THE LIBRARY
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THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
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LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES
LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES
V-
0; A
BY THE REV.
G. S. STREATFEILD, M.A.
VICAR OF STREATHAM COMMON ;
LATE VICAR OF HOLY TRINITY, LOUTH, LINCOLNSHIRE
" Language adheres to the soil, when the lips which spake are resolved in dust."
Sir F. Pai.grave
ItARBo'r SCIENTl/Eg
?^ARB'3R VIT/E.-"»
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1884
{Tlie rights o/franxltitiim and of reJ>roihutio}i are reserved.^
TlA
TO
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
ALEXANDRA,
PRINCESS OF WALES,
THIS BOOK. IS INSCRIBED
BY HKR LOYAL AND GRATEFUL SERVANT
THE AUTHOR.
49.'i476
A thousand years have nursed the changeful mood
Of England's race,— so long have good and ill
P^ought the grim battle, as they fight it still, —
Since from the North,— a daring brotherhood, —
They swarmed, and knew not, when, mid fire and blood,
They made their English homes, or took their fill
Of English spoil, — they rudely wrought His will
Who sits for aye above the water-flood.
Death's grip is on the restless arm that clove
Our land in twain ; no more the Raven's flight
Darkens our sky ; and now the gentle Dove
Speeds o'er the wave, to nestle in the might
Of English hearts, and whisper of the love
That views afar time's eventide of light
preface;
" I DO not pretend that my books can teach truth. All
I hope for is that they may be an occasion to inquisitive
men of discovering truth." Although it was of a subject
infinitely higher than that of which the following pages
treat, that Bishop Berkeley wrote such words, yet they
exactly express the sentiment with which this book
is submitted to the public.
It may be well to state that the present volume is
the development of three parochial lectures given in
Louth (Lincolnshire) during the years 1877-78, and I
would venture to say that the constant calls and de-
mands of a busy parish may help to explain, though
not to excuse, much that may be open to criticism.
Any one who attempts to deal with the derivation
of place-names must do so with the full expectation of
calling forth much controversy. As, in pursuing my
subject, I have often had to change my opinions, so I
am fully prepared, in sending them before the tribunal
vm PREFACE.
of the public, to see many cherished conclusions dis-
proved, and my own judgment in many cases reversed.
Far abler writers have pointed out the uncertainty
that too often hangs over the original meaning of a
local name, even when every effort has been made to
trace it, and it is impossible to doubt that many of the
derivations given in this volume will be charged with
rashness and credulity.
We may perhaps admit that, in dealing with such
a subject, it is often by almost exhausting the wrong
that the right is gained. If, then, the following pages
do nothing more than conduce to the exhaustion of
error, they place the right one step nearer to attainment.
The subject of place-names possesses interest for
comparatively few, and it is most unlikely that the
greater part of this book, entering, as it necessarily does,
into tedious details and technicalities, will find many
readers. It is however hoped that the earlier chapters,
as well as the concluding one, may not be without
attraction for all who are interested in the history of the
county. If, moreover, some of the names here discussed
are found to throw a side-light, however dim, upon the
life and associations of a past that cannot be more than
faintly realized, it will be confessed that the studies, of
which the result is here given, have not been altogether
fruitless.
PREFACE. IX
Whilst heartily wishing that the subject had fallen
into more competent hands, I can only hope that I may
have led the way^ to a more complete and correct
elucidation of at least one part of the county nomencla-
ture than the present attempt can pretend to be.
The Glossary appended to this volume is the result
of a careful examination and comparison of many works,
but is chiefly indebted to the following, viz. : — Cleasby
and Vigfusson's Icelandic Dictionary, Professor Skeat's
Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Dr.
Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language, the
Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect, by the Rev. J. C.
Atkinson, Vicar of Danby, and Stratmann's Dictionary
of Old English.
I would take this opportunity of returning my
warmest thanks for most courteous and ready help from
Professor Worsaae of Copenhagen, and to Professor
Rygh of Christiania. I would also acknowledge, with
much gratitude, the unfailing sympathy and advice of
my friend, the Rev. M. G. Watkins, Rector of Barnoldby-
le-Beck.
Whitby, August, 1883.
