The Polabi.—Conterminous with the Wagrians and the Saxons of Sturmar, from whom they were separated by the river Bille.
b. Slavonians of the right bank of the Elbe.—The Obodriti.—This is a generic rather than a specific term; so that it is probable that several of the Slavonic populations about to be noticed may be but subdivisions of the great Obotrit section. The same applies to the divisions already noticed—the Wagri and Polabi: indeed the classification is so uncertain, that we have, for these parts and times, no accurate means of ascertaining whether we are dealing with sub-divisions or cross-divisions of the Slavonians. At any rate the word Obotriti was one of the best-known of the whole list; so much so, that it is likely, in some cases, to have equalled in import the more general term Wend. The varieties of orthography and pronunciation may be collected from Zeuss (in voce), where we find Obotriti, Obotritæ, Abotriti, Abotridi, Apodritæ, Abatareni, Apdrede, Abdrede, Abtrezi. Furthermore, as evidence of the generic character of the word, we find certain East-Obotrits (Oster-Abtrezi), conterminous with the Bulgarians, as well as the North-Obotrits (Nort-Abtrezi), for the parts in question. These are the northern districts of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, from the Trave to the Warnow, chiefly along the coast. Zeuss makes Schwerin their most inland locality. The Descriptio Civitatum gives them fifty-three towns.
In the more limited sense of the term, the Obotrits are not conterminous with any German tribe, being separated by the Wagri and Polabi. Hence when Alfred writes Norðan Eald-Seaxum is Apdrede, he probably merges the two sections last-named in the Obotritic.
Although not a frontier population, the Obotrits find place in the present paper. They show that the Wagri and Polabi were not mere isolated and outlying portions of the great family to which they belonged, but that they were in due continuity with the main branches of it.
Varnahi.—This is the form which the name takes in Adam of Bremen. It is also that of the Varni, Varini, and Viruni of the classical writers; as well as of the Werini of the Introduction to the Leges Angliorum et Werinorum, hoc est Thuringorum. Now whatever the Varini of Tacitus may have been, and however much the affinities of the Werini were with the Angli, the Varnahi of Adam of Bremen are Slavonic.
c. Cis-Albian Slavonians.—Beyond the boundaries of the Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg, the existence of Germans on the right bank of the Elbe is nil.
With Altmark the evidence of a Slavonic population changes, and takes strength. The present Altmark is not German, as Kent is Saxon, but only as Cornwall is, i. e. the traces of the previous Slavonic population are like the traces of the Celtic occupants of Cornwall, the rule rather than the exception. Most of the geographical names in Altmark are Slavonic, the remarkable exception being the name of the Old March itself.
The Slavono-German frontier for the parts south of Altmark becomes so complex as to require to stand over for future consideration. All that will be done at present is to indicate the train of reasoning applicable here, and applicable along the line of frontier. If such was the state of things in the eighth and ninth centuries, what reason is there for believing it to have been otherwise in the previous ones? The answer is the testimony of Tacitus and others in the way of external, and certain etymologies, &c. in the way of internal, evidence. Without at present saying anything in the way of disparagement to either of these series of proofs, the present writer, who considers that the inferences which have generally been drawn from them are illegitimate, is satisfied with exhibiting the amount of à priori improbability which they have to neutralize. If, when Tacitus wrote, the area between the Elbe and Vistula was not Slavonic, but Gothic, the Slavonians of the time of Charlemagne must have immigrated between the second and eighth centuries; must have done so, not in parts, but for the whole frontier; must have, for the first and last time, displaced a population which has generally been the conqueror rather than the conquered; must have displaced it during one of the strongest periods of its history; must have displaced it everywhere, and wholly; and (what is stranger still) that not permanently—since from the time in question, those same Germans, who between A.D. 200 and A.D. 800 are supposed to have always retreated before the Slavonians, have from A.D. 800 to A.D. 1800 always reversed the process and encroached upon their former dispossessors.