- 
 dinavia and the north of England. At p. 273 of the 
 Landnama B6k, it is applied in connection with a settle- 
 ment as follows: " Bjorn het madr, auctigr ok oflati 
 mikill, hann for til Islands af Valldresi,ok nam land mi Hi 
 Kerlingarar ok Hafrsar, ok bjo at Reyni." 
 
 There was a man named Bjorn, opulent and very showy. He 
 came to Iceland from Valldres, and took land between Kerling 
 (Carline)-river, and Hafrs (Haver's) river, and dwelt at Reynir, or 
 the Rowan trees. 
 
 It is also found in Rayni Keldur, or the well at the 
 rowan trees, and Reyni Stadr. It was thus applied to 
 mark places at the time of the settlement, as the only 
 sort of tree, except the dwarf birch, to be found in 
 Iceland. The rowan* was a holy tree, consecrated to 
 Thor, and, according to the legends, to be found in their 
 literature very intimately connected with the mysteries 
 and superstitions of the Icelanders. " Raynir," from 
 runa a mystery, was so-called in Iceland from the sup- 
 posed magical influence of the tree against witches. 
 
 * The sacredness of the rowan tree and the worship centring round it, was 
 due to this myth: Snorra Edda I., 286: " Thor came to be a guest of the 
 Ogress called Gridr, the mother of Vidar the Silent (dumb). She told Thor the 
 truth of Geirrod. that he was a marvellously wise giant, and an evil one to deal 
 with withal. She lent to Thor the belt of might and main (megingjardar) and 
 iron ^rips, which were hers, and her staff, called Grid's staff, or pole. Then 
 Thorir walked on to the river which is called Vimr, the greatest of all rivers. 
 Then he clasped round himself the belt of might and main, and steadied him- 
 self against Grid's pole, which he stuck down water, but Loki held to the belt. 
 And when Thor came to the middle of the river, then it waxed so greatly that it 
 broke against the shoulder of him. Then sang fhor : 
 
 Wax thou not, VV'imur, 
 
 Awading as I am 
 
 Unto the giants' homes. 
 
 Know, if thou waxest, 
 
 Then waxes, too, my might, 
 
 As high as the heaven's aloft. 
 
 Then saw Thor that, up in certain gorges, stood Gjalp, the daughter of Geirraud, 
 astraddle across the river, and she it was that made the swelling of the river. 
 Then Thor took a huge stone from the river bed, and hurled it at her, saying 
 thus: at ouse (oyce=source) shall river be stemmed (stifled), nor did he miss 
 his mark. And in the nick of time he staggered towards the bank, and caught 
 hold of a certain rowan bush, and so stepped up out of the river. Hence the 
 saying, " The Rowan the saving of Thor. '' F..M. 
 
 There
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 21 
 
 There is a place called Raynors in Cumberland, which 
 seems to mean " the mountain ashes." In some places 
 in the north of England a piece of the rowan tree used to 
 be placed above the door to scare away evil influences, 
 and in Lakeland the stick for stirring the cream is fre- 
 quently of rowan tree wood, to counteract the malign 
 spiritual influences which at times bewitched the churn, 
 so that no butter was forthcoming. This idea is found in 
 Burns where he says : 
 
 Thence country wives in toil and pain, 
 
 May plunge and plunge the kirn in vain ; 
 For, oh ! the yellow treasures taen 
 
 By witching skill, 
 And davvtit twal-pint hawkies gaen 
 
 As yells the bill. 
 
 Anent this supposed magical influence of the rowan 
 tree, Will Ritson, of Wasdale Head, once told me the 
 following story : 
 
 It has from time immemorial been the custom of the people of 
 Wasdale to carry their dead to Eskdale or Netherwasdale Church 
 for interment, there being no burial ground attached to the church 
 at Wasdale Head. The corpse in the coffin is slung over the back 
 of a horse and carried in this fashion over the fell. On one occasion 
 (lang sen) the wife of a dalesman was being so carried for interment. 
 When upon the edge of the fell the coffin, through the negligence of 
 the driver of the horse, came in contact with a rowan tree, and was 
 thrown to the ground. By the concussion the coffin was forced open, 
 and the supposed corpse was found to be alive. She returned home 
 with her friends, and lived for several years after. When she died, 
 and the same kind of cavalcade was following her remains in very 
 much the same fashion, as they approached the said rowan tree 
 again, her husband, who was bringing up the rear, called out 
 (according to Will) in stentorian tones : " Tak' care o' that rowan 
 tree !" This time, however, the rowan tree was successfully cleared. 
 
 At p. 109 of the Landnama B6k is the record of the 
 settlement of a Norsewoman named Aud. She was the 
 
 wife
 
 22 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 wife of Olaf the White, King of Dublin. Upon his death 
 she went with her son Thorsteinn, and settled in the 
 Hebrides. Thence her son, joining with Sigard, subdued 
 Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Murray, and in all 
 more than half of Scotland. He was slain in battle. 
 She then sailed for Iceland, as is recorded in the follow- 
 ing passage : " Eptir );>at for Audr at leita Islands : hun 
 haffti a Skipi me^ ser xx karla frjalsa." This passage 
 may be rendered : " After that Audr went to seek Ice- 
 land ; she had in the ship with her 20 freemen : 
 
 Taking this sentence word for word there is a remark- 
 able correspondence between it and our northern dialect, 
 and the old words that still linger on in the translation of 
 the Bible, as the older and purer form of Early English 
 speech : Epter pat after that needs no translation ; for, 
 or fare, means " to go," in the Icelandic ; we have the 
 very word in " farewell go well. In Genesis the same 
 old word occurs " See how the brethren fare" " See how 
 they go." At leita, " to seek," is a phrase we have in 
 North Lancashire; anybody in Furness knows just as well 
 as they know in Iceland that " at lait"=to seek. "In a 
 skipi" in the ship, a means on or in, and is really the very 
 same a that we have in the old phrases abroad astern, 
 afoot : karl, a man of lower degree, or freed man ; we have 
 the very same word in the Bible in the phrase, " Nor the 
 churl said to be bountiful." Isaiah xxxii. 
 
 Thus far then the account of Audr's going to Iceland. 
 She spent an active and eventful life there, and at p. 117 
 of the Landnama Bok, we have the following record of 
 her death : 
 
 Audr was a very noble lady,* and when she was weary with eld 
 (old age) she invited her kinsmen and folk-in-law, and made ready a 
 
 * Aud was third in descent irom Ingolf, the original settler of Iceland, and was 
 ancestress of Ari, compiler of the Landnama Book, who claims to be eighth in 
 descent from her. T.E. 
 
 grand
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 23 
 
 grand banquet. And when the banquet had lasted for three nights, 
 then she selected gifts for her friends, and also gave them whole- 
 some counsel. 
 
 She said that the banquet should still last for another three nights, 
 and she added that that should be her funeral banquet (Erfi). The 
 night after this she died, and was buried in the space upon the sea- 
 shore between high and low water marks (flsedarmali) as she had 
 given directions ; because she would not lay in unconsecrated 
 ground, (moldu), since she was baptised. 
 
 The following is the passage in the original Icelandic : 
 " Audrvar vegskona mikil, ]?a er him var ellimoct, bauft him 
 til sin frcendum sinum ok magum ok bjo dijrlega veizla ; 
 en er Jn'jar ncetr hafSi veizlan staiStt, J?a valdi him gjafir 
 vinum sinum ok reiS J>eim heilrce&i ; sagfti him at |?a skyldi 
 standa veizlan enn iii ncetr \ him kvad ]>at vera skyldu 
 erfi sitt ; ]?a nott eptir andacfist him, ok var grafin i flcedar- 
 mdli, sem him haf&i fyrir sagt, ]?viat him uildi sigi liggja i 
 ovigctri moldu, er hun uar skir'S."* 
 
 " Baud," invited, in this passage corresponds with the 
 old word " bid," last bad, or bade, which was used for in- 
 viting to a funeral, and the district of those invited was, 
 and sometimes still is in Cumberland, called a " bidding." 
 We have the same old word in the Liturgy, in the bidding 
 or invitatory prayer. 
 
 " Mold," the word here used for earth in the burial, 
 finds a parallel in a Cumberland phrase for " inter," 
 which is to put in the mould : Flaectarma, is the space be- 
 tween high and low water marks, and, I may remark, as 
 a parallel to this case of Audr, the superstition that *has 
 so often prevailed in Cumberland in individuals as to 
 whether they would or would not be interred in conse- 
 crated ground. 
 
 " Flsedar" is the gen. of flaedr,/., the flood or high tide. 
 
 * In this Icelandic passage I have put in italics every word that seems allied to, 
 or identical with, the dialect. They amount in this short passage to thirty-seven. 
 T.E. 
 
 It
 
 24 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 It is in other parts of Iceland called " Flod," and on the 
 Cumberland shores of the Solway the tide was, since I 
 remember, in some parts always spoken of as the flood. 
 " Valdi," here used, means in Icelandic to select. We 
 have the same word in the dialect in weel, to pick out or 
 select, as of apples, the sortings of which are called " out- 
 weels." 
 
 The word " Erfi," which is used in the original as the 
 name of this funeral banquet is, I think, worthy of note in 
 this connection ; Arfr, meant the inheritance or patri- 
 mony, and " arf-sal" was a law term, signifying the hand- 
 ing over of one's property to another man on condition of 
 getting succour or support for life. Hence Audr's funeral 
 banquet, under the name " erfi," was a sort of passing 
 over of her possessions to her heirs and successors, and 
 finds an exact correspondence in what was called the 
 " arval," or funeral banquet in Cumberland and North 
 Lancashire, where the friends and neighbours of the 
 family of the deceased were invited to dinner on the day 
 of the interment, and this was called the " arval dinner," 
 a solemn festival to exculpate the heir and those entitled 
 to the possessions of the deceased from the mulcts or 
 fines of the lord of the manor, and from all accusation of 
 having used violence. 
 
 In later times the word acquired a wider application, 
 and was used to designate the meals provided at funerals 
 generally ; and this word, the arval, or funeral dinner, 
 has in the dialect come down nearly to our own time. 
 
 Mr. Magmisson kindly sent me a note upon this sub- 
 ject, in which he says that " arval" has its nearest etymo- 
 logical equivalent in modern Danish " arveol," from .the 
 old form arfa 67= the inheritors' ale. 
 
 With regard to place-names, there is a remarkable 
 correspondence in form and meaning between the place- 
 names of Iceland and those of the three northern counties 
 which I have especially named in my paper. 
 
 I
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 25 
 
 I have said that there are in all 1,949 place-names, or 
 farm-names, in the list at the end of the Landnama Bok. 
 Some of these must be discounted as applying to other 
 countries or districts than Iceland, but after all a very 
 great proportion remain of what are purely Icelandic 
 place-names ; and in addition to this I have here a large 
 map of Iceland as it was in the twelfth century, and this 
 will, therefore, serve to illustrate that period of the Land- 
 nama B6k. I have copied those place-names as fully as 
 I could, and they correspond in a remarkable degree to 
 the place-names that we find in Cumberland, Westmor- 
 land, and North Lancashire. 
 
 Ness, Frith, Vik,* and Sand, fringe every portion of the 
 map of Iceland. " Dale," is found continually in Iceland, 
 Broad-dale, Lang-dale, Deep-dale, Reek-dale, and 
 Swin-dale are instances, some of which occur more than 
 once. Anent this last name Swindale, as we have it also 
 in Lakeland, it may not be uninteresting to read why the 
 Icelandic Swindale was first so named. The following 
 passage occurs at p. 177 of the Landnama B6k : " Ingi- 
 mund lost ten swine, and found them in the autumn of 
 the following year in Swindale, where there were then 
 one hundred swine." It goes on to speak about the boar 
 leaping into a pool, called therefrom " Swine's Pool." 
 The Icelandic word here used for " boar" is significant, 
 for it is goltr for the masculine, gyltr for the feminine, and 
 in Cumberland a young swine is still called a gilt pig. 
 
 Thor gives the origin to numerous place-names and sur- 
 names, as will be especially illustrated by some of the 
 passages I have illustrated. 
 
 In Iceland, as in Cumberland, there is a kalda, or cold 
 stream. There is also in Iceland the White river and 
 
 " Vik" is a bight or bay, and a glance at the Ordnance Map will show that 
 it is used once or twice in this sense in the bays or opening's on the Lake of 
 VVindermere. T.E. 
 
 Laxa
 
 26 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 Laxa,* or the salmon river, and those bearing the name of 
 sands and skerries seem to be as numerous as those to be 
 found upon our own shores. The kind of dwelling they 
 originally built in the settlement there, as here, some- 
 times goes to form the name. 
 
