Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - III. The Norse Settlements - 2. Cheshire and Lancashire
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
wasted lands near Chester, where Hástein had been
ravaging (Caradoc and Three Fragments). This dates
the Norse settlement near the mouth of the Dee, both
on the Flintshire side and in Wirral, the peninsula
between the Dee and the Mersey. The colony has a
peculiar interest from the fact that its Thingwall (in
Domesday Tingvelle, Thingvellir), is preserved to us,
at least in name. The so-called Thor’s Stone near
Thurstaston (Domesday Turstanetone, Thórsteins tún),
a terraced rock-mound with a flat summit, looks like a
Thingmount, but there is no reason to believe that it
is other than a rather curious natural development of
the local red sandstone. On the other hand, there
are several monuments which must be referred to
this tenth-century Norse colony. The hogback in
the museum at West Kirby, though it cannot have
come from Ireland as tradition says, is like the work
of Vikings of that century who did come from Ireland
to Cumbria. A wheel-head grave-slab in the same
museum, and the similar stone at Hilbre Island, look
like early works of the period. At Neston are fragments
of cross-shafts of the Anglo-Norse type, and
the Bromborough cross appears to be, like similar
monuments in the Grosvenor Museum and in St.
John’s Church, Chester, of late tenth-century date.
Many of the place-names of Wirral are Norse in
form. This would naturally be the case where waste
lands were taken by new settlers ; though as estates
were held under Mercia, and not as a free and independent
colony, it is hardly surprising to find that the
Danish system of land-assessment was not used here
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
