108 



MEMOIR OF THE LATE ME. JOHN JUST, OF BtTRT, 



friend — " Tho* idle while in the 'North countree/ I picked 

 up many provincial words ; having constantl}' before me the 

 purpose of severing the Northern dialecta into their true 

 original parts J provided I live long enough to be able to 

 accomplish ray task just as I wish, and just as Just ought. 

 The Danes have had long possession of the Vale of Lune, — 

 using the stronghold of Lancaster as their head-quarters, 

 and leaving behind them six or seven 'haughs' or artificial 

 mounds of their peculiar character. This accounts for the 

 superabundance of pure Danish words in the district. Want 

 of information on this head, has led authors into errors in 

 their conjectures respecting the people who constructed the 

 tumuli, — some saying they are British, others Roman." 



On this subject, he briefly enunciated his views in a paper 

 entitled " The Danes in Lancashire," read before the Historic 

 Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, at Liverpool, on the 6tb 

 May, 1852, — his last contribution to the published Papers of 

 that Society, and which is posthumously printed in its recently 

 issued Vol. iv., p. 121. From July, 1843, to his decease, he 

 was a member of the Chetham Society ; but did not con- 

 tribute anything beyond an interesting note or two, to any 

 of its printed volumes. 



Akin to his philological pursuits, on the one hand, and to 

 archasology on the other, was his decyphering and translation 

 of various Runic inscriptions in England and in the Isle of 

 Man. His first essay in this direction was upon a number 

 of plaster casts, taken by Mr. William Bally in the summer 

 of 1839, of all the Runic inscriptions on crosses in the Isle of 

 Man. Various attempts had been made to decypher some of 

 these; but without success, owing in some cases to ignorance 

 of the Runic characters, and in others to want of acquaintance 

 with the language in which the inscriptions were graven. 



That which Gough's Camden, Mr. Beauford, Sir John 

 Prestwich, and Professor Torkelin successively failed to elu- 

 cidate, yielded to the sagacity and perseverance of Mr. Just, 