 Thus there is Tentstead and Tentness, as in Lakeland 
 we have Tent Lodge and Tent Cottage. The word 
 " skali," in the Icelandic meant a shed, a hut the Engl. 
 sheal, shealing, and as such it seems to form the original 
 of several place-names in Iceland. We have it also as a 
 common noun in Lakeland for a similar shed or enclosure, 
 for storing turf is called a peat-scale, and the Skalafell, 
 Skalawood, Skalamyre, and Skalanes of Iceland, may re- 
 mind us of the Scales Geitscale, Nether Scales, Scale 
 Hill, and Bowscale of our own land. 
 
 " Gard" is an enclosure ; we have it as a common 
 noun in the Bible of Ulphilas, where in the loth John 
 sheepfold is translated gardr; and gard, or gardr, as an en- 
 closure, occurs in many place-names in the map of Ice- 
 land, and is represented by proper names in "gards" and 
 " garth," to be found very frequently in our own neigh- 
 bourhood, and Stackgarth and Kurkgarth, used as com- 
 mon nouns in our dialect, correspond in sound and mean- 
 ing with Stackgard and Kurkgard in Iceland. 
 
 There is a Kirkfell in Iceland, as in Lakeland, and 
 there are names that remind us of their demons as well as 
 of their divinities. " Troll" is their name for fiend or 
 giant, and Trollsheim and Trollsdwelling, as they are ap- 
 plied to the Icelandic mountains, remind us of the sup- 
 posed whereabouts of those fiends or giants, and Fiends' 
 Fell, the former name of Cross Fell, supplies a parallel 
 from our own mountains ; and there is a bay called Ker- 
 
 * Laxa, or salmon river, may remind us of Laxey in the Isle of Man. " Lax" 
 is the Icelandic for salmon, and till lately salmon weirs were at times called /:r 
 weirs in the north of England. T.E. 
 
 linger
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 27 
 
 linger, or Old Woman's, or Witches Frith, because (says 
 the Landnama Bok) when Eysteinn, the son of Thor- 
 steinn, attempted to land there, a witch drove his ship 
 back into the frith. This word " kerling" has found a 
 habitat in the north of our island, for in Scotland the word 
 "karline" is an old woman or witch. "Gufa," in Ice- 
 landic, is steam or vapour, and occurs in Gufu nes, Gufu 
 dale, and Gufu scale proper names which doubtless 
 derive their origin from the steam or hot wells in the 
 neighbourhood. The modern Icelandic preserves it in 
 Gufa-batr, a steamboat, and a vapouring fellow in Cum- 
 berland used to be called a great " guff." 
 
 I have been speaking of proper names. I may say a 
 word in conclusion about what I suppose would not 
 inaptly be called improper names. The Landnama Bok 
 abounds in nick-names, every kind of personal pecu- 
 liarity, almost every shade of complexion, every kind of 
 defect and deformity, a man's tidiness or untidiness, 
 whether he was long or short, fat or lean, flat-footed or 
 the opposite, good, bad, or indifferent all seem to have 
 been represented by an epithet placed immediately after 
 his baptismal name, and in that position as a personal 
 appellative to have stuck on to him through life. It 
 stuck to him better than a degree sticks to some people, 
 and in many instances in the Landnama Bok it would 
 seem to be the only name by which he was generally 
 known. Anyone who knew the Cumberland villages forty 
 or fifty years ago, or earlier still, needs not to be reminded 
 that in this particular they were not far behind the 
 Norsemen. Anderson's " Kursmas Eve" or Mark Lons- 
 dale's " Upshot" supply such Cumberland nicknames in 
 abundance. This last is the free sketch of a Cumberland 
 upshot, and was taken in 1780. In the notes upon the 
 original edition of the "Upshot" there is the following 
 reference to these nicknames : " These bye-titles are so 
 far from giving offence that the parties themselves admit 
 
 them
 
 28 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 
 
 them on all occasions, and sometimes use them in 
 writing." 
 
 In some villages there was hardly a person who was 
 not designated by such an epithet, and as in Iceland it 
 got to be almost the only name by which he was known. 
 
 A careful analysis and comparison of some of those 
 names in Iceland shows that in some instances they 
 became surnames, and in the case of their posterity they 
 were handed down as the only family surname by which 
 their descendants were known. 
 
 One nickname in the Landnama Bok reminds us of a 
 very curious custom in Iceland. There are three men 
 spoken of there whose nicknames are Holmgongu Starri, 
 Holmgongu Mani, and Holmgongu Rafn. They were so 
 named because they had fought in the Holmgang. This 
 Holmgang was the Icelandic wager of battle. The com- 
 batants went alone to a holm or island, and fought until 
 one of them was wounded or dead. The holm gang was 
 therefore a kind of court of final appeal or ordeal, and 
 whenever a Thing or parliament was assembled, an islet 
 or holm was appointed near to it as the place for the holm 
 gang or wager of battle, and throughout the Landnama 
 Bok it is spoken of as something well known and 
 admitted. About A.D. 1006 this wager of battle or holm 
 gang was abolished on account of an unfortunate feud 
 between two of their well known leaders. The word 
 " holm," is apparently as a proper and a common noun, 
 used as generally in Iceland as in Lakeland, and it has in 
 both cases exactly the same meaning, namely, that of an 
 islet, especially in a bay, creek, or river, and even 
 meadows on the shore with ditches behind them are, in 
 both countries, called holmes. 
 
 Such then is some of the evidence, however imperfectly 
 rendered, that I have to tender of the affinities between 
 the Language, Place-names, Folklore, and Antiquities 
 derived from the oldest and best authenticated record of 
 
 the
 
 THE LANDNAMA BOOK OF ICELAND. 2Q 
 
 the ancient Norsemen, and the Language, Place Names, 
 Folklore, and Antiquities of those three countries in which 
 your Society carries on its valuable and interesting work. 
 
 Icelandic is certainly the most unchanged and charac- 
 teristic form of the language of the Norsemen. 
 
 The Landnama Book is the truest type of its earliest 
 records, and the writers of it are placed in the very front 
 rank of their historians. 
 
 I have done what little I could to translate some portion 
 of that record, and I hope that abler hands, with greater 
 resources, may soon translate the whole of it with an 
 especial view to showing its bearing upon the Dialect, 
 Place-names, and Folklore of our northern counties. 
 
 But with what I have done, I have little hesitation in 
 saying that the language of our three northern counties, 
 so far as it is or has been a distinctive language, is 
 founded upon a Norse original, that our place-names 
 have the most close and striking affinities and at times 
 also identities with the place-names of Iceland, as re- 
 corded in the Landnama Book. That the Scandinavian 
 mythology enters very largely into our folklore and super- 
 stitions, and that the unwritten history contained in the 
 stones and megaliths to be found upon our mountains, 
 will, as it is better interpreted, point still more and more 
 clearly to the doom circles and religious places of assembly 
 that were first founded by the Norse.
 
 (30 
 
 The Chronology of the Icelandic Commonweath as given in the 
 Landnama Book. 
 
 fTlHE names of some of the leading Norse settlers in Ice- 
 -* land have been given in the proceeding paper and also 
 the omens by which they were led to take possession of 
 a claim. 
 
 Those who went from the British Islands seem to have 
 been in a great measure related or connected by marriage. 
 Those Norse chiefs solemnly took possession of the land,* 
 or as it may be explained, consecrated it to their own use 
 in the name of the Divinity. 
 
 After this, in order to found a community, they built a 
 temple and called themselves by the name Godi or Hof- 
 Godi, i.e., Temple Priest. The temple became the centre 
 of the new community and the founder was, in civil 
 matters, their chieftain and in religious matters, their 
 priest. 
 
 Many independent chieftains or liege lords thus sprung 
 up through the country until the year 930, when the Alth- 
 ing was established where all the petty chiefs entered into 
 a kind of league and laid the foundation of a general 
 goverment for the whole island. This Althing was the 
 Parliament or general assembly of the Icelandic Common 
 wealth and was invested with supreme legislative and 
 judicial power. 
 
 Under this government somewhat changed when Chris- 
 tianity was introduced, the Icelandic Commonwealth 
 existed for about three hundred years. 
 
 The central figure of this community was the Lawman. 
 
 * Several modes of taking possession are instanced in the passages I have quoted 
 elsewhere such as the drifting- ashore of the High Seat Post, naming the land 
 which was a religious ceremony, and hallowing the land by fire. 
 
 He
 
 CHRONOLOGY OF THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH. 3! 
 
 He was the Guardian of the Law and the President of the 
 Legislation Assembly and of the Law Courts. 
 
 As in heathen times the laws were not written, the 
 Lawman had to say what was the law of the land in any 
 cases of doubt. 
 
 In the general assemblies in Iceland, he had to say the 
 law of the land to the assembled people from the Law 
 Hill hence in the Icelandic Commonwealth he is called 
 the Lawspeaker or Lawsayer, and his office is called 
 Lawspeaking. 
 
 For the first one hundred years (930 to 1030) he was 
 elected for life, afterwards for a shorter period. 
 
 The following are the chief dates of the Settlement and 
 of the Commonwealth as given in the Landnama : 
 
 A.D. 
 852 The Norse Sea King Olave the White landed at Dublin and 
 
 founded a Norse Principality. 
 875 Ingolf first settled Iceland. 
 884 Thorolf Mostbeard first took land at Thorsness 
 892 (about) Queen" Aud came to Iceland and settled all the Dale 
 
 lands. 
 
 927 Ulfljotr brought a system of law from Norway to Iceland. He 
 first promulged a system of law in Iceland and by his advice 
 the Althing was established. 
 930 The Althing is inaugurated : Rafn son of Ketil the Salmon 
 
 first had the office of Lawspeaker and said law for 20 years. 
 950 Thoravinn Ragabrodir son of Olaf was Lawspeaker for 20 
 
 years. 
 970 Thorkell Mani Thorsteinnson was Lawspeaker for about 15 
 
 years. 
 
 985 Thorgeirr Thorkell's son was Lawspeaker for 17 years. 
 1000 Christianity introduced into Iceland. Discovery of Vineland 
 
 or America by the Norsemen. 
 1002 Grimr Sversting's son from Mossfell was Lawspeaker about 2 
 
 years. 
 
 1004 Skapti son of Thorodd the Priest was Lawspeaker about 26 
 years. He died in the same year in which St. Olave the King 
 fell, about 1030. 
 
 1031 Steinn Thorgest's son was Lawspeaker for 3 years. 
 1034 Thorkell was Lawspeaker (the second time) for 19 years. 
 
 1054
 
 32 CHRONOLOGY OF THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 1054 Gellir Bolverk's son was Lawspeaker for g years. 
 1056 Isleif was consecrated first Bishop of Iceland at Skalholt. 
 1063 Gunnarr the prophet Thorgrim's son was Lawspeaker 3 years. 
 1066 Kolbein Flosason was Lawspeaker 6 years. That summer 
 
 King Harald Sigurd's son fell in England. 
 1071 Gellir was Lawspeaker the second time for 3 years. 
 1075 Gunnarr Lawspeaker the second time for i year. 
 1076 Sighvatr Lawspeaker for 8 years. 
 1080 Gellir Lawspeaker third time. 
 
 1084 Markas Skeggjason Lawspeaker that summer and died 1093. 
 1093 Bergthorr Hrafnsson was Lawspeaker. 
 1097 Tuindargjald took law to Iceland, 
 1107 Ulfedinn took law to Iceland. 
 1106 Bergthorr Lawspeaker (second time). About this time the 
 
 Christian Scriptures were brought to Iceland. 
 1 122 Gudmundr Thorgeirr's son was Lawspeaker 17 years. 
 1139 Rafn Ulfhedin's son Lawspeaker 4 years. 
 1143 Finnr Hallsson 6 years. 
 1149 Rafn Ulfhedin's son 10 years. 
 1159 Snorri Lawspeaker 15 years. 
 1174 Styrkarr Oddason 10 years. 
 1184 Giziir Hallson 22 years. 
 1206 Hallr Gizurason Lawspeaker 8 years. 
 1214 Styrmir Karason Lawspeaker 5 years. 
 1219 Snorri Sturluson Lawspeaker 4 years. 
 1223 Teitr Thorvalds son 3 years. 
 
 1226 Snorri Sturluson (second time) Lawspeaker 10 years. 
 1236 Strymir Karason second time 4 years. 
 1240 Teitr Thorvald's son second time 12 years. 
 1252 Olafr Thordarson Lawspeaker 3 years. 
 
 256 Olafr Thordarson second time i year. 
 
 257 Teitr Einar's son lawspeaker 6 years. 
 1262 Final submission of Iceland to the King of Norway. 
 
 As the Icelandic Commonweath rose and was formed 
 by the families of whom the Landnama Book describes 
 the settlement, namely, in a great measure by the families 
 of Ingolf, Thorolf, Queen Aud and her very numerous con- 
 nexions and descendants, so with the Sturlung Family, 
 who at that time represented all that was distinguished in 
 intellect in literature and in political influence, we have 
 the era of its decline and fall. 
 
