to the ethnological position of these same Nordalbingians as to leave
the question open.

The first fact that meets us is the existence of the Frisians of Holland
not only south of the Elbe but south of Weser.

East Friesland, as its name shews, is Frisian also; although, with a few
exceptional localities in the very fenny districts, the language has
been replaced by the German.

Notwithstanding, too, its sanctity in the eyes of the Angle worshipper
of the Goddess Hertha, Heligoland at the beginning of the Historical
period was not exactly Angle. It was what the opposite coast
was--Frisian. And Oldenburg was Frisian as well; indeed the whole area
occupied by the two great nations of antiquity--the Frisii and
Chauci--was neither Old-Saxon nor Angle-Saxon. It differed from each
rather more than they differed from each other, and, accordingly,
constituted a separate variety of the German tongue.

So that there were, and are, two Frisian areas, one extending no farther
north than the Elbe, and the other extending no farther south than the
Eyder.

And between these two lies that of the Nordalbingians. This alone is
_prima facie_ evidence of their being Frisian; for we should certainly
argue that if Norfolk and Essex were English, Suffolk was English also.
Of course, it might not be so: as intrusion and displacement might have
taken place; but intrusion and displacement are not to be too lightly
and gratuitously assumed. The Frisian of Oldenburg can be traced up to
the Elbe, and the Frisian of Sleswick can be followed down to the Eyder.

Eydersted, however, and Holstein are Low German. Were they always so? Of
Eydersted, Jacob Sax, himself a Low German of the district, writes, A.D.
1610, that "the inhabitants besides the Saxon, use their own
extraordinary natural speech, which is the same as the East and West
Frisian."

For Ditmarsh the evidence is inconclusive. But one or two names end in
-_um_.

As early as A.D. 1452 the following inscription which was found on a
font in Pelvorm was _un_-intelligible to the natives of Ditmarsh, who
carried it off--"disse hirren Doepe de have wi thoen ewigen Ohnthonken
mage lete, da schollen oesse Berrne in kressent warde"="this here dip
(font) we have let be made as an everlasting remembrance: there shall
our bairns be christened in it." Clemens translates this into the
present Frisian of Amrom, which runs thus--"thas hirr doep di ha wi tun
iwagen Unthonken mage leat, thiar skell