184 VISIT TO DENMARK [1799. 



wishes to distinguish him ; this he does according to 

 his fancy : thus Seton calls his coachman always 

 "Preston," after his Scotch estate. This prevails also 

 in Iceland and Norway. The people have thus de- 

 rived their names from circumstances; thus one of 

 the oldest families is called Bonde (a peasant), and 

 Vasa is a wheat - sheaf . When the clergy take a 

 name, or continue their father's, if he had one, they 

 add the termination " us " to it : thus the Archbishop 

 of Upsal's father was called Trail, he himself Troilus, 

 and when ennobled became Von Troil. Almost all 

 the names ending in "ander," as Dryander, Polander. 

 &c., come from the province of SmSland. There are, 

 of course, various dialects in Sweden. That spoken 

 by the common people in Stockholm is by no means 

 good ; and I perceived the greatest change in the 



dialect of Western Gothland, where could not 



always make himself understood. I believe it softens 

 down more and more as you get into the Danish pro- 

 vinces. The purest Swedish is spoken in Wermeland, 

 in Dalecarlia : the natives speak a dialect quite differ- 

 ent from the rest of the Swedes, who cannot under- 

 stand them; but they also speak Swedish, and are 

 shy of using their own tongue except among them- 

 selves. It very strongly resembled Anglo-Saxon, and 

 many words which we heard repeated in Dalecarlia 

 are quite good English. Besides, they retain the ih 

 and w, which none of the other languages except the 

 English do. The manners of these people are as 

 different from the other Swedes as the language. 