 A
 
 CHRONOLOGY OF THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH. 33 
 
 A brief notice therefore of Snorri Sturluson, the last of 
 the'threejjrothers representing this family, may fitly form 
 the conclusion of the chronological table which I have 
 here given. 
 
 Snorri Sturluson was born in 1178 at Hvamma* where 
 his family, who traced their descent to the ancient Kings 
 of Norway, had been settled since the first colonization of 
 the island. 
 
 Hvamma was the home of Aud about whom so much 
 has been said, and who came from Britain as one of the 
 original settlers of the island. And throughout the times 
 of the Commonwealth this same farm of Hvamma con- 
 tinued to be a great centre of intellectual and political 
 influence'and life. Snorri was placed at an early age 
 under the care of Ion Loptson, son of Sigfusson, the 
 learned compiler of the old Edda, by whom he was in- 
 structed in the history, mythology, and poetry of the 
 north as well as in classical literature. By his marriage 
 at the age of twenty-six with a rich heiress, and the early 
 death of his father, he soon attained to a position of 
 wealth and influence, and, as will be seen from the fore- 
 going Table, was twice elected to be Lawsayer or 
 Supreme Magistrate of the Island. In this post he was 
 distinguished for his profound knowledge of the laws and 
 civil institutions of his native country; but his ambition, 
 avarice, and love of intrigue embroiled him personally in 
 sanguinary feuds, and contributed much to hasten the 
 destruction of Icelandic independence. His love of in- 
 trigue led him to take part in the intestine troubles of 
 Norway, and thus drew upon him the suspicion and ill 
 will of the Norwegian King Hakon, who sent secret in- 
 structions for his arrest and if need be for his assassina- 
 tion. The King's intentions were carried out to their 
 
 * See a notice of this word in the vocabulary of Fell, Field, and Farm names at 
 the end of this volume. 
 
 fullest
 
 34 CHRONOLOGY OF THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 fullest extent, and his numerous enemies joining together 
 in a plot against him, he was attacked in his own house 
 and murdered in the year 1241. His death was literally 
 an illustration of the truth that a man's foes shall be they 
 of his own household, for the leaders of his murderers 
 were Gizur and Ami, his sons in-law, whose influence 
 with the Kings of Norway had been the direct cause of 
 his death. He exercised as great an influence over the 
 literary as over the political History of Iceland. He 
 was a poet of no mean order, and composed poems on 
 the Kings and Jarls at whose court he had sojourned. 
 His great work, however, is the Heimskringla or History 
 of the Kings of Norway from the earliest times to the 
 death of Erlingsson in 1177, and which he compiled from 
 ancient genealogical tables and other documents. This 
 work is now being translated into English by Eric 
 Magnusson, and brought out in the volumes of " The 
 Saga Library." The death of Snorri marks the fall of the 
 Icelandic Commonwealth, for the remaining portion of its 
 history is little more than a series of reprisals between his 
 avengers and their opponents. It includes the burning of 
 Flumyra and the slaughter of the Burners. At the return 
 of Earl Gizur from Norway, whither he had gone to 
 receive the title of Earl, the final submission of Norway 
 took place in 1262, when the remaining two quarters and 
 a half of the Island took the oath of allegiance to the 
 King of Norway, consented to pay him tribute, and to 
 come under the government of an Earl. The history of 
 the decline and fall of the Independent Icelandic Com- 
 monwealth is told in the Icelandic Saga of Sturla Thords- 
 son, who was himself contemporary with the concluding 
 portion of it, and a member of the Sturlung Family, and 
 who, having been present at some of the most terrible 
 incidents that mark the Fall of the Commonwealth, des- 
 cribes them with a vividness and reality which could not 
 have been expected from anyone else. 
 
 His
 
 CHRONOLOGY OF THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH. 35 
 
 His whole history as contained in the Icelandic Saga 
 extends from A.D. 1196 to 1262, and takes in the feuds 
 which existed from 1208 until 1258, a period of 50 years. 
 The fall of the Commonwealth and the destruction of 
 those old houses whose origin is given in the Landnama 
 is what that history or Saga really means. For some 
 years during the concluding portion of this war the 
 Chiefs of Houses had one by one been giving up their rule 
 and sending in their submission to Norway; the Chiefs of 
 the leading factions had almost exterminated each other 
 in their various hand to hand encounters. The Island as 
 Thordsson describes it was thus in some measure ren- 
 dered powerless to cope with its outside enemies, who 
 in assisting the Icelanders against each other had been 
 acting on the principle of " Divide et impera," so that the 
 final submission of the Feudal chieftains as they one after 
 another took the oath of allegiance, consented to pay 
 tribute and resigned their rule to the King of Norway was 
 really but the necessary outcome of this long and disas- 
 trous internal war.
 
 (36) 
 
 The Folklore of Lakeland and Iceland. 
 
 fTlHE Icelandic Landtake, as will be seen from the evi- 
 J- dence already adduced, was almost entirely directed 
 by omens. 
 
 The Norse settlers at times made the most trivial cir- 
 cumstances guide them in the selection of their future 
 homes. 
 
 In one instance the flight of ravens directed an early 
 discoverer to his landing place ; in another, when a chief- 
 tain who was leading an expedition died on board, then 
 his sons threw overboard the coffin- in which his body 
 had been placed ; to guide them to their future settlement, 
 and at p. 76 of the Landnama, a Mermennil or Merman, 
 which had been brought up in fishing, is made to point 
 out in a somewhat enigmatical manner the position of a 
 settler's Landtake and the place where his abode shall be 
 built. 
 
 The casting overboard of the High Seat Pillar seems, 
 however, to have been by much the most general and 
 recognised method of directing a Landtake, and the Land- 
 take of Thorolf Mostbeard as so directed exercised a most 
 lasting influence upon the history and institutions of the 
 Island. This took place A.D. 884 or just ten years after 
 the arrival of Ingolf, the original settler. I have already 
 (pages 8-1 1) quoted the recital of Thorolf's landing and of 
 his calling the fell upon the ness where the pillar came to 
 land Helgafell, or the Holy Hill. The Eyrbyggja Saga, 
 chapter 4, contains an account of the temple which he 
 reared in this place. "There," it is said, "he built a 
 temple, and a mighty house it was. There was a door in 
 
 * The word used really implies something larger than a coffin, evidently some- 
 thing that would float the body until it came to land. 
 
 the
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 37 
 
 the side wall, and nearer to the end thereof. Within the 
 door stood the pillars of the high seat, and nails were 
 therein. They were called the god's nails. Off the in- 
 most house was another house, of the fashion of the choir 
 of a church, and a stall or altar, with a ring weighing 20 
 ounces laid upon it, and upon this ring men were required 
 to swear all the oaths. At all public meetings the chief was 
 required to have this ring upon his arm. On the stall or 
 altar stood the blood bowl, and therein was the blood rod, 
 which was like unto a sprinkler, and therewith should be 
 sprinkled from the bowl that blood which is Hlaut, which 
 was that kind of blood which flowed when those beasts 
 were smitten which were sacrificed to the gods. But 
 round about the stall were the gods arranged in the Holy 
 Place." 
 
 THE NORSE OATH. 
 
 The form of this Norse oath upon the Ring is given in 
 the Landnama Book, at page 259, as follows : Every 
 man who was there to transact any business as by law 
 provided before the Court, should first take an oath upon 
 that ring, and name for the purpose two or more wit- 
 nesses and repeat the following words: I call witnesses 
 in evidence that I take oath upon the Ring. A lawful 
 oath (logeid) so help me Freya and Niord and the 
 Almighty God, as I shall in this case prosecute or defend 
 or bear witness or give sentence or pronounce doom 
 according as I know what is most right and most true 
 and most lawful and that I will deal lawfully with all 
 such matters as come under my jurisdiction while I am at 
 this Thing. 
 
 THE HOLY HILL. 
 
 The sacred character of the mountain where Thorolf 
 first landed and its connexion with the religious belief of 
 the Norsemen is well marked in the following extract 
 
 from
 
 38 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 from the Landnama : " Thorolf took land (land nam) 
 from Staffriver inward to Thorsriver and called all that 
 part Thorsness. He had so great a reverence for that 
 fell which stands upon the ness, and which he called 
 Helga Fell, Holy Hill, that he ordained that thither 
 should no man unwashen look ; and there was so great a 
 place-hallowedness (sanctuary) that nothing should be 
 destroyed upon the mountain, neither cattle nor people 
 unless it should go away of its own accord. That was the 
 belief of Thorolf and his kinsmen that they should die 
 into the mountain." This passage shows, therefore, that 
 the Holy Hill where Thor's High Seat or Pillar came 
 ashore was thereby consecrated as a place of sanctuary or 
 refuge. The most hallowing influence, however, con- 
 nected with this sacred mountain would be doubtless in 
 the idea contained in the last sentence I have quoted, 
 viz. : It was the belief of Thorolf and his kinsmen that 
 they should die into the mountain, i.e., that they should 
 dwell within the mountain after their death. It is an 
 advantage to rightly understanding this passage that the 
 Eyrbyggja Saga in its first twelve chapters deals almost 
 exclusively with Thorolf, his landing, his form of religious 
 worship, and his descendants. Chapter n of this Saga 
 when describing the death of Thorsteinn the son of 
 Thorolf Most-beard, the original settler, gives such a 
 graphic account of what is meant by " Die into the moun- 
 tain," that I have thought it well to quote it in full. It 
 seems to me to afford a remarkable parallel to that well- 
 known Cumberland superstition which used to be so 
 well known as 
 
 THE FOREBODING OR FOREWARNING OF DEATH. 
 
 I subjoin a translation of the passage* : " That same 
 
 * The student who is comparing the Icelandic with North English will do well 
 to read this passage in Icelandic. It will be found at p. 88 of Vigfusson and 
 Powell's Icelandic Reader (Clarendon Press, 1879). 
 
 harvest
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 39 
 
 harvest Thorsteinn went out to Hoskulds Island to lay in 
 stores (of fish), and it chanced that one evening in that 
 harvest that a shepherd of Thorsteinn went to look after 
 his flock ft) the north of the Holy Hill. He observed that 
 the fell opened out towards the north end and within the 
 fell he saw mighty fires and could hear a great noise there 
 and the clanging of drinking horns. And he listened if he 
 could catch any distinct words and he heard that they 
 were greeting Thorsteinn and his seafaring companions 
 and bidding him to sit in the High Seat over against his 
 father (Thorolf Mostbeard). This forewarning the shep- 
 herd told to Thora, the wife of Thorsteinn, in the evening. 
 She spake little about it but said that it might be the 
 foreboding of heavier tidings. The morning after men 
 came out from Hoskulds Island, and told those tidings 
 that Thorsteinn Codbiter had been drowned whilst fishing, 
 and men regarded this as a great disaster." 
 
 HALLOWING THE LAND BY FIRE 
 
 seems to have been a frequent method of defining the Ice- 
 landic Landtake and the origin of this is pointed out at 
 page 276 of the Landnama part V., cap. I. " Those who 
 came out afterwards thought that the earlier settlers had 
 taken too great an extent of land into their own possession 
 but Harald the Fair-haired, made them agree to this, that 
 no one should have a wider extent of land than he him- 
 self and his companions from the ship could carry fire 
 across in one day. They should make fires when the sun 
 was in the east, and also they should make other smokes, 
 so that they could see the one from the other; and that 
 those fires which they made when the sun was in the 
 east should burn until nightfall, so they should go until 
 the sun was in the west and then make other fires." * 
 
 * The limits of their claims therefore would be so far as from one extremity 
 they could see the smokes raised at the other extremity by day or the fires by 
 night. 
 
 An
 
 4O THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 An example of how those directions were carried out is 
 given at page 207 of the Landnama, where there is a 
 notice of Helgi the Lean, a settler from the western 
 islands of Scotland as follows : " Helgi searched the 
 whole district during that summer and took possession of 
 all Eyiafiord between Sigluness and Reynisness and made 
 a large fire at every river mouth and consecrated to him- 
 self all the district. He resided that winter at Bildsa, 
 and in spring he made his dwelling (bu) in Christness, 
 and dwelt there for the rest of his life." The Helgi here 
 mentioned was brother-in-law to Queen And who with the 
 various members of her kindred makes much the most 
 important figure in the Settlement and early History of 
 Iceland, and I think it is most important to be noted 
 that all this band of settlers, though almost entirely com- 
 posed of Noremen, came last from the British Islands and 
 seem to have kept up a connexion and correspondence 
 therewith. 
 
