The sketch of Europe, which our illustrious Alfred has inserted in his
translation of _Orosius_, is justly considered, both here and on the
Continent, as a valuable fragment of antiquity[1]; and I am sorry that
I can commend little more than the pains taken by his translators,
the celebrated Daines Barrington and Dr. Ingram, to make it available
to ordinary readers. The learned judge had very good intentions, but
his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon was not equal to the task. Dr. Ingram
professedly applied himself to correct both Alfred's text and
Barrington's version, so far as relates to the description of Europe;
but in two instances, occurring in one passage, he has adopted the
judge's mistake of proper names for common nouns. I do not call
attention to the circumstance merely as a literary curiosity, but
to preserve the royal geographer from liability to imputations of
extraordinary ignorance of his subject, and also to show the accuracy
of his delineation of Europe at that interesting epoch, whence the
principal states of Europe must date their establishment.
King Alfred, mentioning the seat of the Obotriti, or Obotritæ, as
they are sometimes named, a Venedic nation, who, in the 9th century,
occupied what is now the duchy of Mecklenburg, calls them _Apdrede_,
and says--"Be nor than him is apdrede, and cast north wylte the man
æfeldan hæt."[2]
Barrington translates the words thus:--"To the north is Aprede, and to
the north east the wolds which are called Æfeldan."[3]
Dr. Ingram has the following variation:--"And to the east north are
the wolds which are called Heath Wolds."[4] To the word _wolds_
he appends a note:--"_Wylte_. See on this word a note hereafter."
Very well; the promised note is to justify the metamorphosis of the
warlike tribe, known in the annals and chronicles of the 9th century
as the Wilti, Wilzi, Weleti, and Welatibi, into heaths and wolds.
Thirty pages further on there is a note by J. Reinhold Forster,
the naturalist and navigator, who wrote it for Barrington in full
confidence that the translation was correct:--"The Æfeldan," he says,
"are, as king Alfred calls them, _wolds_; there are at present in
the middle part of Jutland, large tracts of high moors, covered with
_heath_ only."
Of _wylte_, Dr. Ingram writes:--"This word has never been correctly
explained; its original signification is the same, whether written
felds, fields, velts, welds, wilds, wylte, wealds, walds, walz, wolds,
&c. &c." And on _heath_, he says:--"Mr. Forster seems to have read
Hæfeldan (or Hæthfeldan), which indeed, I find in the Junian MS.
inserted as a various reading by Dr. Marshall (_MSS. Jun. 15_.). It
also occurs, further on in the MS., without any various reading. I
have therefore inserted it in the text." {258}
Dr. Marshall seems to have understood the passage. What King Alfred
says and means is this:--"On the north are the Apdrede (Obotritæ), and
on the north east of them are the Wylte, who are called Hæfeldi."
The anonymous Saxon Poet, who wrote the life of Charlemagne, gives the
same situation as Alfred to the Wilti:--
"Gens est Slavorum Wilti cognomine dicta,
Proxima litoribus quæ possidet arva supremis
Jungit ubi oceano proprios Germania fines."[5]
Helmold says that they inhabited the part of the coast opposite to the
island of Rugen; and hereabouts Adam of Bremen places the _Heveldi_,
and many other Slavonic tribes.[6] I am not aware that any other
author than Alfred says, that the Wilti and Heveldi were the
same people; but the fact is probable. The Heveldi are of rare
occurrence, but not so the Wilti.[7] Ptolemy calls them [Greek:
Beltai]--Veltæ or Weltæ--and places them in Prussian Pomerania,
between the Vistula and Niemen. Eginhard says that "they are
Slavonians who, in our manner, are called Wilsi, but in their own
language, Welatibi."[8] Their country was called Wilcia,[9] and,
as a branch of them were settled in Batavia about 560, it does not
seem very improbable that from them were derived the Wilsæton of the
Anglo-Saxon chronicles, meaning the _Wilts seated_, or settlers in
Wilts-shire. The name, as Eginhard has noticed, is Slavic, and is an
adoption of _welot_ or _weolot_, a giant, to denote the strength and
fierceness which rendered them formidable neighbours. _Heveldi_ seems
to be the same word made emphatic with a foreign addition.
Two other names have been given much trouble to the translators,
as well as to Mr. Forster. These are, _Mægtha Land_ and _Horiti_
or _Horithi_, for both occur, and the latter is not written with
the letter _thorn_, but with a distinct _t_ and _h_. Alfred has,
unquestionably, met with the Slavic _gorod_, which so frequesntly
occurs as the termination of the names of cities in the region where
he indicates the seat of his Horiti to be. It signifies a city, and
is an etymological equivalent of Goth. _gards_, a house, Lat. _cors,
cortis_; O.N. _gardr_, a district, A.-Sax. _geard_, whence our _yard_.
The Polish form is _grodz_, and the Sorabic, _hrodz_. He places the
Horiti to the east of the Slavi Dalamanti, who occupied the district
north east of Moravia, with the _Surpe_, that is, Serbi, Servi, on
their north, and the _Sisle_, Slusli, another Slavonic people, on the
west. This appears to be the site possessed by the Hunnic founders of
Kiow. In Helmold, Chunigord, _the city or station of the Huns_, is the
name of the part of Russia containing Kiow.[10]
To the north of Horiti, says Alfred, is _Mægtha Land_.--A Finnic
tribe, called Magyar, were settled in the 9th century in Mazovia,
whence a part of them descended into Hungary. According to Mr.
Forster, Mazovia has been called _Magan Land_; but I can find no trace
of that name. I can easily conceive, however, that _Magyar_ and _Land_
might become, in Saxon copying, Mægtha Land, for the country of the
Magyar. Elsewhere, Alfred uses Mægtha Land, the land of the Medes, for
Persia.
Is there any other printed copy of the Saxon _Orosius_ than
Barrington's? for that forbids confidence by a number of needless and
unauthorised alterations in most of the pages.