Re-discovering literature

I cant say that I was ever the worlds greatest fan of poetry. I found English Lit tedious when I was at school. Probably because the teacher was the most boring old fart in the world. He was just counting the days until he retired and used to plonk books in front of us, tell us to read whichever bit of Shakespeare he had picked out, and spent the entire lesson with his feet up on his desk smoking his pipe and giving us no feedback whatsoever. He sometimes even fell asleep - and we would then do what any responsible and well brought up young people would do............ start having spit ball fights and writing graffiti all over each others work books.

What a waste of 3 years of my life.

And then in my early 20's, I discovered a love of English poets that I never knew was lurking alongside the love I had (at the time) for dance music, partying, tequila and cigarettes. And although the only one of those young loves I still have is for music (it now extends beyond dance music you'll be glad to hear), my passion for poetry has just grown and grown.

I sat here musing about my favourites. What is the one poem that makes me sigh every time I read it? And I have to admit, after a long time thinking about it, I will step out onto the ledge and say it is "To Autumn" by John Keats.

For anyone who has never had the pleasure of sitting in a field in the English countryside, as summer slowly turns to Autumn, watching the farmers bailing the straw. If you have never spent time staring at the golden stalks they leave behind in the stubble fields, and havent watched the swallows diving and swooping before lining up on the telephone wires waiting to leave for the winter, the following is for you.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.


Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Im so excited - Lorrie comes on Sunday !!! yayyyy

No - Im not having a hot date with someone called Lorrie (nor am I having a rather large van delivered either).

On Sunday, I shall be going with Murphy to pick up the new addition to our little Moorland family............Im getting a new dog.

She is absolutely beautiful and her name is Lorrie.

Ive always had 2 dogs, until my ex partner decided to "steal" one of them and he has point blank refused to give her back - even though she was my baby for almost 12 years. I hoped that Murphy would settle for being an "only dog" but despite me leaving it for 4 months to see how he got along on his own, he is still desperately sad without canine company. So I made the decision to get another - and to be honest, I actually miss having two of them creating merry hell in my home.

As much as I love puppies, I know a young pup isnt practical for me, and there are enough dogs in the world that nobody wants, so I decided to rehome an older dog. Then struggled with myself over which breed.

And I kept coming back to Border Collie every single time. I swore after Minstral (my other dog) that I would never have another BC because she was such a handfull when she was younger. She came from a farm at 6 months old as she was refusing to run sheep and I fell in love with her when I saw her....until she started to eat the house. Every night I came home she had done something else - like eaten the floorboards (honestly), chewed a hole in the wall, or ripped up the carpet. But they have such intelligence and personalities that I couldnt resist getting another to replace her - and besides, they are the only breed of dog that has the stamina to keep up with "himself". And he loves Border Collies - Im sure he thinks whenever he sees one that it's Minstral coming back.

Anyway - Im digressing a little here.
So I started trawling the dogs homes (but after ending up in floods of tears outside the last one I visited as I couldnt pick just one dog and leave all those other dogs with their sad faces wondering "why didnt she pick me?") I decided to check out the private rescues and rehoming centres.

And lo and behold I was put in touch with one of the top Border Collie breeders in the country who had just had one of her dogs returned to her after 6 years. I still cannot fathom why someone would turn their beloved pet over for rehoming after that length of time - I would never part with Murf - not even if it meant I had to live on the streets. He's my baby. But I am not going to start going through the whys and wherefores of the whole thing. Because at the end of the day, other people making silly decisions has resulted in me finding Lorrie.

And wait until you see some photos of her which I will post hopefully on Sunday sometime. She is a stunner. And such a lovely placid and friendly girl. She is the same age as Murf so thats a bonus, and she was also a top show champion when she was owned by her breeder and even appeared at Crufts - although the people she was sold to at 3 years old didnt do very much with her after they bought her.

