CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ENGLISH COLLECTION 
 
 a.a»3i35 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES MORGAN HART 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGUSH 
 
 ski If 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arW8849 
 
 Origins of English Jj'stpi 
 
 }ngi 
 
 i 
 
 3 1924 031 415 866 
 olin.anx 
 
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 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031415866 
 
ORIGINS 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
ORIGINS 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES ELTON, 
 
 SOMETIME FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER AT -LAW ; 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE TENURES OF KENT ; " " THE LAW OF COMMONS AND WASTE LANDS ; " 
 
 "the LAW OF COPYHOLDS AND CUSTOMARY TENURES OF LAND J " 
 
 '* NORWAY, THE ROAD AND THE FELL," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY. 
 
 1882. 
 6 
 /A 
 
^^cJ^^o4 
 
 WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, 
 
 GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, 
 
 LONDON, W.C. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 " I "HE object of this work appears so fully in its intro- 
 -*- ductory chapter that it is almost needless to add 
 anything by way of formal preface. It has been the 
 writer's wish to collect the best and earliest evidence as to 
 the different peoples with which the English nation in any 
 of its branches is connected by blood and descent. 
 
 There are few that have studied the fascinating subject 
 of the trade and travel of the Greeks, from the times when 
 they sailed in the track of the Phoenicians to the great 
 age of their discoveries which followed the conquests of 
 Alexander, who have not been astonished at the extent 
 and accuracy of the knowledge which the earliest classical 
 writers possessed concerning the North of Europe, as 
 compared with the comparative ignorance and confusion 
 of later times. 
 
 To an Englishman, the voyage of Pytheas is especially 
 interesting, not only because he was the first explorer of 
 
vi Origins of English History. 
 
 the British Islands, but also because he brought back with 
 him a singularly minute account of what he had seen and 
 heard in the marshes and forests, from which long after- 
 wards the "three great English kindreds" came. But 
 his visit to the Amber Islands and his stories of the 
 brilliant Arctic summer became for the Greeks the founda- 
 tion of all the fantastic tales of Thule, which for a time 
 brought the whole science of Geography into contempt. 
 
 The people who are found in Britain at the time of the 
 Roman invasions — usually classed as Celts — are divided 
 into the Gaulish stock, which is first described as far as 
 materials exist, and the Celts or Gaels of an earlier 
 migration, whose colonies were found in every part of the 
 British Islands that was not held by the Belgian nations. 
 
 The subject involves an inquiry into the character and 
 distribution of those forgotten peoples which everywhere 
 throughout Western Europe under-lie the dominant Aryan 
 race. The description of the BritishJSauls is accordingly 
 followed by an account of the traces of several insti- 
 tutions owing their origin to the series of races that begins 
 with the men of the Later Stone Age and covers the 
 tribes that introduced the use of Bronze into Britain. 
 
 The men of the long heads, who built long barrows and 
 polished their weapons of stone, and the men of the round 
 skulls, who were buried in round tombs and had learned 
 to work in metal, have left abiding influences on the 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 population of Britain, and the survivals of their primitive 
 religion and laws appear in the form of local superstitions 
 and customs which have descended even to modern times. 
 Something of this kind may help to explain the anomalous 
 customs of inheritance, the wide prevalence of which 
 under the name of Borough- English has long been a 
 subject of speculation to all who have studied the curious 
 details of the English Law of Real Property. The 
 inquiry into customs and tenures is followed by a descrip- 
 tion of the Britons of the Interior as they first became 
 known to the Romans, and by an account of the ancient 
 Celtic Religions of which traces have remained in France 
 as well as in the British Islands. The work ends with 
 a concise history of the Roman Province of Britain, and 
 an account of the English Conquest down to the period 
 when Christianity was established. 
 
