Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/137

Rh have been traced in Courland and Livonia by the discovery of sepulchres similar to those of the Iron Age in Scandinavia. In Esthonia, also, the names of places and of the islands off the coast point to such settlements—Nargö, Rogö, Odinsholm, Nuckö, Worms, Dagö, and Runö. The old Danish empire extended over all the countries bordering on the Skagerac, and hence Dane became synonymous in English with Scandinavian, and the old Norrena language was called the Dönsk, or Danish, tongue. The later Danish empire of Cnut comprised part of Mecklenburg as well as the Cimbric Chersonese. He was thus King of the Wends as well as of the Danes. During the time of their supremacy in the Baltic, Danes were the natural leaders of any confederation of the Baltic tribes in warlike expeditions for conquests or foreign settlements, as the Goths and Angles were before them. Skane, Halland, and Blekinge, now provinces of Sweden, formed part of the kingdom of Denmark for 800 years until 1658, when they were united to Sweden. From what has already been said concerning the lands in which the Angles lived before they came to England, it will be seen that the probability of some Danes having come into England with them is great. Bede affirms as a positive fact that some of the English in his time were descended from Danes, and the early place-names confirm his statement. They were a colonizing race, and it is probable that the Scandinavian settlements in the North-West of Russia began as early as the eighth century, which was that in which Bede lived.

The greater Denmark from which the early settlers came was that which was known to King Alfred. When sailing into the Baltic, Othere, the Scandinavian mariner, told the King that he had Denmark on his left, and Zealand and many islands on his right. This was the