Ive got her spot set out for her bed, and have bought her a new feed bowl and a lead. Murf and I bought her some Markies (a firm favourite with all dogs) but he decided that he wanted to try them to make sure they werent poisoned - and so we need to now buy another packet for Lorrie :-)

The whole village know she is coming on Sunday, and so I expect we will have a reception party waiting to meet us when we come home with her. And I really hope that she will settle here with us. Because one thing I know how to do well is love my dogs. And I think she will like us, because for the last year with her previous owners, she was locked in a house for 14 hours at a time with very little exercise.

She's going to get such a shock when she sees the farm and the woods and the open moors. And I know that Murphy is going to have her tearing round like a maniac with him chasing the chickens and the cows and hunting for rabbit in the brambles, and running after the deer up on Anglezarke Moor.

I cant stand to think that a lovely dog has been neglected in any way, so I regret to say that I will probably be spoiling her rotten with cuddles and squeaky toys and lots of loves on the sofa with me and Murf. I also have a sneaky suspiscion that he will have a quiet word with her and say "if you sneak up on the bed in the night, and give her the puppy dog eyes when she tells you to get off, she'll let you stay up there" "Oh and if you jump up and grab your lead every time she gets up out of her chair, we get an extra walk - especially if you start whining"..... I can see me being taken for a complete and utter mug.

Dogs eh? Dontcha just love 'em? :-)

"EX"nic Cleansing

To all the losers who left me, the lovers who lost me, and all you lucky buggers yet to meet me.........Happy Valentines Day !!

As it is Valentines Day, and I woke up amazed to see, once again, a mountain of cards behind the letterbox (yeah right!!!), it got me thinking about the people I WOULD have got cards from if things hadn't gone disasterously, and spectacularly, wrong.

Last night I was invited over for dinner by one of my oldest and dearest friends. Her fiance has just gone out to Afghanistan for a 4 month tour of duty, and they are due to get married in June after he gets back.

As girls do, we chatted about everything from our dogs, to fashion, to our horses, to funny memories, and then began to wade through the monumental cock-ups regarding men that we have made in our respective love lives.

Now none of this was done in a bitter or sad way, as we were both crying with laughter at one point, especially when we reminded each other of certain people from our past, and each of us, in our turn, would shriek and roll about crying "Oh my God, what the hell did I ever see in HIM...arrrhhhhhhgggg" interupted by peels of laughter.

And then I had a very sobering thought - what if THEY are doing the same thing about us at this very moment?????

She (in her usual witty way) said "Oh Jaks, they wont be, because we are both perfect hahahaha". And although I'd like to think/pretend or even lie to myself that I am, I know only too well that I am far from it and have my own mountain of weaknesses and faults, just as everyone else has (no matter how much you may try to deny it to yourself).


All of us (unless you are the most incredibly lucky person on the planet) have suffered heartbreak in love at some point. And at the time it's all happening, when everything is falling apart around you, you really can't imagine that a few years down the line, you will be sitting drinking tea with a friend and laughing until the tears are rolling down your cheeks about the very person who made tears roll down your cheeks for very different reasons all those years ago.

Selective memory is a funny thing. When you go through a break up, and you are so bloody miserable and heartbroken, all you can remember and think about are the wonderful and happy times you had together - which make you even more miserable.

Once you've got over the whole thing, all you seem to remember are the bad things, and why you are SO much better off not being with whichever piece of "pond slime" just used your heart as a punch bag (even though at the time, if ever your friends had called the object of your affection "pond slime" you would have never spoken to them again).

And then years down the line, you are finally able to remember the good AND bad things, and laugh about everything with your friends.

2 years ago, if anyone had said that in a couple of years, I would be sitting talking about Dale without crying, I would have said something very rude to them and gone off in a self pitying sulk to think about my "ideal" relationship and what I must have done wrong to have ended up as one half of the perfect couple.

I tend to always blame myself - you know how it is.....did I say something? Did I do something? Am I too fat? Am I too thin? Am I too ugly? Am I not witty enough?

And dear old Marshy said last night "You know what mate? You always seem to pick the emotional retards. What is it with you? You have nice men who want to take you out but you dont want them, and yet you ALWAYS say yes to the handsome tossers that everyone else can see coming a mile away"

This then started a whole other avenue of discussion. Her conclusion is that I am far too laid back and easy going with people. I forgive people too easily (although I always thought that was supposed to be a good thing to do), and I try to avoid conflict by just accepting things that happen, rather than kicking and screaming and laying some ground rules down like "normal" (her words) women do.

