Are their villages of perhaps Frisian origin in Sweden?

[The Black Prince]

Recently I read an article in our regional newspaper about a Saami woman who grew up in a swedish village with the suffix of -um. Later she married with a Frisian and moved to the Netherlands. Here she saw that some of the Old and Medieval Frisian placenames shared a similarity with the Swedish place she grew up. In Friesland and Groningen a lot of the placenames ended with the -um suffix (f.i. Lutjelollum, Jelsum, Workum, etc.).

Anyways, she contacted a historian who said that there are villages in Sweden who have a Frisian origin. Sadly enough, because the article was more about the work she did for some kind of institution, it did not delve further in the subject.

My question does anyone of you know more about it? thanks in advance for the effort.:)

[Anthropos]

Why do you assume 'Frisian origin' and not mere linguistic affinity or Scandinavian origin?

[Brännvin]

The Frisians suffered several Viking raids, were not they?

[The Black Prince]

Why do you assume 'Frisian origin' and not mere linguistic affinity or Scandinavian origin?
Actually I don't assume it, a Swedish origin could also very well be. Anyway therefore I put up this thread, perhaps one of you knows more about it.

And the reason why I mentioned the Frisian connection is because it came forward in the article.;) The -um suffix is not that common from what I understand, except in the Northern Netherlands. Usually a local chieftan gave his name or the name of his gentes to a village/hamlet followed by the -um suffix. So a place like Jellum is the place of 'Jelle' and Aalsum/Aelsum the place of Aelle or Aalle, Anjum of 'Anjo', etc..


The Frisians suffered several Viking raids, were not they?Yup, and vica versa. Although it were mainly quarells with Danes, not so much with people from Svealand or Goetaland. Actually it would be a thread on its own to discuss that.:)

[Osweo]

Are we not just looking here at the dative plural? This is common in England, from both Old English and later Scandinavian names.

Examples: OE; Newsham < (aet the) niew husum = 'at the new houses'.
Lytham < hlithum = 'at the slopes'
Possibly ON: Malham < at the stony bits of ground.
Gaelicised ON: Arkholme < Ergum = at the 'ergs' (hillside dairy pastures, from Irish 'airge')

This will obviously be found in Scandinavia and Friesland, too, their being the next closest languages to the ones relevant for English toponymy. :)

[The Black Prince]

Are we not just looking here at the dative plural? This is common in England, from both Old English and later Scandinavian names.

Examples: OE; Newsham < (aet the) niew husum = 'at the new houses'.
Lytham < hlithum = 'at the slopes'
Possibly ON: Malham < at the stony bits of ground.
Gaelicised ON: Arkholme < Ergum = at the 'ergs' (hillside dairy pastures, from Irish 'airge')

This will obviously be found in Scandinavia and Friesland, too, their being the next closest languages to the ones relevant for English toponymy. :)
True, this is what I meant with place of 'chief/owner' or his gentes. The Frisian -um suffix is based upon the word hiem (for the Dutch members it is pronounced 'hium' or 'hiim' not 'hiem'). Meaning so much as: one's home, courtyard, farmstead/farmyard/stockyard/cattleyard, (own) terrain. Dutch parallels are the words erf and the older word heem.

I think the closest Norse word Heimr is?
Nevertheless I can understand that in case of Frisian hiem (phonetic spelling hium) it changes in 'um'. But for Heimr or Heim I would more suspect -imr or -eim or -im and not as soon -um, though it a possible derriviation.;)

[Anthropos]

True, this is what I meant with place of 'chief/owner' or his gentes. The Frisian -um suffix is based upon the word hiem (for the Dutch members it is pronounced 'hium' or 'hiim' not 'hiem'). Meaning so much as: one's home, courtyard, farmstead/farmyard/stockyard/cattleyard, (own) terrain. Dutch parallels are the words erf and the older word heem.

I think the closest Norse word Heimr is?
Nevertheless I can understand that in case of Frisian hiem (phonetic spelling hium) it changes in 'um'. But for Heimr or Heim I would more suspect -imr or -eim or -im and not as soon -um, though it a possible derriviation.;)

Place names with endings -hem, -um, -ljum and so on are common in Sweden. Längljum, Länghem, Berghem, Varnhem, Varnum, Gerum, Lerum, Bjurum and Tanum are examples from Western Sweden.

