Two English woodlands bore old Danish names—viz., Danes Wood, now Dean Forest, in Glouoestershire, and part of the Forest of Essex, which was called in Danish literature ‘Daneskoven,' or the Danish Forest.[1] Some of the tribal names of the Danes are known—viz., South Dene, North Dene, East Dene, and West Dene. Another branch of the nation is called by the name Gar Dene, or Gar Danes. The poem of Beowulf begins with a reference to them:
‘What we of Gar Danes
In yore days
Of people Kings.
How the Æthelings
Power advanced
Of Scyld-Scefing
To the hosts of enemies
To many tribes.’
Who these Gar Danes were cannot be with certainty determined. There is a trace of them to be found in England, as will be stated later on, and they are supposed to have derived their name from their distinctive weapon, the spear. There were Scandinavian people settled on the south and east coasts of the Baltic among the Slavs and Eastmen who were known by the name of Gardar.[2] In the tenth and eleventh centuries these colonial settlers in Russia were strong enough to maintain a Scandinavian kingdom, also called Gardar,[3] or Gardarike, the name being derived from the many castles and strongholds (gardar), probably earthworks, which they made for defence. The migrations of Scandinavians certainly began long before the English Conquest, and their settlements on the east coast of the Baltic point to the probability of some Eastmen having been among the allies of the Danes, and perhaps of the Goths, in their invasions of England. Old Scandian colonies
- ↑ Worsaae. J. J., ‘Danes and Norwegians in England.’ 14.
- ↑ Cleasby and Vigfusson, ‘Icelandic Dictionary.’ Preface.
- ↑ Ibid., and Rydberg, Viktor, ‘Teutonic Mythol.,’ 24.
