20 . SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN BY NORTHMEN. 



Another part of the country was called Nordimbraland. 



It is an important fact that throughout the Saga literature 

 describing the expeditions of the Northmen to England not a 

 single instance is mentioned of their coming in contact with a 

 people called Saxons, which shows that such a name in Britain 

 was unknown to the people of the North. Nor is any part of 

 England called Saxland. 



To make the confusion greater than it is, some modern 

 historians make the so-called Saxons, who were supposed -to 

 have come over with the mythical Hengist and others, a 

 distinct race from the Northmen, who afterwards continued to 

 land in the country. 



In the Sagas we constantly find that the people of England 

 are not only included among the Northern lands, but that the 

 warriors of one country are helping the other. In several 

 places we find, and from others we infer, that the language in 

 both countries was very similar. 



" All sayings in the Northern (norraen) tongue in which there 

 is truth begin when the Tyrkir and the Asia-men settled in 

 the North. For it is truly told that the tongue which we call 

 Norrsen came with them to the North, and it went through 

 Saxland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and part of England " 

 (Rimbegla, iii. c. i.). 



" We are of one tongue, though one of the two, or in some 

 respects both, are now much changed " (Prose Edda, ii.) 



"Then ruled over England King Ethelred, son of Edgar 

 (979). He was a good chief; he sat this winter in London. 

 The tongue in England, as well as in Norway and Denmark, 

 was then one, but it changed in England when William the 

 Bastard won England. Thenceforth the tongue of Valland 

 (France) was used in England, for he (William) was born 

 there " (Gunnlaug Ormstunga's Saga, c. 7). 



That the language of the North should have taken a footing 

 in a great part of England is due, no doubt, to the continuous 

 flow of immigration, from the northern mother country, which 

 entirely swamped the former native or British element. 



The story given in the English or Irish chronicles of the 

 appearance of the Danes, in A.D. 785, when their name is first 

 mentioned, is as little trustworthy as that of the settlement of 



