Old Cumbria Gazetteer - Cumberland: Gents Mag 1858


included in:-	Cumberland
	Cumberland: Gents Mag 1858
evidence:-	old text:- Gents Mag item:- Cumberland and Westmorland, Ancient and Modern
source data:-	Magazine, The Gentleman's Magazine or Monthly Intelligencer or Historical Chronicle, published by Edward Cave under the pseudonym Sylvanus Urban, and by other publishers, London, monthly from 1731 to 1922. goto source Gentleman's Magazine 1858 part 1 p.423 "HISTORICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS REVIEWS." "Cumberland and Westmorland, Ancient and Modern. By J. SULLIVAN. 8vo., 171pp. (Whitaker &Co.) - "Through the names of places, the oldest and most enduring monuments," remarked William Von Humboldt, "a nation long passed away relates as it were, its own destiny; and the only question is, whether we yet understand its voice." The interpretation of these names is often biassed by the peculiar studies and views of the writer. Referring to Mr. Ferguson's "Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland," we have, says Mr. Sullivan, Norse against all England; whilst he is perhaps scarcely aware of his own tendency to seek for derivations too exclusively in the Irish branch of the Celtic language. This field has, however, been rarely trodden of late, at least in England, for our cousins the Germans have lately produced a very valuable Celtic work, Zeuss' Grammatica Celtica. With this exception, Mr. Sullivan has given due prominence to the claims of each of the immigrant nations, and he brings to bear on the examination of his subject an acquaintance with no ordinary range of languages, Eastern and European. Indeed, we consider this as a most suggestive and interesting book. It is to be lamented that we know nothing of Celtic, as formerly spoken in England, some remnants of Cornish excepted; and that we can only form conjectures concerning it from the kindred dialects of Brittany, Wales, and Ireland, for it is by no means certain that Welch was spoken throughout England." "Mr. Sullivan considers that the earliest immigrants of Europe came in two streams, - the Tatars along the large rivers and islands of the north, whose descendants were the Finns, Lapps, Esthonians, and Livonians; and the other, consisting of the Iberians, the Etruscans, and the Illyrians, by the coasts of the Mediterranean. The Tatars probably migrated from the north of Asia; the Celts, who came in contact with the Iberians, and the Latins, who followed the Etruscans, belong to the great Indo-European family, whose home was between the northern slope of the Himalayas and the Caspian. Of this family there were four great divisions - the Celtic, the Greek-Latin, the Gothic, and the Slavic. Probably the Caspian divided them, and gave them different directions." "Our author supposes that the first immigrants to Britain were some of the Tatar tribes of the stone period, who spread along the north coast of Denmark until they could get no further (north), and then took to the sea. The date he places at about five centuries before the Christian era. ..." "..."
source data:-	goto source Gentleman's Magazine 1858 part 1 p.424 "..." "An immigration of a people whom Mr. Sullivan designates as Cambro-Celts took place some two centuries later than the arrival of the Tuads [thus about 3rd cen BC]. These landed on the south and west of Britain. We do not think this immigration is placed sufficiently early, for Gaulic coins which are known to have been struck soon after the reign of Macedon, have been found in Berkshire, and Herodotus speaks of the tin-works as being in operation in his time." ""During the European transit of the Celts, the Cambrian division fell under an influence that altered the initial c of a number of words into p; Irish cean, Welsh pen. The Greek dialects have suffered under a similar mixture or influence."" "All North Wales was colonised by this division, as well as Cumberland, and a part of Scotland, although the Irish Celts had arrived in Cumberland before them. Many Irish names of places are certainly found in Cumberland, - for instance, Caermot and Moutay, as well as those that Mr. Sullivan has given; but we cannot pronounce that they are not, at least in part, English celtic also. The Cumberland word arles, the earnest of a servant's wages, Mr. Sullivan derives from the Irish iarlas, earnest; but as the southern French have the word arrhes with a similar meaning, it is probable there was some Celtic root common to both words. "South Wales was peopled by the Gwythelians, (Irish,) according to a tradition which still exists. The unaccountable antiquities are called Cytian y Gwyzelod, Irish cots. the name of the heroic and ill-used Queen of the Iceni is reducible to modern Irish, Bean-duci, the woman-leader; Vortigern, to Fear tigherna, vir tyrannus; and his son Vortimer to Fear timthere, his minister or lieutenant." We merely remark en passant that the letters on the coins attributed to Boadicea are BODUOC." "The Christmas carol commencing -" ""As I sat anonder yon green tree,"" "given as a Cumberland song, was to our knowledge popular in Cork forty years ago, with a variation in the second verse which seems the better reading, -" ""I saw three ships a-sailing by;"" "in which there appear to be a mystical allusion to the Trinity."