 There is a passage at page 193 of the Landnama which 
 not only gives a remarkable instance of this custom of 
 fire-hallowing but also records an example of Norse sharp 
 practice in obtaining the first possession of a claim of 
 land. It is there said : " There was a man named 
 Onund the Wise who took land (land nam) up from Mark 
 Gill along all the eastern side of the valley, but when Eric 
 (named in a former chapter) would go and settle the 
 western side of that valley, then Onund made a forecast 
 by sacrifice that he might know at what time Eric would 
 go and take possession of the dale, and Onund was the 
 quicker and shot across the river with a tinder-arrow or 
 fire arrow and hallowed for himself the land on the western 
 side of the river and built his dwelling beside the river." 
 
 It is very probable that Onund took his title of the Wise 
 from the adroitness which he manifested on this ocasion, 
 for the word viss (wise) which describes his knowing in 
 such a way as to anticipate the landtake of Eric, is also 
 the title given to him as Onund the Wise. The
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 4! 
 
 The signal fires which have been spoken of as passed 
 on from claim to claim by the Norsemen in Iceland in 
 evidence of hallowing or appropriating those claims find a 
 parallel in the Bale* fires or signal fires which were once 
 so well known more especially in the north. 
 
 "The Beacon " is used as the name of several hills in the 
 Lake District, and there seems to be no doubt that the 
 name took its first origin from the signal or beacon fires, 
 which were lighted upon those hills in time of danger, 
 each district having one of its own, the names of a range 
 of such fire stations extending across Lakeland are still 
 preserved, and they have been used occasionally, even 
 down to more modern times. 
 
 FAIRYLAND. 
 
 There is a word used in connexion with the establishment 
 of the Quarter Thing on Thorsness, by Thorolf, which 
 when closely considered throws great light upon the early 
 superstitions of Iceland. That word is Alfrek and is 
 applied theiein to any influence which may drive away 
 the guardian spirits from the land. 
 
 The word itself tells as much, Alf being equivalent to 
 elves or guardian deities or " the good folk," and " reck," 
 as I have elsewhere noted, comes from the verb rekkan, 
 to drive, which we have in such words as rack, wreck, &c. 
 
 In Icelandic, Alfr, in Danish, Ellefolk, and in Swedish, 
 Elf, all represent elves or fairies, a class of benign guar- 
 dian spirits the belief in which seems to have been very 
 closely bound up with the folk lore and superstitions which 
 the Landnama Book contains or implies. At page 258 
 occurs a passage on this subject of which the subjoined is a 
 
 * Dr. VVhitaker and other writers after him have suggested that Hill Bell, be- 
 tween Troutbeck and Kentmere, took its name from sacrifices being offered upon 
 it or fires being lighted upon it, to helus or Baal, the Babylonian or Syrian God. 
 Surely if fire has anything to do with the derivation of the name, the Bale fires of 
 the Norsemen, which were probably lighted upon it, suggest a much more 
 obvious derivation of the name. 
 
 paraphrase
 
 42 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 paraphrase, or at any rate a very free translation. " There 
 was a heathen law passed at the time of the Settlement 
 that intending settlers should not have carved figure 
 heads upon _the stem of their ships when at sea. But if 
 they had such carved figureheads they should take them 
 off before they came within sight of land so that they 
 might^not sail to land having in front of them gaping 
 figure heads or grinning beaks, lest they should drive 
 away the guardian spirits of the land." * 
 
 Now these guardian or protecting influences which 
 were so liable to be driven away by the Alfrek, mentioned 
 in connexion with the early settlement, or by the gaping 
 and grinning figure heads, carved upon the war ships of 
 the Norsemen, seem to be peculiar to the Scandinavian as 
 distinguished from the Classical Mythology, and under the 
 names of elves or fairies to have come in our own folk 
 lore very nearly down to within living memory. In a 
 country which abounded in natural and unexplained 
 phenomena, where the geysir and the volcano, especially 
 as seen and heard though the long lone nights of an 
 Arctic winter must have brought the unexplored world 
 within a measureable distance, Shadowland and Fairy- 
 land doubtless appeared much more vividly and distinctly 
 than they do in other countries, yet any native of our 
 northern counties who will read carefully over the Land- 
 nama must find therein much to remind him of the fairy 
 folk lore which he has almost imperceptibly imbibed in 
 his earlier years. 
 
 * Land vaettr, guardian spirits of the lanil; a further account of them is 
 given at p. 271, where it is said of a settler : " Bjorn dreamed one night that a 
 giant (literally ' a rock dweller ') came to him and bade him enter into partner- 
 ship with him, and Bjorn assented to his proposal. After that it is related that 
 his cattle increased so rapidly that he was speedily rolling in riches. Then, on 
 account of a mysterious wild buck that came to his flock he was nick-named Hafr 
 Bjorn, or Bjorn Wild Buck, and men who had the power of second sight (ghost 
 seers) observed this that the guardian spirits of the land (land vaettr, elves or 
 fairies) followed Bjorn to the Thing and that they followed Thorsteinn and Thord 
 in hunting and fishing." 
 
 There
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 43 
 
 There is the mermennil or merman appearing and pro- 
 phesying their fate to the early Norse settlers, and I think 
 many of the older amongst our number will be able to 
 remember a time when they were tanght legends about 
 mermaids which at critical times, as storms at sea, came 
 up and foretold the fate of sailors, clothing their remarks 
 in enigmatical or mysterious words. 
 
 And with regard to fairies and guardian spirits, they 
 seem to be adopted as a portion of their creed by the 
 compilers of the Landnama, and no one there doubts their 
 existence, and half a century ago in rural districts in 
 Scotland and Cumberland those Green men or Fairies were 
 an undoubted article of belief. I never saw them cer- 
 tainly, but as a boy I firmly believed in their existence. I 
 believed, and my belief was formed from the teaching of 
 those learned in folk lore, that the fairies often came forth 
 and joined their revels in obscure thickets and remote 
 grassy dells, and if a disbeliever wished to have his 
 doubts settled upon the subject he could be referred to the 
 visible testimony of those circles known as Fairy Rings.* 
 
 * The following admirable description of the Edenhall " Fairies round their 
 Fairy King " is evidently the account of one skilled in fairy lore : 
 
 Twelve hundred elfin knights and more 
 
 Were there in silk and steel arrayed, 
 And each a ruby helmet wore, 
 
 And each a diamond lance displayed. 
 
 And pursuivants with wands of gold, 
 
 And minstrels scarf 'd and laurelled fair; 
 Heralds with blazoned flags unrolled, 
 
 And trumpet-tuning dwarfs were there. 
 
 Behind twelve hundred ladies coy 
 On milk-white steeds brought up their Queen ; 
 
 Their 'kerchiefs of the crimson soy, 
 Their kirtles all of Lincoln green. 
 
 Some wore, in fanciful costume, 
 
 A sapphire or a topaz crown, 
 And some a hern or peacock's plume, 
 
 Which their own tercel knights struck down. 
 
 And some wore masks, and some wore hoods, 
 
 Some turbans rich, some onches rare; 
 And some sweet woodbine from the woods, 
 
 To bind their undulating hair. 
 
 But
 
 44 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 But where did those fairies come from ? and where did 
 they go to ? Once suppose an underground world and you 
 have not the least difficulty in getting over this aspect of 
 the question, and an underground world was a firm belief 
 in our northern folk lore just as it was a firm belief in the 
 folk lore and superstitions which are disclosed by the 
 Landnam and other Sagas of the Norse. Thorolf and his 
 descendants believed that they should die into the moun- 
 tain to which his High Seat Pillar had directed him when 
 he came to Iceland as a settler, and when his herdsman 
 on the night of Thorsteinn's death was shepherding upon 
 the same mountain, he saw the whole of it opened 
 towards the north and lighted up, and heard the revellers 
 within that mountain welcoming Thorsteinn to the 
 higher seat at their festive board ; also doubtless the 
 mysterious guardian spirits that came among men were 
 understood to disappear into the earth. They had the 
 same jealous character in the north of England that they 
 had in Iceland, and any malign or counteracting influ- 
 ence was sufficient to drive them away from their abodes. 
 
 The following extract from " Scott's Minstrelsy of the 
 Scottish Border" refers to the best accredited instance of 
 the doings of the fairies that is to be found in the folklore 
 of the north : " It is currently believed in the north of 
 England that he who has the courage to rush upon a fairy 
 festival and snatch away their drinking cup, shall find it 
 prove to him a cornucopia of good fortune if he can but 
 bear it across a running stream." 
 
 A goblet is still preserved in Edenhall, Cumberland, 
 
 With all gay tints the darksome shade 
 
 Grew florid as they passed along, 
 And not a sound their bridles made, 
 
 But tuned itself to elfin song. 
 
 Where'er they trip, where'er they tread, 
 
 A daisy or a bluebell springs, 
 And not a dewdrop shines o'erhead, 
 
 But falls within their charmed rings. 
 
 From "Ballads by J. H. Wiffen." 
 
 which
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 45 
 
 which is supposed to have been seized at such a banquet 
 by one of the ancient family of Musgrave. 
 The fairy train vanished, crying aloud : 
 
 If that cup should break or fall, 
 Farewell the luck of Edenhall. 
 
 From this prophecy the goblet took the name it now 
 bears : " The Luck of Edenhall." 
 
 It is worth while remarking that the two lines here put 
 into the mouth of the fairies bear a remarkable resem- 
 blance to some of the parting shots fired off by the spaka, 
 spamen, wizards, professors of second sight and others of 
 the prophetic fraternity who are mentioned in the Land- 
 nama, whose communications often consist of two or more 
 lines of poetry very abrupt in its mode of expression and 
 couched in a form of metre or verse. 
 
 THE SPAKA* OR SEER. 
 
 The spaka, spaman, or foreteller of events is often 
 introduced in the Landnama. His character, as described 
 briefly, is wise, combined with the idea of prophetic vision 
 or second sight. 
 
 The following passage from p. 146 will show something 
 of the style and language of this reader of future events : 
 " Liot rode with Guest to see him off, and asked ' What 
 will be the cause of my death ? ' Guest said he could not 
 definitely foretell his fate, but bade him see that he stood 
 well with his neighbours. Liot asked : ' What ! will the 
 earth-lice, the sons of Grim Bantling be my death then?' 
 ' Hard bites a hungry louse,' replied Guest. * Where will 
 that be,' said Liot. ' Near here,' replied Guest." 
 
 " The Norwegian (Liot) rode with Guest up on to the 
 
 . * From the same root as the Scotch and Border Spawife or fortune teller. In 
 the old Border dialect, Spa means to foretell events. 
 
 heath
 
 46 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 heath, and steadied Guest from behind, when his horse 
 stumbled under him. Then said Guest : " Good luck 
 sought thee now, but soon it must be another thing, take 
 care that it be not ill luck to thee." 
 
 " In that autumn Liot sat watching his slaves from a 
 height. He had on him a cloak, the hood of which was 
 laced round his neck, and on which there was only one 
 sleeve. The sons of Grim Bantling rushed upon the hill and 
 hewed at him both at once, upon which Thorkel put the 
 hood over his head. Liot told them to behave in a neigh- 
 bourly manner, and they betook themselves off from the 
 hill by the gate along which Guest had ridden. Liot died 
 there of his wounds. The sons of Grim went to Howard 
 the Halt for refuge. Eyolf the Gray gave them all a 
 reception." 
 
 This passage, I think, shows that there was evidently a 
 firm belief in the supernatural knowledge and predictions 
 of Guest, this prophet or wiseman, and that all he had 
 couched in such mysterious language was looked upon as 
 concealing or disclosing the truth. 
 
 A time there certainly was in Cumberland when such 
 wise men or wise women were believed in and regularly 
 consulted ; when money or other property was stolen, 
 when cattle were ill of incurable, and apparently of inex- 
 plicable diseases, or when a man hesitated as to what 
 course he should take in a season of doubt or uncertainty, 
 then the wise man or wise woman was looked upon as the 
 unerring court of final appeal. Without professing to be 
 able to tell whence they got their information any more 
 than I can tell where Guest got his information about 
 Liot, I may observe that some of our Cumberland seers 
 have at times given information and forecasts which turned 
 out to be very near the mark. Like Guest no doubt they 
 were thoroughly " up " in all the bearings and surround- 
 ings of the matter upon which they were consulted, and 
 like Guest they were not by any means anxious that their 
 
 utterances
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 47 
 
 utterances should be altogether clear and to the point.* 
 
 FOLKLORE AS FOUND IN PROVERBS, PRECEPTS, 
 AND WISE SAWS. 
 
 The short verses in which poetry and proverbs are ex- 
 pressed is well illustrated in the following lines, which 
 Mr. Magnusson kindly sent to me, to show the way in 
 which the Icelandic illustrates the meaning of our Cum- 
 berland phrase, bain way, or gain way=short cut, which 
 corresponds almost exactly with Icelandic gayn vegr= 
 short cut. The quotation from the Havamal, with which 
 Mr. Magnusson explains and exemplifies this passage, is 
 as follows : 
 
 Enn til gods vinar 
 liggja gagnvegir 
 pott hann se fyrr. 
 
