is one of the many proofs of an early infusion of the Scandinavian element in the immigration.[1]
The old provinces of what is now Sweden, which extended along the Baltic coast or lay near the entrance of that sea, were Vestergotland, Halland (opposite to the Danish Isles), Skane, Blekinge, Smaland, Ostergotland, Sodermanland, Upland (which contained the city of Upsala), Gestrikland, Helsingland, and Angermanland. Names of places derived from the names of some of these old provinces or tribal districts are certainly to be found in England. There is also the old boundary-name near Lake Wetter, formerly called the Wedermark. This was the country of some of the Eastern Goths called Wederas, and their name apparently survived in England in those of the Anglo-Saxon names Wederingsete,[2] in Suffolk, Vedringmuth in Sussex, and others. The settlement of people who took their name from the head of a family named after his tribe may perhaps be inferred from the ninth-century place-name Bleccingdenn[3] in Kent, which closely resembles that of the old province of Blekinge in part of Scandinavian Gothland.
Stephens draws attention to the name Salua in a Northern inscription, which word he interprets as of the Sals, or of the Salemen, a clan or tribe of Northern people.[4] As an instance of the connection of these people with England he refers to the district of the Sælings in Essex. The personal name Saleman is found in the Hundred Rolls, and may be traced from the Anglo-Saxon period downwards. The name reminds us of the Danish Isle of Sealand, and of a number of old Sele and Sale names in our own country, such as the Domesday name Salemanesberie or Salmonesberie. There was also in Gloucestershire a hundred at the time of the Domesday Survey named Salemannesberie-Hundred, apparently after the same place as that called
