Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/35

 house of the Danes, had as their supposed ancestor a hero named Scyld (Old Norse Ski&#491;ldr); but the real existence of Amala is doubtful, and there is very strong reason for regarding Scyld as mythical.

According to the theory of Kemble, which has been widely accepted, the great majority of those collective names in -ingas which enter into the composition of Old English local names, or are used as place-names without composition, represent gentes or clans which were formed on the continent before the English invasion of Britain. On this view, wherever we find traces of a body of people called, say, Wealingas (as at Wallingford in Berkshire and Wallington in Surrey), we are to infer that the places are settlements of one and the same clan. The Iclingas who gave their name to Iclingharn in Suffolk are, it is assumed, a branch of the same gens that is represented by the royal house of Mercia. It is even supposed that there must be community of origin between the English and the continental clans bearing coincident names: that, for instance, the Scylfingas whose name appears in the English Shilvington were the kindred of the Scylfingas who in Beowulf are mentioned as the royal family of the Swedes. The precarious character of this theory will be evident if it is borne in mind that all the families descended from ancestors that happened to have the same name would necessarily have the same patronymic designation. Any descendant of a man named Billa was a Billing; and Billa might be the contracted form of any one of the names beginning with Bil-, such as Bilfrith, Bilhæth, Bilgils, Bilnōth, and many others. Hence, although it is true, as Kemble points out, that there are places in eleven English counties, ranging from Northumberland to the Isle of Wight, that are named from the Billingas, it is not safe to infer that one great clan of this name had settlements all over the country. Nor need we adopt the amazing conclusions that the Azdingi, the royal race of the Vandals, are represented