 In conclusion the writer desires to express his obli- 
 gations to the many kind friends who have assisted him 
 during the progress of this work, and to acknowledge his 
 special indebtedness to the writings of Professor Rhys, the 
 late Professor Rolleston and Sir Henry Sumner Maine. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Object of the work — Prehistoric inhabitants of Britain — The Welsh bards on the 
 first settlement — The ancient Fauna of the island — Commencement of authentic 
 history — The Hyperborean legends — The travels of Pytheas in Britain— Fragments 
 of his writings— Marseilles in the age of Alexander the Great — Her commerce — 
 Rivalry with Carthage — Mineral riches of Spain — Extensive deposits of tin — Manu- 
 facture of bronze — The Phoenician commerce — The visit of Scipio to Marseilles — 
 Plans for interfering with trade of Carthage — Voyage of discovery proposed — The 
 scientific discoveries of Pytheas — He is chosen as leader of an expedition — His 
 writings — Course of the expedition — Gadeira —The Tagus — Erroneous notions of 
 Spanish geography — Havens of the Artabri — Situation of the Cassiterides on 
 Spanish coast — Description of the inhabitants — Visit of Publius Crassus — Theory 
 that the Cassiterides were the Scilly Islands discussed — Carthagenian discoveries — 
 The voyages of Hanno and Himilco — Course of Himilco's voyage — The tin- 
 districts — The Sargasso Sea — Teneriffe — Pytheas at Finisterre — Religious rites 
 of natives — The Pyrenees — The Ligurian shore — The Loire and Island of Amnis 
 — Barbarous ritual — The Morbihan and Celtic Islands — The College of Druidesses 
 — Voyage to Britain — Albion and lerne — Pytheas travels in Britain — His obser- 
 vations — Erroneous measurements — Ancient ideas of the extent of the world — 
 State of Kent and Southern Britain — Wheat-cultivation — Metheglin and beer — 
 Agriculture — Mode of dressing corn — Pytheas did not visit Ireland, or the West 
 of Britain — Traditions of Stonehenge — British trade in tin — British coins from 
 Greek models — Districts where tin is found — The Island of Mictis or Ictis — Its 
 situation — Probably to be identified with Thanet — Visit of Posidonius — Descrip- 
 tion of tin-works — Portus Itius — Thanet formerly an island — St. Michael's Mount 
 formerly situated inland ./o,f« I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Visit of Pytheas to Germany and the Baltic — Criticism by Strabo— Summary oi 
 route — Pliny's northern geography — Description of Germany by Tacitus — The 
 Gothones and Suiones — The Northern Ocean — The Amber Coast — The Sitones — 
 Obligations of Tacitus to Greek writers — Route of Pytheas — Passage to Celtica — 
 The Ostians or Ostiones — Their mode of living — The Cimbri — The Chauci — 
 North Germany — The Hercynian Forest — Its Fauna in the time of Pytheas — The 
 reindeer— The elk— The urus— The aurochs— The countiy of the Cimbri— The 
 Guttones — The Amber Islands — Extent of commerce in amber — Voyage to Thule 
 — Discoveries in the Arctic Circle— Return to Britain — Return to Marseilles — 
 Character of Pytheas -page 4' 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EARLY GREEK ROMANCES ABOUT BRITAIN. 
 
 Imaginary travels based on discoveries of Pytheas— Their confusion with records 
 of real travel—Beginning of Scepticism on the subject— Criticism by Dicsearchus 
 —The acceptance of Pytheas by Eratosthenes— Euhemerus the rationalist: his 
 account of Panchaia— Argument based on his fictions— Reply of Eratosthenes- 
 Criticisms by Polybius and Strabo — Geographical romances — Plato's use of the 
 Carthaginian traditions — Atlantis — Origin of the stories of monstrous men — -"The 
 wonders beyond Thule " — The epitome of Photius — Plot of the romance — Stories 
 of Thule — Of the Germans and the Hercynian Forest — Stories about Britain — The 
 legend of Saturn and Briareus — Demetrius the Grammarian — Story preserved by 
 Procopius — Island of Brittia — -The conductors of the dead — The communism of 
 Thule — The King of the Hebrides — His legend — Modern variations — Evan the 
 Third and his law — Mediseval use of the legend — The romance of "The Hyper- 
 boreans " — Description by Lelewel — Stories of the Arctic Ocean — Britain described 
 as "Elixoia" — The Circular Temple — The Boread kings — Solar legends — A de- 
 scription of the Hyperborean customs — The suicides of the old men — Historical 
 weight of the legend — Family-cliffs and family-clubs — Barbarous practices of 
 northern nations — Mention of other romances — " The Attacosi " — The description 
 of the Fortunate Islands by Jamblulus — His accounts of strange kinds of men — 
 Fictions rejected by Tacitus page 78 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Recapitulation — Later Greek travellers — Artemidoras — Posidonius the Stoic — 
 His travels in Western Europe — Condition of the Celts in Britain — Difficulty of 
 framing general rules — Division of population into three stocks — British Gauls — 
 Insular Britons — Pra-Celtic tribes — Methods of finding their ancient settlements 
 —Antiquarian research — Philological method — Division of the Celtic languages — 
 Livmg forms in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Man, Brittany— Dead forms : Welsh 
 of Strathclyde, Pictish, Cornish, Gaulish, Celtic of Thrace and Galatia, Celtiberian 
 —Originals from which the groups are derived— Z/«^aa Britannica—h'Si.-m'as!, of 
 Old Welsh —Whether more related to the Irish or the Gaulish— Theory of the 
 division of the Celtic stock, Gael and Cymry— Origin of the Theory— Similarity 
 of Welsh and Gaulish languages— The likeness explained— Arose from independent 
 causes— The languages not similar at the same time— Likeness between old forms 
 of Welsh and Irish— Welsh and Irish at one time united— Occupation of Britain 
 by one Celtic horde— Separation of Welsh and Irish languages— British language 
 distinct from Gaulish— Practical result of accepting the theory .page 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GAULS IN BRITAIN. 
 
