Scandinavian-Britain

258 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAINwere made at repression for at least a couple ofhundred years later." In Orkney and Shetland OldLore, for October 1907, is printed a series of documents,conveyances, agreements, charters, etc., rangingfrom 1422 to 1575, many of them in Norse, and allshowingthe close connexion of the islanders withNorway. For example, in 1538 the Norse king atBergen confirms a doom of the Shetland Lawting, anddescribes the trial in which Gervald Williamsson wonhis heritage from Magnus Olsson as according toGulathing's law. Many of the deeds relate to settlementsbetween islanders and their relatives living inNorway. The law-terms are chiefly Norse, as :" athmen " = effimenn (oathmen), "arvis skopft"=" oumbotht"=arfskipti (division of inheritance),umbo^ (commission), "schonit" = sjaimd (seventhday after the death, when the division of goods wasmade), " mensvering " = meinsvari (perjury, whence" manswearing ")," samengna man " = sameignaruicf&r (joint possessor),"granttis with hand andhandband " = handaband (joining hands)," ofhintit"from afhenda (to hand over)," teind penny andferde penny " = tiundargjof ok fjdr^nngsgjof (forin Norse law one could dispose of only one-tenthof one's patrimony and one-fourth of personallyacquired goods without the consent of one's heirs).Ecclesiastically also the islands remained Norse ;in 1491 king John of Denmark and Norway granted,in one of these documents, to Sir David Sinclairthe rents and rights of the Crown over the servantsof the Church in Orkney. The people's names