 Translated : 
 
 But to a good friend 
 lie bain ivays ever 
 though he be far away. 
 
 The Havamal, from which this is quoted, is a singular 
 collection of moral precepts and proverbs professing to be 
 derived from Woden himself. 
 
 The poetry of Iceland consists generally of very short 
 verses, and instead of being in rhyme it is alliterative ; 
 that is, with two or more words in each verse or syllable 
 commencing with the same letter. Now many of the 
 proverbs and precepts of the Icelanders seem to partake 
 of this alliterative character of its poetry as if they had 
 been so formed poetically in order that they might be 
 better remembered and handed down in the Folklore of 
 
 * Meg Merrilies, in Scott's Guy Mannering, represents the Border sybil or 
 spawife, and the prophecy she gives in chapter 46 of that work is an inimitable 
 illustration of this mysterious method of forecasting' future events. 
 
 the
 
 48 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 the people, who had to trust to their memory for all they 
 knew and for all they wished to refer to. 
 
 Many of these proverbs and precepts are given in 
 poetical form in the Landnama, and the alliteration is so 
 often marked, as : 
 
 ut heyri ek svan sveita 
 sara porns er mornar. 
 
 Varat mer i dag daudi, 
 draugr flatvallar baugi. 
 
 Her liggr, kjola keyrir ! 
 Kaldakinn urn aldr. 
 
 Now, in the proverbs and wise saws to be found in the 
 folklore of Cumberland, this form of terse alliterative say- 
 ing is often to be found exceedingly like some of the 
 phrases I have quoted. Take, for example, a rhyme well 
 known in the folk speech long ago describing the Sundays 
 before Easter : 
 
 Tid, Mid, Missaray 
 
 Carling, Palm, and Pace Egg Day. 
 
 This, I think, is intended to be alliterative, and three 
 out of the eight words which it contains are also unmis- 
 takeably Norse. 
 
 Tid is Norse for time or season ; carling comes from 
 cser, an accusation, and we have the very word missaray 
 in the Dictionary of Cleasby, where it is defined as mean- 
 ing a season or seasons of the year, which definition exactly 
 fits it also in the lines which I have above from the Folk 
 Lore of our own country. 
 
 Many other similar alliterative phrases might be given : 
 When a man is entirely dispossessed of a home he is 
 said " to be turned out of house and hold," and people with 
 keen appetites are said to be fit to eat a man out of house 
 and harbour, which word harbour, in the sense there used, 
 
 is Norse. Anyone who is not able to make much of a 
 
 meal
 
 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 49 
 
 meal is said to be neither " fuller nor fainer," which word 
 fain, or fagn, in its Cumberland form and meaning, is 
 unmistakeably Norse. Other alliterative phrases will 
 occur to anyone who is well acquainted with the Folk 
 Speech and Folk Lore of Cumberland and the Lake Dis- 
 trict, such as Rig an Reean, Mack or Mell, Titter an 
 better, and Richardson has utilised this alliterative cha- 
 racter of our dialect in versification in a poem which he 
 entitles " A Grummel or a Greean." 
 
 The examples given so far will, I think, be sufficient to 
 prove that in trite saws and proverbs expressed in short 
 words set in alliterative phrases, the two languages I am 
 comparing have a remarkable resemblance to each other. 
 
 In Icelandic these are, I think, formed upon the model 
 of its early poetry, of which a large portion is still extant. 
 It is worth while remarking that with regard to the col- 
 lected body of The Eddie Poems, which has been issued 
 by the Clarendon Press, with the title of Corpus Poeticum 
 Boreale, under the editorship of Vigfusson and Powell, 
 the Editor Vigfusson says that * he has come to the con- 
 clusion that with one or two exceptions these poems owe 
 their origin to Norse poets in the Western Islands ; that 
 the lays are in fact to these Islands what the Saga was to 
 Iceland, and that they date from a time subsequent to the 
 settlement of Iceland from these Islands, though perhaps 
 they are the work of the first generation after that event. 
 In the Western Islandst as here named he includes Great 
 Britain (the Northern portion, including North English 
 Counties), Ireland, Man, the Hebrides, and the Orkneys. 
 He shows from internal evidence of place-names and 
 references that some of the poems were most probably 
 composed there. Wherever they may have been written 
 
 * See Prolegomena to Sturlunga Saga, vol. I., p. 186. 
 
 t Throughout the Landnama two divisions of Icelandic Settlers are noted, viz. : 
 Eastmen, or those who came from Norway ; and Westmen, or those who came 
 from the British or Western Islands. 
 
 these
 
 50 THE FOLKLORE OF LAKELAND AND ICELAND. 
 
 these poems are very largely employed in describing the 
 Northern mythology, or like the Havamal, used for teach- 
 ing moral precepts and inculcating proverbs and trite 
 home truths. 
 
 There is a very forcible passage in the Havamal which 
 gives a good idea of the Icelandic, or as it may be put of 
 the Northern poetry and of the style of alliterative expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Sir G. Desant applies this passage to Cleasby and to his 
 arduous labours in the language, and with it I may con- 
 clude this paper. It is as follows : 
 
 Deyr fe' Deyja fraendr, 
 Deyjr Sjalfr it sama, 
 En ord.stirr deyr aldregi 
 Hveim ser godan getr. 
 
 I have translated it and attempted to retain some of its 
 alliterative force : 
 
 Dies wealth, {die friends, 
 
 Yourself shall die ; 
 If rich or poor, 'tis all the same, 
 Virtue alone can reach the sky, 
 The glory of a God-got name.
 
 (50 
 
 Glossary of Fell, Field, and Farm Names closely allied or 
 
 identical in Lakeland or Iceland. 
 
 rPHE Book of the Icelandic settlement is essentially a 
 book of place names. The places of which the names 
 are given and recorded are the hills, dales, fields, and farms 
 that marked the claims of the early settlers. A careful 
 study of the Landnama will convince the student that the 
 Norse system of name giving was looked upon as a reli- 
 gious ceremony. 
 
 In the case of men's names this is obvious enough. The 
 head of the clan or family was both priest and chief. 
 When consecrated to the priesthood, as priest (Godi) he 
 took the name of Thor or the Divinity in addition to his 
 own name. Hence men who were originally called Rolf, 
 Steinn or Stone, and Grim, on being dedicated to the 
 priesthood became Thorolf, Thorsteinn,* and Thorgrim, 
 and hence in the Register of men's names found in the 
 Landnama Book are no less than sixteen pages of men's 
 names commencing with Thor, which is more than one- 
 fifth of the whole list. 
 
 In the same manner the assigning of place names was 
 in some measure a consecration of the land to the use of 
 the settler and to the care of the Divinity. 
 
 The following passage, which I have translated from 
 p. 234 of the Landnama, will show what I mean : " Two 
 brothers came from the Orkneys and sailed to the North 
 and West of Iceland. They struck in an Ax at Reistarg- 
 nap and called it Oxarfjord=Axfrith : they placed an 
 eagle to the west and called the place Arnarthufu or 
 Eagle's Mound ; in a third place they reared a cross, and 
 
 *Thirlmere is said to have been originally Thorolfsmere, and as I have noted 
 elsewhere Thurston or Thorsteinn water was the original name of Coniston Lake. 
 
 called
 
 52 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 called the place Crossas, or Crosswater, and so they hal- 
 lowed for themselves or consecrated the whole of Oxar- 
 ford." It is not difficult in Lakeland to mention names 
 almost exactly similar to the names here given, such as 
 Oxenfell, Crosscrake, and Arnside. 
 
 And, as in the present instance, also elsewhere many 
 settlers were passing and repassing to and from the 
 British Islands, we may safely assume that a similar 
 process of name-giving took place upon our northern 
 shores, and when we find, as we often do find, names 
 closely allied or identical in Lakeland, and Iceland it is 
 very strong evidence that they were assigned under like 
 conditions, and where Ari assigns a reason and a deriva- 
 tion for it in the Icelandic Landtake we may assume a 
 similar reason and a similar derivation in the North Eng- 
 lish Landtake as well. This principle has guided me in 
 the selection of place names that I have made in the 
 following Glossary, and as will be seen they are chiefly 
 names applied to the farms and homesteads or used in 
 the apportioning of claims or settlements of land.
 
 (53) 
 
 GLOSSARY. 
 
 ARN or ORN, an eagle. ARNARHVAL, eagle's knoll. Compare Arn- 
 side : see remarks under " side " in this Glossary. 
 
 BIRK, The Birch, Birker, The Birks, Birks Bridge, as surname 
 Birkett. 
 
 BRANDRITH, a grate, both in Lakeland and Iceland. In Lakeland 
 originally an iron tripod held together by rims of iron and em- 
 ployed in supporting the girdle plate which was used above the 
 hearth fire for baking oat bread. The three Shire stones near 
 the source of the Duddon were called "The Three-legged Brand- 
 nth," because a person might there at the same time place each 
 of his feet in a separate county, Cumberland and Westmorland, 
 and his hands in a third county, Lancashire, thus forming a kind 
 of living brandrith. 
 
 The name Brandrith is also applied to the point where the boun- 
 daries of three parishes meet. For a somewhat similar reason 
 a mountain near the Great Gable is called " The Brandrith," and 
 where the rivers Brathay and Rothay meet at their confluence 
 with the Lake of Windermere; the place is called " The Brand- 
 rith" the two rivers and the Lake forming as it were the legs. 
 
 BRANDRITH STONE : A boundary stone at the meeting of three 
 parishes. 
 
 BY : The origin of this name has been discussed at p. 18. By, is 
 very common throughout Scandinavia ; and in the north and 
 east of England the Bys are unnumbered; wherever the Scandi- 
 navian tribes went bu or bo or by went with them. Kirkby 
 Kirkjabaer in Iceland. It has been shown elsewhere that baer, 
 bae, bu, and by, are only inflexional variations of this word. 
 Scotby is Scotman's bu, or dwelling, and Ireby is Irishman's 
 bu. In Scale^, or bu, we have a place name identical with 
 Scale bu, otherwise Scale toft, which describes the settlement 
 of one of the original settlers of Iceland. 
 
 CARR : Applied as the name of fields and woods which in the Lake 
 District are sometimes known as " The Carrs". In Cumberland 
 small cup-shaped fields surrounded by Alders or Ellers are 
 
 called
 
 54 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 called Ellercars. Carr corresponds, says Magnusson, to Danish 
 Kaer; Ice. Kjarr and Norw. Kjerr, all indicative of straggling 
 wood growing in marshy places, or of mossy tracts more or less 
 under water. 
 
 CINDER, Ice. SINDR, slag or dross : This word is applied to the slag 
 or dross containing a large percentage of iron which is found on 
 the margin of Wastwater and Coniston and other lakes, also 
 in the Duddon valley. It indicates the sites of the Old Blooma- 
 ries, where the iron was brought to be smelted ; suppressed in 
 the Coniston and Hawkshead district in A.D. 1565, the yth year 
 of Queen Elizabeth, the tenants agreeing amongst themselves, 
 to pay an annual rent of 20, called Bloomsmithy rent. Many 
 field names, &c., are derived from it; e.g,, Cinder Hill, Cinder 
 How, Cinder Nab, Cinder Beck, Cinder Barrow. 
 
 COMBE or KAMB: I take these words to have been originally the 
 same, though now they are distinct in the Lake District. Combe 
 is the ridge of a hill, as Black Combe; Kam is the ridge or 
 pointed top of a fence wall. A serrated and pointed top is 
 termed a Yorkshire Cam. Catcam on Helvellyn implies a cam 
 so steep as would turn a cat. Very frequent in Icelandic place 
 names of crags rising like a crest; originally a crest or comb. 
 Ladies used to wear costly combs of walrus tusk ; hence the 
 place where Queen Aud lost her comb overboard is called 
 Kambness. Landnama, in. 
 
 CROSS ; Ice. KROSS : The rearing of crosses and consequent cross 
 worship as mentioned in the account of Queen Aud, at p. xv, 
 seems to have been the origin in Iceland of many place names 
 commencing in Cross. Cross Fell, Cumberland, is said to take 
 its name from a Cross, having been reared there to exorcise 
 demons. The rushing of Helm winds and other "uncanny" 
 noises having secured for it the name and reputation of Fiends' 
 Fell before this. 
 
 COTE ; Ice. COT : A cottage or small farmhouse. This word is often 
 found as the name of places bordering on the Solway. In the 
 Abbey Holme, for example, are these farms : The Cote, Seaville 
 Cote, Raby Cote, Skinburness Cote, East Cote ; also Sea Cote, 
 and a Cumberland Parish is named Cote Hill. 
 
