lingers yet, as similar names linger in North-East Germany; and in the names Wilts, Willi, Rugen, Rown, or Ruwan, and others, we may still, in all probability, trace the Wilte and Rugians—Wendic tribes of the Saxon age. In the old Germanic records the Rugians are mentioned under similar names to those found in the Anglo—Saxon charters, Ruani and Rugiani.[1]
Some manorial customs, and especially that of sole inheritance by the youngest son, may be traced with more certainty to the old Slavic nations of Europe than to the Teutonic. Inheritance by the youngest son, or junior preference, was a custom so prevalent among the Slavs that there can be little doubt it must have been almost or quite the common custom of the race. The ancient right of the youngest survives here and there in parts of Germany—in parts of Bavaria, for example—but in no Teutonic country is the evidence to be found in ancient customs or in old records of the identification of this custom with the Teutonic race as it may be identified with the Slavic. In the old Wendish country around Lubeck the custom of inheritance by the youngest son long survived, or still does, and Lubeck was the city in which during the later Saxon age in England the commerce of the Wends began to be concentrated.
There is evidence of another kind showing the connection of Wends with Danes or Northmen. At Sondevissing, in Tyrsting herrad, in the district of Scanderborg, there is a stone monument with a runic inscription stating that ‘Tuva caused this barrow to be constructed. She was a daughter of Mistivi. She made it to her mother, who was the wife of Harald the Good, son of Gorm.’[2] The inscription has been assigned to the end of the tenth century, and Worsaae says: ‘We know that there existed at this period a Wendish Prince named Mistivi,
- ↑ Monumenta Germaniæ, iii. 461.
- ↑ Worsaae, J. J. A., ‘Primæval Antiquities of Denmark,’ p. 118.
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