upon British Ethnology. 213
Allonby; Althorpe, Rampsholme, Crosthwaite, and others.
And in the North of England and the Scottish Lowlands
many Danish expressions form part of the language of the
peasantry. When Burns, for instance, says, "it gars me greet,"
or when Edie Ochiltree remarks, with reference to the sup-
posed Roman Camp, that he "minds the lagging o't," the
influence of the Danes becomes strikingly manifest. With
regard to institutions, Worsaae in his well-known book on
the Danes in England,25 states that "it must now be re-
garded as a point quite decided that the earliest positive
traces of a jury in England appear in the Danelag, among
the Danes established there." He notices a curious point
which illustrates the uncertainty of the evidence of language
and place-names as marks of the relative intensity of the
settlements of a race in different localities. In the Scottish
Lowlands the popular talk is much fuller of Scandinavian,
terms than that of the middle and northern districts of
England. Yet the Scandinavian place-names of the Lowlands
are very few in number, and, putting other evidence aside,
would suggest but a very slight Scandinavian admixture.
The probable explanation of apparent anomalies of this kind
is that in the counties abounding in Scandinavian place-
names the settlement was made comparatively early and
bore more or less of the character of a conquest. In such
circumstances the social and political importance of the in-
vaders might probably result in their establishment of a
larger number of place-names than" their mere numbers
would lead us to expect. On the other hand, a gradual and
peaceful immigration into a settled country—as that from
England into Scotland after the Norman Conquest—might
have but little effect on the already settled place-names,
though so important from its numbers as to seriously modify
the talk of the peasantry.
Worsaae saw but few persons of Scandinavian appearance
in the south of England, and in the "confusion of people in
London." In the midland, and especially in the northern
25 'An account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland,
and Ireland,' by J. J. A. Worsaae, Lond. 1852.
Q