That woke me up a bit as I have only ever had three rules I ask people to abide by, and now I think about it, these shouldn't even be rules - they are my moral code and I just expect other people to have the same ideals:

(1) No cheating - if you do, then jog on!
(2) No lying - if you lie about little things then you'll lie about big ones and I want to be able to trust you
(3) If you want out, just have the balls to say it rather than letting something drag on as it's unfair

Anyway, after all of our soul searching and laughter, and memories, Marshy said "Well, Dave (her ex husband) did me a favour because if Id never found out about his affair, Id have still been with him, and would have never met Colin, and he is the true love of my life."

And Im so happy for her because out of all my friends, she really does deserve it the most.

She asked me what I thought was my biggest mistake. After pondering this for a while I have to admit that I think it was Tony. We were too different, our backgrounds were as far apart as the sun and the moon regarding upbringing and morals and standards. But I never judge people and when I met him he made me laugh. And I really do think that he was trying to change so that we could be together - but some things you just can't alter in yourself. He came from a very rough area in Manchester, and had a very dodgy youth. I tried to mix with his friends but I used to feel like a fish out of water. People were always calling me "Brain box" or "HRH" and if you knew me, those would be the last things you'd call me.

Ive never been a snob as I have no right to be. I am no better than anyone else. But the cultural and educational differences between me and them was like the Grand Canyon. Their lives revolved around drinking, taking drugs, buying "knock off" in the local pub and claiming benefits. Nobody wanted to better themselves. And every single day was like the one before and the one that would follow. Tony hated coming to mine because he hated the countryside. He is a city boy and always will be. And I hated the inner city.

And so it ended. Which was sad. And I do miss him being around sometimes. But what we ended up rolling about on the floor over last night, laughing until our sides hurt, was because I said that one good thing about being with him, was that I actually got to know what it would feel like to live out an episode of "Shameless"

:-)

So who exactly are we? part 5

Please remember this was done for a bit of fun, to try and break down the silly thing we have about being "English", "Scottish", "Irish" or "Welsh"

Im going to give you some little clues if you want to try and work out who really is in your blood.

Now, I suppose that you could "guess" to give you the desired outcome, and argue in every single direction until you reach the conclusion of your choice - I personally would be horrifed if I suddenly found out I was decended from a Welsh/French/Roman horse eating raider.

Blood Types

In the UK (and Eire) the predominant blood types are O+ and A+

O+
This blood group carries the genetic imprint of the very first humans, the Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers. So the very first people who came into this country, well, everyone would have very probably been type O. And this can be picked up by countries such as Ireland, with a very dense "Celtic" population. Roughly half of the current population carry this blood type


In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Germany (basically all the countries where our other invaders came from, so that means "Anglo-Saxons" "Vikings" and "Normans") - the predominant bloody type is A+.

A+
This is the second oldest blood group and dates back roughly 25,000 years.

So we will say (for the sake of arguement as Im not a geneticist) that Celts and Picts were highly likely to have had O+ blood types. And the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings and Normans would have been predominantly A+

Im going to leave the Romans out of this one, as the current figures are misleading. So Im going to make a very sweeping statement and say "They probably wouldnt have mixed with the locals anyway as they would have thought we were far too inferior" (thats my way of saying - ermmmm)

So, if you know for a fact that you have got no other "foreign" blood in your family in recent history, do you fit into either of those blood types?

Thats your first clue.

Secondly - look to where your family came from. Im not talking about your mum and dad - because in the last 40 years, people have moved about more and more, entering new communities. Whereas in the times of our great-grandparents, this was comparitively rare. People were born, raised and died in the same local area. If they moved at all, it was generally within a 20 mile radius.

One slight variation to all of this is those who had relations who came from Ireland in the mid to late 1800's. Although, those people tended to marry within the same communities once they had settled in this country, so there wasnt a great deal of "marrying out", at least not for the first 50 years or so.

