These and others of like kind, show that the Norse personal names continued in use even after the descendants of the Norse settlers had ceased to speak their mother tongue.

This intermixture of a foreign element with the Celtic is found not only in the Highlands, but also in Wales and Ireland. The descendants of the Saxon and Scandinavian settlers have names as Celtic as the Celts themselves, and even the Norman settlers laid aside their Norman names, and helped to swell the number of the Joneses and Williamses of Wales, and of the O'Donnells and O'Donoghues of Ireland.

If the most

But there is a per contra side to this statement. thoroughly Celtic portions of our country are not wholly Celtic, neither are the most thoroughly Saxon portions of it wholly Saxon. In all parts of the country there is a mixture of races. Historians were wont to affirm that no Britons remained in those parts which were subdued by the Saxons. A large emigration undoubtedly took place, but history fails to show that all the Britons, or even a majority of them, removed from the conquered country. The little evidence we have is rather on the other side. In connection with this, a curious anecdote is told of one of the Saxon saints-Guthlac by name-who was abbot of Croyland, in Lincolnshire, about two centuries after the Saxon conquest. He was awoke one night by some horrid noises outside the monastery. Fearing that the place was going to be attacked by Britons he got up to reconnoitre; but he returned greatly comforted on finding that the noise-makers were only devils. Now though this anecdote scarcely proves that the good saint's slumbers were disturbed by infernal spirits, it goes far to show that there were men in the very heart of Saxondom long after the Saxon conquest who were known by the name of Britons. These Britons, in the presence of the more numerous race, would in process of time become incorporated with it, and would lose their ancient

language and manners, just as the Norsemen of the Hebrides did. But to return to the subject.

Surnames of Norman origin are most frequent among the ancient nobility and gentry,-many of whom are descended from the soldiers who came over in the wake of William the Conqueror and his sons. Some of these soldiers had been lords in Normandy, but many were penniless adventurers who had embarked with the hope of spoil. Nor were they disappointed, for after the conquest the forfeited lands of the Saxons were divided among them. Thus men who at home had been steeped in poverty became lords of many manors, and had Saxon gentry for their servants. Most of these new made lords took surnames from the name of their birth place; and in this way it came to pass that the names of the villages and hamlets of Normandy are largely represented in the surnames of our nobility. Others assumed ancestral personal names, which were in many instances identical with those in use among their kinsmen of Norway and Denmark. And thus some of our Norse surnames have come to us, both directly through the Vikings and their followers, and indirectly through the Normans. Among such surnames I may mention Hamlin, Mallet, Riddell, and Rollo. In the Annals of the Conquest two Norman names are mentioned-Broth and Kake-which have since died out; or, shall I say, been swallowed up? They doubtless represent the Scandinavian Broddr and Keikr. Once naturalized in England the Norman names were not long of finding their way into Scotland and Ireland. After the death of William the Anglo-Normans quarrelled among themselves, and not a few were deprived of their domains and had to flee from England. Some of the latter got possessions from the Scottish Kings; others came across the Tweed and helped themselves. In these and other ways many Norman families settled in Scotland, and Norman names were introduced. Montgomery, Bruce, Sinclair, Somerville, Colville, Neville, Comyn, Barclay, and Riddell, are names well known.

It was in the way of conquest that the Norman names became introduced into Ireland, and these names are still numerous in the Irish peerage. In none of the three kingdoms, however, do the Normans occupy the exclusively high position which they did of yore. Time was when the old English chronicler sorrowfully wrote"Of the Normans beth thys hey men that beth of thys lond,

And the low men of Saxons."

But lapse of time and vicissitudes of fortune have done much to level

the proud race of the conquerors; and now we see the Norman names side by side, in all ranks of society, with the once despised Celtic and Saxon.

Passing over the corruptions and other changes which surnames are apt to undergo, I would here merely allude to an interesting question in connection with local surnames, which is worthy of more attention than it has yet received. It is this,-Why should certain places be so largely represented among local surnames while others apparently as likely to give origin to these are not represented, or only to a small extent? To take an illustration from our own doors, -Why should a petty estate like Aitkenhead and an insignificant village like Provan be comparatively so well represented among the Lanarkshire surnames, while Rutherglen-an older burgh than Glasgow-gives name to only one or two families, and Partick is not represented at all?