 94 
 
 Invasion by the King of Soissons— Older settlements— Kingdoms of Kent- 
 Forest of Anderida-The Trinobantes-Extent of their dominions-The Iceni- 
 The Catuvellaunian Confederacy-Civilization of the Gaulish settlers-Physical 
 appearance-Dress-Ornaments-Equipments in peace and in war-Scythed 
 chariots— Agricultural knowledge— Cattle— Domestic life p^ge 105 
 
Contents. xi 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CELTS AND NON-CELTIC TRIBES. 
 
 The population outside the Gaulish settlements — Insular Celts — Pre-Celtic tribes 
 — How classified — The Stone Age — Bronze Age— Iron Age — Evidence of sequence 
 in use of metals — Special evidence as to Britain — Remains of Palaeolithic Age — 
 Britons of the Later Stone Age — Tombs of the kings — Cromlechs — Rites and 
 superstitions connected writh them — Examples — Stories of Wayland's Smithy — 
 Trotts des Nutans — Classification of barrows — Chambered and unchambered 
 varieties — Their contents — Physical characteristics of the Tomb-builders — The 
 nature of their society — Lake dwellings — Survival of the neolithic race — Legends 
 of Irish bards— The Firbolgs— Black Celts— The Silures— Their character and 
 habits — Commencement of Bronze Age — On the Continent — In Britain — Tribes 
 of Finnish type — Contents of their barrows — Implements — Ornaments — Their 
 agriculture — Nature of their society ■pi'^S' '24 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PRE-CELTIC ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 Beginning of the Historical period— Theories of British Ethnology— Fair and 
 dark races— Iberian theory — Aquitanians — Diversity of Iberian customs — Basques 
 —Origin of Milesian legends — Mr. Skene's view as to the Silures — Ethnological 
 table— Survivals of the pre-Celtic stocks— Evidence from language and manners 
 
 Comparison of Aryan customs — Local names — Personal names — Abnormal 
 
 words and constructions — Classical notices — Vitruvius, Tacitus, Herodian, Dion 
 Cassius— Caledonians and Picts— Rock-carvings and sculptured stones— Customs 
 of succession — Coronation-rites — Relics of barbarism in medieval Connaught and 
 Wales ; -f^S' 151 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CUSTOMS OF INHERITANCE AND FAMILY RELIGION. 
 