 DEEAL or DALE (Norse, DEILA, to divide) ; a division or share as of 
 a town or common field which, though unenclosed, had its pro- 
 duce divided or parcelled out into separate portions, the owner- 
 ship of which changed annually in succession. O.E. : Deal or 
 divide. Romans ; According as God hath dealt to every man. 
 
 DEEAL
 
 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 55 
 
 DEEAL or DALE : A dale or valley. The Icelandic Dalr, a valley, cor- 
 corresponds exactly in meaning and application with this word 
 dale or deeal as found in Lakeland as place-name. As place 
 names they have a similar application in the following : 
 
 In Iceland. In Lakeland. 
 
 Thver-dalr corresponds with Cross dale. 
 
 Djupi-dalr ,, Deep dale. 
 
 Breid-dalr ,, Broad dale. 
 
 Langi-dalr ,, Lang dale. 
 
 Fagri dalr ,, Fair dale. 
 
 The term " dalesmen " is applied to mountaineers in both countries. 
 
 DILLICAR : From Carr, as above, and daela, a dell-shaped sink or 
 scoop in the ground; a name generally applied to small, scoop- 
 shaped fields in Lakeland. There is an instance in this parish 
 where six such fields, together forming something like a circle, 
 are called Dillicars. 
 
 ELLER (the alder tree), Dan. ELLER : Elterwater, Langdale, a tarn, 
 so called from the alders which grow on its margin. "The 
 Ellers," Ulverston ; Ellercar in North England and Denmark 
 applied to small cup-shaped meadows surrounded by alder trees. 
 
 FELL : A mountain. The Icelandic form is Fjall ; Norwegian, Fjeld, 
 pronounced Fiell. In the Lake District it is applied to particu- 
 lar mountains, as Scawfell, Kirkfell, Bowfell. Also applied to a 
 mountain district generally which is termed the Fell. The 
 unenclosed upland common is also called the Fell, as in the 
 following verse from Richardson : 
 
 Ya winter neet, aw meynd it weel, 
 Our fowk bed been at Fell ; 
 An beein tired went suin ta bed, 
 An aw sat be mesel. 
 
 FRITH; Ice. FJORD: A frith or bay. Milli fjell ok fjordr, between the 
 fell and the frith, is a favourite alliterative phrase for describing 
 settlements in the Landnama. The fjordr, which was larger 
 than the Vik or Creek, corresponds exactly in name and meaning 
 with Frith, as found in the North of England and Scotland. In 
 an old list of the Friths in the West and North of Iceland, 
 about one hundred such Friths are given, generally prefixed 
 with names describing either their physical characteristics or 
 some incident connected with the settlement. In Iceland shore 
 districts are divided into Friths, just as mountain districts are 
 
 divided
 
 36 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 divided into Dales. Hence it is extensively used as a place 
 name, and the Eastern and Western parts of Iceland are called 
 the vest firdir and aust firdir, i.e., the west and east Friths. 
 
 FLOW; Ice. FLOI : An expanse of marshy waste, as Wedholme Flow, 
 Bowness Flow, Flow Moss (near Shap), Floutern Tarn. In Ice- 
 landic Floi is a marsh mossy waste, hence applied to a district 
 in the south of that Island. Flugumyri. the name of a well-known 
 farm. The Burning of Flugumyri, to which it gives the name, is 
 one of the most tragic events in the History of the Common- 
 wealth, as the inhabitants were fought back and imprisoned 
 within their home while it was being burned over their heads. 
 
 GAP; Ice. GAP: an opening or pass between mountains, as Scarf 
 Gap, Raise Gap, Whinlatter Gap. Gap in dialect is an opening 
 or gap in fences. 
 
 GARTH and GARDS : These words appear as Gardr in Icelandic, and 
 Gard in the Bible of Ulphilas, where sheepfold as it occurs in 
 John x, is translated Gards. The words signify anything which 
 is girt, or enclosed, an enclosed space. They often occur in place- 
 names, as The Gards, Grass-gards, Mell-gards, Garth Nook, 
 Dale-garth. In some parts of Cumberland the garden in the 
 dialect was always "the garth"; also Stackgard was Stack- 
 garth ; Churchyard, Kurkgarth. 
 
 GEIT, a goat, Norse ; occurs as part of place-name in Landnama ; 
 often used as place-name in Lakeland, as Gatesgill, Gatesgarth, 
 Gateswater, Gatescale, Gatescarth. 
 
 GILL: a ravine, generally with a rush of water through it, as Dun- 
 geon Gill, Gill Spout, Stockgill, Stanley Gill containing Dale- 
 garth Force, corresponds with Icelandic Gil, a deep narrow 
 ravine with a stream at the bottom ; if there be no stream the 
 term Gill is not used. In Iceland are places called Gill Banks, 
 Hell Gill, i.e., Covered Gill ; often as farm or place-name as The 
 Gill, Aigle Gill, Gillerthwaite, Ashgill, Ivegill, How Gill, Gill 
 Foot, Gill Head; Horse Gills, Yearn Gill, Hugill, Gilsland, 
 Hethersgill. 
 
 GRISE (Norse : Gris, a Swine) : Grisedale, Grisedale Tarn, Grise- 
 beck, possibly also Grassmere or Gricemere ; confer Swindale 
 and Swinside from Swine. 
 
 GRUND, Ice.: A grassy field or plain ; the name of a farm in Land- 
 nama, which would thus literally be green field. This name is 
 often referred to in the Sturlunga Saga as the residence of two 
 
 men
 
 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 57 
 
 men who take great part in Icelandic history. In Iceland it has 
 evidently been applied first to single fields, then to farms of which 
 these fields formed a part. GRUND, as farm name, occurs very 
 frequently in Furness, and most likely originated in the same 
 way. The name is now often written "ground," but the original 
 form and dialect pronunciation is GRUND, as Sandgrund, or 
 ground. Sawrey Grund, Holm Grund, Brocklebank Grund, 
 Park Grund. H. Swainson-Cowper, F.S.A., kindly collected for 
 me the names of this class. In Furness alone he enumerated 
 forty-seven grunds, or grounds, generally joined with personal 
 names. 
 
 HELM, a covering: From the Norse HJALMR, A.S., Eng. and Ger. 
 HELM; derived from Icelandic hylja, to hide. In this acceptation 
 it is given by Vigfusson as applied in popular tales to the cap of 
 darkness, which makes the wearer invisible, and so it is applied 
 in the Norse to the clouds as rendering the mountains invisible. 
 There are several mountains called Helm in Iceland and in 
 Norway; and we have it applied in the same sense in Lakeland 
 to the Helm cragg; it is also used as a surname. It is from 
 the original sense of covering or hiding that we get the name 
 Helm in Helm Winds ; for Helm is the name of the cap or 
 covering of clouds which descends upon the summits of Cross 
 Fell at the time when the Helm wind blows. 
 
 HOLM; from Ice. HOLMR : An island, especially in a lake or creek, 
 also of low land near a river or lake. This corresponds exactly 
 with its meaning in the Lake District. There are the following 
 Holms, on Windermere : Rough Holm, Lady Holm, Hen Holm, 
 Hjuse Holm, Thompson's Holm, Ramp Holm, Ling Holm, 
 Grass Holm, Silver Holm, Blake Holm, these are mostly is- 
 lands. It is also applied to lowlying land near the sea or a 
 river, as Abbey Holme, Holm Eden, Willow Holm. 
 The Norse Thing was generally assembled near or upon a Holm 
 or Island, and the Holmgang or Final Court of Appeal by Battle 
 takes its name from having been fought upon a Holm or Island. 
 An Island or Holm is still pointed out in the Shetlands, ap- 
 proached by stepping stones, where the Thing assembled, which 
 in name, constitution, and all that concerned it, seems to have 
 been essentially Norse. 
 
 How: Originally a grave mound; then a gentle eminence or mound, 
 frequent in proper names. Used in this sense of Silver How, 
 Fox How, Torpenhow (compare Hill of Howth, near Dublin). 
 Howie is still used as grave mound in the Shetlands, according 
 
 to
 
 5& GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AMD FARM NAMES. 
 
 to Edmoston. Queen Aud's mound, under the name of How or 
 Haugr, was regarded with veneration by her descendants under 
 the impression that they should die into it; that is, live in it after 
 death. There are the following place-names with How in Cum- 
 berland and Westmorland, and some of them have been shown 
 by actual examination to be graves, presumably those of Norse- 
 men : Black How, Brown How, Bull How, Bought How, 
 Broad How, Cinder How, Corn Haw, Croppla H)w, Flake HJW, 
 Gunner's How, Hund How, Kemp How, Kitts How, Lamb How, 
 Otts How, Red How, Scout How, Silver How, Soulby How, 
 Scale How, Tanner How, Thorney How, Whelp How, Wads 
 How. 
 
 HUMMER : In Lakeland a grassy slope by the side of a river. 
 " Hummers dark," a phrase that occurs in Gibson's " Folk 
 Speech." Ice. HVAMMK or HvAMMA=^a grassy slope or vale. 
 Vigfusson says it is very frequent as an appellation in every 
 Icelandic farm. It also means a swamp, and is in this sense 
 applied in Lakeland as name of wet land. 
 
 The word illustrates the varied history of the same word in dif- 
 ferent countries. While in Lakeland it has become an obscure 
 and almost obsolete word in the dialect, or a place name hardly 
 recognised, in Iceland as HVAMMA or HVAM, the name of the 
 home of the noble and talented family of the Sturlungs, it is one 
 of the most memorable and renowned place-names in the history 
 of the Icelandic Commonwealth. 
 
 KELD, a well or spring, Ice. KELD, Dan. KELDE, a well or spring : 
 in place-names as Threlkeld, Iron Keld, Butterilket = Butterild 
 Keld and Keldra, a well, with a stream or a flowing from it. 
 
 KNOTT, a rocky excresence generally proceeding from the top of 
 a mountain, Ice. KNUTA : frequently, as Magnusson explains, 
 applied to the tops of mountains in eastern Iceland, which re- 
 semble the knob of the "femur" which moves in the socket of 
 the hip bone. This word as applied to mountains is of frequent 
 use as a place-name in Lakeland, as Knott End, Benson Knott, 
 Knott Kigg, Hard Knott=Harte Knott or Hard Knott in Norway 
 where many other corresponding place-names in Knott are found. 
 
 KNAB, a rocky promontory, Ice. KNAPPR, a nob or button-shaped 
 peak : examples of place-names The Knab, Nab End, Knapping- 
 Tree=Nab end Tree. 
 
 KIRK = KIRKJA in Iceland, KIKK in Scotland, and KIRKE in Denmark, 
 a church. There is a mountain called Kirkfell in Wasdale 
 
 Head
 
 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 59 
 
 Head so called doubtless because the mountain church there 
 stands not far from it. There is a Kirkfell in Iceland also, and 
 the Frith on which it stands is called Kirkjufjordr or Kirkfrith ; 
 Kirkju-baer in Iceland corresponds exactly with Kirkby in the 
 North of England ; about 20 or 30 such names are found in 
 maps of northern England marking churches built by the Danish 
 or Norse settlers. There are the following parishes commencing 
 with Kirk in this diocese: Kirkby Kendal, Kirkandrews (2), 
 Kirkbampton, Kirkbride, Kirkby Ireleth, Kirkby Lonsdale, 
 Kirkby vStephen, Kirkby Thore, Kirkland, Kirklinton, Kirkos- 
 wald. Kirk is also found as parish and church-name in the Isle 
 of Man. Kirk or Kurk was the name for church used in the 
 Cumberland dialect, e.g., Kurkgarth = Churchyard, Ice. Kirkju- 
 gards. The introduction of Christianity into Iceland and with 
 it the use of the word Kirkju, is described in chapter 49 of 
 the Erybjgga Saga, A.D. IOOD. A curious legend, for the pur- 
 pose of encouraging men to build churches, is told in that 
 chapter where it is said that a man could grant as many souls 
 a seat in Heaven as the church he built held persons. 
 
 LATH, a barn, O.N. KLATHA, Dan. LAD: Leathes, a village in Cum- 
 berland ; Watendlalh = Barn at the end of the Wath ; and Silloth 
 = Sellath, may all be from this root. Ireleth is Irishman's barn, 
 as Ireby is Irishman's "bu," or dwelling. 
 
 LUND= grove or wood : in Iceland originally a sacred wood, or grove 
 dedicated to a God, as in the following passage at p. 224 of 
 Landnama : " Thorir dwelt at Lund = the Grove, and wor- 
 shipped the Grove or Lund." It occurs in Lake District as 
 place-name, also as surname. 
 
 MIRE; Ice. MYRR : In both applied to boggy or swampy ground, and 
 in both frequently used as place-name, as The Mires, Mire Side, 
 Pelutho Mire, Mire House. We have also as surname Myers, 
 Mirehouse. Myra is the name of a County in Iceland and men 
 from that County are called Myramenn. 
 