The last point I shall notice is the localization of surnames. Where the name of a place is employed as a surname some of the families bearing it are usually found resident not far away. Local surnames peculiar to a town or district are almost always taken from names of places at no great distance. Thus, surnames like Glasgow, Govan, Paisley, Provan, and Rutherglen, are most common in our own neighbourhood. In Glasgow the local surnames of Lanarkshire and adjoining counties are well represente l, and in Edinburgh those of Fife and the Lothians. Northumberland and Durham yield a large proportion of the local surnames of Newcastle, while those of Manchester are chiefly drawn from Lancashire and Cheshire.

We are all familiar with the romantic story of Robin Hood, and have read how

"Robin stood in Bernysdale,

And leaned him against a tree,
And at his side stood little John,
And a good yeoman was he.

And there good Scathelock stood besides,
And Much the Miller's son,

Of whose stout body there was not an inch

But was worth a whole man each one."

We have also read of Allan a' Dale and Stoutly, and the brave chaplain, Friar Tuck, all yeomen good, who trod with Robin the "merrie greenwood." Nearly 600 years have elapsed since Robin killed the king's deer in Sherwood Forest, and yet the names of these his companions are common surnames in the forest district.

Many have looked on Robin Hood's history as a nursery tale, but in its main features it is only too true; and its truth is in part attested by the persistence of the names just mentioned on the spot where they were first heard of. Besides these, Hardstaff, Beardall, Bowman, Archer, Shaklock, and other names are met with which were probably first borne by bold outlaws who, like Robin himself, had fled to the forest glades to escape from the cruel oppression of the Normans.

Provincial names are found localized in the same way. A traveller carried blindfold into Wales, and set down in the middle of any of the towns, could tell by a glance at the signboards that he was within the principality. Gaelic names are most abundant in the Highlands, and Danish names along the east coast, where the Danes chiefly settled. And Saxon names though, like the provincial names, diffused over the whole country, are still most common where the Saxons possessed the land. A constant movement is going on in the population, and in Scotland perhaps on a larger scale than in England; but it is a movement of individuals rather than of families, so that, notwithstanding numerous removals, there is usually a remnant, so to speak, left to perpetuate the family name, near the spot which gave it birth.

NO. XXI.

ON THE ARYAN THEORY OF LANGUAGE:

BY

DR. SCOULAR.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 7th December, 1863.]

DR. SCOULAR read a paper "On the Aryan Theory of Language," chiefly with the view to correct the errors into which Mr. John Crawford the author of the "History of the Indian Archipelago," has fallen in a paper read to the Ethnological Society of London on this theory. This theory of the origin of language is more generally received on the continent than in Great Britain. The theory is that the languages spoken from Bengal to Ireland are all to be traced from a primitive tongue spoken by a people settled to the north-west of India, termed by the ancients Aryans-that this Aryan race subsequently spread themselves over the country originally occupied by the Allophylian or Finnish tribes. This primordial race, though now covered by the Aryan, occasionally cropped out, as it were, in the Basque and Finnish tribes. With reference to Mr. Crawford's first objection to this theory, which is that the Aryan race, being an agricultural people, were not likely to undertake foreign emigration, Dr. Scoular remarked that the very reverse of this was the case, as only such a people could form permanent settlements, whereas a horde of nomads could only make good a settlement upon a people previously civilized. It was only a great agricultural people, such as the Greeks, Romans, and modern Europeans, which succeeded in making permanent settlements among barbarous tribes. Another objection of Mr. Crawford's was the different physical features and intellectual characters of the Aryan tribes, some being black, like the Hindoos, and others pale, like the Swedes. To this Dr. Scoular answered that this objection had no bearing on the question, in so far as it was a question of grammar, not of physiology. Mr. Crawford also endeavoured to show that in the Celtic languages words traced to the Aryan were derived from