[Sidenote: Why do we have counties?] If we ask why this is so, some people will tell us that it is convenient, for purposes of administration, to have a state, or a kingdom, divided into areas that are larger than single towns. There is much truth in this. It is convenient. If it were not so, counties would not have survived, so as to make a part of our modern maps. Nevertheless, this is not the historic reason why we have the particular kind of subdivisions known as counties. We have them because our fathers and grandfathers had them; and thus, if we would find out the true reason, we may as well go back to the ancient times when our forefathers were establishing themselves in England. [Sidenote: Clans and tribes.] We have seen how the clan of our barbarous ancestors, when it became stationary, was established as the town or township. But in those early times _clans_ were generally united more or less closely into _tribes_. Among all primitive or barbarous races of men, so far as we can make out, society is organized in tribes, and each tribe is made up of a number of clans or family groups. Now when our English forefathers conquered Britain they settled there as clans and also as tribes. The clans became townships, and the tribes became shires or counties; that is to say, the names were applied first to the people and afterwards to the land they occupied. A few of the oldest county names in England still show this plainly. _Essex_, _Middlesex_, and _Sussex_ were originally "East Saxons," "Middle Saxons," and "South Saxons;" and on the eastern coast two tribes of Angles were distinguished as "North folk" and "South folk," or _Norfolk_ and _Suffolk_. When you look on the map and see the town of _Icklinghiam_ in the county of _Suffolk_, it means that this place was once known as the "home" of the "Icklings" or "children of Ickel," a clan which formed part of the tribe of "South folk."