 Customs foreign to Celtic and Teutonic usage — ^Anomalous laws of inheritance — 
 Borough-English—y)/<K'»«^^/««^J'«»-ff^f'^'— Various theories of their origin— 
 Their wide extent — Primitive forms in Wales and Shetland — In Cornwall and 
 Brittany- Distribution of Junior-right in England— South-eastern district— Danish 
 towns— Customs of Kent— Of Sussex— Neighbourhood of London— Manor of 
 Taunton-Deane— Distribution on the Continent— North-western France and 
 Flanders— " Theel-boors " of East Friesland— Germany— Bornholm— Russia- 
 Attempts to explain the custom— Comparison with early forms of primogeniture 
 — "Principals" or Pr^«>!<^— Eldest daughter— The Law of the Sword— 
 Glanville— Bracton— Old primogeniture customs in the Pays de Ca«a:— Ireland- 
 Norway— Athens— Religious origin— Priesthood of the eldest— Laws of Manu— 
 The domestic religion and its survivals— The fire— The remembrance-bowl— 
 Household spirits— Feast of All Souls— "5ra«</« .ff»-fe "—Theory of analogous 
 origin of the Junior-right— PriestlRd of the youngest— Eariy extension of Altaic 
 peoples— Mongolian and Ugrian junior-right— Tchudic household superstitions— 
 The Mandrake ■P'^S^ '^3. 
 
xii Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BRITONS OF THE INTERIOR. 
 
 Physical condition of the country — Misrepresented by Roman orators— State 
 under Agricola, the Plantagenets and Elizabeth — Absence of genuine early descrip- 
 tions — Sources of the statements of Bede and his school — Notice of British 
 pearl-fisheries — Comparison of the accounts of Ireland — The picture of Britain 
 by Gildas — True sources of information — Special records — Allusions of writers on 
 general history — Giraldus, Aneurin, Pliny — The Celtic races of Northern and 
 Western Britain — Little affected by the English invasions — The evidence from 
 language of uncertain value — The tribes of the South- West — Their superior culture 
 — Their foreign trade — Description of their ships — The tribes of the West of low 
 civilization and mixed blood — The Silures — The Dobuni of the Cotswolds — 
 The Comavians — The Ordovices of North Wales — Their mixed descent — The 
 Central Tribes — The name "Coritavi" applied to several distinct races — Notices 
 by Strabo and Caesar— The ruder tribes migratory — The confederated tribes of the 
 North — Their success in war — The story of Queen Cartismandua — Rules a 
 Brigantian tribe — Commands the Brigantian army — The Brigantians compared with 
 the Irish by Tacitus — Their life at home and in the field -page 222 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Religion of the British tribes — Its influence on the literature of romance 
 
 Theories about Druidism— The Welsh Triads — Their date and authority Legend 
 
 of Hugh the Mighty— Mythological poems of the bards— Taliesin— Nature of the 
 poems written under his name— Religion of the Gauls— Its nature— The greater 
 gods— Z>»> Pater— 1\ie. mode of reckoning by nights— The Gaulish Mercury and 
 Minerva— The worship of Belenus— Adoration of plants— Esus—Teutates— 
 Camulus—Taranis— Goddesses and helpmates of gods— Local deities— The Mothers 
 — Giants— Inferior gods— Origin of Druidism— Druidism in Britain— Scottish and 
 Irish Druids— The nature of their ceremonies— Their magic— Position of the Druids 
 in Gaul— Their philosophy— Human sacrifices— Relics of the practice— Its traces • 
 in Britain and Ireland— Slaughter of hostages— Sacrifices for stability of buildings 
 —Doctrines of the Druids— Their astronomy— Metempsychosis— Disappearance of 
 Druidism— From the Roman provinces— From Ireland and Scotland— Other 
 remains of British religions-How preserved-In legends of saints— In romance- 
 General character of the religion-Nature of the idols-Superstitions about natural 
 phenomena-Mirage-Sunset-Mineral springs-Laughing wells -Worship of 
 elements-The Irish gods-The Dr gda-Moon-worship-Degradation of British 
 gods-Their appearance as kings and chiefs-In the fabulous history-In the heroic 
 songs-Pnncipal families of gods-Children of Don-of Nudd-of Lir-Legends 
 °worshi; Ofl "" 'v ^■--'-''^"^""^" ^^^ Lir-Ritual-Relics ofTun! 
 
 rniSrp/oMb;tToTo;'~f"''^";"'rrf''^"°^=°^- 
 
 animals — rrohibition of certain kinds of food Cnnno^tori ™;n, 1 • <■ j 
 
 from animals-Origin of these superstitions ^"'^ ''""' °^ '^^==^"' „ 
 
 -page 248 
 
Contents. xni 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF BRITAIN. 
 
