descent, we find Wintringehā and Wintrintone, of which there are four instances; and there are also four entries of places called Wilingeham. The tribal Goths are apparently also to be recognised by the people who named their settlements in Lincolnshire after the city of Lund in the South of Sweden. Of these Domesday names, there are Lund, Lund alter, Lundertorp, and Lundetorp. These names suggest, at any rate, that the Lincolnshire people at the time of the Norman Survey must have been a more mixed race than is usually supposed. Lund, in Sweden, is a city of great traditions. It is called also by the Latin name of Lundinem Gothorum, and is said to have been so great as to have had 200,000 inhabitants. One of the traditions relating to its antiquity is that when Christ was born Skänor and Lund were already in harvest, meaning that they were already prosperous. Lund was called the Metropolis Daniæ, and was the place of residence and coronation of many Kings[1] of early Denmark.
We must bear in mind the words of King Alfred in describing the voyage of Othere from the Cattegat into the Baltic, when he had Denmark on the bæcbórd (the left), and the Danish isles and Jutland on the starbord (the right). ‘In these lands dwelt the Angles ere they to the land came.’ The Lund people from Southern Sweden may have been genuine Angles; the Wends, Wilte, Frisians, Hunsings, Brocmen, Chaucians, and Saxons of Lincolnshire could not have been, strictly speaking, either Angles or Danes. If we knew the many alternative names, ekenames or nicknames, employed by our remote fore-fathers to designate people of various races and tribes, or to distinguish persons, we should probably be able to read more of the settlement of Lincolnshire in the early names of its -bys and -thorpes. This much we do know, that some of the -bys, -hams, and -tons had -thorpes presumably named after them as local colonization went on. Thus we find among the Domesday names Alesbi and Ale-
- ↑ du Chaillu, P. B., ‘Land of the Midnight Sun,’ ii. 463.