' This ought to be said with some reserve, inasmuch as a short, but
interesting paper on this very subject was read by the Precentor of Lincoln
at the annual meeting of the Lincoln Architectural Society, and has been
printed in the Report for 18S2. The Danish element in the topography
and language of Lincolnshire is also touched upon in Sir Charles Ander-
son's Lincoln Pocket Guide.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Danish Occupation ... ... ... i
II. Connecting Links ... ... ... 25
III. The Dane and his English Home ... ... 41
IV. Records of Mythology ... ... ... 57
V. Heroes and Nationalities ... ... ... 83
VI. Records of Settlement — Part I. ... 99
VII. Records of Settlement — Part II. ... ... 123
VIII. Records OF Settlement — Part III. ... .139
IX. Records of Nature — Land ... ... ... 160
X. Records of Nature — Water ... ... 188
XI. Records of Animal and Vegetable Life ... 209
XII. Lost Landmarks ... ... ... ... 236
XIII. The Language of Lincolnshire ... ... 258
Appendix I. Additional Names ... ... 279
„ II. Thong Caistor and Torksey ... 292
„ III. Personal Names in Lincolnshire 298
Glossary ... ... ... ... ... ... 314
ABBREVIATIONS.
Ann. Isl. = Annales Islandici.
Brogden = Provincial Words and Expressions current in Lincoln-
shire. J. Ellett Brogden, 1866.
CI. Gl. = Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect, by Rev. J. C. Atkinson,
Vicar of Danby.
CI. and Vigf. = Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dic-
tionary.
Cod. Dip. JEv. Sax. = Codex Diplomaticus ^vi Saxonici. Kemble.
Cr. D. = Craven Dialect.
Dip. Angl. JEv. Sax. = Diplomatarium Anglicum ^vi Saxonici.
B. Thorpe.
Dugdale, Mon. Angl. = Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum.
Ferg., E.S. = English Surnames. R. Ferguson.
Grimm's Teut. Myth. (Stallybrass) = Grimm's Teutonic My-
thology, translated by Stallybrass.
Halliwell = Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial
Words.
Hold. Gl. = Holderness Glossary. English Dialect Society.
Jam. = Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, John
Jamieson, D.D. New Edition, 1877.
Landn. = Landndmabok.
L.C.D. = Liber Census Daniae ; Kong Valdemar den Andens
(i 202-1 241), Jordebog.
M. and C. Gl. = Glossary of the Manley and Corringham Dialect.
E. Peacock.
Madsen, SJ£e1. Stedn. = Sjselandske Stednavne. Emil Madsen.
Archceological Journal of Scandinavia, 1863.
XIV ABBREVIATIONS.
Molbech = Dansk Dialekt Lexicon. C. Molbech, 1841.
Prompt. Parv. = Promptorium Parvulorum sive Clericorum, 1540.
Stratmann = Stratmann's Dictionary of the Old English Language.
St. S. = Sturlunga Saga.
C.I. = Calendarium Inquisitionum post mortem sive Escastarum.
(Henry III., Edward I. and II.)
C.R.C. = Calendarium Rotulorum Chartarum ad inciuisitionem
ad quod damnum, 1 307-1460.
C.T.T. = Catalogus Tenentium Terras per Singulas Hundredas
in Comitatu Line. (Henry I.)
D.B. = Domesday Book.
Hundr. R. = Hundred Rolls ; Rotuli Hundredorum. (Henry III.,
Edward I.)
Inqu. Non. or I.N. = Inquisitiones Nonarum. (14 and 15
Edward III.)
PI. A. = Placitorum Abbreviatio. (Richard I., John, etc.)
P.R. = Patent Rolls ; Calendarium Rotulorum Patentium. (3 John,
23 Edward IV.)
R.C. = Rotuh Chartarum, 1 199-12 16.
T.E. = Taxatio Ecclesiastica Anglite et Wallias, 1291.
T.N. = Testa de Nevill. (Henry III., Edward I.)
A.S. = Anglo Saxon. O.N. = Old Norse. Su.G. = Suio-
Gothicum. Dan. = Danish. O.Dan. = Old Danish. Dan.
D. = Danish Dialect. Sw. = Swedish. Sw. D. = Swedish
Dialect. Norw. = Norwegian. Ger. = German. O.H.G. =
Old High German. Eng. = English. O.E. = Old English.
M.E. = Middle English. N.E. = North England. Pron. =
Pronounced.
(?) A note of interrogation placed after a local name signifies that
the writer has not ascertained the earlier forms of the name.
LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES.
CHAPTER I.
THE DANISH OCCUPATION.
" In there stej^ped a stately Raven
Not the least obeisance made he ;
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore.
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Tlutonian shore.'
The Kavcn, E. A. Poi:.
