May Williamson: The Non-Celtic Place-Names of the Scottish Border ...

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Now Hengist had proved Frisian connections (v. Myres, 346), and much of the Anglo-Saxon
pottery which has been discovered in Northumbria shows “striking parallels with the pottery
of the Frisian Terpen” (ib, 350). Although many historians have attempted to discredit the
historicity of Hengist’s part in the movement, these facts seem to agree very well with Mr
Myres’ theory about the Ambrones, who, he claims, crossed to the Humber area from the
coast of Friesland (v. History XX, 250-62).
Archaeological evidence supplies us with the most definite information about the first
settlements in England. Finds of the pagan period are very few in Bernicia: the OS map of
England in the Dark Ages notes only one pagan cemetery and three single burials. Mr Myres,
however, in his sketch-map of the early settlements, records three cemeteries, at Galewood,
Howick and Hepple, and nine single burials (Myres, facing p. 411).
This scarcity of remains in the north has led Professor Baldwin Brown to believe that the area
was not settled until after the influence of Christianity had led to the discontinuance of
cremation. Mr Hodgkin /xxix/ declares that such a view “demands miracles … of rapid
settlement and propagation” (Hodgkin, 152). It is noticeable, nevertheless, that in the districts
where Romano-British resistance was greatest, pagan customs disappeared most rapidly
(Dauncey, 55). This would certainly apply to Bernicia where British opposition was strong
and prolonged.
The non-existence of Anglian archaeological material belonging to the earliest period in
South Scotland has caused the belief that there could have been no primary settlement north
of the Tweed. Whether this is so or not, it is wrong to regard the Tweed as a frontier or
boundary, since all we know of the invading tactics of the Anglo-Saxons shows that they used
the river-valleys as their main means of access to the lowlands of England, and never as
dividing lines between territories belonging to different tribes. The Bernician kingdom was
more likely to be continued on the coastal plain to the base of the Lammermoor Hills than to
end at the Tweed.
The latest theories are that the Anglo-Saxons did not sail up the rivers much beyond the first
few miles in the Wash area, but pursued campaigns of conquest along the Roman roads. The
Tweed is not navigable by any craft of deeper draught than a canoe more than ten /xxx/ miles
from its mouth, but no doubt the invaders followed the river-bottoms as the easiest routes of
penetration into the country.
At Traprain Law near Dunbar a hoard of silver was unearthed which is believed to have been
secreted in the early 5 th century by Saxon pirates. This does not necessarily indicate
settlement at this date in the Forth area, but it shows that raiding parties visited the district
quite a century before 547.
In a pagan grave at Corbridge on the River Tyne, a collection of ornaments was found which
included two cruciform fibulae. These were of a type which has also been located on the
lower Elbe, and is believed to belong to the earliest kind of Saxon material discovered in
Britain. The brooches need not mark anything more than the most scattered settlement, or the
passage of travellers across the Roman Wall, but they do determine the presence of Anglo-
Saxons in Bernicia almost a century before Ida (v. NCH, x, 12).
A tradition is preserved in Symeon of Durham that Ida journeyed north by sea and landed
with his followers at Flamborough Head (i, 338). This is a peculiar statement unless it means