Scandinavian-Britain

SVEIN AND KNT 165one in monumental masonry: it is possible also thatepitaphs then expressed in pictorial form and notuntil rather later in the set phrase of eulogy seen onManx and Scandinavian stones were as little relatedto biographical fact as those of any country churchyard.And yet the sentiment conveyed by the Viking Agetombstones, like that of the Christian Skaldic songs, isstrikingly akin to the piety of all ages. The strugglewith the Serpent, hardly vanquished; the Crosstriumphant over powers of sin and death ; symbolsof resignation and resurrection, on these mainlythe design depends in all its various forms ; rarelyshowing something that may be intended for a portraiteffigy, still less commonly anything like the heraldicostentation of a later age or the hint of a warrior'sfame. It is interesting to infer the character of thepeople who put up these monuments the more tenderand sincere side of the deep Scandinavian nature.The great preponderance of Scandinavian blood inthe north of England is shown by the list of"festermen," or those who gave pledges (borJi) forArchbishop./Rlfric at his election to the see of Yorkin 1023. The list iscontemporary, written on the flyleafof a tenth-century MS. Gospels in the library ofYork Minster. It has been published by Prof.G. Stephens, and more recently with analysis ofthe names by Dr. J6n Stefansson (Saga-book of theViking Club) 1906), who remarks that the place-namesseem to be from South Yorkshire, and that many of thepersonal names are more Norse than Danish. Thetermination -ketil, used in the earlier part of the