 MEER STONES, a word allied to the foregoing. In Lakeland stones 
 placed at the boundaries of undivided allotments to mark the 
 limits of the owners. Many of the old allotments were thus 
 divided, and there are still stones so standing and so named. 
 There were undivided portions of land, so situated, and stones so 
 placed in this parish (Torver) to mark three adjoining owner- 
 ships. They existed until the year before last, when the whole 
 three portions having fallen into one ownership, the stones lost 
 their significance as land marks. Seems to correspond exactly 
 
 with
 
 6o GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 with the Lyritr of Iceland which is explained in this way : 
 "When the boundary of a field or estate was to be drawn, the 
 law prescribed that a mark stone (marksteinn) should be raised 
 upon the spot and three other stones laid beside it, called land 
 mark stones, and by their number and position they were distin- 
 guished from all other stones in the field." 
 
 MEOL (Sandhills) : A Norse word, so called from the meal-like ap- 
 pearance of the sand, e.g., Esk Meals, Mealsgate, Cartmel, 
 Millom. The way in which this word was applied in the original 
 settlement of Iceland is related in a curious story, at p. 76 of 
 the Landnama. An original settler was told that his son should 
 take land where his mare should lay down under a cliff. The 
 mare went before them until she came to two red sandhills 
 (sand melir treir raudir) ; she then lay down under the cliff of a 
 sandhill (melir), and he took up his abode there, and called the 
 place Raudamel or Rauda meol, *'.<?., the red sand hills. 
 
 RAKE : In the Lake Country is applied generally to the narrow path 
 along which sheep are driven to the fell. It is used in the same 
 acceptation in Yorkshire from the verb reka, past nlk, originally 
 vreka=fo drive, "Outrake" corresponding in sense and sound with 
 the Norse ut reka was a path by which sheep were driven out to 
 the fell. There is one so named on Black Combe, one at Torver, 
 one at Coniston ; there seems to be one or more in most of the 
 larger valleys in Lakeland, which were spoken of as "The 
 Rake," just as we speak of " The Fell." There are also several 
 farms in the district called "The Outrake," and I have observed 
 that such farms generally stand at the entrance to a Rake or 
 Fell drive. The Norse verb vreka also means to drive or drift 
 as the tide does, and we have this in the place-name of Wreaks 
 End, near Broughton-in-Furness, which takes its name from a 
 point in the stream close by, which marks the end of the tide- 
 flow or drift. On Yorkshire moors sheep are said to rake out 
 when they are driven single file. 
 
 REEAN (in Furness) ; REIN or RANE (in Cumberland and Westmor- 
 land) : The Reeans in Furness were unploughed portions which 
 were left round cultivated fields known in other parts of the 
 country as Head Riggs. The origin of the name seems, how- 
 ever, to have been from the cultivated strips which, before 
 town, fields, and commons were divided by fences, were left 
 untiiled in order to mark the boundaries. Some of the older in- 
 habitants remember perfectly when this system was in use here. 
 The same system was known also in Westmorland, for J. B. 
 
 Davies
 
 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD,, AND FARM NAMES. 6 1 
 
 Davies, Esq., of Kirkby Stephen, says: "The name 'reins' is 
 also used here for narrow strips of land, a little higher than the 
 ground on either side, left in closes called field lands or dale 
 lands to mark the division of such land or dale. We have fields 
 called Raynes, sloping lands with riggs or terraces, on the lower 
 side of which is usually a reean, or slightly elevated strip. These 
 slightly elevated strips have often been levelled down, but the 
 name is still retained." The same system prevailed in Cumber- 
 land, and Dickinson in his Glossary of the Cumberland Dialect 
 (English Dialect Society) defines Rig and Rane as "an arable 
 field held in shares which are divided by narrow green lanes 
 (ranes) and the intervals usually cultivated." The system for- 
 merly prevailed in Yorkshire. 
 
 ROWANTREE : The mountain ash', Ice. REGNIR, Dan. RONNETREE. 
 This word marks very clearly the connexion between the words 
 and superstitions of Iceland and of the North of England. The 
 Rowan tree was a holy tree consecrated to Thor, and according to 
 the legends quoted by Magnusson very intimately connected 
 with the mysteries and superstitions of the Icelanders. It was 
 thus it was used to mark place names at the time of the settle- 
 ment as the only sort of tree except the dwarf birch that was 
 found in Iceland. In some places in the North of England a 
 piece of the Rowan tree was placed above the door to scare away 
 evil influences, and in Lakeland the stick for stirring the cream 
 was frequently of Rowan tree wood to counteract the influence 
 that bewitched the churn so that no butter was forthcoming. In 
 Yorkshire a piece of Rowan tree wood was carried for security 
 against witches, and called witch wood. 
 
 RIVER NAMES : Rivers or streams are often mentioned in Landnama 
 as bounding a Landtake, and one settler is spoken of as making a 
 fire at every river mouth that defined his Landtake. A=a river 
 occurs in Hita=a hot river being formed from a hot spring as 
 distinguished from Kalda, or cold river. These two names are 
 brought into juxta position at p. 74 of the Landnama, where it is 
 said of a settler he took land between the hot river and the cold 
 river, Hita ok Kaldrt. Laxa is the salmon river. A=river is 
 found as termination of many of our local rivers, as Rothfl, 
 Brathfl, Greta, Wisa and Kalda. The meeting 'of rivers is in 
 Icelandic termed A mot, and we have a corresponding word in 
 Eamont, formerly spelled Amont and Amot. 
 
 RUD or RJODR, a clearing (see p. 18, where the settlement of Steinolf 
 is described). We have the word as a dialect word, at any rate 
 
 in
 
 62 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 in High Furness, where to ritd or rid a wood means to clear it, 
 that is to clear it out root and branch. Riddins, or Riddings, as 
 place name is used in the same acceptation. I think in this 
 word we retain a trace of inn the Norse suffixed article. 
 
 SAND : As field and farm name occurs often in Cumberland and 
 other parts of Lakeland, as Sandside, Sandgap, Sandlands, 
 Sandscale, Sandraw, Sandwith, Sandal, Sandsfield. The Land- 
 nama, or its accompanying map, gives the following place 
 names in Iceland : Sanda, Sandfell, Sandbrekka, Sand dalr, 
 Sand eyrr, Sandgil, Sandholar, Sandvik ; Sand has the same 
 meaning in both cases. 
 
 SEL : An Icelandic word very frequent in Landnama, meaning a shed 
 on a mountain pasture but within the landmarks of each farm, 
 where the milk cows were kept in summer. These sels origin- 
 ate the following place names which are found in Landnama 
 with this meaning : Sel, Selja, Selja land, Sel-tungur, Sel hagi, 
 Sela, Sel dalr, Sel heidr. We certainly have it as a portion of 
 place names in Lakeland and its district, as Sella, Sellafield, 
 Sylecroft, Selside, Silloth. 
 
 SET : a seat or settlement, is found in the Icelandic place-name, SET- 
 BERG, the mountain seat from the idea of fairies having their 
 seat or abode upon the mountain ; compare Sedbergh, Satter- 
 thwaite, &c. 
 
 SIDE appears, says Ferguson, to be used in the sense of settle- 
 ment, Norse Sida ; e.g., Ayside, Ambleside, Arnside, Kettleside, 
 Ormside, Swinside, Selside. Ferguson, in accordance with the 
 system laid down in another part of his valuable and learned 
 work, takes these words to be from side=a settlement, coupled 
 with Hamil, Ami, Ketil, Ornir, Svein. With regard to Arn, 
 otherwise Orn, it is frequently used in Landnama, as a place 
 name; generally, however, it is derived from Arn=an eagle 
 (see passage from Landnama quoted at the introduction to 
 this Glossary), and not from a man's name, as Ferguson says. 
 Ayside: I take it to be from A a stream and side=the settlement 
 by the stream. 
 
 SCALE: A shelter or hut, as Scales, Seascale, Scale Hill, Sandscale, 
 Bowscale. Another form of the word as found upon the Border 
 is Shields, as Winter Shields, Shield Green, Hole Shields. In 
 this form we have the word shieling, or hut. We have Scale in 
 the dialect of Lakeland as a common noun, as Peat Scale. 
 There is a remarkable confirmation of this use of the word in 
 
 The
 
 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 63 
 
 the Landnama, at p. 35, where it is said of Leif, who came from 
 the British Islands with Ingolf, his foster brother, the original 
 settler, that "he made two Scala or Scales" for shelter, and 
 this word is explained in the Icelandic as meaning a square 
 piece of ground with walls but without roof. Portingscale = Por- 
 thing-scale may contain within it the word Thing, compounded 
 with Scala the huts or booths erected as temporary dwellings 
 when men were attending the Thing. 
 
 SOWERBY, Ice. SAURBAE : The origin of this place name has been 
 discussed at p. 18. There are three districts of this name 
 mentioned in Landnama, and more appear in an old map of 
 Iceland. 
 
 STED, a place or sted. The use of this word as farm name is very 
 common in the Landnama. We have it often also as suffix in 
 farm names in High Furness. 
 
 SWIN, a swine. There are Swindales both in Lakeland and Iceland 
 (for the origin of the latter see p. 25). I think this derivation 
 may afford the key to the derivation of other local place names 
 commencing with Swin, as Swinside, Swinsty. 
 
 TOFT, a homestead; the farm house including the farm buildings; a 
 word in very general use in Cumberland. In a Court Book of 
 the manor of Derwentwater is the record that Gawen Wren was 
 fined ten shillings about the year 1640 for having two fires in 
 one toft at the same time. At p. 35 of the Landnama it is re- 
 corded of Leif, the companion of Ingolf, that when he first 
 landed he built two Tofts, one eighteen fathoms long and the 
 other nineteen, and he resided in them the first winter. In 
 Cumberland Toft was so much used as common noun for the 
 name of farm buildings that it is nowhere found as proper noun 
 or place name, and I cannot understand how Taylor says, as he 
 does, at p. 115 of his " Words and Places," that in the Lake 
 District "Toft" is unknown. Will he tell us any name for farm 
 buildings that was better known ? 
 
 THOR : As a place name occurs in Thursby, where it is recorded was 
 a temple to Thor, whose supposed foundations were dug up 
 about the end of last century. Thurston (Thorsteinn) Water, 
 the ancient name of Coniston Lake, Thurston Ville, and Thur- 
 stonfield. Thor, as the name of their Chief Divinity, enters 
 more largely into the nomenclature of the early Norsemen than 
 any other word (see introduction to this Glossary). 
 
 TON, TOUN, or TUN, afield, then a farm. Upon both the Cumbrian 
 
 and
 
 64 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 and the Scottish side of the Border tun is applied to a single 
 farm house with its outbuildings, &c. Originally this word 
 meant a field surrounded by a hedge, and in this sense Wycliffe 
 translates Matt, xxii., 5: "But thei dispiseden, and wenten 
 forth one into his toun (field), another to his merchandise." 
 In the Waverley of Sir Walter Scott, toun or tun is applied to a 
 single farm upon the Border : " He hes dune neathing but dance 
 up an' doun the toun." This application might be indefinitely 
 extended upon the Border, where every farm is called a toun or 
 tun, and Whamtun, Uppertoun, and Bartiestoun, are either single 
 farm houses or hamlets with three or four farm houses. Low- 
 thertoun, Longtoun, are larger villages, but still from the sa:ne 
 derivation, and so on with the other tons of the county. 
 
 TUN corresponds with the Icelandic tun, properly a hedge, then a 
 hedged or fenced plot within which a house is built, then the 
 farmstead with its buildings=the homestead. In Norse deeds 
 each single farm is called a tun, and the Icelandic phrase, tun 
 fra tuni, means from house to house. The ancient Scandinavians, 
 like the other old Teutonic peoples, had no towns. Tacitus 
 says: "Nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari, satis 
 notum est ; ne pati quidem junctas sedes. Colunt discreti, ac 
 diversi, ut, fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit." And with regard 
 to Iceland those words of Tacitus "colunt discreti ac diversi," 
 still apply, for excepting the Capital, which is but a village, all 
 the other so-called tuns are single farms. 
 
 THWAITE: A piece of land cut off by a fence or enclosed ; also as a cut- 
 ting or clearing. ICE. THVEix=cut-off piece. Thwaites were 
 originally fenced or cut oft, and in this sense the word is still 
 used as a field name in High Furness. From being a field name 
 thwaite gradually became applied to farms and then to villages 
 and parishes. In this sense it occurs more than one hundred 
 times in Cumberland alone. It is also found in High Furness as 
 surname. In Norway and Lakeland the following names are 
 almost exactly alike in form and meaning : 
 
 Lakeland. Norway. 
 