[Osweo]

Um... (:p) Just to clarify, the examples I quoted are NOTHING to do with -ham, -heim, etc. They are an example of a grammatical case ending.

I just looked in Ekwall's Dictionary:
There are at least ten places called Newsham or Newsholme in England, but they have nothing to do with Ham or Holmr.
It's rather a development of aet neowan husum.

THere's also THyrnum, the dative plural of THyrne, meaning 'at the thorn bushes', now written Thurnham.

Some of Anthropos's examples from Sweden look like dative plurals to me, especially given that others have retained a H, and my book mentions the lake Mjalen as a Swedish example.

For a further elucidation, I can say that Slavonic languages have the same dative ending. To help people is 'pomoch' lyudyam' (nominative 'lyudi').

[Brännvin]

Not about the topic but quite interesting;

The Frisian colony of Akraberg in Faroe Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akraberg#History)

A Frisian colony was there from the year 1040 until The Black Death killed all of them in 1350. The Frisians remained heathen a long time after the rest of the Faroe Islands were Christianised. It is said that they partly lived by piracy and they are mentioned in several Faeroese legends.

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Someone has more information about it, I found it by "accident" :)

[Brännvin]

Well, The Black Prince.

Frisian merchants were possibly active in Sigtuna (an old Swedish medieval town) during the medieval ages;
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Var gillet svenskt eller frisiskt?

Namnet Frisernas gille har tolkats på två sätt. En del menar att det är frisiska köpmän i Sigtuna, som slagit sig samman till en förening. Andra menar att det är inhemska köpmän som i denna form samarbetar kring handeln med Frisland.
​
Enligt Sigtuna kommuns hemsida är Albod är ett frisiskt namn medan Torkel och Slode är svenska. Med tanke på detta verkar det alltså finns en tredje möjlighet, nämligen att både inhemska och utländska köpmän gått samman i en förening för att främja sina intressen i handeln mellan Sigtuna och Frisland.

Here (http://www.voluntarius.com/Svensk_foreningshistoria.htm)

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Ett par runstenar omtalar frisiska köpmän som varit verksamma i Sigtuna. Enligt sägnerna har Sigtuna sitt namn efter Oden, Sigge Fridulfsson, som anses ha grundlagt staden.

Sigtuna (http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigtuna#Historia)

[The Black Prince]

Not about the topic but quite interesting;

The Frisian colony of Akraberg in Faroe Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akraberg#History)

A Frisian colony was there from the year 1040 until The Black Death killed all of them in 1350. The Frisians remained heathen a long time after the rest of the Faroe Islands were Christianised. It is said that they partly lived by piracy and they are mentioned in several Faeroese legends.

--

Someone has more information about it, I found it by "accident" :)
Thank you Bränvinn!

I don't have much time at the moment. But I know of an old Frisian legend that I once read in a book called 'Friesche Sagen' written by Theunis Uilke (Theun) de Vries in 1925.

I will come back on it tomorrow (the soonest).:)


Frisian merchants were possibly active in Sigtuna (an old Swedish medieval town) during the medieval ages;
Same here, I did some background research one myself and I will report on it tomorrow (the soonest).;)
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[The Black Prince]

Frisian merchants were possibly active in Sigtuna (an old Swedish medieval town) during the medieval ages
Concerning the Medieval intercontinental trade, this was mainly Frisian before the Norse invented an oceanworthy seavessel. Before the oceanworthy Drakkar and its derivative trade ships all trade between the Scandinavian peninsula and the British Isles was via Frisia. Because ships didn't had the ability to make the cross from the Scandinavian peninsulae directly to the British Isles, or to sail around the British Isles over the Atlantic to go to Iberia or Frankia.

However even during the 'Viking Age' Frisian trade apparentely just continued. Soon I will post a thread about the North Sea trade, It will deal mainly with the Dark Ages and the Hanseatic trade.
Anyway towns as Birka, Hedeby, Dorestad, Hëlgo, Hamwih, Saint Denis, Quentovik, etc. all participated in this trade culture, they had during the Dark Ages a similar funtion as todays Rotterdam Port, Bremer Haven, Gothenburg Port, etc.
Next to these Emporiae basically every village or town along a river or coastline participated in region trade across water. Consider f.i. linguistically 'to fare' (derrived from Old English: Faran) means to travel/journey (think about words as seafare, far away, farewell), in Dutch and Frisian resp. 'ik faar' and 'ik far' explicitly mean 'I travel/transport by boat'.
I don't know if similar construction exist in Scandinavian languages?

