Scandinavian-Britain

MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 15the islands as depots and arsenals ;thence pushingon to Ireland or rounding the Cornish peninsula, tomake the British Channel or the South Welsh havens ;or weathering the rocky Breton headlands and trendingsouthwards along the Frankish, Gascon, Spanish,and Moorish shores.The fleets that took this route were mainly Danesand Gotas, and their leaders of Danish blood, andthey followed the path by which their predecessors,the Saxons, Angles, and Eotes, had come three centuriesearlier, only going further because they did notfind such an easy prey.The second stream of migration, that followed bythe Northmen^ was a new one. Its fountain head isthe deep firths of the west coast of Norway, whenceit crosses to the Isles of the Caledonians and Picts(Shetland, Orkney, and Pentland coasts), whence itturns south to Fife, and as far as the Northumbrianand Lincoln lands jor curving round through theHebrides into the Sea of Man, touches that islandand all the fair coasts, Pictish, Irish, and British, thatlie about it ;thence south, lapping the west and southof Ireland.From the Northmen's settlements in our own islandsthere later went forth on new ventures, to unpeopledand dimly known lands, many venturous souls, overthe Haaf (the Atlantic) by way of the Sheep Islands(Faroes) to Iceland, setting up prosperous colonieswhere the feet of no man, save the Irish hermit, hadever trod. Whence, again, bolder stillspirits bravedthe Arctic Sea, and established two settlements on the