 The Thwaite .... Thveit 
 
 Applethwaite .... Epelthwait 
 
 Birkthwaite .... Birkethvet 
 
 Birthwaite Barthwet 
 
 Branthwaite) Brandsthvet 
 
 Braithwaite ) 
 
 Micklethwaite .... Mykelthvet 
 
 Seathwaite
 
 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AMD FARM NAMES. 65 
 
 Lakeland, Norway. 
 
 Seathwaite Sjothvet 
 
 Ruthwaite .... Rugthvet 
 
 THING, Ice.: An assembly or meeting, a Parliament including law 
 courts '. 
 
 1 United Parliament in Iceland was called Althing.* 
 
 2 Thing founded by Thorolf at Thorsness was Quarter 
 
 Thing, or County Thing, or Council. 
 
 3 A Parish was also called Thing. 
 
 The date of the Althing being formed in Iceland from Norway is 
 given in Landnama as in A.D. 927. Hacon, son of Harald Fairhaired, 
 was the first Founder of the Norwegian Constitution, and of its politi- 
 cal division into Things. Vigfusson quotes a passage to this effect 
 from Heimskringla. Do we retain in our place names any evidence 
 of this institution of Thing ? Addingham and Aldingham are sug- 
 gested as from Althing. 
 
 ULPH or ULF=WOLF: Much used in the Norse, a* personal and place 
 names. Compare Ulverston, Ulpha, Ullswater, Lyulphs Tower 
 near Ullswater, Ulphilas, the name of Moeso Gothic Bishop is 
 the diminutive form of the word = little wolf. 
 
 With regard to Ulverston, its origin and meaning as a place name 
 has been much discussed. About 25 years ago there was a 
 keen controversy in the local papers as to whether it should be 
 Ulverston or Ulverstone, ton being the spelling of those who took 
 it from tim or ton as discussed in this Glossary and the sup- 
 porters of stone instanced a large stone from which the name 
 was said to be derived, amongst the latter were the authorities of 
 the Union by whom the spelling Ulverstone was retained for 
 many years. 
 
 ULVERSTON is derived by Taylor (Names & Places, p. 1 16), from Olafr, 
 a Christian name. Most of those place names, however, were 
 probably given before men had Christian names of all. I think 
 Ulverston comes from Ulphr or Ulfr. The settlement of a man 
 named Ulfr is described at page 63 of the Landnama. Take this 
 with tun or ton and the Icelandic derivation becomes obvious 
 enough. Ulfr's descendants and their Landtake are also noted 
 at page 63 of the Landnama, and one of them settled at Lundi, 
 
 * The Althing still exists in Iceland ; consists of thirty-six members, thirty of 
 whom are elected by household suffrage and six nominated by the King ot Den- 
 mark. Sits in two divisions, twelve members in upper division and twenty-four in 
 lower.
 
 66 GLOSSARY OF FELL, FIELD, AND FARM NAMES. 
 
 or The Lund. ' I think it is worth while remarking in this 
 connexion that of the twenty-four parishes or ratepaying districts 
 or townships included in the Ulverston Union the following 
 names are Icelandic or Norse : 
 
 Aldingham, Allithwaite, Angerton, Cartmel Fell, Claife, Dalton, 
 Dunnerdale with Seathwaite, Havvkshead,' Skelwith, Kirkby 
 Ireleth, Lowick and Subberthwaite, Satterthwaite, Ulverston, 
 Urswick. 
 
 With regard to Angerton the same as place-name occurs on the 
 coast of the Solway in the Abbey Holme, and there is an Ice- 
 landic place-name given in the Landnama exceedingly like it. 
 Claife means, I think, the hill or cliff, and as such is represented 
 in sense and sound in Icelandic. Hawk, or Hauk, is a surname 
 in the Landnama, and one of its earliest editions is called 
 Hauksbook, from Hauk, the name of its editor. Head in Hawks- 
 head comes I think from a corresponding Norse word meaning 
 a hill or hill rise such a hill is near Hawkshead Church and 
 the Churchyard is situated partly upon it. 
 
 WYKE or WICK or VIK, Norse : A creek or bay, as Pull Wyke Bay, or 
 Pool Wyke on Windermere, Pull Wyke on Bassenthwaite, Sand- 
 wick on Ulleswater. The old Norse rovers were called Vikings 
 or Creekers from frequenting creeks or bays. There is a small 
 opening or sea creek called Fleswick, situated between the north 
 head and south head of St. Bees, a pretty and retired spot which 
 Gibson in one of his folk speech songs notes as the western 
 terminus of Cumberland. There is a Fleswick upon the opposite 
 coast of the Isle of Man ; these identical names show, I think, 
 that there was a corresponding settlement on the Manx and the 
 Cumbrian coast. 
 
 * The Icelandic Ulfr had a Lund = Grove near his settlement and the North 
 English Ulfr seems to have had a Lund near his settlement too.
 
 (67) 
 
 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 Ayre, Rev. L. R., R.D., Holy Trinity Vicarage, Ulverston. 
 
 Adams, J. R., Esq., 66, Cannon Street, London. 
 
 Atkinson, James, Esq., King Street, Ulverston. 
 
 Atkinson, H., Esq., 20, North Road, Birkenhead (2 copies). 
 
 Ainsworth, Col., J.P., D.L., Broughton Hall, Grange-over-Sands. 
 
 Ashburner, Rev. John, The Vicarage, Blawith. 
 
 Alcock-Beck, W., Esthvvaite Lodge, Hawkshead, Ambleside. 
 
 Barrow-in-Furness, The Bishop of, The Abbey, Carlisle. 
 
 Barrow-in-Furness Free Library. 
 
 Bell, John, Esq., Hawsbank, Coniston (2 copies). 
 
 Butler, J. R., Esq., Broughton-in-Furness (2 copies). 
 
 Brockbank, Mrs., The Croft. Kirksanton. 
 
 Baldwin, Colonel, J.P., Dalton-in-Furness. 
 
 Bibliothica Jacksonia, Tullie House, Carlisle. 
 
 Billinge, Rev. R. B., Urswick Vicarage, Ulverston. 
 
 Bland, Miss, Shap Wells Hotel, Shap. 
 
 Bower, Rev. R., Vicar of St. Cuthbert's, Carlisle. 
 
 Beardsley Dr., Grange-over-Sands (3 copies). 
 
 Barratt, J. W. H., Esq., J.P., Holywath, Coniston. 
 
 Barratt, W. I., Esq., J.P., Broom Hill, Broughton-in-Furness. 
 
 Benn T., Esq., Bankfield, Millom. 
 
 Benson, T. Esq., Stable Harvey, Torver. 
 
 Bell, William, Esq., J.P., Haws Bank, Coniston. 
 
 Barrow, William, Esq., Gateside, Coniston. 
 
 Campbell, Rev. H. E., St. George's Vicarage, Millom. 
 
 Crewdson, W. D., Esq., Helm Lodge, Kendal. 
 
 Collingwood, W. G. Esq., M.A., Lane Head, Coniston. 
 
 Conder, E., Esq., New Court, Colwall, Herefordshire. 
 
 Calverley, Rev. W. S., F.S.A., Aspatria Vicarage, Carlisle. 
 
 Cross, Viscount, G.C.B., Eccle Riggs, Broughton-in-Furness (2 copies) 
 
 Coward, J., Esq., Fountain Street, Ulverston. 
 
 Dunn, J. M., Esq., 30, Claverton Street, Pimlico, London. 
 Dawe, Rev. W. P., Satterthwaite Vicarage, Ulverston. 
 Dickinson, Rev. W. T., Frodsham, Cheshire. 
 Dunn, Miss, 30, Claverton Street, Pimlico, London. 
 
 Ellwood,Rev.T, E., 4, Byron Street, Patricroft, Manchester (2 copies).
 
 68 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 Ellwood, J. F. A. Esq., Mail s.s. Strabo. 
 
 Ecroyd, W., Esq., Lomeshaye, Nelson. 
 
 Ellwood, G. B., Esq.. Barrow-in-Furness. 
 
 Ellwood, R. D., Esq., Torver Rectory, Coniston, Lancashire. 
 
 Fawcitt, Dr., Broughton-in-Furness (3 copies). 
 
 Ferguson, The Worshipful Chancellor, F.S.A., Carlisle. 
 
 Ferguson, Robert, Esq., Beach House, The Mall, Hammersmith W, 
 
 (2 copies). 
 
 Fell, Dr., T. K., 6, Harley Street, Barrow-in-Furness. 
 Fell, John, Esq., J.P. & D.L., Flan How, Ulverston. 
 Firth, Rev. William W. D., The Vicarage, Patricroft, Manchester. 
 
 Garner, John, Esq., The Garner, Broughton-in-Furness. 
 .Glaister, T., Esq., Saltcoats, Abbey Town, Carlisle. 
 
 Haines, C. S., Esq., Beech Grove, Ulverston. 
 
 Herford, Rev. R. Travers, Stand Parsonage, Manchester. 
 
 Hope, Rev. R. D., Old Hutton Vicarage, Kendal. 
 
 Hibbert, P., Esq., Plumtree Hall, Milnthorpe. 
 
 Harry, J. H., Esq., High Laws House. 
 
 Hoare, Rev. J. W., F.R.Hist.S., St. John's Vicarage, Keswick. 
 
 Hodgson, James, Esq., J.P., Britain Place, Ulverston (2 copies). 
 
 Holme, James, Esq., Blake Holme, Newby Bridge, Ulverston. 
 
 Jones, F. M. T., Esq., Lesketh How, Ambleside (2 copies). 
 
 Kewley, Rev. W., The Vicarage, Ulpha, Broughton-in-Furness. 
 Kenworthy, Rev. J. W., Vicar of Braintree, Essex. 
 
 Laverty, Rev. P., Presbytery, Coniston. 
 Lowthian, Rev. W., Troutbeck, Windermere. 
 Lund, J., Esq., Torver, Coniston. 
 Lowry, Rev. C. H., The Vicarage, Kirkby Ireleth. 
 
 Magnusson, E., Esq., M.A., University Library, Cambridge (2 copies). 
 Marshall, S. A., Esq., J.P., Skelwith Fold, Ambleside (2 copies). 
 Mayhew, Rev. A. L., Treasurer of English Dialect Society, Brad- 
 more Road, Oxford. 
 
 Metcalfe, W., Esq., 33, Chiswick Street, Carlisle. 
 Millom Free Public Library. 
 
 Micklethwaite, J. T., Esq., F.S.A., 15, Dean's Yard, Westminster. 
 Moser, G. E., Esq., Kendal. 
 Mechanics Institute, Coniston. 
 
 Nicholson, J. H., Esq., M.A., Whitefields, Wilmslow.
 
 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. 69 
 
 Nesbit, Rev. R. B., Easby Vicarage, Richmond. 
 
 Phillips, The Venerable Archdeacon, St. George's Vicarage, Barrow- 
 
 in-Furness. 
 
 Powell, Rev. T. W., Old Croft, Stanwix, Carlisle. 
 Peile, Dr. John, Litt. D. Master of Christ's College, Cambridge. 
 Pease, E. T., Esq., Oak Lee, Darlington. 
 Petty, Lister, Esq., Bortree Stile, Ulverston. 
 Postlethwaite, G., Esq., Syle Crott, Millom. 
 
 Robinson, J., Esq., J.P., Westwood Hall, Leek, Staffordshire (6 
 
 copies). 
 Robinson, John, Esq., C.E., Vicarage Terrace, Kendal. 
 
 Stuart, Rev. J. C., Brunswick Chapel House, Leeds. 
 
 Smith, J. J., Esq., Abbey Town, Carlisle. 
 
 Simpson, Joseph, Esq., Romanway, Penrith. 
 
 Seweil, Colonel, Brandlingill, Cockermouth. 
 
 Sargeant, John Young, Esq., Sella Park, Carnforth (2 copies). 
 
 Savory, Sir J., Bart, M.P., Buckhurst Park, Ascot. 
 
 Smallpiece, Rev. John, St. Bees. 
 
 Thwaites, Thomas, Esq., C.C., Wood Lea, Kendal. 
 
 Thompson, W. N., Esq., St. Bees. 
 
 Thompson, Dr., M.D., Lightburne, Ulverston. 
 
 Tosh, E. G., Esq., The Lund, Ulverston. 
 
 Turner, Miss, 20, Cambridge Terrace, Hyde Park, London, VV. 
 
 Vaughan, Cedric, Esq., J.P., Leyfield, Millom. 
 
 Warbrick, Mrs., Oreton Mount, Grange-over-Sands. 
 
 Walker, Rev. S. R. M., Seathwaite Vicarage, Broughton-in-Furness. 
 
 Whitweli, R. J., Esq., Florence. 
 
 Wilson, T. Esq., Aynam Lodge, Kendal. 
 
 Woodburne, Myles, Esq., Kirklands, Ulverston. 
 
 Wright, Dr. Hodgson, Park Road, Halifax (3 copies). 
 
 Wright, Rev. A., R.D., Vicar of Gilsland.
 
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