extent the cotmanland followed the custom of Kent, and the farthingland the custom of a great part of Sussex.
History is silent concerning Norse colonies on our southern coasts, but the customs and old place-names which have been mentioned point to a considerable settlement of Scandinavians in Sussex, and Sweons or Swedes among them. That Swedes came among the Vikings, as already mentioned, is proved by the runic monuments of their country. In the district of Vaksala (parish of old Upsala) there is still existing an inscription to Sigvid, ‘the England sea-farer.’ In Vestermanland there is another ‘to a worthy young man, and he had gone to England.’ In Gestrikland, near Gefle, is another made by relatives to ‘their brother Bruse when he set out for England.’[1] Some of these and other inscriptions may be memorials of actual settlers in our country. There is additional evidence relating to Northmen. The Domesday names Totenore, Sidenore, Venningore or Waningore, Icenore, and the other early names Cymenore, Kynnore, and Cotenore, show by their terminations traces of Scandinavian people. Among other Danish or Scandinavian traces in the oldest place-names are those beginning with Sale, which may refer to settlers from Sealand. These are the Domesday places Salecome and Salhert, now Salehurst, and Salemanneburn,[2] a name for one of the old hundreds. The conditions under which settlements were formed in Sussex must have been peculiar to it from the first. With a great extent of coast, and the country nearest to it being for long distances sparsely supplied with wood, the early settlers must have depended for that commodity on the forest district further north, or on woods which became common to certain hundreds or groups of village settlements.
