Gretti went to a farm in Iceland to slay the Bondi Thorbjorn and his son Arnor. We read— “When Gretti saw that the young man was within reach he lifted his _sax_ high into the air, and struck Arnor’s head with _its back_, so that his head was broken and he died. Thereupon he killed the father with his _sax_.” Whatever may be the origin of local names employed by the Roman writers we must look to the North for the maritime tribes described by them; there we shall find the home of the earlier English people, to whose numerous warlike and ocean-loving instincts we owe the transformation which took place in Britain, and the glorious inheritance which they have left to their descendants, scattered over many parts of the world, in whom we recognise to this day many of the very same traits of character which their ancestors possessed. CHAPTER III. THE SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN BY NORTHMEN. The Notitia—Probable origin of the name England—Jutland—The language of the North and of England—Early Northern kings in England—Danes and Sueones—Mythical accounts of the settlements of England. Britain being an island could only be settled or conquered by seafaring tribes, just in the same way as to-day distant lands can only be conquered by nations possessing ships. From the Roman writers we have the only knowledge we possess in regard to the tribes inhabiting the country to which they gave the vague name of Germania. From the Roman records we find that these tribes were not civilised and that they were not a seafaring people. Unfortunately the Roman accounts we have of their conquest and occupation of Britain, of its population and inhabitants, are very meagre and unsatisfactory, and do not help us much to ascertain how the settlement in Britain by the people of the North began. Our lack of information is most probably due to the simple reason that the settlement, like all settlements of a new country, was a very gradual one, a few men coming over in the first instance for the purpose of trade either with Britons or Romans, or coming from the over-populated North to settle in a country which the paucity of archæological remains shows to have been thinly occupied. The Romans made no objection to these new settlers, who did not prove dangerous to their power on the island, but brought them commodities, such as furs, &c., from the North. We find from the Roman records that the so-called Saxons had founded colonies or had settlements in Belgium and Gaul. Another important fact we know from the records relating to Britain is that during the Roman occupation of the island the Saxons had settlements in the country; but how they came hither we are not told.