CHAPTER XX.
SETTLERS IN NORTHUMBRIA—continued.
THE settlement of Frisians in Northumbria is probable from the historical evidence of Procopius, who says that ‘three very numerous nations possess Brittia, over each of which a King presides, which nations are named Angeloi, Phrissones, and those surnamed from the island, Brittones.’ Some of these Phrissones must have settled in the northern counties of England and in the south of Scotland, for the Firth of Forth is called by Nennius the Frisian Sea, and part of its northern coast was known as the Frisian shore.[1] The name Dumfries appears also to afiord a trace of the same people.
It is reasonable to conclude that in the settlement of the coasts of the North-east of England and the South of Scotland by the Angles their neighbours the Frisians took a large part. Even at the present time the resemblance between the Frisian dialects and Lowland Scotch is in some respects very close. As we have seen, Octa and Ebissa, with whom as leaders the early settlements in Northumbria are connected, have characteristic Frisian names ending in a. The early kingdom of the Beornicas included the Lowlands, and these people had a Frisian name. Halbertsma refers to the name Beornicas as having been derived from the Frisian word bearn, denoting men, used possibly in the sense of descendants.[2]
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