80 NAMES OP PLACES 



and -setter. The first three are considered to indicate 

 Danish rather than Norse occupation. The terminal -by 

 represents b'A, a dwelling — Whitby, the white house ; 

 Kirby, the house near the kirk ; Grimsby, the abode of 

 Grimr, a common personal name. Thwait is from thveit, 

 humbler than bA, meaning a cottage and paddock, and 

 familiar in such names as Applethwaite, Ormsthwaite, 

 and Langthwaite; while thorp expressed the hamlet or 

 collection of cottages within a common enclosure, and 

 occurs frequently in certain districts. Langthorpe and 

 Milnthorpe carry their meaning on the faces of them, 

 while in Kettlethorpe is preserved the well-known 

 personal name of Ketyl. The Dutch form dorp has 

 been pretty well rubbed into our national remembrance 

 of late in the name Krugersdorp in the Transvaal — the 

 scene of the surrender of Jameson's raiders in 1896. 

 Norwegian rather than Danish are the terms bdlstadr, 

 a homestead, and setr, a dwelling, also a hill pasture, 

 equivalent to the Scottish 'shieling.' The first remains 

 entire in the name of Bolster, in the parish of Bower, 

 Caithness, and in various stages of attrition in Lybster, 

 Scrabster, Bimbuster, and Gorabus; while the second is 

 easily recognised in Kirkasetter near Lerwick, and 

 Melsetter in Hoy. Very often these Danes and Norsemen 

 drove out or killed out the Saxon or Celtic population ; 

 but where there happened to be room for both, they 

 seem to have lived amicably side by side. The late 

 Canon Isaac Taylor pointed out curious evidence of this 

 in some place-names in the north of England. Many 

 parishes there contain two or more townships, the parish 

 bearing the older name, with the characteristic Saxon 

 suffix -ton or -ham, while the townships included in it 



