This description, however, will not strictly apply to numerous or extensive cases of settlement, although some analogy may be found, if we substitute a tribe for the family. Continental Germany has no tradition of such a process; and we may not unjustly believe the records of such in Scandinavia to have arisen from the wanderings of unquiet spirits, impatient of control or rivalry, of criminals shrinking from the consequences of their guilt, or of descendants dreading the blood-feud inherited from ruder progenitors. But although systematic and religious colonization, like that of Greece, cannot be assumed to have prevailed, we may safely assert that it was carried on far more regularly, and upon more strict principles than are compatible with capricious and individual settlement[125]. Tradition here and there throws light upon the causes by which bodies of men were impelled to leave their ancient habitations, and seek new seats in more fruitful or peaceful districts. The emigration represented by Hengest has been attributed to a famine at home, and even the grave authority of history has countenanced the belief that his keels were driven into exile: thus far we may assume his adventure to have been made with the participation, if not by the authority, of the parent state. ----- Footnote 125: The solemn apportionment of lands and dwellings is nowhere more obvious, or described in more instructive detail, than in Denmark. Norway and the Swedish borderlands may have offered more numerous instances of solitary settling. The manner of distributing the village land is called Sólskipt or Sólskipti: the provisions of this law are given by Grimm, Rechtsalt. p. 539. There is an interesting account of the formalities used upon the first colonization of Iceland, in Geijer, Hist. of Sweden, i. 159. (German translation of 1826.) -----