The Ethnology of Europe

by R. G. Latham

Scandinavia comes next in order, the arrangement being strictly natural; since, whatever may have been the original population of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the present is of Germanic origin, and speaks a language belonging to the great Gothic class; the Danish and Swedish being mutually intelligible.

The Islands.—The Danish Islands fall into two groups, one containing the Isle of Fyen, the other the ancient Vithesleth, or the four islands of Sealand, Laaland, Moen, and Falster. This division is ancient, and in the eyes of some of the older writers of considerable import; since the true country of Dan, the eponymus of the Danes, was not Jutland, not yet Skaane (the southern part of Sweden), nor yet Fyen. It was the Four Islands of the Vithesleth:—“Dan—rex primo super Sialandiam, Monam, Falstriam, et Lalandiam, cujus regnum dicebatur Vithesleth. Deinde super alias provincias et insulas et totum regnum.”—Petri Olai Chron. Regum Daniæ. Also, “Vidit autem Dan regionem suam, super quam regnavit, Jutiam, Fioniam, Withesleth, Scaniam, quod esset bona.”—Annal. Esrom. p. 224.

That this word Vithesleth is a compound, that its first element is a Gentile name, and that the population which bore it was other than the modern Danes will be suggested in the sequel. At present it is enough to remember that the existing population of the four eastern islands is Germanic on a hitherto unvestigated basis. The men of the Vith-es-leth it is convenient to call Vitæ.

In Fyen the Gothic elements are the same as in the Vithesleth, the differentiæ consisting in the difference of the original basis, provided that such existed. This may or may not have been the case; since it by no means follows that because the islands of the Vithesleth differed from Fyen, that difference was ethnological. It may have been only political.

Lauenburg.—In the tenth century Lauenburg is Slavonic; its occupants being a population called Po-labi; called also Po-lab-ingii. As po means on, and Laba is the Slavonic form for the Elbe, the name is a compound, like Pomerania (on the sea). The Polabi, then, were the Slavonians of the Elbe. They were an extreme population; since the river Bille divided them from the Germans of Stormar, Holstein, and Ditmarsh. But though the Polabi of Lauenburg were a frontier population they were not isolated. They were in geographical continuity with the Linones of Luneburg, and the Obotrites of Mecklenburg. Reduced by the Carlovingian Franks, Lauenburg became Low German; as it is at the present time.

Holstein.—The name of the duchy is German, and derived from a German population—the Holsati. But the Holsati were neither the only occupants, nor the only Germans of these parts. The Stormarii of Stormar, and the Dietmarsi of Ditmarsh are equally mentioned by the writers of the eighth century. Earlier still we hear of the Sabalingii and Sigulones. The Holsati, Dietmarsi, and Stormarii, were either Angles or Frisians.

So much for the western half of the duchy. The eastern was Slavonic; even as Lauenburg was Slavonic, the particular population being that of the Wagri. They are a frontier population; and this may, possibly, be denoted by the name, which contains the same elements as that of the Ucri of Uckermark, and the Malorussians of the Ukraine.

Sleswick.—With Slavonians on the Baltic, and Frisians on the Atlantic, the original ethnology of Sleswick seems to have been that of the sister duchy. In Sleswick, however, the Frisian population still exists, extended from Husum to Tondern. In Sleswick also we have a portion of the Jute population of Jutland.

Jutland.—If the combination, J+t as it occurs in the word Jute, being the same as the G+t in Got, or Goth, we have a reason in favour of one of its earlier populations having been Lithuanic.

Then we have the Slavonians of Holstein and Sleswick to the south. How far these extended northwards is uncertain. Between the two, however, I believe that eastern Jutland, at least, was Sarmatian before it was German.