y 



t 



52 QUERN'S QUARTERLY. 



jiassages across rivers for men or cattle ; the fords of the Scandina- 

 \'ian sea-rovers are passages for ships up arms of the sea. IVkk is 

 a station for ships, if by the coast, and a village, if inland, but as the 

 station was a creek for a ship, wick generally denotes a bay: Sand- 

 wich = sand bay. The Vikings were the creek or bay-men. Another 

 word which denotes the presence of the sea-rovers in the same way 

 as I'ic is ncss, naze, or ncz, meaning a nose or promontory. Grinez, 

 near Calais = the grey Cape ; Totness = the house on the Cape. 

 Holm means an island in a lake or a river = Stockholm, Robe- 

 homme. An island in the sea is denoted by the suffix oe, a, ey, ay, or 

 ea, although a and ea often stand for names of rivers. 



With the exception of a few nautical terms, the Scandinavians 

 who settled in France have left hardly any memorials of their speech 

 in our French dictionaries. The conquerors married native women, 

 and a kindly Providence willed it so that after they were civilized 

 by their wives, their sons should only learn the language spoken by 

 the mothers. The map of Normandy, however, supplies abundant 

 traces of the Scandinavian conquest in the village names : Grimon- 

 ville (Grim), Borneville (Beorn), Herouville (Harold), Tourville 

 (Thor), Godarville (Guddar), Hacqueville (Haakon). The Norse 

 gardr occurs at Fisigard, Auppegard, and Epegard — names which 

 we may compare with Fishguard and Applegarth in England. Toft 

 or tot, already referred to, is found in names such as these : — Yve- 

 tot = Ivo's toft; Lilletot = little toft; Routot = red toft; Crique- 

 tot = crooked toft; Berquetot = birch toft; Hautot = high toft, 

 etc., more than one hundred of them. As toft is a Danish rather than 

 a Norwegian suffix, it might be assumed that the conquerors of 

 Normandy were Danes rather than Norwegians. 



Le Torp and Clitourps give us the word thorpe. The name of 

 the river Dieppe, which was afterwards given to the town built be- 

 side it, means deep ivater or the deep river. From the Danish 

 hose = brook, we have, as already mentioned : Caudebec = the cold 

 brook; Briquebec = the birch-fringed brook; Birkbeck in England; 

 Houlbec = the brook in the hollow ; Foulbec = the muddy brook ; 

 Clarbec = clear brook. The suffix ficur, which we find in Honfleur, 

 Barfieur, Vittefleur, and Fiquefleur, etc., denotes a small river (/Ziot 

 flood) : Vittefleur = the white river ; Fiquefleur = the river in the 

 bay. The Danish or ey = an island, is seen in Eu, Cantaleu, Al- 

 derney, Jersey, Guernesey. The word hangr = a sepulchral mound, 

 shows in Cape de la Hogue, Cape Hoc, Cape Hode, La Hague. Fa- 

 laise is a castle-crowned rock (fells). Les Dalles, Crodale, Danestal, 