 Character of the Roman Conquest — The century of peace after Csesar's invasion 
 — Increase of commerce with Gaul — Fresh settlements of Gauls in Britain — The 
 Artrebates — The Belgae — The Parisii — Prosperity of the native states — Metallurgy — 
 List of exports — End of the peace — The capture of Camulodunum — The triumph 
 of Claudius — Massacre of the captives — Enrolment of British regiments — Conquest 
 of the Southern Districts — The colony of Camulodunum — Tyrannical measures — 
 Revolt of the Iceni — Victory of PaulUnus — The province constituted — Agricola's 
 beneficial government — The visit of Hadrian — The four legions — Description of 
 Caerleon — Growth of towns — Hadrian's Wall — Description of its remains — The 
 Wall of Antoninus^Tablets erected by the soldiers — Their worship and superstitions 
 — The expedition of Severus — Death of the Emperor at York — The revolt of 
 Carausius — Influence of the Franks — Diocletian's scheme of government — Reigns 
 of Constantius and Constantine the Great — A new system of administration — The 
 military roads — Whether identical with the mediaeval highways — Course of Watling 
 Street — The Roman system of communications — Three lines from north to south — 
 Transverse routes in the North — Connections with roads in the South and West — 
 The district of the Saxon Shore — Course of the Ikenild Way — The routes in the 
 Antonine Itinerary — The Peutingerian Table — The effect on Britain of the new 
 constitution — Increase of taxation — Establishment of Christianity in Briain — 
 Gradual decay of paganism — Pantheistic religions — State of the frontiers — The 
 Picts and Scots — The Franks and Saxons — Victories of Theodosius— The Revolt 
 of Maxlmus — The successes of Stilicho — Usurpation of Constantine — The treason 
 ofGerontius — The independence of Britain -pag^ 302 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 
 
 Troubles of the independent Britons — Fresh invasions of Picts and Scots — The 
 Saxon Pirates — The Halleluia Victory — The appeal to Aetius — Beginnings of the 
 English Conquest — Character of the authorities — Early Welsh poems — Nennius — 
 Romances of Arthur — The history of Gildas — Its dramatic nature — Its imitation of the 
 Vulgate — The story of Vortigem — His war with the mercenaries — The victory of 
 Ambrosius — The Mons Badonicus — English accounts of the Conquest — The Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle — Influence of ancient ballads — Description of the invasion — The 
 three kindreds — Their continental home — Relative positions of Saxons Angles and 
 Jutes — Theories as to other invading tribes — The Frisians— Argument from local 
 names — The Conquest of Kent — Welsh traditions— Horsa's Tomb — Legends of 
 Hengist — The Conquest of Sussex — Destruction of Anderida — Fate of the Roman-v/" 
 towns — Rise of the House of Cerdic — Conquest of Wessex — Victories of Cerdic 
 and Cynric— The fate of Ceaulin— Genealogies of the Kings — The Conquest of 
 Northumbria — Reign of Ida — Welsh traditions — Reign of jEUe — Of Edwin — Of 
 ^thelfrith — General description of the conquest — Ancient poems — The sea-kings 
 described by Sidonius — Their ships and crews — The lord and his companions — 
 Gradual degradation of the peasantry — Life in free townships — Co-operative hus- 
 bandry — Community of ownership —Village customs— Heathen survivals — Festivals 
 —Sacrifices — Character of English paganism — The gradual conversion of the English 
 kingdoms -pag' 35^ 
 
xiv Origins of English History. 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Knowledge of the ancients as to the Geography of Northern and Western 
 Europe ■pi'S^ W 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 Chronological List of Greek and Latin writers to which references have been 
 made •/'2^<? 442 
 
 INDEX /«^f 449 
 
LIST OF MAPS. 
 
 1. Spain, (from the Latin Ptolemy, printed at Rome in 1478). 
 
 2. The World "br the Ancients (from the Latin Ptolemy 
 
 of 1478). 
 
 3. Eastern Europe (from the Latin Ptolemy, printed at 
 
 Strasburg in 1525). 
 
 4. Northern Europe (from the Historia de Gentibus Septen- 
 
 trionalibus of Olaus Magnus, printed at Basel in 1567). 
 5- Gaul (from the Latin Ptolemy of 1478). 
 
