Two years after the last record Alfred, King of the West Saxons, made with Guthrum, the Danish leader, a treaty by which all Northern and Eastern England—all England, that is, north of Watling Street, the Roman road leading from London to Chester—was ceded to the Danes to be ruled according to their laws. Henceforth this district becomes known as the Danelagh.
So history goes on repeating itself. For just as the Angles and Saxons had warred against the Britons, and then made settlements and turned to forest-clearing and ploughing, sowing and reaping; so a few centuries later came the Danes to make war upon them in turn, and finally to take possession of uncleared and hitherto unclaimed lands whereon to make for themselves new homes.
Very numerous settlements were made by the Danes in the part of England known as the Danelagh, and most of these may be recognised by the village names of to-day. What to an Angle were a tūn and a wīc[[13]] were to a Dane a bȳr[[13]] and a thorp. Hence the name-endings by and thorp denote respectively the sites of a Danish farmhouse and a Danish village; and it is interesting to pick out such names on a large-scale map, and see how they occur in groups or succeed one another along the line of an old highway.
Thus in the East Riding, within a radius of five miles of the Anglian settlements of Bridlington and Hessle, we shall find the Danish names Hilderthorpe, Wilsthorpe, Fraisthorpe, Haisthorpe, Caythorpe, Carnaby, Bessingby, Sewerby; and Anlaby, Willerby, Skidby, Wauldby, Tranby, Ferriby. Other groups will be found round York, Malton, and Pocklington. The best example of the occurrence of a succession of Danish names along the line of an ancient highway is to be found on the other side of the Humber. Here, along the road from the Humber to the old Roman station at Caistor, passing through the Anglian settlements of Horkstow and Brigg, there are no fewer than fifteen villages whose names end in by, and one of them has in addition the suffix Thorpe.[[14]]
Danish Settlements in a portion of North Lincolnshire.
Place names ending in by and thorp by no means exhaust the list of Danish settlements. A complete list of name-endings which are Norse in origin would include the following:—
| beck | a stream. | |
| by | a farmstead. | |
| fell | a hillside. | |
| force or foss | a waterfall. | |
| garth | an enclosure. | |
| gill | a ravine. | |
| holm holme | } | an island, or a piece of firm land rising out of the surrounding marsh. |
| how | a hill. | |
| lund | a sacred grove. | |
| ness | a headland. | |
| scar | a cliff. | |
| tarn | a small mountain lake. | |
| thorp or thorpe | a village. | |
| thwaite | a forest clearing. | |
| toft | an enclosure. | |
| wick or wyke | a bay or creek. |
Examples of all these can be found on the map of Yorkshire, and most of them occur in the East Riding. But it must be remembered that the modern place name is not always a sure guide in this direction. Names have in many cases changed during the course of centuries. For example, the name ‘Nunburnholme,’ which looks Danish in origin, was originally Brunham; while, on the other hand, ‘Kilnsea’ and ‘Withernsea’ have replaced the older Danish names Hornes and Witfornes.
The two name-endings which conclude the list given above are very interesting, because it was the Danish word vīk[[15]] that gave rise to the name by which the sea-rovers became generally known in our country. Vikings, or men of the creeks—so they were called; and so may we call them, if we remember that their letter v stood for the sound of our w, and that their name is to be pronounced Wik-ings and not, as it is so commonly mispronounced, Vi-kings.