However I'm not so much looking for settlements of a perhaps Frisian origin in Sweden for this period. The ethnic origin of places in this period is way to uncertain to state anything about it with good confidence (hence Dark Ages). I'm more looking for settlements from the Hanseatic period, Frisian Kogs sailed in this period across the Baltic and participated here in the grain trade. Besides the Frisian traders, Frisian kolonists (not meaning from the current province only, but a larger region) were wanted in peatlands across Northern- and Eastern Europe because they had the technological 'knowhow' to drain and build dykes to culturize marshes and floodplains for agricultural use.

Of course I would be also interested in later posibilities of settling, but for as far as I know the main immigrant groups in Sweden from the 16th century till Modern times are Finns, Walloons and Germans not the Dutch (Flemish, Frisians, Hollandics) in particular. Frisian trade in this period was mainly confined within the Dutch Navy, Trading companies and the Dutch Whaling companies (f.e. Spitsbergen: the town of Smeerenburg).

[Thulsa Doom]

......

However even during the 'Viking Age' Frisian trade apparentely just continued. Soon I will post a thread about the North Sea trade, It will deal mainly with the Dark Ages and the Hanseatic trade.
Anyway towns as Birka, Hedeby, Dorestad, Hëlgo, Hamwih, Saint Denis, Quentovik, etc. all participated in this trade culture, they had during the Dark Ages a similar funtion as todays Rotterdam Port, Bremer Haven, Gothenburg Port, etc.
Next to these Emporiae basically every village or town along a river or coastline participated in region trade across water. Consider f.i. linguistically 'to fare' (derrived from Old English: Faran) means to travel/journey (think about words as seafare, far away, farewell), in Dutch and Frisian resp. 'ik faar' and 'ik far' explicitly mean 'I travel/transport by boat'.
I don't know if similar construction exist in Scandinavian languages?
.........

Well this reminds me about a theory I read somewhere. It claimed that Birka was a word of Frisian origin and that Birka in Lake Mälaren was just one of several such trading posts named Birka around the Baltic Sea. And there was more then one Birka (e g Pirkala in todays Finland) this is actually one often used fact among history revisionists in Sweden. They use this to cast doubt about the location of the central power in iron age Sweden. Normally Birka is derived from the name on the island Björkö = Birch Island or from the old gemanic word for trade birk.

Farewell = farväl, to travel = fara, resa in Swedish.

[The Black Prince]

Well this reminds me about a theory I read somewhere. It claimed that Birka was a word of Frisian origin and that Birka in Lake Mälaren was just one of several such trading posts named Birka around the Baltic Sea. And there was more then one Birka (e g Pirkala in todays Finland) this is actually one often used fact among history revisionists in Sweden. They use this to cast doubt about the location of the central power in iron age Sweden. Normally Birka is derived from the name on the island Björkö = Birch Island or from the old gemanic word for trade birk.

Thanks :)
This is what I mean with the obscure origin during the Dark ages of villages and towns. I know about Birka, Some Swedish academics have proposed a Frisian origin because of the finds of similar pottery in the lowest groundlayers and the finds of coins with similar depictions on it in ground layers.

But as I said before, it is hard to define the date of the founding of settlements, let alone a possibly ethnic origin. Pottery shards are usually a mess of different types and of ambiguos identity.

Coins are better, coinage in those days was of no value except for the silver or goldweight. Therefore coins were usually smelted to make silver/gold bars and jewelry, or smelted at the local mint to produce a rex/dux his own coinage. If you find coins of a far awy specific region or domain it can very well be that people from that region/domain have visited the place you find the coins and not other traders cause they would have smelted it to their own local type of coinage or to bars (silver/gold bars are the easiest to carry).

Linguistically determining the origin is another way, but languages as Old Swedish, Old Danish, Old English, Old Frisian were still so close together that they shared many similar words and expressions. However between languages of a different family it is a good way (Slavic vs Germanic f.i.).