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the Gaill : Preface , edited by Todd. (Irish.) “Two distinct 
parties of Scandinavian invaders, the azure Gentiles (in old 
MSS. Lochlannos). The white, or fair-haired, Norwegian. 
The black, or dark-haired, the Danes. The two nations 
constantly fighting.” 
“ The Black Lochlanns and the White Lochlanns came to 
help Sitric.” — Gaedhill. 
Also, see The Brut y Twysogion, a.d. 795. — “ The battle 
between the black Gentiles and the fair Gentiles, and the 
black Gentiles driven out of Ireland.” 
“ The black Pagans first came to the island of Britain.” 
“ Tham of Norwei and the Danes Oste.” — Langtoft. 
“ The good Norays and the false Norays.” — Langtoft. 
“The Duke of Normandy belonged by blood and habits to 
the race which had produced Regnar Lodbrok, Hingwar, and 
Hubba ; Halfdene, Hastings, and Hollo.” — St. John’s Four 
Conquests. 
Now if this be history, and if the statements of most 
chroniclers, as well as the testimony of local nomenclature 
and the indubitable evidence of a Scandinavian tongue 
spoken in this land North of the Humber bears it out, we 
shall expect to find that Scandinavian customs, common to 
free men, are Northumbrian also. “ They had their house 
things, their court things, their general things, their thing 
men.” I am quoting from Laing’s Kings of Norway. 
“Sweden had its Lag thing, in each of its five different 
divisions, and at TJpsal, the chief thing, where its king must 
be elected. The Ore thing, at Nidaros, in Drontheim, could 
alone confer the sovereignty of Norway. Cnut must go to 
Drontheim and call a thing before he could become king; 
Magnus must go to Denmark and call a thing at Yiburg. 
“ The Danes elect their king at Yiburg, in South Jutland.” 
So, similarly, each separate district had its separate place of 
meeting, no doubt, in Northumbria also ; and one spot, 
