| A recent correspondence to my brotherDear Brother Regarding the family Norse origins suggested by your recent Y chromosome test. I just thought I would muddy the waters even more, as is my wont. Lovegrove is a Saxon surname, always passed down the male side, the Saxons not being a bunch of girlies and driven more by testosterone than tender sentiments; and yet the Y Chromosome is said to indicate Norse ancestry. A question arises: How did a Norse line get a Saxon surname? Of course, assuming that during the year before your birth, the family milkman was not Norwegian. Note: Our Lovegrove/Ludgrove line was in Berkshire at least from the mid 18th century and so probably there for centuries. Lovegrove has been said to be a « peculiar name » that is, peculiar to a county, in this case, Oxfordshire, just across the river (in old Danelaw) from Berkshire. The upper Thames valley was once the frontier between Danelaw and Wessex. Which entails what? A large neighbouring Anglicised community of Norse (not necessarily Danish) descent. Possibilities: a) Adoption * Lovegrove and related names may still have arisen from the Saxon personal name Leofgar [Beloved Spear] but was adopted when Danelaw had long been Anglicised, adopting the English language. * Other possibilities, such as the corruption of Loup (wolf) cannot be dismissed, seeing as French was introduced into Britain by the Norse Normans. * The later Normans were not averse to adopting warlike Saxon names, so why not their ethnic and cultural ancestor Danes also doing the same thing only a few hundred years previously? b) Local Migration * Norse genes in people who were by now in all other ways English, crossed the river in a local migration. Very common, although migration further a field was rare. Those Saxon Berkshire chicks were hot! * The name « Lovegrove » originated in Berkshire. In which case, said Danish gene migration occurred before the necessity of surnames became paramount for the Poll Taxes of the 14th century. * The name « Lovegrove » originated in Oxfordshire amongst the old Danes and carried to Berkshire by a permanent migrant. In which case, said gene migration occurred after the necessity of surnames became paramount for the Poll Taxes of the 14th century. c) Similar gene pool *There is great ethnic and cultural similarity between the trans-Alpine Germanic and Norse peoples, particularly amongst coastal tribes who traded and fought throughout the continental North Sea basin from earliest historic times. The Romans in Britain defended the « Saxon Coast » against continental sea-raiders and it is reasonable to believe that those raiders were in longboats, that is, of similar cultural origins as the later Norse raiders. So, the North Sea tribes intermingled, eg, the main continental invaders of Britain consisted of related tribes from both Norse and Germanic regions as follows (commencing from the most northerly tribe): * The Jutes (from Jutland, ie, the Danish peninsula) bordered by: * The Angles (from Anglen, in Danish/German Schlelswig-Holstein) bordered by: * The coastal Saxons, bordered by: * The Frisians ( from Frisia which stretches from Holland, through Saxony to Denmark). Frisian is the nearest living language to English. * The later Normans, although adoptive of the French language and culture were clearly of Norse descent and as said, were not averse to adopting warlike Saxon names. So, Our Norse warrior ancestor, possibly named, Leof-Gar (Beloved Spear - or - He who Continually Caresses His Enormous Pointy Weapon) landed on these fog-shrouded islands full of treasured-laden monasteries guarded by sword-less prayer-men, after an arduous self-propelled ferry trip accompanied by similar sea-going herrenvolk ruffians, looking for plunder and honour and an occasional slap and tickle. He landed some time between the departure of the Caesars and the arrival of William the Bastard, a time period of some six hundred years; and originated from somewhere between the Artic circle and Amsterdam. All that could be said of him is that he was of a cultural level equal to Cetawayo the Zulu or Magua the Huron, blond or carrot-topped, tall, very violent, habitually drunk and had a peculiar tang to him that comes from a mixture of sea spray on fur, dried sweat and blood after his preferred hobbies, war paint, garlic used as toothpaste, native mead mingled with monk’s wine and dribble, bits of old roasted ox trapped in his wolf skins, rancid dripping on his pigtails and knotted beribboned facial hair, singed fur from sitting too close to the spit, and not changing one’s undergarments from one Yuletide to the next. Of course, this was before cricket made a gentleman of him, the main consequence of which was to change him from a Viking raiding Saxons to a privateer raiding the Spanish, without having the least effect on his usage of undergarments, but I digress as is my wont. Are things any clearer now? |