Did your family originate from somewhere inside "The Danelaw" in England? Were they from an area of Scotland that was occupied by the Norsemen? Did they come from somewhere like Dublin that was a massive Viking settlement? Or did they come from a very remote area, inland (such as central southern Ireland or the Scottish Highlands), that would have been harder to get to 1000 years ago? Well, as far as this last example goes - if you have a type O blood, and your family were living in that community for generations, then you could brag and say that you're likely to be decended from the original inhabitants of that local area. You might have something else thrown in, but you are predominantly British.
Well done!!!

Now skin and hair colouring is a whole other ball game.

We all have the image of Vikings and Saxons as being tall with blond flowing hair. And when we think of Celts we either think of the Irish or Scots, and we put a nice mop of ginger hair on their heads.

So if you have Scandinavian ancestors you will have blonde hair? And if you are Celtic you will have red hair???

NOT strictly true.

I'll use myself as a little example of this.
My mum was blonde and her family history would say to us all "Irish/Scottish" as although we know that they came from Ireland, they have a Scottish surname, which would probably indicate crossing between northern Ireland and South West Scotland one or more times in the distant past. Which is ok in itself, as both peoples would have probably had the O+ blood group, and had very strong Celtic links to each other.

My dad is sandy and his family originate from the far north of Scotland and Norway.

My younger sister is blonde and taller than I am with fair skin.

I am short (at 5ft 2) with a slightly more olive look to my skin.

Both of my mums sisters and her brother are dark haired and fair skinned.

So either my mum brought the wrong baby home from the hospital, or Im just a bit of a throwback. I also have a different blood type to my sister - who is O+.
Im actually A+ and have since found out I have the same type as my dad.

So to break that down, I cant use my skin or hair colouring to determine my origins. If I go off my blood type, it would maybe give me the excuse to say Ive got Scandinavian ancestors if I wasn't already aware of this. Which would stand to reason as my dads family were from a coastal region in NW Scotland - and one that was occupied by the Vikings.
So my sister got the colouring and I just got the blood type :-)

One other little pointer (although this is on a much more sinister, and sadder, note), is the predisposition of certain races to particular illnesses, conditions or diseases. Below are details of two of them.

Dupuytren's Contracture
Dupuytren’s disease is an ancient affliction of unknown origin. It is a shortening, thickening, and fibrosis of the palmar fascia which can cause your hand to have a clawed look, and making it impossible for you to straighten your fingers. Tradition has it that the disease originated with the Vikings, who spread it throughout Northern Europe and beyond as they traveled and intermarried. Two very famous sufferers of this disease were Ronald Regan and Maggie Thatcher. Dupuytren’s contracture is virtually confined to people of European descent. Its highest incidence is recorded in Iceland. As expected, the incidence is also high in Scandinavia.

The next disease I know very well, through bitter personal experience, as my mum was a sufferer, so maybe the Viking blood had crept into what I suspected was a pure Celtic family after all..........

Multiple Sclerosis
This was from an article in The Independant in 1998, where genetic studies had shown that Scotland had twice as many people suffering from MS as England and Wales. A Scottish newspaper also ran the story that if you have a Scottish surname, you can double that risk again.

"Scotland – the mainland around Aberdeen, the Orkney and Shetland Islands – has the highest risk (of MS]. The best explanation is that this reflects the genetic background because those are areas where there is a very high influence of Nordic genes, probably delivered by the Vikings. As I understand it they were in the habit of leaving behind their genetic material in the most generous way" Alastair Compston, professor of neurology and head of the department of clinical neurosciences at Cambridge University.

According to the Viking Hypothesis the global distribution of certain northern-European genes which appear to be present in cases of MS, may be attributed to a time of Viking expansion around 800AD when the population of Scandinavia increased rapidly. Thousands left their homeland to search for new land to feed their families, bringing their language, traditions and genetic material along with them.

So maybe my mums blonde locks were an indicator after all?

