NORMANTON 



5766 



French tongue in the 10th century, 

 and the dialect which thus arose 

 contained many words of Danish 

 origin, and many phonetic pecu- 

 liarities. It played an important 

 part in the development of Old 

 French literature, and was the dia- 

 lect of many of the trouveres, in- 

 cluding, perhaps, the author of the 

 original Song of Roland. The metri- 

 cal chronicles of Wace are 12th 

 century monuments of Norman - 

 French. Modem Norman speech 

 preserves traces of the old dialect, 

 especially in the Channel Islands, 

 where an archaic form is used on 

 ceremonial occasions. 



Anglo-Norman is the name of 

 the dialect spoken by the dominant 

 class in England for about two 

 centuries after the Conquest. 

 Spoken by a small and scattered 

 minority, it is remarkable. for its 

 irregularity and its tendency to 

 simplification. Its influence on 

 English was much less than that of 

 the Parisian-French which be- 

 came current in official and noble 

 circles in Henry Ill's reign, when 

 Anglo-Norman was dying out. 



Normanton. Urban dist. and 

 market town of Yorkshire (W.R.), 

 England. It stands on the Calder, 

 10 m. from Leeds, 

 and is an import- 

 ant rly. junction, 

 the Mid. Rly. 

 uniting with the 

 N.E. and L. & Y. 

 lines. The chief 

 building is the 

 church of All 



Sointa TiartlvP^r 



saints, partly re 

 pendicular. There 

 is a 16th century grammar school. 

 The industries include ironworks, 

 coal mines, and the making of 

 chemicals. Market day, Sat. Pop. 

 15,000. 



South Normanton is a village 

 near Alfreton, in Derbyshire, also a 

 coal-mining centre. Pop. 5,200. 

 Another Normanton is near Derby, 

 and there are places of this name 

 in Rutland and Lincolnshire. Nor- 

 manton-on-Soar and Normanton- 

 on-Trent are villages in Notting- 

 hamshire. 



Normanton. Township of 

 Queensland, Australia. It is 23 m. 

 from the Gulf of Carpentaria, 1,352 

 m. from Brisbane by sea, the port 

 of mining and pastoral areas in 

 the Flinders district. Pop. 500. 



Norn. In Scandinavian myth- 

 ology. the name of the three god- 

 desses of fate. Of the race of the 

 giants, they ended the golden age 

 of the gods. They cast lots over. 

 every infant and lay gifts in his 

 cradle. One is malignant, the others 

 are beneficent. They are akin 

 to the Valkyries, the fairies, and 

 the classical Parcae. Late literary 



Normanton. Seal 



Of urban district 



council 



myths represent them as Past, 

 Present, and Future, and as daily 

 watering the root of the world-ash 

 Yggdrasil from the well of Weird 

 or Fate. i. 



, Norrbotten. Lan or co. of 

 Sweden. It is the largest and 

 northernmost co., being bordered 

 by Finland, Norway, and the Gulf 

 of Bothnia, and includes part of 

 Lapland. The extensive forests 

 and the iron mines of Gellivare 

 are exploited, the numerous 

 rivers and lakes being used by the 

 lumberers. Its area is 40,731 sq. 

 m. Pop. 177,000. 



Norris, Sm JOHN (c. 1547-97). 

 English soldier. Younger son of 

 Henry, Lord Norris, and known as 

 Black Norris, 

 he served with 

 the Huguenots 

 in France, 

 under Essex in 

 Ireland, and in 

 the Nether- 

 lands against 

 Spain. After 

 bein g lord 

 Sir John Norris, president of 

 English soldier Munster, he 

 After zucchero returned to the 

 Netherlands in 1585 at the head 

 of an English army, was knighted 

 by Leicester for relieving Grave in 

 1586, and fought at Zutphen. He 

 was marshal of the camp at Tilbury 

 in 1588, ambassador to the Nether- 

 lands, and leader with Drake of 

 an expedition to Spain. He died 

 at Mallow, July 3, 1597. 



