TEESDAIE PLACE-jS'A^HES. 199 



' The JSfordmcBn goffico opp ett ivijk^ Normanni arcem dediderunt.' 

 Metaphorice notat quodvis perfugium." Ilire. 



" Wich or ich, the root is said to be found in all Aryan lan- 

 guages. The Manx form is from gJiaw, softened to quick and 

 giiisg. The Northmen applied this term in a sense different 

 from the A.-S. In the districts of England settled by the latter 

 it meant a station or abode on land ; with the ]S"orwegians and 

 Danes it was a station for ships, and hence it signified a creek or 

 small bay." Jenkinson. 



" The name of vih or vihin was specially given to the present 

 SkageracJc and Christianiafiorcl with the adjacent coasts. 



The form wick or loich in British local names is partly of Norse 

 • and partly of Latin origin (vicus) ; all inland places of course 

 belong to the latter class. 



Viking, a freebooting voyage, piracy. In heathen Jays it was 

 usual for young men of distinction, before settling down, to 

 make a warlike expedition to foreign parts ; this voyage was 

 called viking, and was part of a man's education, like the grand 

 tour in modern times. The custom was common among Teutonic 

 tribes, and is mentioned by Caesar. B. Gr. vi., ch. 23. 



Vikingr, a freebooter, rover, pirate ; but in the Icelandic sagas 

 used specially of the bands of Scandinavian warriors who, during 

 the ninth and tenth centuries, harried the British isles and Nor- 

 mandy ; the word is peculiarly Norse, for although it occurs in 

 A.-S. in the poem of Byrnoth six or seven times, it is there 

 evidently to be regarded as a Norse word. The word vikingr is 

 thought to be derived from vik (a bay), from their haunting the 

 bays, creeks, and fiords ; or it means ' the men from the fiords ;' 

 the coincidence that the old Irish called the Norsemen Lochlan- 

 noch, and Norway Lochlan^ is curious." Cleasby. 



In the Notes to Stephen's Translation of Tegner's 'Frithiof's 

 Saga,' is the following account of the origin of the term viking, 

 which, as it is from a great authority, and is similar to the above 

 by Cleasby, is doubtless the true one : — 



" The Yikings were so called from vik or vig, a bay, and ing 

 or eng, young. They were ' The Bay Boys,' the Northern Buc- 

 caneers. Every sea-king among the Scandinavians was a Viking, 



