[542] Can it be that the fyrd after all did reach them? Ethelwerd seems to say that Æthelnoth attacked the Danes at York, p. 518 E. Or is this a punitive expedition against the Northumbrian Danes?
[543] Hen. Hunt. says ‘fecit aquam Luye findi in tria brachia,’ p. 150; i.e. he conceives the two obstacles as erected in the river, so dividing it into three channels, which is perfectly possible. Perhaps the worthy archdeacon may even have seen the remains of Alfred’s works. But I cannot now take Steenstrup’s view that this device may have been suggested to Alfred by Orosius’ account of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, Lib. ii. c. 6. That was effected by diverting the course of the river, which there is no reason to suppose that Alfred attempted.
[544] Bell. Gall. v. 1.
[545] The connexion of the Frisian language with that of the Angles and Saxons was very close, and they have certain marked characteristics in common, pointing to close neighbourhood of their original abodes. Of English dialects the Frisian is nearest to Kentish, except in the northern Frisian islands, where it seems more akin to West-Saxon. I take this from Siebs, Zur Gesch. der engl.-fries. Sprache, in Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 2nd ed. i. 1153 ff., for a reference to which I am indebted to Professor Napier, who tells me that in his judgement Englishmen and Frisians would be quite intelligible to one another in the ninth century. There is a sentence of Frisian in Pertz, xxii. 576, which might just as well be Anglo-Saxon.
[546] In 882 Charles the Fat had granted West Friesland to a wiking Chief Guðfrið, Dümmler, u. s. ii. 204, 205; cf. ibid. 224 ff., 241; Weber, u. s. v. 684, 685. For earlier ravages in Frisia, cf. ibid. 495; Pertz, i. 445.
[547] 486 B [44]. Charles the Great also employed Frisians in his fleet for his wars against the Danes, Weber, u. s. p. 421; cf. Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 17.
[548] Mr. Conybeare says: ‘one MS. of the A.-S. Chronicle makes St. Neot [!!] (Athelstan of Kent) fight “on shipboard” in 851, but the entry, if correct, stands absolutely alone.’ The fact is that the entry is found in five MSS. out of six.
is the only one which omits the words ‘on scipum.’
[549] See notes to Chron., ad loc. It has, however, been pointed out to me by Mr. A. J. Wyatt, of Christ’s College, Cambridge, that the phrase ‘ahton wælstowe gewald’ looks as if these battles were fought on land; and I admit that I cannot produce any certain instance of this phrase being applied to a naval victory. The provision that a merchant who fared thrice over sea on his own account should rank as a thane is unfortunately of uncertain date, Schmid, pp. lxiv, 390.