Page:An Icelandic-English Dictionary - Cleasby & Vigfusson - 1874.djvu/11



HIS work is a Dictionary of the Old Icelandic Language, or (as it may be called) the Classical Language of the Scandinavian race.

The history of the preservation of this language in its ancient form is remarkable.

The Icelandic language, in old writers also called the Norse or the Danish (Noræna or Dönsk tunga), was spoken by the four great branches of the Scandinavian race who peopled the countries abutting on the Baltic, the Norsemen or Northmen, Swedes, Danes,  and Goths (Norðmenn, Svíar, Danir, and Gautar), as well as by the inhabitants of those parts of Northern Russia which were then known by the name of Gardar.

At the beginning of the 9th century the growing population of these countries, together with political changes and the naturally enterprising character of the people, caused a great outward movement of the race. Under the leading of their chieftains they set forth to seek for homes in other lands; and thus the 9th century came to be known by the name of the Age of the Vikings (Víkinga-Öld). The stream of emigration increased in volume, as tidings of the successes of the first adventurers reached the northern shores. The Swedes continued to press eastward into the countries beyond the Baltic, while the Danes and Norsemen steered boldly to the south and west, and chiefly to the shores of the British Isles.

Two main currents of this emigration by sea may be traced. First, the Danish, which directed its course to the north-east of England, and at length occupied that district so completely that it received the name of the Dena-lagu. The Saxon Chronicle is the chief authority for this part of the subject ; the only old Icelandic works which touch on it being the Egils Saga, which says that in the reign of Athelstan almost every family of note in Northern England was Danish by the father’s or the mother’s side; and the Ragnars Saga, which professes to give an historical account of the great Danish invasion, but is almost as mythical as the Iliad.

The second migration was Norse. These settlers gradually peopled the coasts of Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Orkneys and Shetland, and the northern counties of Scotland, Ross, Moray, and especially Caithness. In the year 852 the Norse sea-king Olave the White reached Ireland with a large fleet, and founded a Norse principality at Dublin: the foremost man among the Norsemen in Scotland was Earl Sigurd, uncle of Göngu-Hrolf. It is probable that to this same emigration must be referred the conquest and occupation of Normandy.

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