It may be that education and the love of travel have,
to some extent, weakened the popular misconception
that to live in Lincolnshire means little short of flounder-
ing in a swamp and shivering with ague ; yet it is hardly
rash to say that the county, as a whole, excites less
interest than any other in the mind of an average
Endishman. Those who know its broad acres best feel
that scant justice is done to it by strangers, who have
never taken the trouble to see it for themselves. The
day will doubtless come, when the general public will be
awakened to the fact that Lincolnshire enjoys one of
the healthiest climates in the kingdom ; that, in a drive
across the wolds, a landscape meets the eye surpassing
in beauty the scenes familiar to the South-countryman
2 LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES,
amid the Hampshire Downs ; that the geology of the
county is full of interest, from the oolite, ironstone, and
red chalk of the hills, to the submerged forests of the
coast ; whilst the Church architecture vies with that of
any county in Great Britain.^
Meanwhile, we pity the ignorance of the outside world,
and confess that the quaint and sagacious Fuller was
before his time in his estimate of this portion of the
realm. " As God " (so runs his verdict) " hath, to use
the apostle's phrase, tempered the body together, not
making all eye or all ear, but assigning each member
the proper office thereof, so the same Providence hath
so wisely blended the benefits of this county, that, take
collective Lincolnshire, and it is defective in nothing." ^
It is not, however, the object of these chapters to con-
firm this flattering view ; no such wide and ambitious
aim will be discovered in the following pages. One par-
ticular feature, to the exclusion of others, will occupy
our attention ; — a feature familiar enough to all in its
general aspect,^ but hitherto not dealt with in detail.
The visitor to Lincolnshire, when he leav^es the flat
' " Here the complaint of the prophet " (Hagg. 1.4) " hath no place ; no
county affording worse houses or better churches." — Fuller's Worthies of
P'ngland, 1st edit., 1662, part 2, p. 151.
" Ibid., p. 144. As if to justify, and more than justify, such an
encomium, the year before these words were put before the public (the first
edition was published in 1662, after the author's death), it is recorded that
"at Spalding and Bourne, and several other places in Lincolnshire, it
rayn'd great quantities of wheat." This phenomenon, which took place
A]-iril 26, 1661, is included among the many wonders of Annus Mirabilis,
1O60. (See Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, 1S82, p. 104.)
* See Taylor's Words and Places, ch. viii. ; and Worsaae's Danes and
Northmen, sect. vii.
THE DANISH OCCUPATION. 3'
country that stretches from Huntingdon to Firsby, finds
himself surrounded with records of Danish occupation,
more numerous probably than in any other district of
England, and it is the special aim of these pages to
trace the records that the Norsemen have left in the
place-names of the county.
The Scandinavian race is represented by three great
'divisions, — the Dane, the Norwegian, and the Swede.
Of these, the last took little part in the marauding
expeditions that swept every coast of Western and
Southern Europe, from the north of Scotland to the Ba}^
of Naples and the Levant, during the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh centuries.^ But, while the Swede found vent
for the spirit of enterprise beyond the Baltic in the
region of the East, the Dane and Norwegian vied with
one another in harassing and plundering every shore
that lay to the west of their own country. Heartrend-
ing are the tales told of these incursions. Although
generous in friendship, the Norseman was pitiless and
even treacherous in war. Untaught as yet by the word,
luntamed as yet by the yoke of Christ, he believed that
the way to lay up treasure in heaven, as well as on earth,
was to kill, to capture, to sack, to burn. " Capable of
every crime but cowardice," honouring a life of plunder
above that of honest industry, believing that death in
battle was a certain passport to Valhalla, the sworn
opponents of Christianity, swayed by strong appetites,
possessed of extraordinary physical strength, and a con-
stitution hardened by exposure to a bracing climate,
' Worsaac's Danes and Northmen, Introd. p. xiii., xiv.
4 LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES.
these Northern vikings proved themselves terrible foes
wherever they went, and left
" Their name to other times,
Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes."
Many of the stories told of the Norseman's cruelty may
be far from true, yet it cannot for a moment be doubted
that his raids were marked by every kind of excess.
Towns and villages were plundered, the inhabitants
massacred, their homes fired ; babes were tossed upon
the spear,^ women were carried off to shame or captivity.
