The first foundations of history are very often mere traditions, which are transmitted from parents to their children, from one generation to another. Probable only in their origin, they become less probable in every succeeding age. In process of time fable gains and truth loses ground. Hence it is almost impossible to ascertain the origin of any place claiming a high antiquity. The early writers could not divest their minds of the fascinating fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In former times, when the power of imagination prevailed, the distinction between legend and history was scarcely recognised. For centuries there are not even legendary accounts of East Anglia or of its capital. But instead of legends, there are permanent memorials of the past; great earthworks, fortifications, camps, strongholds, buildings, churches, ruins of monasteries and abbeys. The soil has yielded up relics of the dead—weapons, utensils, coins, ornaments, and sepulchral urns, showing the presence of the Iceni, the Romans, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans, at different periods. All these energetic nations were concerned in events that took place in Norfolk and Norwich. The Iceni appear to have been politically independent up to the period of the Roman invasion, B.C. 55. Their alarm in consequence of that invasion led them to negociate an alliance, but we have no reason to suppose that it was ever carried into effect. They took the lead in a rebellion which the Roman General Ostorius was barely able to quell; and Roman historians bear testimony to the valour with which they struggled to maintain their liberty. The superior discipline of the Roman soldiers enabled them, however, to triumph over a semi-barbarous people, unprotected by body armour and unused to military tactics; but it was no easy victory. For about 600 years after the defeat of the Iceni, no reliable information respecting that people is to be found in any history. Indeed they disappear from history altogether, and we can only infer what advances they made in civilization from the scattered remains that have been found in the eastern counties. These remains prove that the Iceni were not semi-savages, but that they had made some progress in useful arts, that they built houses, and wore woven garments. There are no remains in the eastern counties of cairns, cromlechs, Druidical circles, or other memorials of ancient perseverance and mechanical skill, nature having interposed an absolute veto. But there are remains of earth works and tumuli, burrows or artificial mounds in which were deposited the urns or ashes of the dead. There are thousands of pits in many places, and these are supposed to have been the foundations of Icenian houses. Remarkable excavations are thickly clustered all over Weybourne Heath, varying from 8 to 20 feet in diameter, and from 2 to 6 feet in depth.