. To the
English of Northumbria, the Saxons of Wessex were almost foreigners.
Even at the present day, when the existence of a recognised literary
dialect has done so much to obliterate provincial varieties of speech in
England, a Dorsetshire peasant, speaking in a slightly altered form the
classical West Saxon of AElfred, has great difficulty in understanding a
Yorkshire peasant, speaking in a slightly altered form the classical
Northumbrian of Baeda. But in the ninth century the differences between
the two dialects were probably far greater. On the other hand, though
Danish and Anglian have widely separated at the present day, and were
widely distinct even in the days of Cnut, it is probable that at this
earlier period they were still, to some extent, mutually comprehensible.
Thus, the heathen Scandinavian may have seemed to the Northumbrian and
the East Anglian almost like a fellow-countryman, while the West Saxon
seemed in part like an enemy and an intruder. At any rate, the
similarity of blood and language enabled the two races rapidly to
coalesce; and when the cloud rises again from the North half a century
later, the distinction of Dane and Englishman has almost ceased in the
conquered provinces. It is worthy of note in this connection that the
part of Mercia afterwards given over by AElfred to Guthrum, was the
Anglian half, while the part retained by Wessex was mostly the Saxon
half--the land conquered by Penda from the West Saxons two hundred years
before.

Nor must we suppose that this first wave of Scandinavian conquest in any
way swamped or destroyed the underlying English population of the North.
The conquerors came merely as a "host," or army of occupation, not as a
body of rural colonists. They left the conquered English in possession
of their homes, though they seized upon the manors for themselves, and
kept the higher dignities of the vanquished provinces in their own
hands. Being rapidly converted to Christianity, they amalgamated readily
with the native people. Few women came over with them, and intermarriage
with the English soon broke down the wall of separation. The
archbishopric of York continued its succession uninterruptedly
throughout the Danish occupation. The Bishops of Elmham lived through
the stormy period; those of Leicester transferred their see to
Dorchester-on-the-Thames; those of Lichfield apparently kept up an
unbroken series. We may gather that beneath the surface the North
remained