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words in Middle English ; "Borrowdale gowks" is an
old jest, and see p. 253 for the name of one of the runecarvers
in the Orkney Maeshowe). These Norse names
were then going out of fashion. A Cumberland deed
of 1397 (Mr. W. N. Thompson, Trans. Cumb. and
West. Ant. Soc., N.S., vi.) mentions Richard
Thomson, son of Thomas Johanson, showing the true
patronymic as still used in Iceland : of which the
feminine occurs in Elena Robyndoghter, Magota
Jakdoghter, Matilda and Anabilla Daudoghters who,
with Magota Daudwyfe and Johannes Daudson (Davidson),
occur in Yorkshire poll-tax returns. Many more
examples might be given from Yorkshire and Cumberland.
It has been thought that the termination -son
is a mark of Scandinavian origin : and, without
pressing this too far, it may be said that such surnames
are more common in the old Danelaw than elsewhere.
Many, however, of the derivations attempted for
surnames in popular works are too fanciful to stand.
Fawcett, for example, is a place-name, not from
Forseti the god in the Edda ; Huggin can hardly
represent Odin’s raven Hugin, nor Frear the god
Freyr, as gravely stated in a work by a well-known
author of the past generation. Such wild conjectures
have too often brought the study of Norse origins
into contempt ; and yet we owe much to the earlier
students of the subject, from de Quincey downward,
for venturing into the tangled region, and perhaps we
have not even yet escaped all the illusions of the
forest of error.
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