“Öngulsey (Angelsey) is one third of Bretland (Wales)” (Magnus Barefoot’s Saga, c. 11).
Another part of the country was called Nordimbraland.
It is an important fact that throughout the Saga literature describing the expeditions of the Northmen to England not a single instance is mentioned of their coming in contact with a people called Saxons, which shows that such a name in Britain was unknown to the people of the North. Nor is any part of England called Saxland.
To make the confusion greater than it is, some modern historians make the so-called Saxons, who were supposed to have come over with the mythical Hengist and others, a distinct race from the Northmen, who afterwards continued to land in the country.
In the Sagas we constantly find that the people of England are not only included among the Northern lands, but that the warriors of one country are helping the other. In several places we find, and from others we infer, that the language in both countries was very similar.
“All sayings in the Northern (norræn) tongue in which there is truth begin when the Tyrkir and the Asia-men settled in the North. For it is truly told that the tongue which we call Norræn came with them to the North, and it went through Saxland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and part of England” (Rimbegla, iii. c. i.).
“We are of one tongue, though one of the two, or in some respects both, are now much changed” (Prose Edda, ii.)
“Then ruled over England King Ethelred, son of Edgar (979). He was a good chief; he sat this winter in London. The tongue in England, as well as in Norway and Denmark, was then one, but it changed in England when William the Bastard won England. Thenceforth the tongue of Valland (France) was used in England, for he (William) was born there” (Gunnlaug Ormstunga’s Saga, c. 7).
That the language of the North should have taken a footing in a great part of England is due, no doubt, to the continuous flow of immigration, from the northern mother country, which entirely swamped the former native or British element.
The story given in the English or Irish chronicles of the appearance of the Danes, in A.D. 785, when their name is first mentioned, is as little trustworthy as that of the settlement of England, and bears the appearance of contradiction and confusion in regard to names of people and facts.