Anyway - I am not going to finish on a sad note. I hope that those of you who thought "Us Brits" were a nation of elitist pure bred snobs, can now take great satisfaction from knowing we're as confused about our ancestry as everybody else.

And I also hope my potted version of the invasions of our lands have cast some light onto an area which Im passionate about, (you probably already gathered that), and that it might have sparked an interest in at least one other person to want to learn more about their own history.

Thank you so much for reading all of this.
J x

So who exactly are we? part 4

I dont want to bore you with all the little details - as this isn't meant to be a history lesson (as such), so I will keep the introduction to this part as brief as I can.

Im going to skip a couple of hundred years of detail as it's just too messy with different "kings" and "kingdoms" in the British Isles, and all the bickering and fighting, and political intrigue.

But I want to give a quick mention to King Cnut.

Everyone knows the story about him allegedly sitting on his throne on the beach commanding the tide to go back. But that is a slight exageration so Im going to clear that one up before we start.


The story of Cnut attempting to turn back the tide is one that is meant to demonstrate his piety, rather than the way it is often told as a vainglorious king with an overblown belief in his powers. Cnut, in effect, was saying to his nobles: 'Look how insignificant my power is compared with that of God.'

And something else a lot of people in this country dont realise is that King Cnut was about as "English" as Thai Green Curry.

He was probably the most powerful king ever to rule over Anglo-Saxon England. And the bit that most people dont know is that.........he was the son of the Viking king, Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, who conquered England in the reign of Ethelred the Unready, but died almost immediately. So one of Cnut's first acts as king was to conquer the country again before taking complete control at the end of 1016.

By the end of his reign, he was not only king of England and Denmark; he also controlled Norway and parts of Sweden. He enjoyed overlordship in Scotland; he had married Emma, the widow of the former Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred; and when the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad, was crowned in Rome in 1027, Cnut made the journey to stand at his side as an equal.

And now the trouble starts.

Cnut died in 1035, and for the next 6 years his son Harold Harefoot ruled.

In 1041 the crown was snatched back from Viking rule by the Saxon Edward The Confessor. He was Cnut's stepson (son of Emma and Ethelred).

He had fled to Normandy as a boy in 1016 when Cnut took the throne, and stayed there until he got it back in 1042.

And so we come to the really interesting part - which is going to be so difficult for me to keep brief, but Im really going to try.


When Edward the Confessor died on 5 January 1066, no fixed procedures were in place to decide who should succeed him on the throne.

The Witan (a supreme council of wise men) had to make the decision, and they had four candidates to choose from.



Edgar the Atheling, closest blood claimant to Edward
Edgar, a Saxon prince and nephew of Edward, was a sickly fourteen year old boy.


Harald Hardrada, Viking king of Norway
Hardrada was king of Norway and a direct descendant of the kings of England. He was related to King Cnut.







Harold Godwinson, powerful noble in England, a good soldier and a gifted politician
Harold was born and bred in England and popular with ordinary people. He was son of Earl Godwin, the most powerful noble in England. Harold was a leading Saxon Lord and the brother of Edward's wife. He had won a number of battles for Edward.Harold did not have a direct blood link to the king. He was not of royal birth.

Harold was chosen by the Witan (the King's council) to succeed Edward the Confessor. He also said that it was Edward's dying wish that he, Harold, should have the crown (There were no witnesses to Edward saying this)

The day after Edward died, Harold became King Harold ll of England.

And here we have the final fly in the ointment.......


William, Duke of Normandy, from over the sea in France
William was a distant cousin of Edward the Confessor and wanted to be the next king. He claimed that both Edward and Harold had promised him the throne, but English supporters of Harold challenged this.
Edward invited William of Normandy to his court in 1051 and supposedly promised to make him heir.

After a shipwreck in 1064, Harold was handed over to William of Normandy, who forced him to swear an oath that he would help William become the next king of England when Edward died. It was said that the oath was given over a box that unbeknown to Harold contained the bones of a saint. Oaths were important guarantees that were considered binding in the Middle Ages, so this particular oath bound Harold to helping William, and made Harold’s own claim to the throne look illegal.