Terrible too was the havoc they made in religious
houses and churches ; and there may be church doors
in England at the present day, which, beneath some
rusty nail, preserve a remnant of dry and shrivelled
skin, as a witness to the viking's profanity, and the
vengeance that was wreaked upon him when seized in
the act of sacrilege.^ It may be taken for granted that
* This, in spite of the traditional belief in tlie ferocity of the vikings,
was probably not a common practice. The story of Olaf Barnakill has been
so often quoted as to colour the general character of the Norseman. It is
upon the authority of the Landnamabolc that we learn how " Barnakill " was
given to Olaf as a soubriquet, because he protested against the practice of
tossing infants upon the spear-point. Sir G. W. Dasent jooints out that
"Barnakill" may be a late corruption of " Bairncarle " [i.e. the man with
many bairns) ; see Burnt Njal, vol. ii. pp. 353, 354. He further maintains that
these stories of atrocious and unnecessary cruelty were set afloat after the
change of faith amongst the Northmen, with the purpose of heaping disgrace
upon paganism. The fact that Frithiof was called Helthiof, when guilty of
this barbarity, helps to jDrove that the practice was regarded with aversion
by the majority of Norsemen.
- The four churches with which such traditions are distinctly connected
are Rochester Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the churches of Had-
stock and Copford, in Essex. In the case of Hadstock, the last fragments
of skin did not disappear until 1846 ; and in that of Copford, not until 1843.
(See Archccologkal yoitnial, vol. v. p. 185; vol. x. p. 167.)
THE DANISH OCCUPATION. 5
the life of the viking-^ while it developed the worst
qualities of the Scandinavian character, would check its
nobler features, save that spirit of enterprise and darinLf
which never rose higher than in these sons of the North.
It is partly, doubtless, in virtue of this unrivalled
hardihood that the Norseman's life possesses a romantic
interest, which, in some degree, extends itself to the
seas he haunted, and to the very places he conquered
to call after his own name. And where w'as the sea-
board of Western Europe that these insatiable pirates
did not visit ? Here, there, everywhere, often in the
most unexpected quarters and out-of-the-way corners,
they have left their record in the names they gave, —
names which may still conjure up to the eye of fancy
those black fleets, sometimes large, sometimes small,
always formidable, that threaded their way through
every sea and descended upon every coast, to leave their
mark in blood and fire and famine.
The province to which our thoughts are now directed
was not only visited, but colonized, by these Northmen ;
and the great preponderance of Danish over Anglian
place-names in many large portions of the county may
serve to show that, in these parts at least, the English-
man was no match for the Dane.
Although there must have been Danes in England
at a very early period, and vikings had frequented our
coasts long before Ethelred ascended the throne in 866,
it was not until his reign that the full strength of this
foe was felt. It was in the very year of Ethelred's
accession that a Danish armament, under the notorious
6 LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES.
leaders Hubba and Hingvar, landed in East Anglia.
After wintering there, the invaders marched through
Lincolnshire, crossed the H umber, and advanced upon
York. Northumbria, or at least the southern portion of
it, submitted almost without a blow, and Mercia trembled
for its safety. The peace of Nottingham, concluded in
S68 between Ethelred and the Danes, gave the new-
comers an opportunity, which they were quick to seize,
of subjugating East Anglia. Hardly had Guthrum the
Dane taken his seat upon the throne of the martyred
Edmund, than Mercia, shrinking from the contest, which
appeared inevitable, acknowledged the overlordship of
the Danes, and placed itself under tribute. This occurred
in 870. In the following year Ethelred died, to be suc-
ceeded by his younger brother, Alfred. The heroic
struggles of the new king to maintain his ground and
preserve his crown ended in the peace of Wedmore, in
878. By the terms of this treaty the great road running
from London to Chester, and known as the Watling
Street, became the frontier line between Danelagh and
the kingdom of England.^
If then we ask, at what period Lincolnshire and the
adjacent counties were chiefly colonized by the Danes,
probability points to the years immediately preceding
* J. R. Green, Short History of the Engh.sli People, pp. 45, 46. The
exact line which separated Danelagh from England started from the Thames,
and after tracing the river Lea to its source, passed to Bedford. Thence it
kept to the river Ouse until it reached Watling Street, which then became
the boundary to Chester. The treaty of Wedmore gave the Northmen
ample opportunities for settlement. Danelagh was at length reduced to sub-
mission, but not until the middle of the tenth century, and by that time most
likely the j^resent nomenclature of the county was more or less complete.
THE DANISH OCCUPATION. 7
and following the treaty of Wedmore ; nor can wc be far
Avrong in concluding that, during the latter half of the
ninth century, the north and west of Lincolnshire assumed
the character rather of a Danish province than of an
English shire.
