Richard Rudgley traces the legacies of the Huns, Vandals and Goths, looking at both the migrant tribes, and the pre-existing tribes, to ask whether the "dark ages" represent a resurfacing of much older tribal lines.

It is the time when the Anglo-Saxons impose their culture and their authority on the Northern reaches of Europe. It is a time when we discover that the first Englishmen were, in fact, Germans.

The third assault on the tattered remains of Roman civilisation came from even further North, where the melting glacial ice had created immense sheltered fjords, leaving its inhabitants little choice but the sea.