NORTHERN SCOTTISH DIALECTS.* OUR indebtedness to the Scandinavians for a
large part of our language, and especially of our provincial speech, is in a fair way to be fully elucidated. One of the largest and most satisfactory
books that has ever been published on a dialect in this country,— Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary not exempted from comparison,— the Rev. J. C. Atkinson's Cleveland Glossary, deals with an East
Yorkshire dialect strongly impregnated with words, and, what is more, of formations, strictly Norse ; which can be explained only
by reference to Danish and Swedish forms, and especially to the dialectic words current on the opposite coast of Jutland and in the south of Sweden. As the Danes who infested this part of our country in King Alfred's time, and afterwards placed a king of their own on the English throne, must have come mainly from Jutland, it is satisfactory, and not altogether surprising, to find their speech preserved nearly pure in the more sequestered part of the uplands near the sea where they landed, and where they changed the Saxon town of Streoueshalg into the Danish Whitby.
With the help of Mr. Edmonston, a Shetlander, we can now consider the esentially Norse dialect at another point of our country. Our country, we say, but is it ours? The Orkney and Shetland Islands are the very latest acquisition of the now united kingdoms of England and Scotland. Only in 1468—just four
hundred years ago—they were attached to Scotland by a bond of an apparently temporary nature, which would not at the time be
supposed likely to lead to per manent sovereignty. Having previously been a Norwegian earldom, they were in that year given by Christian I. of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden to James Ill., King of Scotland, in pledge for the payment of the remainder of the dowry of his daughter Margaret on her marriage to that king. The full sum that ought to have been paid was 60,000 florMs, for 50,000 of which the Orkneys were accepted as a pledge ; and as the King could after all only pay 2,000, the Shetlands were pawned for the remaining 8,000. It was at the time stipulated that the inhabitants should retain their ancient laws and customs, which have only slowly and gradually been changed in succeeding centuries. The " Impignoration" was made redeemable for ever, and the claims of Norway are said to have been subsequently recognized by other powers as still good. It would certainly be one of the oddest of the modern rectifications of frontier if the kingdom either of Sweden and Norway or of Denmark were to push out its boundary seaward so as to include these outlying islands ; though the most northern point of Shetland is hardly further from Bergen than from John o' Groat's. The contingency is extremely improbable, and we have alluded to the curious history of the transfer of the islands only for its oddity, and to account for their strong Scandinavism.
A more important question to us here is, whence are the Shetlanders descended, what is their race and origin ? When the islands were first invaded by the Norwegians, we are told that they were held by two nations, the Peti and Papa3 ; the former is the recognized Norse designation of the Picts ; the latter were probably not a nation at all, but foreign (Irish) missionary clergy, who were known by the name of the Pope they represented, and have left their name in many places both of Orkney and Shetland, as the Great and Little Papa Island, the Papa Westra, Papa Stronsa, Am. The existence of the Picts in both groups of islands is vouched for by those curious remains of extreme antiquity called here, as on the mainland, Picts' houses, and dotting the shores of Shetland. We cannot here venture upon the vexed question, now laid to sleep rather than settled, of the nationality of the Picts. Suffice it to say that they occupied two distinct districts of Scotland,—a north-eastern kingdom, which subsisted in independence, according to Scottish and Irish chroniclers, who appear not entirely fabulists, from A.D. 28 to 843, and comprised the whole country north of the Firth of Forth,—and the kingdom of Strathclyde on the south-west. The Scots, at the same time, who had issued from Ireland, the original Scotia, and were identical with the Irish, as their language still remains to prove, had settled on the western highlands and islands of Scotland, thus cutting off the one Pictish kingdom from the other. One can hardly reject the inference that the Pieta were the original inhabitants of the whole of Scotland, and that the Irish invaders pushed themselves in upon them on the west, gradually extending their sway until the northern British kingdom entirely disappears in the ninth century. If the Picts were Cymric Celts, which appears to be tenable in spite of Pinkerton's argument for a Teutonic or Scandinavian origin, and to be enforced by names of Cambrian rather than Gaelic stamp, occurring throughout Scotland, especially in the parts where they maintained themselves longest, and notably by their few words preserved by history, then we can connect them, through their kinsmen of Cumberland, from Strathclyde down the western coast with the Welsh. In this case, since the Britons were also Cymry, this branch of the Celts would appear to be the original inhabitants of the whole of Great Britain—a result in
accordance with the evidence of comparative grammar, which shows them to have preserved the original vocables more pure than the Gaels. The original population of both Orkney and Shetland was then British, and not Scottish.
But the islands were conveniently placed as a half-way house for Norwegian Vikings who came to harry the coasts of Scotland and England, and the innumerable voes, or deep inlets, which indent their coasts, afforded them both harbours for their vessels and safe retreats in case of pursuit ; and hence we hear of the islands as constantly visited by these Northern adventurers. The first great impulse to colonization on the part of the Northmen was given by the famous Harold the Fairhaired of Norway, who arbitrarily united all the small states of Norway into one absolute monarchy. Before him, those nobles and their men who loved their wild liberty and could not bend to the tyrant emigrated to Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, and the Western Islands, whence they harassed the Norwegian coast. Harold equipped a fleet for Shetland, landed and subdued them (at Haroldswick, in Must) and bestowed the sovereignty of Orkney and Shetland on Rognoald or Ronald, Earl of Merca, who however declined it for himself, but obtained it for his brother Sigurd, who became the first Earl of Orkney without homage to any superior, about 915. The subsequent history shows constant intercourse with Norway. In 985 a King of Norway forced Christianity upon the Earl of Orkney, and through him upon the people. The men of Orkney and Shetland were persuaded to join the Harold of Norway who, made so powerful, though unsuccessful, an incursion into England against our King Harold Godwin in 1066. And though war and brutal vengeance for blood form the main features in the relations between the Earls of Orkney and Norway at that period, yet gentler traits are not wanting. Magnus, son of one of the earls, but long held prisoner by a King of Norway, and then kept out of his heritage, had the sense not to waste his life in trying to regain it, but passed a life of study and piety in the society of bishops and kings of Scotland, till, returning to Orkney, he was brutally murdered by his cousin Hakon. He was canonized, and is the favourite saint of the North, to whom the Cathedral of Kirkwall, one of the finest in Scotland, is dedicated.