William had been a very successful ruler of Normandy and he thought he could do an equally good job for England.

So needless to say, William was pretty p****d off when the crown went to Harold Godwinson. And so he began the Norman invasion of England.


This culminated in The Battle of Hastings, which began at about nine o'clock on the 14th October 1066 and lasted most of the day.

King Harold was killed, and William took the throne...being known forever after as William The Conquerer.





But before you get excited thinking we have now got pure French blood coming into the mixing pot of genes, there is one little twist to the tale about the origins of the Normans..........






The name Normandy comes from the French normand, meaning Norsemen.

Although they were people who lived in Normandy in Northern France.....they were originally Vikings from Scandinavia.


So we're back to the bloody Vikings again.

We've possibly got Celtic, Pictish, Scottish, Roman, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Viking or French blood in our veins. Can I just say though, as someone from England, and knowing our colourful history with the French (Im a horse owner and some things such as eating them cant be forgiven hahaha), Im laying a disclaimer to say that regarding French blood, we only MIGHT have a TEENY WEENY and certainly INSIGNIFICANTLY small amount of it - IF ANY!!!!

In the next (and final) part of my very concise history of our origins, Im going to go through some pointers to help you decide who you think that YOU are.

So who exactly are we? part 3

Britain was settling into a nice (ish) peaceful (ish) time of farming and small village communities. The "new" religion of Christianity was prevalent in almost all of the country of England, Ireland and Scotland (although some small pockets of the old religion flourished in more rural and isolated parts).

Of course there were wars between different groups within the country, but on the whole, it wasnt too bad a place to be.

Until in the 8th Century, bands of fierce raiders began to attack our coasts. They were the Vikings (or Norsemen).



Sorry about this - but does anyone else instantly think of Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis whenever anyone says "The Vikings"? Plus Im now humming the theme tune trying to write this hahaha






They came across the North Sea, just as the Anglo-Saxons had done 400 years earlier. Vikings is a generic term we use for them, but they were from 3 separate Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Sweden and Norway.



"From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord."


The first place the Vikings attacked in Britain was the monastery at Lindisfarne, a holy island situated off the Northumberland coast in the north east of England. A few years later the island of Iona (off the west coast of Scotland), came under attack and its monks were slaughtered.

Soon no region of the British Isles was safe from the Vikings. They attacked villages and towns in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and England.

No matter how many times the Vikings were beaten, they always came back.


The last of the Picts appear to have vanished some time after the Viking invasions of Northern Scotland. Were they wiped out? Or did they just become swallowed up and inter-marry with the new rulers of their homelands? Possibly some clue can be gathered from the town names in places like Shetland and Orkney. They are mainly of Norse or possible even Celtic origin. There appear to be no remaining town or settlement names that sound remotely like anything else....which could indicate mass extermination of the race of Picts.


I only say this because if you look at places such as Australia, there are still many places with Aboriginal names because the Aboriginal people are still there. But in places like Tasmania, where the indiginous population was virtually wiped out, there are very very few.

Just a theory, but maybe the right one????

So a very few lucky people living today on these islands could have some trace of Pictish ancestry - but as we have no genetic markers to compare this against (at least not yet) I guess that whole point is just hyperthetical for the forseeable future.

There is no doubt that the Vikings slaughtered a whole lot of Anglo-Saxons, Celts, and the decendants of the Romans, but they didnt kill everybody.

Why not? Well there are indications that there was a pretty strong slave trade going on between Scandinavia and the British Isles. Very profitable! And also, how do new rulers build their empires and armies? On taxes and tithes - and you need people to work the land if you want to fill your coffers.


But they didnt defeat the entire country. Saxons still retained a strong hold in the south and so the country was divided into two.The area eventually settled by Vikings was called the Danelaw. It formed a boundary separating Anglo-Saxon England from Viking England and was defined in a treaty between the English King Alfred and Viking King Guthrum in 880 A.D. It lay north of Watling Street (a Roman road running from London north-west to Chester) and covered northern and eastern England. It included counties north of an imaginary line running from London to Bedford and then up to Chester.