 6. The British Isles (from the Latin Ptolemy of 1478). 
 
 7. South-Eastern Britain (from the Tabula Peutingeriana). 
 
 8. Germany (from the Latin Ptolemy of 1478). 
 
 9. The Isle of Thanet (from Dugdale's Monasticon, edition 
 
 of 1655-73)- 
 10. The British Isles (from the Latin Ptolemy of 1525). 
 
ORIGINS OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Object of the work. — Prehistoric inhabitants of Britain. — The Welsh bards on the first 
 settlement. — The ancient Fauna of the island. — Commencement of authentic history. 
 — The Hyperborean legends. — The travels of Pytheas in Britain — Fragments of his 
 writings. — Marseilles in the age of Alexander the Great — Her commerce. — Rivalry 
 with Carthage. — Mineral riches of Spain. — Extensive deposits of tin. — Manufacture 
 of bronze. — The Phcenician commerce. — The visit of Scipio to Marseilles. — Plans 
 for interfering with trade of Carthage. — Voyage of discovery proposed. — The 
 scientific discoveries of Pytheas — He is chosen as leader of an expedition — His 
 writings. — Course of The expedition. — Gadeira. — The Tagus. — Erroneous notions 
 of Spanish geography. — Havens of the Artabri. — Situation of the Cassiterides on 
 Spanish coast. — Description of the inhabitants. — Visit of Publius Crassus.— Theory 
 that the Cassiterides were the Scilly Islands discussed. — Carthaginian discoveries. — 
 The voyages of Hanno and Himilco. — Course of Himilco's voyage. — The tin- 
 districts. — The Sargasso Sea. — Teneriffe. — Pytheas at Finisterre. — Religious rites 
 of natives. — The Pyrenees.— The Ligurian shore. — The Loire and Island of Amnis. 
 — Barbarous ritual. — The Morbihan and Celtic Islands. — The College of Druidesses. 
 — Voyage to Britain. — Albion and leme. — Pytheas travels in Britain. — His obser- 
 vations. — Erroneous measurements. — Ancient ideas of the extent of the world. — 
 State of Kent and Southern Britain. — Wheat-cultivation. — Metheglin and beer. — 
 Agriculture. — Mode of dressing corn. — Pytheas did not visit Ireland, or the West 
 of Britain. — Traditions of Stonehenge. — British trade in tin. — British coins from 
 Greek models. — Districts where tin is found. — The Island of Mictis or Ictis — Its 
 situation — Probably to be identified with Thanet. — Visit of Posidonius. — Descrip- 
 tion of tin-works. — Portua Itius. — Thanet formerly an island. — St. Michael's Mount 
 formerly situated inland. 
 
 I'* HE following chapters are the result of an attempt 
 to rearrange in a convenient form what is known 
 of the history of this country from those obscure ages 
 which preceded the Roman invasions to the time when the 
 English accepted the Christian religion and the civilising 
 influences of the Church. The subject must always be 
 interesting to those who care to trace the development of 
 society from its remote and savage beginnings. The com- 
 piler's task is lightened by the labours of a multitude of 
 scholars, from the Greek travellers who first explored the 
 ■wonders of the northern world to the Welsh scribe who 
 might h|p.ve seen King Arthur : and from them to the 
 
 B 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 masters of comparative history who have lately traced the 
 origin and growth of most of our modern institutions. The 
 compilation may still be useful or convenient, though the 
 field has been well laboured for centuries, and " hardly a 
 gleaning-grape or ear of corn is left when the vintage and 
 harvest are done." 
 
 The really prehistoric times are the province of the archae- 
 ologist, and must be explored by his technical methods, 
 though every one who approaches the subject of English 
 history must feel a desire to know something of all kinds 
 of men who have colonised or traversed our islands. Our 
 principal ancestors, no doubt, came late from the shores and 
 flats between the Rhine and the Gulfof^othnia. But the 
 English nation is compounded of the blood of many different 
 races ; and we might claim a personal interest not only in 
 the Gaelic and Belgic tribes who struggled with the Roman 
 legions, but even in the first cave-men who sought their 
 prey by the slowly-receding ice-fields, and the many for- 
 gotten peoples, whose relics are explored in the sites of lake- 
 villages or seaside refuse-heaps or in the funeral mounds, 
 or whose memory is barely preserved in the names of 
 mountains and rivers. For it is hardly possible that a 
 race should ever be quite exterminated or extinguished : 
 the blood of the conquerors must in time become mixed 
 with that of the conquered ; and the preservation of men 
 for slaves and of women for wives will always insure the 
 continued existence of the inferior race, however much it 
 may lose of its original appearance, manners, or language. 
 
