96 Mr. DowNES on the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. 



last of these is close to Dursey Island, which, though small, is of much greater 

 extent than the others, and the name Calf is perhaps of Norse origin : those of 

 Bull and Cow may have been subsequently added, to make out the group, by 

 persons unacquainted with the local meaning o^calf. However this be, the 

 Calf of Man is an undoubted example. In Normandy this word is supposed to 

 be represented by cauf. The investigation of certain ruins, adjacent to one of 

 the Greenland firths, was impeded by what are in Danish called kalvisen, by a 

 number of which the firth was blocked up ; this word, doubtless, means " ice- 

 calves," or small masses of ice in the neighbourhood of large ones. The word 

 sound, applied to some of our narrow straits, may be likewise of Norse origin. 



In conclusion, I would with deference recommend to the attention of the 

 Irish antiquary, and especially of the topographical and historical investigator, 

 the hitherto neglected literature of the North. Although the most important 

 works of the Scandinavian antiquaries are accessible through Latin versions, 

 their minor publications teem with interesting and rapidly accumulating matter, 

 locked up in languages which are in this country almost utterly unknown. Yet 

 the comparative anatomy of antiquities cannot be too extensively cultivated. A 

 fragment of an ancient object, found in one country, may be elucidated by com- 

 paring it with a corresponding fragment found in another ; and, what is of still 

 greater importance, long-established errors may be thus removed. " The short 

 sword or dagger," with which King, in his account of Richborough, has equipped 

 a Roman bagpiper, would still maintain its belligerent masquerade, had not the 

 discovery of a more perfect specimen in Scandinavia proved it to be the more 

 appropriate appendage of a pipe ; and certain objects, deified in Sweden, the 

 figures of which have been published by Pennant, might have long maintained 

 their sanctity, had not the subsequent discovery of more perfect specimens in 

 Denmark desecrated them into — knife-handles. 



END OF VOLUME XIX. 