We can tell where the Vikings settled by place names of towns and villages today. Some of the names of places in Britain are made up of Viking words.

Place names ending in –by eg. Derby, Rugby, Whitby, Selby, Grimsby
–by meant farm or homestead (village). These places mark the earliest Viking settlements.

Derby - A village where deer are found


Place names ending in –thorpe (or -thorp, -throp or –trop) eg. Scunthorpe and Grimethorpe-thorpe meant farms.

Place names ending in –toft or-tofts.
A -toft referred to the site of a house or a plot of land.


Some other lasting legacies of our Viking ancestors (or not if you still think you're not a mongrel at the moment)

The Vikings left their imprint on the island in many ways: in government, legal procedures, language, and even arithmetic.

They transmitted to the English with whom they dwelt, among other things, their duodecimal system (counting in twelves instead of tens); therefore, establishing to this day the marketing unit of a dozen, the measuring formula of 12 inches to a foot, the monetary equation of 12 pence to a shilling, and the legal entity of a jury of "12 good men and true".

Maybe they weren't THAT barbaric after all?

And another little snippet before I leave part 3........ Today all the multitudes of familiar English and American patronymic ending in son; such as Jackson, Robertson, Thompson, Stevenson, Johnson, etc. clearly manifest their Scandinavian origin.

But dont relax just yet, as I have more to add before we can try and figure out exactly WHO or rather WHAT we are !

So who exactly are we? part 2

Oh Im going to love confusing you all now.

Just to recap - we've briefly covered the Celts and the Picts.

The Picts lived in Pictland, and the Celts lived...well, everywhere else in the British Isles!



Until, of course, yet another race of people decided to visit mainland Britain...... THE SCOTS!

Who came from (drum roll) .............Northern Ireland.


There are a few different theories about the origins of the Scots (or Scoti/Scotti), but one thing everyone agrees on, is that from the Emerald Isle they came, and that they were a Celtic tribe.
It's thought that the name may mean something along the lines of 'raiders' or 'pirates'. In any event, people who would have been recognised as Scots may have been living in Argyll as early as c.300.

Other Celtic tribes or factions also moved across the sea from Ireland and settled in Wales.

Ok - so who came next in our chequered past?




Shall we try the Romans?





The Romans ruled Gaul (Gallia as they called it) although today we know it as France. In 55 B.C. the Roman General Julius Caesar led his army across the sea from Gaul to Britain. He wanted to make Britain part of Rome's empire.



The British Celts fought bravely, and Caesar soon gave up and went back to Gaul.




Next year, in 54 B.C. the Romans came back. This time Caesar brought 30,000 soldiers. He had a few fights, managed to capture a Celtic hill-fort, then he left again. He didn't think Britain was worth a long war, and he wanted to get back to Rome.

Nearly a hundred years later, 43 A.D., the Romans returned. Emperor Claudius sent an army to invade Britain. The army had four legions, and this time the Romans conquered the southern half of Britain, and made it part of the Roman Empire.

The Romans ruled over England for 400 years. But in 410 A.D., the Romans left England because their homes in Italy were being attacked by fierce tribes and every soldier was needed.


Which then left Britain virtually undefended and it became possible for the Angles, Saxons and Jutes from across the North Sea who had been raiding the coast of Britain for a hundred years, to increase their pressure. Instead of raiding and then withdrawing, by about 450 A.D they were beginning to settle here. The invasion consisted of a series of attacks on different parts of the country over a period of years and under a number of leaders.

The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes are known as the Anglo-Saxons. The Angles and the Saxon tribes were the largest of the three attacking tribes and so we often know them as Anglo-Saxons. They shared the same language but were each ruled by different strong warriors.

The Jutes settled mainly in Kent and referred to themselves as 'the Kentings', which means the men living in Kent.

The Angles settled in East Anglia.

The Saxons settled in areas of Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Middlesex (Middle Saxons), and Wessex (West Saxons).

So who do we have so far in our little cooking pot of genetic material?

Celts, Picts, Scots, Romans, Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

Confused yet? Well save your confusion for the time being as Ive got quite a bit more to add in part 3.