It was then that those scenes were repeated w-hich
had been so common four hundred years earlier, when
the tribes of Germany descended upon the eastern
coasts of Britain, rendered almost defenceless by the
withdrawal of the Roman legions.^ Now, however, it
was the turn for the Anglo-Saxon race to suffer ; and
as the Briton had retired before the German, so now the
Englishman made way for the Dane.-^
No county map bears clearer traces of Norse occu-
pation than that of Lincolnshire. And this we might
well expect, for no other portion of England afforded
such facilities to these sea-kings for conquest and for
settlement. Riding across the German Ocean on what
they were wont to call their sea-horses, they found, in the
Humber mouth, an open gate to some of the richest
pastures in England. History tells of the good use
they made of their opportunities. But even were the
voice of history silent, if every documentary record were
lost, if every local tradition were forgotten, a comparison
* For a picturesque description of the Saxon raids of the fourlh and fiftlr
centuries, see Green's Making of England, Introd., pp. 15-19 ; see also
Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 12.
- Mr. Freeman gives three jjeriods of Danish contact with and influence
upon England: ist period, that of plunder, 789-855; 2nd period, that of
settlement, 855-897 ; 3rd period, that of political conquest, 980-1016
(Norman Conquest, vol. i. pp. 12 and 44-46).
8 LI^XOLNSIIIRE AND THE DANES.
between the map of Lincolnshire and that of Denmark
would prove that one had been colonized from the other,
or, at least, that the same race had, to a great extent,
peopled both countries alike. If, in a state of uncon-
sciousness, we could travel to Denmark, and awake to
find ourselves amongst such names as Abye, Strobye,
Dalbye, Kirkbye, Carlebye, Orbye, Ulseby, Holbek, and
Tofte, we should certainly be prepared to look around
without the sense of being any great distance from home.
Such names, with many others quite as familiar in form
and sound, may be read upon an ordinary map of Den-
mark, and have, for more than a thousand years, formed
a connecting link of deep interest between the two coun-
tries, now so closely and happily united in the person of
Alexandra, Princess of England and of Denmark.
It is impossible at this distance of time to trace, with
any clearness, the course that the great Danish immi-
gration took ; yet an examination of the map is not
without results that throw some light upon this point,
and more especially, perhaps, in regard to the county
now under consideration.
So far, then, as we can judge from the map, there
appear to have been three main streams of these colonists
into Lincolnshire, which, for convenience' sake, we may
designate as the Grimsby, Trent, and Alford streams.
In the first place, there can be no doubt that they
landed in large numbers in the immediate neighbour-
hood of Grimsby,^ and spread in every direction, but
' Certainly as far south as Tctney Haven, which, tradition tells us, was
one of the favourite landing-places of the Dane.
THE DANISH OCCUPATION. 9
especially to the west and south-west. Meeting this
horde, as it pushed its way westward from Grimsby,
another wave of Danish colonists most probably ad-
vanced eastward fi-om the neighbourhood of Burton
Stather ^ at the Trent mouth. Where these two streams
of immigrants met, it may be impossible to say ; possibly
in the vicinity of Glanford Brigg or Caistor, which,
though neither place bears a Danish name, may be
regarded as the centres of one of the most strongly
marked Danish districts in the kingdom.
Turning to what has been characterized as the
Alford stream, we come to that particular area which,
if we may judge from the place-names, must at one
time have been the most exclusively Danish portion of
Lincolnshire, if not of England,^ This district stretches
from the coast in the neighbourhood of Alford over the
wolds as far as Horncastle, and the conclusion appears
to be irresistible that the smooth sandy shore between
Theddlethorpe and Skegness was a favourite landing-
place for the Danish fleets. In Leland's time, tradition
told of a fair commodious haven that once existed
at Skegness ; '^ it may have been, therefore, at that
particular point of the coast, rather than any other, that
the invaders landed ^ to march north and west, and turn
* The name Stather may itself record the fact that this point was used
with great frequency as a landing-place by the Danes (cf. Chapter x.)-
- Words and Places, 5th edit., p. iii.
^ Leland's Itinerary, vol. vii. p. 142.
â– * Nothing can be advanced with anything like certainty, owing to the
great changes which the encroachments of the sea have made upon the coast
since the ninth century. There may have been many commodious havens
besides that of Skegness. Even so late as Leland's day there appears to
lO LINCOLNSHIRE AND THE DANES.
the Alford and Spilsby neighbourhood into a purely-
Danish settlement. Certain it is that we can point to
no other part of Lincolnshire, where Danish names
outnumber the English in so large a proportion. Let
the eye run over a map from Theddlethorpe, on the
coast, through Withern, Ruckland, Scamblesby, Thim-
bleby, Coningsby, Revesby, Firsby, to Skegness, and it
will be found that names, other than Danish, in this