Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/345

Rh of Mercians to take possession of Manchester, and to repair and fortify it. We read, also, that the northern limit of Mercia was Hwitanwylles geat, which may be identified with Whitwell in the upper part of the valley of the Ribble. Whitaker’s researches point to the Ribble as having been an ethnological frontier. The Fylde, between the mouths of the same river and the Lune, exhibits evidence of Scandinavian settlements. Its name may be compared with the Norse Fjelde, the name for the Norwegian wastes. The Lancashire Fylde consists even at the present time of a great extent of more or less peaty soil, commonly called moss. Danes pad, or path, the name for an old road across it, Angersholm, Mythorp, Eskham, and other place-names in the district, are distinctly Scandinavian.

When we remember that the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria was conquered by Northmen, and was a Danish kingdom for about 200 years, until reduced in status to one of the great earldoms of the later Saxon period, we naturally expect to find more characteristic remains of Danes and Northmen than of the earlier Anglians. Some interesting evidence of the agricultural customs of Northmen connected with the old farmhouses called onsteads survived in Northumberland as late as 1827, and may still survive in part. The customs may be ancient, even if the farms are comparatively modern. They are scattered over a large part of that county, at a distance of two or three miles from each other, and from the villages or towns. In these onsteads the farmers resided with their dependents. Immediately adjoining them a number of cottages were situated, proportionable in some degree to the size of the farms. They are, or were, inhabited by the steward, the hinds, and in some instances by the bondagers, who have, or had, their cottages at a small rent, and are entitled to a certain