the Tees the Danes throughout Alfred's day were

CHAP. III.

of the Danelaw

858

878.

settling down on the conquered soil. Their first The Making settlement was in Deira, in the area occupied by the present Yorkshire. Though their victory at York had left this district in their hands as early as the spring of 868, they contented themselves for the next seven years with the exaction of tribute from an underking, Ecgberht, whom they set over it, while they mastered East-Anglia and crushed Mid-Britain, and made their first onset on Wessex. But in 875, while Guthrum prepared to renew the attack on Ælfred, Halfdene with a portion of the Danish army at Repton marched northward into Northumbria. It is possible that he was drawn there by a rising of the country in which Ecgberht had been driven from the throne and Ricsig set as under-king in his place; but if so the death of Ricsig marks the close of this rising, and Halfdene marched unopposed to the Tyne. From his winter-camp there he "subdued the land and ofttimes spoiled the Picts and the Strathclyde Wealhs.” 1 With the spring of 876 however, while Guthrum and Ælfred were busy with the siege of Wareham, he fell back from Bernicia to the south, and "parted" among his men "the lands of Northumbria. Thenceforth" adds the chronicler, "they went on ploughing and tilling them." 2 That this "deal" or division of the land did not, in spite of Halfdene's conquests on the Tyne, extend to Bernicia we know from the fact that hardly a trace of Danish settlement can be found north of the Tees.3 But the names of the towns and villages of Deira show 2 Ibid. 876.

1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 875.

3 Taylor, "Words and Places," p. 112.

CHAP. III.

of the

Danelaw.

858878.

us in how systematic a way southern Northumbria The Making was parted among its conquerors. The change seems to have been much the same as that which followed the conquest of the Normans. The English population was not displaced, but the lordship of the soil was transferred to the conqueror. The settlers formed a new aristocracy, while the older nobles fell to a lower position; for throughout Deira the life of an English thegn was priced at but half the value of the life of a northern "hold."

Their

settlements.

Some of the new settlements can be easily traced through the termination "by," a Scandinavian equivalent for the English "tun" or "ham," while others may be less certainly distinguished by their endings in "thwaite" or "dale;" and in each of the Ridings of Yorkshire we still find at least a hundred local names of this Danish type. Where they cluster most thickly is in the dales that break the wild tract of moorland along the coast. from Whitby to the Tees valley, to which the newcomers gave the name of Cliff-land or Cleveland.

Around Whitby itself, the White-by" of the northern settlers, the little town that rose on either side its river-mouth beneath the height on which the ruins of Streoneshealh, the home of Hild and Cadmon, stood blackened and desolate, the country is thickly dotted with northern names. Memories of the pirate faith, of Balder and of Thor, meet us in Baldersby' or Thornaby as in the lost name of Presteby or Priest's town; other hamlets give us the names of the warriors themselves as they turned to "plough and till," Beorn and Ailward, 1 Now Baldby Fields.

group

Grim and Aswulf, Orm and Tol, Thorald and Swein.1
A few names of far greater interest hint how race
distinctions still perpetuated themselves in the
of little townships. Three Englebys or Inglebys and
two Normanbys tell how here and there lords of
the old Engle race still remained on a level with the
conquerors, or how Northmen or Norwegians who had
joined in the fighting had their share in the spoil.2
At the other extremity of this district, in the valley
of the Tees, a curious coincidence almost enables
us to detect the spot from which the settlers came.
On the coast of South Jutland we find two towns
in close neighbourhood, Middleburg and Aarhus ;
while in the Tees valley Middlesborough is as
closely neighboured by its "Aarhus-um" or Airsome.
It is hardly possible not to believe that the great
iron-mart of Cleveland must look for its mother-city
to the little Jutish township, as the Boston of the
New World looks for its mother-city to the Boston
of the Old.3

CHAP. III.

The Making of the Danelaw.

858878.

