... their trade, wealth, and population, and many of them ceased altogetherfor a time to exist. Britain was rapidly sinking again into a land of barbarism.*4. Early Saxon England.* An increasing ... Danes or Northmen, the barbarousand heathen inhabitants of the islands and coast-lands of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, began to make rapidforays into the districts of England which lay near ... tradesmen andmerchants. The Scandinavian countries had developed an early and active trade with the other lands borderingon the Baltic and North seas, and England under Danish influence was...