h; how the Danes tried to conquer the English in their turn, and
how great numbers of them settled down in the _Danelaw_, in the east
of England; how, later on, the Norman duke and his followers overcame
Harold, and became the rulers of England, and so on. But suppose we
knew nothing at all about British history, and had to guess what had
happened in the past, we might guess a great deal of British history
from the words used by English people to-day. For the English language
has itself been growing, and borrowing words from other languages all
through British history. Scholars who have studied many languages can
easily pick out these borrowed words and say from which language they
were taken.

Of course these scholars know a great deal about British history; but
let us imagine one who does not. He would notice in the English
language some words (though not many) which must have come from the
language which the Britons spoke. He would know, too, that the name
_Welsh_, which was given to the Britons who were driven into the
western parts of England, comes from an Old English word, _wealh_,
which meant "slave." He might then guess that, besides the Britons who
were driven away into the west of the country, there were others whom
the English conquered and made to work as slaves. From the name
_wealh_, or "slave," given to these, all the Britons who remained came
to be known as _Welsh_.

Yet though the English conquered the Britons, the two peoples could
not have mixed much or married very often with each other; for if they
had done so, many more British words would have been borrowed by the
English language. To the English the Britons were strangers and
"slaves."

We could, too, guess some of the things which these old English
conquerors of Britain did and believed from examining some common
English words. If we think of the days of the week besides _Sunday_,
or the "Sun's day," and _Monday_, the "Moon's day," we find _Tuesday_,
"Tew's day," _Wednesday_, "Woden's day," _Thursday_, "Thor's day,"
_Friday_, "Freya's day," _Saturday_, "Saturn's day," and it would not
be hard to guess that most of the days are called after gods or
goddesses whom the English worshipped while they were still heathen,
Tew was in the old English religion the bravest of all the gods, for
he gave up his own arm to save the other gods. Woden, the wisest of
the gods, had given up not an arm but an eye, which he had sold for
the waters of wisdom. Th