to find survivals distinctive of the earlier tribal settlers in the northern counties apart from those of the later Scandinavian colonists who had so much in common with them in ethnological characteristics, customs, and even in language. The Old English people of the northern counties had, at the close of the Saxon period, well-marked characters, closely approaching to the Scandinavian, owing to the large immigration from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and probably also from the other Baltic coasts, which differentiated them from the people of the southern and midland counties. There is little historical evidence concerning these counties to assist us in an inquiry into the successive immigrations, except the facts that Anglians and their allies came first, and that they were followed by a larger immigration of Scandinavians and their allies.
In the evidence which the survival of old customs of inheritance or traces of them may supply, the existence of an early system of primogeniture is perhaps the most important. The custom of the eldest son having some preference or birthright existed in the North of England in the time of Bede, and is mentioned by him.[1] As already stated, it exists still in Norway, where it has come down in its essential features from a remote antiquity. Two ancient laws relating to the succession of land exist in that country, so old that their origin is lost. These are the asædesret, or homestead right, and the odalsret, or allodial right. The asædesret is the right of the eldest son to inherit the farm after his father, he, however, being obliged to pay the other heirs their share of the estate, the value of which is given by the father, or else it is estimated below its valuation. If the father has left no son, his eldest daughter inherits.[2] Odalsret, as previously mentioned, is the right when a farm has to be sold of any member of the family to buy it, or if sold to
