Aug. 17. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



179 



necessary for your miscellany) without a break, in 

 an iininteiTupted chain, to the north, and to a 

 position that suits Alfred's other locality much 

 more fitting than the White Sea. The province 

 of Vimlelicia would carry us to the Boden See 

 (Lake of Constance), which Pomponius Mela, 

 lib. iii. cap. i. ad finem, calls Lacus Venedicus. This, 

 omitting the modern evidences of this name and 

 province in Windisch-Griitz, Windisch-Feistriz, 

 &c. &c., brings us sufficiently in contact with the 

 Slavonic and Wendic people of Boliemia to track 

 the line through theni to the two Lausitz, where 

 we are in immediate proximity to the Spree Wald. 

 There the Wends (pronounce Vends) still main- 

 tain a distinct and almost independent community, 

 with peculiar manners, and, it is believed, like the 

 gypsies, an elected or hereditary king ; and where, 

 and round Llichow, in Hanover, the few remnants 

 of this once potent nation are awaiting their final 

 and gradual absorption into the surrounding Ger- 

 man nations. W^henever, in the north of Ger- 

 many, a traveller meets with a place or district 

 ending In ivitz, itz, pitz, Sic, wherever situate, or 

 whatever language the inhabitants speak, he may 

 put it down as originally Wendlsh ; and the mul- 

 titude of such terminations will show him how ex- 

 tensively this people was spread over those coun- 

 tries, itzenplltz, the name of a family once of 

 great consequence in the Mark of Brandenburg, 

 is ultra- Wendlsh. It will, therefoi-e, excite no 

 wonder that we find, even in Tacitus, Veneti along 

 their coasts : and Ptolemy, who wrote about a cen- 

 tury and a half later than Strabo or Livy, seems 

 to have Improved the terminology of the ancients 

 in the interval ; for, speaking of the Sarmatlan 

 tribes, he calls these Veneti OviyeSat irap' o\ou rhv 

 OuiveSiKuv koAttov. Here we find the truest guide for 

 the pronunciation, or, rather, for the undigammals- 

 ing of the Latin Fand the AVelsh W, as Ouenetoi, 

 which is proved in many distant and varying locali- 

 ties. St. Ouen, tlie AVelsh Owen and Evan, and the 

 patron saint of Rouen, no doubt had his name (if 

 he ever existed at all) coined from the French 

 Veneti of Armorica, amongst which lie lived ; and 

 when foreigners wish to render the Enijllsh name 

 Edward as spoken, they write Edouard : and 

 liobert the Wizzard, the Norman conqueror of 

 Sicily and Apulia, has his name transformed, to 

 suit Italian ears, into Guiscard, and as AVilliam 

 into Gulielmi. Thus, tlierefore, tlie whole coast 

 of Prussia, from Pomeranla, as far, ])erliaps, as 

 known, and certaiidy all tlie present Prussia Pro- 

 per, was the Sinus Vf'nediciis,Vt<>l^my's KiiXnou; and 

 this was also Alfred's Cwen-Sae, for the north. 

 I admit that when Alfred follows Orosius, he 

 uses Adriatic for the Go/Jo dc Venezia ; but when 

 he gives us his indejieiident researches, he uses an 

 indigenous name. Professor Porthan, of Abo in 

 Finland, published a Swedish translation, with 

 notes, of the Voyaf^cs of Othere and Wulfstan in 



the Kongl. Vitterhets Historic och Antiquitet Aca- 

 demiens Ilundlingar, sjette Delen. Stockiiolm, 1800, 

 p. 37-106., in which he expressly couples Finland 

 with Cwenland ; and, in fact, considering the identity 

 of Cwen and Fe«, and the convertibility of the F 

 and V in all languages, Ven and Fen and Cwen will 

 all be identical : but I believe he might have taken 

 a hint from Bussajus, who, in addition to his note 

 at p. l."V, gives at p. 22. an extract from the Olaf 

 Tryvussons Saga, where " Finnland edr Quenland" 

 (Finland or Quenland) are found conjoined as 

 synonymns. Professor Rask, who gives the ori- 

 ginal text, and a Danish translation in the Trans- 

 actions of the Skandinavisk Litteratur Selkskab lor 

 1815, as "Otter og Wulfstans Korte Reldeberet- 

 ninger," &c., though laudatory in the extreme of 

 Porthan, and difi'ering from him on some minor 

 points, yet fully agrees in finding the Cwen-Sea 

 within the Baltic : and he seems to divide this in- 

 land sea into two parts by a line drawn north and 

 south through Bornholin, of which the eastern part 

 is called the Cvren or Sermlnde, or Sarmatian 

 Sea. 



Be that as it may, the .above is one of a series of 

 deductions by which I am prepared to prove, that as 

 the land geography of Germany by Alfred Is re- 

 stricted to the valleys of the Welchsel (Wisle), the 

 Oder, the Elbe, and the Weser, so the sea voyages 

 are confined to the debouchures of such of these 

 rivers as flow into the Baltic. This would give a 

 combined action of purpose to both well suited to 

 the genius of the monarch and the necessities of an 

 infant trade, requiring to be made acquainted wlih 

 coasts and countries accessible to their rude navi- 

 gation and limited commercial enterprise. So 

 prudent a monarch would never have thought of 

 noting down, for the instruction and guidance of 

 his subjects and posterity, the account of a voyage 

 which even now, after an interval of ten centuries 

 of continued nautical improvements, and since the 

 discovery of the compass, is not unattended with 

 danger, nor accomplished in less than a year's 

 time wasted. 



AV'^iLLiAM Bell, Phil. Dr. 



British Arehajological Association. 



BEMARKABLE PEOPOSITION CONCERNING IREL.\.ND. 



The following passage, which contains a curious 

 proposition relating to Ireland, will probal)ly be 

 new and interesting to many readers of " Notes 

 AND Queries," since the book from which I ex- 

 tract it is a scarce one, and not often read. Among 

 the many various schemes that have of late been 

 propounded for the improvement of our sister 

 coiintiy, tills is perhaps not the least remarkable, 

 and shows that the (jiirstio vexata, " What is to be 

 done with Ireland ?" is one of two centuries' stand- 

 ing. James Harrington, in his Oceana, the Intro- 



