There is no other printed copy of the A.-S. _Orosius_ than the very
imperfect edition of Daines Barrington, which is perhaps the most
striking example of incompetent editorship which could be adduced. The
text was printed from a transcript of a transcript, without much pains
bestowed on collation, as he tells us himself. How much it is to be
lamented that the materials for a more complete edition are diminished
by the disappearance of the _Lauderdale MS._, which, I believe, when Mr.
Kemble wished to consult it, could not be found in the Library at Ham.
Perhaps no more important illustration of the Geography of the Middle
Ages exists than Alfred's very interesting description of the _Geography
of Europe_, and the _Voyages of Othere and Wulfstan_; and this portion
of the _Hormesta_ has received considerable attention from continental
scholars, of which it appears Mr. Hampson is not aware. As long since as
1815 Erasmus Rask (to whom, after Jacob Grimm, Anglo-Saxon students are
most deeply indebted) published in the _Journal of the Scandinavian
Literary Society_ (ii. 106. sq.) the Anglo-Saxon Text, with a Danish
translation, introduction, and notes, in which many of the errors of
Barrington and Forster are pointed out and corrected. This was reprinted
by Rask's son in the _Collection_ he gave of his father's
_Dissertation_, in 2 vols. Copenhagen, 1834.
Mr. Thorpe, in the 2nd edit. of his _Analecta_, has given "Alfred's
Geography," &c., no doubt accurately printed from the Cotton MS., and
has rightly explained _Apdrede_ and _Wylte_ in his Glossary, but does
not mention _Æfeldan_; and Dr. Leo, in his _Sprachproben_, has given a
small portion from Rask, with a few geographical notes. Dr. Ingram says:
"I hope on some future occasion to publish the whole of 'Alfred's
Geography,' accompanied with accurate maps."
Rask has anticipated Mr. Hampson's correction respecting the _Wilti_,
and thus translates the passage: "men norden for Oldsakserne er
Obotriternes Land, og i Nordost Vilterne, som man kalder Æfelder." The
mistake of Barrington and Dr. Ingram is the more extraordinary when it
is recollected that no people are so frequently mentioned in the
chronicles of the Middle Ages as this Sclavonic tribe: citations might
be given out of number, in which their contests with their neighbours
the Obotriti, _Abodriti_, or _Apdrede_ of Alfred are noticed. Why the
Wilti were sometimes called _Æfeldi_ or _Heveldi_, will appear from
their location, as pointed out by Ubbo Emmius: "_Wilsos_, Henetorum
gentem, ad _Havelam_ trans Albim sedes habentem." (Rer. Fris. Hist. l.
iv. p. 67.) Schaffarik remarks, "Die Stoderaner und _Havelaner_ waren
ein und derselbe, nur durch zwei namen interscheiden zweige des
_Weleten_ stammes;" and Albinus says: "Es sein aber die riehten _Wilzen_
Wender sonderlich an der _Havel_ wonhaft." They were frequently
designated by the name of _Lutici_, {314} as appears from Adam of Bremen,
Helmond, and others, and the Sclavonic word _liuti_ signified _wild,
fierce_, &c. Being a _wild_ and contentious people, not easily brought
under the gentle yoke of Christianity, they figure in some of the old
Russian sagas, much as the Jutes do in those of Scandinavia; and it is
remarkable that the names of both should have signified giants or
monsters. Notker, in his Teutonic paraphrase of Martianus Capella,
speaking of other Anthropophagi, relates that the _Wilti_ were not
ashamed to say that they had more right to eat their parents than the
worms.[1] Mone wrote a Dissertation upon the Weleti, which is printed in
the _Anzeigen für Kunde des Mittelalters_, 1834, but with very
inconclusive and erroneous results; some remarks on these Sclavonic
people, and a map, will be found in Count Ossolinski's _Vincent
Kadlubek_, Warsaw, 1822; and in Count Potocki's _Fragments Histor. sur
la Scythie, la Sarmatie, et les Slaves_, Brunsw., 1796, &c. 4 vols.
4to.; who has also printed Wulfstan's _Voyage_, with a French
translation. The recent works of Zeuss, of Schaffarik, and above all the
_Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, of Jacob Grimm, throw much light on
the subject.
On the names _Horithi_ and _Mægtha Land_ Rask has a long note, in which
he states the different opinions that have been advanced; his own
conclusions differ from Mr. Hampson's suggestion. He assigns reasons
for thinking that the initial _H_ in _Horithi_ should be _P_, and that
we should read _Porithi_ for _Porizzi_, the old name for _Prussians_.
Some imagined that _Mægtha Land_ was identical with _Cwen Land_, with
reference to the fabulous Northern Amazons; but Alfred has placed
Cwenland in another locality; and Rask conjectures that _Mægth_
signifies here _provincia, natio gens_, and that it stood for
_Gardariki_, of which it appears to be a direct translation.
It appears to me that the _Horiti_ of Alfred are undoubtedly the
_Croati_, or _Chrowati_, of Pomerania, who still pronounce their name
_Horuati_, the _H_ supplying, as in numerous other instances, the
place of the aspirate _Ch_. Nor does it seem unreasonable to presume
that the _Harudes_ of Cæsar (_De Bell. Gall._ b. i. 31. 37. 51.) were
also _Croats_; for they must have been a numerous and widely spread
race, and are all called _Ch_arudes, [Greek: Aroudes]. The following
passage from the _Annales Fuldensis_, A. 852., will strengthen this
supposition:--"Inde transiens per Angros, _Harudos_, Suabos, et Hosingos
... Thuringiam ingreditur."
Mr. Kemble[2], with his wonted acumen, has not failed to perceive that
our _Coritavi_ derived their name in the same manner; but his derivation
of the word from Hor, _lutum_, Horilit, _lutosus_, is singularly at
issue with Herr Leo's, who derives it from the Bohemian Hora, a
mountain, Horet a mountaineer, and he places the _Horiti_ in the Ober
Lanbitz and part of the Silesian mountains.
Schaffarik again, says that _Mægtha Land_ is, according to its proper
signification, unknown; but that as Adam of Bremen places Amazons on the
Baltic coast, probably from mistaking of the _Mazovians_? it is possible
that _Mægthaland_ has thus arisen. In 1822 Dahlmann (_Forschungen auf
dem Gebiete der Geschichte_, t. i. 422.) gave a German version of King
Alfred's narration, where the passage is also correctly translated; but
as regards the illustration of the names of the people of Sclavonic
race, much yet remains to be done.
It is to be hoped that some competent northern scholar among us may
still remove, what I must consider to be a national reproach--the want
of a correct and well illustrated edition of the _Hormesta_, or at any
rate of this singularly interesting and valuable portion of it.