Cleveland remained for centuries to come a thoroughly Their trade. Scandinavian district; of its twenty-seven lords in

Domesday, twenty-three still bore distinctively Danish

1 Barnby, Ellerby, Grimsby, Aislaby (Asulvesbi), Ormsby, Tolesby, Swainby, Thoraldby.

2 Atkinson, "Glossary of Cleveland Dialect," Introd. xiv. &c. Even the judicial institutions of the settlers survive in "Thingwall," a spot by Whitby, which has vanished from the modern map, but whose name Mr. Atkinson discovers in a "Memorial of Benefactions to Whitby Abbey" as "Thingvala."

3 Atkinson, "Cleveland Dialect," Introd. p. xiii. note. The South Jutland "Hjardum" probably finds a like successor in the Cleveland" Yarm" or "Yarum."

CHAP. III,

names, and names of a like character seem at a yet later The Making time to have prevailed even among its serfs.1

of the

Danelaw.

.858878.

What

drew settlers so thickly there was no doubt the neigh-
bourhood of the sea; as ease of access from the sea
drew them to the valley of the Ouse. The swift tide up
the Humber, the "Higra" as it came to be called from
the sea god Egir, carried the northern boats past the
marshes of Holderness to the trading port, the "Caup-
manna-thorpe" or Cheapman's Thorpe, established by
the newcomers to the south of York.
Like all men
of the north the pirates were as keen traders as they
were hard fighters; their very kings were traffickers.
Biorn, Harald Fair-hair's son, was Biorn the
Merchant," and St. Olaf was a partner in the trade
ventures of his Jarls. The main end of their raids
was to gather slaves for the slave-mart; but they
1 Atkinson, "Cleveland Dialect," Introd. pp. xx., xxi.

3

66

2 Taylor, "Words and Places," p. 254. "Caupmansthorpe near York. . . . the form of the word shows us that here the Danish traders resided just as those of Saxon blood dwelt together at Chapmanslade."

3 Skiringsal in the Wik was now the centre of northern trade. "The Sleswig ships brought to it German, Wendish, Prussian, Russian, Greek, and Eastern wares, as well as merchants and adventurers from these lands. In Skiringsal indeed the Halgolander might be seen driving bargains with the Prussian, the Trondheimer with the Saxon and the Wend, the Söndmöringer with the Dane and the Swede; beside the walrus-skins and furs from the north one might see amber from Prussia, costly stuff's from Greece and the East, Byzantine and Arabian coins and northern rings, while the harbour lay full of big and little ships of varied build, among which the kingly long-ship was distinguished not only by its size but by its magnificence." Munch, "Det Norske Folks Historie," (Germ. transl.), pt. iv. p. 141.

We see the actual working of this slave-trade in Olaf Trygvasson's story. He was captured in his childhood, "with

brought with them the furs, oils, skins, and eiderdown of their northern lands to barter for the wares of the south. Their settlements along the north coast were as much markets as pirate-holds; and York, which from this time became more and more a Danish city, was thronged at the close of a century with Danish merchants, and had become the centre of a thriving trade with the north. The new comers have left their mark in some of its local names: the street leading to its eastern outlet is still Guthrum's Gate; and the church of St. Olave reminds us how at the eve of the Norman Conquest the Danish population had spread to the suburbs of the town.

Over the central vale, from York to Catterick, we find the "byes" planted as was naturally the case pretty thickly, with a "Balderby" among them that suggests how the northern myths were settling on English soil with the northern marauders; and if the eastern wolds present few traces of their homes, they are frequent along the western moors. Of the life or institutions however of these settlers we know little, for from the moment of their settlement to the

his mother Astrid and his foster-father, Thorolf, by an Esthonian wiking, as they were crossing the sea from Sweden on their way to Novgorod, and were divided among the crew and sold. An Esthonian called Klerkon got Olaf and Thorolf for his share of the booty, but Astrid was separated from her son Olaf, then only three years old. Klerkon thought Thorolf too old for a slave, and that no work could be got out of him to repay his food, and therefore killed him, but sold the boy to a man called Klærk for a goat. A peasant called Reas bought him from Klærk for a good cloak, and he remained in slavery till he was recognized by his uncle." Laing, "Sea Kings of Norway," Introd. vol. i. p. 96.

CHAP. III.

The Making of the Danelaw.

858

878.

Their organization.