One interesting aspect of Scandinavian place-names in the north-west, compared to other parts of England, is how many of those names describe the landscape rather than referring to settlements or are what onomasts call ‘topographical’ rather than ‘habitative.’ This does suggest that the landscape was quite thinly inhabited and that the incoming Vikings did not have much contact with the natives to find out what particular mountains, rivers, beaches, or woods were called, so they gave their own names to the landscape around them and to their farms and villages. This is particularly noticeable in Cumbria, but there are also plenty of examples in Lancashire and the Wirral. There are even river names in Old Norse, which is fairly unusual as river-names tend to be the oldest in most landscapes, handed on from one linguistic group to another. Thus many becks like Artlebeck and the rivers Winster and Greeta are entirely Old Norse in form. Other names describe the landscape. Aintree is a place with a solitary tree. Blawith is a dark wood and Blowick a dark bay, while Tranmere is a sandbank frequented by cranes. All these names derive from personal observation and familiarity with the landscape.
Some of the most interesting names are those that reveal some of the detail of the Scandinavian language. It has already been noted that Arkholme comes from a dative plural form, providing insight into the grammatical structure of Old Norse. Another example is Litherland. This name consists of two elements that are identical or nearly identical in Old English and Old Norse: hlid slope and land land, thus a piece of ‘land’ on or near a ‘slope’. What makes the name Norse rather than English is the er in the middle of the modern form, which is a remnant of an Old Norse genitive singular form, i. e., ‘the land of the slope’ (the Old English word would have had no ending in this form). In this way, grammar reveals history, as the name was given by someone who spoke grammatically correct Old Norse.
Abrams and Parsons (2004) make a strong case for the value of place-names as evidence for substantial communities of speakers of Old Norse although their work is based mainly on evidence from eastern England. See also Jesch (2008b).
Even names that have an English origins can show the influence of Scandinavian speech. The sound combination sk in a word or a name is often an indication of Norse origin, so that ‘fish’ is fisc (pronounced ‘fish’) in Old English but fiskr in Old Norse. This is the kind of word a Viking immigrant could use and make himself understood when buying or selling fish at an English market, for instance. Where there were lots of Norse-speakers around, names with a sh sound in Old English could develop a Norse pronunciation as in the example of Fishwick, early spellings of which suggest it was once Scandinavianised and pronounced something like Fiskvik. Similarly, the Old English word stan (‘stone’) has a very close equivalent in the Old Norse steinn with the same meaning. Hence, a place called Stainton is simply a place called Stanton pronounced with a Scandinavian accent.
A final indication of Viking-speaking communities in the north-west comes in the two places called Thingwall on both sides of the Mersey. This name means ‘assembly field’ and refers to a common and important social institution in the Viking world: the thing or regular assembly where people met to make and enforce laws, bring lawsuits against enemies or neighbours, and generally to gossip, tell stories, and recite poetry. It was also a good place to meet potential marriage partners in sparsely populated areas. All these functions are well evidenced in the Icelandic sagas that show the operation of the thing in Iceland and to some extent in Norway. There is no direct evidence as to how such assemblies operated in the Irish Sea region but they are likely to have been similar. Because of the nature of the institution, the Old Norse language was very much used and maintained in the diasporic community.
World History
