been attributed to them. Stephens assigns them a very large share indeed, and his great work on the ‘Old Northern Runic Monuments’ attests his vast research. He says: ‘Anglic Britain was chiefly planted by Northmen in the second and following centuries, and was half replanted by them in the ninth and tenth.’^[1] Whatever may have been the date of their earliest settlements, Northmen were certainly among both the earlier and later ancestors of the Old English.