It is manifest, that though the Norwegians of whom we hear most were men of rank, they must have effectually colonized the island by their own people, to give it such exclusively Scandinavian propensities from the time when the earldom was first instituted. The people became Norwegian as well as their rulers, and the Pictish aborigines soon became merged in the Norse nationality. At the present day, it seems hard to find one place in either group whose name is not clearly Scandinavian. Names of Norwegian heroes are preserved in Haroldswick, Swine Ness, Sumburgh (anciently Swynbrocht) Head, St. Magnus' Bay, Haskussey, Ronaldsha, Egilsha, Stenness, Gairsay, &c. Other names are nearly identical with the local names of Scandinavia ; thus Lund, Laxfirth, Lerwick, Skew (Skagen), Balta (the Belt island), Lingey (compare Ling-by), &c. The Northern mythology is represented in names such as Odin Bay, Nornigard, Hammer, and perhaps Turn Ness.
But local names remain in their original form long after the language and even the race of the inhabitants has changed. The common words of the dialect are therefore more interesting to us here. They exhibit the Scandinavian character no less strongly than the proper names. Some, indeed, might equally well be Teutonic, i. e., Anglo-Saxon words which have elsewhere disappeared, e. g., krank, sick ; dienen, to serve (this is, indeed, better, since the Northern languages have t for d), dagset and daglie, sunset and sunrise ; rand, edge ; reck, to reach out. But in most instances such words belong also to the Northern tongues, and must be derived from these. On the other hand, many of the most characteristic Scandinavian words, which are sought in vain in any German dialect, occur here, and are among the most interesting phenomena of the Shetland glossary. Such are drengen, man, lad (Dan. Dreng); haaf, the deep sea (Isl. haf); bru, bridge (Dan. Bro) ; sal, heat of the sun (Dan. Sol); steer, tall, large (Isl. nor); ham, to grow dark (Isl. luim); hoeg, a sepulchral mound (Isl. hang); holm, a small uninhabited island (Swed. holme); henta, to gather, glean (hl. henda, Swed. henna); ganfir, ghost (Dan. Gjenferd, revenant). The pagan gods have here undergone the same fate as elsewhere, in becoming either fairies or devils ; for the being invoked in "Doren tak you," is surely the great Thor ; and the dwarfs or trolls appear as Brow, Trow (HillTrows and Sea Trows); and a lake in Unst whose banks are supposed to be haunted by trows is called Trails Water. There is a good fairy called booman, but we leave the question open whether it has aught to do with the Slavonic bog (God) and the Scotch bogie. In con trast to the Norse terms, however, we find the Shetlandere using amusingly high-sounding words from other sources ; so, to vilipend, and to be in potestata [sic] (" to be in prosperity and power"). Some few words have a Welsh (Pictish ?) appearance.
It is to be regretted that Mr. Edmonston has furnished a mere glossary of single words, with their etymology when that is sufficiently certain to be given without hesitation. Illustrations of the use of the words in telling phrases would have let us into many secrets of the language. The few such which we do find show us how much we miss. Thus, from the phrase " Ta gang ti da haf"— "To go to sea,"—we learn that the form ta is used before the infinitive, ti before the substantive, corresponding to the specially Scandinavian distinction between at and til. Ti is undoubtedly from iii; ta is the English to, which here, as almost everywhere in Great Britain, has dislodged the older at before the verb. One point of great importance remains to be noticed ; the Shetlanders appear to retain the Scandinavian post-fixed article en, though its force as a definite article may not now be felt. We see it in dagen, drengen, norden, and many other words of masculine or feminine gender. The neuter article et seems not to be preserved. According to the dictum of Mr. Garnett,—no mean authority on dialects,—this single fact would oblige us to remove the Shetlandic from the list of English dialects, and class it with the Scandinavian ; and the tendency of our remarks may seem to lead to such a 'result. The syntax of the language is, however, English ; and the very peculiarity in question is an argument against treating the dialect as essentially Scandinavian ; since the affix is in Shetland not understood as an article, but received as a part of the word it clings to. We have met with no other instance of the importation of this Scandinavian characteristic to our shores, and believed hitherto that it was absolutely non-existent out of Scandinavia.
We have no room to speak of Mr. Gregor's Dialect of Banffshire, except to say that it contains a considerable number of words with their definitions, but no help towards their etymology, or towards an estimate of the relations of this dialect to others; and that in the use of f for wh it retains what is believed to be a Pictish (Cymric) characteristic (Penvahel, or rather Penfahel, "Head of the wall of Antoninus," Pictish for Scottish [Gaelicj Cenail, now Kinneil, the Welsh being Pengual).
Our thanks are due to the Philological Society for publishing these glossaries. We hope they will not stop here, but give the same attention to other dialects, which, in competent hands, may prove quite as interesting and important to the history of our language as these. It is, moreover, a work which the best qualified men are very often not in a position to undertake without the aid of such a society ; and the society on its part may exercise a wholesome supervision in laying down certain rules (uniformity of orthography and tables of the sounds should be made imperative), by which such glossaries may acquire a methodical, scientific character, without which they do little but stimulate curiosity.
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