The Danes and Norwegians in North England settled their disputes and arranged their public affairs at the _Things_, according to Scandinavian custom. The present village of Thingwall (or the _Thing-fields_), in Cheshire, was a place of meeting for the _Thing_; and not only bore the same name as the old chief _Thing_ place in Iceland, but also as the old Scandinavian _Thing_ places, “Dingwall,” in the north of Scotland; “Tingwall,” in the Shetland Isles; and “Tynewald,” or “Tingwall,” in the Isle of Man. There were incontestably in the Danish parts of England certain larger or common Thing-meetings for the several districts, which were superior to the _Things_ of separate ones; and it may even be a question whether traces of them are not to be found in the division into _Ridings_, at present used only in Yorkshire, but which formerly prevailed also in Lincolnshire. Originally these divisions had not the name of _reding_ or _riding_, which they did not obtain till later, and undoubtedly through a misconception. Yorkshire is at the present time divided into the North, East, and West Ridings; and, according to Domesday-Book, Lincolnshire also was (about the year 1080) divided into Nort-treding, Westreding, and Sudtreding; consequently, like Yorkshire, into three parts. These divisions were called by the Anglo-Saxons “Þriding,” or “Thriting.” Now, as they were foreign to the Anglo-Saxons, whose historians did not even know how to explain their origin, and as they also appear exclusively in the two most Danish districts in England, it is surely not unreasonable to seek their origin in Scandinavian institutions, in which a simple and natural explanation of them may certainly be found. In Scandinavia, and particularly in the south of Norway, provinces or Fylker (petty kingdoms), were not only divided into halves (hálfur) and fourths (fjórðjungar), but also into thirds, or _Tredinger_ (Þriðjungar), which completely answer to the North-English “thrithing.” It was, moreover, precisely to the _Tredings-things_ that all disputed causes were referred from the smaller district _Things_.