Footnote 120: Cod. Dipl. No. 1135. Wylfinga ford. Footnote 121: Lines 916, 936. Footnote 122: Line 58. They are the Ylfingar of Norse tradition. Helg. Hund. l. 5. ----- These are unquestionably no trivial coincidences; they assure us that there lies at the root of our land-divisions an element of the highest antiquity; one too, by which our kinsmanship with the North-german races is placed beyond dispute. But their analogy leads us to a wider induction: when we examine the list of names contained in the Appendix, we see at once how very few of these are identified with the names recorded in Beówulf and other poems: all that are so recorded, had probably belonged to portions of the epic cycle; but there is nothing in the names themselves to distinguish them from the rest; nothing at least but the happy accident of those poems, which were dedicated to their praise, having survived. In the lapse of years, how many similar records may have perished! And may we not justly conclude that a far greater number of races might have been identified, had the Ages spared the songs in which they were sung? “Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi; sed omnes inlachrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia vate sacro!” Whatever periods we assume for the division of the land into Marks, or to what cause soever we attribute the names adopted by the several communities, the method and manner of their dispersion remains a question of some interest. The Appendix shows a most surprising distribution of some particular names over several counties[123]: but this seems conceivable only in two ways; first, that the inhabitants of a Mark, finding themselves pressed for room at home, migrated to other seats, and established a new community under the old designation; or, secondly, that in the division of the newly conquered soil, men who had belonged to one community upon the continent, found themselves thrown into a state of separation here, either by the caprice of the lots, supposing their immigration simultaneous, or by the natural course of events, supposing one body to have preceded the other. Perhaps too we must admit the possibility of a dispersion arising from the dissolution of ancient confederacies, produced by internal war. On the whole I am disposed to look upon the second hypothesis as applicable to the majority of cases; without presuming altogether to exclude the action of the first and third causes. It is no doubt difficult to imagine that a small troop of wandering strangers should be allowed to traverse a settled country in search of new habitations. Yet, at first, there must have been abundance of land, which conduct and courage might wring from its Keltic owners. Again, how natural on the other hand is it, that in the confusion of conquest, or the dilatory course of gradual occupation,