Various - Notes and Queries, Number 17, February 23, 1850

The sketch of Europe, which our illustrious Alfred has inserted in his translation of Orosius , is justly considered, both here and on the Continent, as a valuable fragment of antiquity 1 1 "La précieuse géographie d'Alfred, roi d'Angleterre."—Le Comte J. Gräberg. La Scandinavie Vengée , p. 36. ; and I am sorry that I can commend little more than the pains taken by his translators, the celebrated Daines Barrington and Dr. Ingram, to make it available to ordinary readers. The learned judge had very good intentions, but his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon was not equal to the task. Dr. Ingram professedly applied himself to correct both Alfred's text and Barrington's version, so far as relates to the description of Europe; but in two instances, occurring in one passage, he has adopted the judge's mistake of proper names for common nouns. I do not call attention to the circumstance merely as a literary curiosity, but to preserve the royal geographer from liability to imputations of extraordinary ignorance of his subject, and also to show the accuracy of his delineation of Europe at that interesting epoch, whence the principal states of Europe must date their establishment.

King Alfred, mentioning the seat of the Obotriti, or Obotritæ, as they are sometimes named, a Venedic nation, who, in the 9th century, occupied what is now the duchy of Mecklenburg, calls them Apdrede , and says—"Be nor than him is apdrede, and cast north wylte the man æfeldan hæt." 2 2 Cotton MSS., Tiberius , b. i. fol. 12b.

Barrington translates the words thus:—"To the north is Aprede, and to the north east the wolds which are called Æfeldan." 3 3 Transl. of Orosius , p. 8.

Dr. Ingram has the following variation:—"And to the east north are the wolds which are called Heath Wolds." 4 4 Inaugural Lecture , p. 72. To the word wolds he appends a note:—" Wylte . See on this word a note hereafter." Very well; the promised note is to justify the metamorphosis of the warlike tribe, known in the annals and chronicles of the 9th century as the Wilti, Wilzi, Weleti, and Welatibi, into heaths and wolds. Thirty pages further on there is a note by J. Reinhold Forster, the naturalist and navigator, who wrote it for Barrington in full confidence that the translation was correct:—"The Æfeldan," he says, "are, as king Alfred calls them, wolds ; there are at present in the middle part of Jutland, large tracts of high moors, covered with heath only."

Of wylte , Dr. Ingram writes:—"This word has never been correctly explained; its original signification is the same, whether written felds, fields, velts, welds, wilds, wylte, wealds, walds, walz, wolds, &c. &c." And on heath , he says:—"Mr. Forster seems to have read Hæfeldan (or Hæthfeldan), which indeed, I find in the Junian MS. inserted as a various reading by Dr. Marshall ( MSS. Jun. 15 .). It also occurs, further on in the MS., without any various reading. I have therefore inserted it in the text."

Dr. Marshall seems to have understood the passage. What King Alfred says and means is this:—"On the north are the Apdrede (Obotritæ), and on the north east of them are the Wylte, who are called Hæfeldi."

The anonymous Saxon Poet, who wrote the life of Charlemagne, gives the same situation as Alfred to the Wilti:—

Helmold says that they inhabited the part of the coast opposite to the island of Rugen; and hereabouts Adam of Bremen places the Heveldi , and many other Slavonic tribes. 6 6 "Sunt et alii Slavorum populi qui inter Albiam et Oderam degunt, sicut Heveldi, qui juxta Haliolam fluvium, et Doxani, Liubuzzi, Wilini, et Stoderani, cum multis aliis."— Hist. Eccl. p. 47, 48. I am not aware that any other author than Alfred says, that the Wilti and Heveldi were the same people; but the fact is probable. The Heveldi are of rare occurrence, but not so the Wilti. 7 7 Annales Sangall. Brev. , ann. 789.— Ann. Lauresham , &c. Ptolemy calls them Βελται—Veltæ or Weltæ—and places them in Prussian Pomerania, between the Vistula and Niemen. Eginhard says that "they are Slavonians who, in our manner, are called Wilsi, but in their own language, Welatibi." 8 8 Vit. Kar. Mag. and Annal. Francor. , ann. 822. Their country was called Wilcia, 9 9 Annal. Petav. , ann 789. and, as a branch of them were settled in Batavia about 560, it does not seem very improbable that from them were derived the Wilsæton of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, meaning the Wilts seated , or settlers in Wilts-shire. The name, as Eginhard has noticed, is Slavic, and is an adoption of welot or weolot , a giant, to denote the strength and fierceness which rendered them formidable neighbours. Heveldi seems to be the same word made emphatic with a foreign addition.

Two other names have been given much trouble to the translators, as well as to Mr. Forster. These are, Mægtha Land and Horiti or Horithi , for both occur, and the latter is not written with the letter thorn , but with a distinct t and h . Alfred has, unquestionably, met with the Slavic gorod , which so frequesntly occurs as the termination of the names of cities in the region where he indicates the seat of his Horiti to be. It signifies a city, and is an etymological equivalent of Goth. gards , a house, Lat. cors, cortis ; O.N. gardr , a district, A.-Sax. geard , whence our yard . The Polish form is grodz , and the Sorabic, hrodz . He places the Horiti to the east of the Slavi Dalamanti, who occupied the district north east of Moravia, with the Surpe , that is, Serbi, Servi, on their north, and the Sisle , Slusli, another Slavonic people, on the west. This appears to be the site possessed by the Hunnic founders of Kiow. In Helmold, Chunigord, the city or station of the Huns , is the name of the part of Russia containing Kiow. 10 10 Chron. Slavorum , l. i, c. 2.

To the north of Horiti, says Alfred, is Mægtha Land .—A Finnic tribe, called Magyar, were settled in the 9th century in Mazovia, whence a part of them descended into Hungary. According to Mr. Forster, Mazovia has been called Magan Land ; but I can find no trace of that name. I can easily conceive, however, that Magyar and Land might become, in Saxon copying, Mægtha Land, for the country of the Magyar. Elsewhere, Alfred uses Mægtha Land, the land of the Medes, for Persia.

Is there any other printed copy of the Saxon Orosius than Barrington's? for that forbids confidence by a number of needless and unauthorised alterations in most of the pages.

Omens from Cattle .—I forward to you a Note , which, many years ago, I inserted in my interleaved Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities , vol. ii. p. 519. 4to., in the hope that, as the subject interested me then , it may not prove uninteresting to some now :—

"A bad omen seems to be drawn from an ox or cow breaking into a garden . Though I laugh at the superstition, the omen was painfully fulfilled in my case.