The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies

Transcriber's Note:
Archaic, dialect and variant spellings (including quoted proper nouns) remain as printed, except where noted. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note; significant amendments have been listed at the end of the text.
Greek text appears as originally printed, but with a mouse-hover transliteration, Βιβλος.
LONDON: JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW. M.DCCC.LI.
LONDON: Printed by Samuel Bentley and Co., Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
The following pages represent a Course of Six Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution, Manchester, in the months of February and March of the present year; the matter being now laid before the public in a somewhat fuller and more systematic form than was compatible with the original delivery.
HELIGOLAND AND THE FRISIANS.—GIBRALTAR AND THE SPANISH STOCK.—MALTA.—THE IONIAN ISLANDS.—THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
Now we know, by name at least, five of the tribes who are thus connected by a common worship—mysterious and obscure as it is. They are the Reudigni, the Aviones, the Eudoses, the Suardones, and the Nuithones.
Two others we know by something more than name—the Varini and the Langobardi.
The eighth is our own parent stock—the Angli .
Such is one of the earliest notices of the old creed of our German forefathers; and, fragmentary and indefinite as it is, it is one of the fullest which has reached us. I subjoin the original text, premising that, instead of Herthum , certain MSS. read Nerthum .
What connects the passage with the ethnology of Heligoland? Heligoland is, probably, the island of the Holy Grove . Its present name indicates this— the holy land . Its position in the main sea, or Ocean , does the same. So does its vicinity to the country of Germans.