source data:-	goto source Gentleman's Magazine 1858 part 1 p.425 "..." "We have endeavoured to give a sketch of our author's views, without accepting all his conclusions, for want of further data. We have not space to follow him in his narrative of the successive invasions of the Saxons, Angles, and Danes, whose settlements in Cumberland and Westmorland he traces with considerable precision. He gives at least due prominence to Hiberno-Celtic derivations of names of places, but we know not whether that of the famed Watling-street from widhe leana, the road of the marsh, he remarks, was Wadling, preserved in Wadling Tarn. The question deserves ventialtion, as the phrase is. The Anglo-Saxon Deoraby (Saxon Chronicle) was the nearest approximation to the Celtic name for the town of Derby that the language offered; there are many towns to be found in the charters compounded with the Anglo-Saxon word deor, the modern Schleswig word deert, animals. The Angle word worth is merely a piece of ground raised up above the surface of the water. (See Census Daniae in Langebek, vol.vii.) There are several such on the Danube. Scale, shaw, bos and wath are not necessarily Danish; they may be An-"
source data:-	goto source Gentleman's Magazine 1858 part 1 p.426 "[An]glo-Saxon. The Angle element in Cumberland was not so very inconsiderable, as the long list of peculiar words of Angle in derivation in Ferguson's "Northmen in Cumberland" shews. To this we might add the name Bootle, from Angle bodl, or botl, a dwelling; also many names of places ending in ton; the verb laik, from lacan. to play (whence a lark;) ment, maengan, mixed; mean, menan, to bemoan; won, wunnian, to dwell, &c. We agree with our author as to the Celtic origin of Nelson, but cannot for a moment allow that Shakspere was Jacques pierre! Idem sonans is a deceitful guide. The Danish word rise is simply great, and not necessarily gigantic." "Mr. Sullivan's disclaimer of any reference to Baal in the Beltein is just and important, although we do not preceive why they who erred in company with Calmet should be called "silly," or "benighted idolaters." We should not have heard so much of the connection of the worship of Baal with these northern fires, had it not been for our acquaintance with the word Baal of the sacred Scriptures, - which, however, means simple dominus, sometimes only magister, or maritus. There can be no doubt that our "bale-fires" were the funereal pyres in which, till the close of the ninth century, the heathen Northmen consumed their dead, generally on a raised structure of stones. To this purpose the Yevering Bell, the Bell Hills and Hill Bells of Cumberland, were, we conceive, set apart. We think it impossible that any one who has read Kemble's paper in No.54 of the "Archaeological Journal" can be sceptical on this subject. He points out the Bael, rogus, of the Saxon charters, in one instance on a hill; also the ad the strues rogi, and the brandes-beorh, the hill of burning. The towns or hamlets, Balsham and Belsham, were named as he infers, from the word bael, flamma, names given by the Christian Anglo-Saxons. We think the reviewer in "Blackwood" (No. for March, 1857,) might have spared his banter on Mr. Sullivan as to this and one or two other points, especially as he confesses to ignorance of archaeology and Northern literature. We wonder if he would claim Chaucer's allusion in the following lines for his favourite Baal! -" ""Thou shalt be burnt in baleful fire, And all they sect I shall destrie." Ploughman's Tale" "He will find no trace of Baal-worship in Celtic Brittany, no proper name of a place beginning with Bel, although plenty of pens. On the other hand, in the Eastern Pyrenees, whither the Germans repaired when they invaded Spain under Charlemagne, there are several bels and bals. We would refer the second syllable of Beltein to the Anglo-Saxon tynan, claudere. The dragon referred to by Mr. Sullivan which is carried in procession at Burford in Oxfordshire, is supposed to be commemorative of a great victory recorded in the Saxon Chronicle to have been gained there over a Saxon enemy, whose banner was a dragon." "We are not sure that Dunmallet, near Ullswater, pronounced Dunmwland, is not from dun and mallum, the commune placitum for the Thing, which we believe its form shews it may have been used for. We agree with Lord Dufferin that to these Things, and to the Norse invasion that implanted them, more than to the Wittanagemotes of the Latinized Saxons, must be referred the origin of those parliaments which are the boast of Englishmen. The finest placitum remaining is at Penrith. The derivations of carrock and Helvellyn were well explained in the September number of the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE." "The Roman invasion of Cumberland is placed a century too late: it was garrisoned under Agricola, a lieutenant of Vespasian; and the objection to Wolf, as the name of a man, cannot have been made seriously." "The chapter on Antiquities may be enlarged with advantage: no counties are richer in sepulchral remains of many nations, and in Roman roads and stations, than these. Mr. Sullivan's remarks on the phonetic structure of the language are original and important. We are pleased to see that he has paid attention to the comparison of names of places in different countries. His chapters on Superstitions and Customs are full of amusement, and will amply repay perusal." "We learn from the Preface that the work was first written in the shape of detached letters to the "Kendal Mercury," which would account for the want of connection, and occasionally of lucidness; but we have no doubt that these slight imperfections will be corrected in a second edition, which we hope shortly to see. The price of the book, we may mention, is very modest. If we are rightly informed, our author is the head of a small provincial academy; and if so, this work, which embraces so wide a field of philological investigation, does him the more credit, proving that he must have surmounted obstacles which would have deterred not a few similarly situated."

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