Norris's father, Henry Norris, 

 belonged to an old Berkshire family 

 prominent at court in Tudor times. 

 In 1572 he was made Baron Norris, 

 and he died in June, 1601. His sons 

 were all famous as soldiers, and 

 their figures are on the Norris 

 monument in S. Andrew's Chapel, 

 Westminster Abbey. The barony 

 is held by the earl of Abingdon. 



Norris, WILLIAM EDWARD (b. 

 1847). British novelist. Born Nov. 

 18, 1847, he was educated at Eton, 

 and called to 

 the bar in 1874. 

 He wrote many 

 novels, several 

 widely popular 

 for their simple 

 style of narra- 

 tive and clever 

 analysis of 

 character. They 

 include Made- 

 m o i s e 1 1 e de 

 Mersac, 1880 ; 

 The Rogue, 1888 ; The Dancer in 

 Yellow, 1896 ; Giles Ingilby, 1899 ; 

 Not Guilty, 1910; and Proud 

 Peter, 1916. 



Norristown. Borough of Penn- 

 sylvania, U.S.A., the co. seat of 

 Montgomery co. It stands on the 



. W. E. Norris, 

 British novelist 



Elliott & fry 



Schuylkill, 18 m. W N.W. of Phila- 

 delphia, and is served by the Penn- 

 sylvania and other rlys., and by 

 the Schuylkill canal. Morristown 

 dates from 1785, and was incor- 

 porated in 1812. Pop. 32,300, 

 ~> Norrkoping. Town of Sweden, 

 m the Ian or co. of Linkoping. 

 It stands at the bead of the 

 Bravik Fiord, an inlet of the Bal- 

 tic, and is a junction 113 m. by 

 rly. S.W. of Stockholm, with which 

 it is also connected by steamer. It 

 has a good harbour and shipbuild- 

 ing yards, and trades in timber, 

 granite, iron, and grain. The river 

 Motala affords power for numer- 

 ous factories. Norrkoping was 

 founded in 1384. Pop. 57,000. 



Norroy King of Arms. Officer 

 of the Heralds' College, England. 

 He was first heard of in the reign of 

 Edward II, and, as the title indi- 

 cates, had jurisdiction over Eng- 

 land N. of the Trent. See College 

 of Arms ; Heraldry. 



Norse. Adjective properly sig- 

 nifying Norwegian, the native form 

 being Norsk, i.e. Nord-isk. It is 

 applied usually to the older period 

 of Norwegian history, including 

 the age of the great migrations, 

 often in a sense which includes 

 the whole Scandinavian race. The 

 Norse language, the old language 

 of Norway, where it is now vir- 

 tually extinct, was carried to Ice- 

 land, Greenland, the Orkneys, 

 Shetlands, Hebrides, Man, and 

 parts of the Scottish mainland, 

 especially Caithness. It was ousted 

 from Norway by Danish, and from 

 Scotland by G'aelic and English, 

 though it lingered in the Orkneys and 

 Shetlands until the 18th century. 



Old Norse, one of the North 

 Germanic group of languages, is the 

 name given to the form of the lan- 

 guage current before the loth cen- 

 tury, another name being Old 

 Icelandic. While Iceland was the 

 chief seat of Old Norse literature, 

 some of the extant works were 

 written in Norway, Greenland, and 

 perhaps in the Hebrides. See Ice- 

 land; Northmen; Norway. 



Norseman. Township of West- 

 em Australia. It is the railhead of 

 a branch from Coolgardie, from 

 which it is 100 m. distant. It is the 

 chief place on the Dundas gold- 

 field. Pop. 1,100. 



North. One of the cardinal 

 points, one end of the earth's axis. 

 The central point of the Arctic basin 

 is the north terrestrial pole, directly 

 above which the north celestial 

 pole is marked approximately by 

 the pole star. The north magnetic 

 pole to which compasses point is 

 more than 800 m. to the S. of the 

 N. pole. As a noun the word is 

 used in the phrase The Frozen 

 North to signify the Arctic regions. 