 The Welsh bards indulged their fancy in describing 
 the state of Britain before the arrival of man. According to 
 the authors of the earliest Triads, the swarms of wild bees 
 in the woods gave its first name to the " Isle of Honey" ; 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 and the first settlers were supposed to marvel at the bears 
 and wolves, the humped cattle of the forest, and the colonies 
 of beavers in the streams. We need not follow the poet in 
 his prehistoric flight, but we may be sure that down to the 
 dawn of history a great part of the island must have been 
 given over to wild beasts : even late in the historical period 
 the Scottish bears were known in the Roman circus, the 
 beavers' colonies were remembered in Wales and York- 
 shire, and the wolf and wild boar lingered until the end of 
 the 1 7th century in the more remote recesses of the island.^ 
 
 s mentioned by Martial : \" Nuda Caledonio sic 
 Wolves became extinct in England soon aJter the 
 the last is said to have been destroyed in Scotl^d 
 _ _nd they lasted for another generation. The manoS 
 
 of Henwick, in Northamptonshire, was held by the family of Lovett, or 
 Luvet, by the service of chasing the wolf, " fugacionem lupi quam dictus j 
 Johannes mihi pro terrd de Henwyht debebat." (Nichol. Collect. Topogr., 
 vi. 300.) The Luvets bore for their arms "Argent, three wolves passant 
 in pale sable armed and langued gules." The service of the Luvets is 
 recognised in a fine between Engaine and Luvet, in the loth year of King 
 John. The record called the " Testa de Nevil " contains an entry as to 
 the grant, by William the Conqueror to Robert de Umfreville, of the valley 
 and forest of Riddesdale, by the service of defending that part of the 
 country from enemies and wolves, with the sword which the King wore, 
 when he first came to Northumberland. The family of Engaine held 
 Pytchley, in Northamptonshire, by the service of hunting the wolf across 
 the county wherever they pleased. (Pleas of the Crown, 3 Edw. I., r. 20.) 
 An inquisition on the death of John Engaine, in 31 Edw. I. (Calend. 
 Geneal. 777), showed that he held other lands there by the service or rent 
 of feeding the King's brach-hounds, kept for hunting wolves, wild cats, 
 &c. The City of Norwich paid every year to Edward the Confessor " a 
 b£at . and six dogs for the bear :" but the bears in the nth century would 
 be imported from abroad. Stow's "Survey of London" contains a well- 
 known description of the forest of Middlesex in the reign of Henry II., 
 where the citizens were wont to hunt the wild bull and the boa r on the 
 hills of Hampstead. The reincjeer was found in the north of Scotland 
 [^s late as the 12th century, as will be afterwards more fully mentioned. 
 
 B 2 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 The authentic history of Britain begins in the age of 
 Alexander the Great, in the fourth century before Christ, 
 when the Greeks acquired an extensive knowledge of the 
 western and northern countries from Gibraltar to the mouth 
 of the Vistula, and as far north as the Arctic Circle. We 
 shall show how the knowledge was acquired, and afterwards 
 obscured by the inability of later writers to distinguish 
 between the facts of travel and the incidents of popular 
 romances. When these parts of the northern tracts were 
 rediscovered many generations afterwards by the Romans, 
 it had become impossible for them to separate history 
 from fable, and they took credit for finding a new world, 
 as if it had not all been described in their ancient books. 
 So America and the regions of Central Africa were dis- 
 covered and lost, and rediscovered and lost again, pro- 
 bably many times in succession : and so the colony of Old 
 Greenland flourished for centuries, till it decayed from the 
 ravages of plague and barbarian invasion, and for nearly 
 300 years its very situation and direction were forgotten. 
 The earliest literature of Greece shows the existence of 
 
 The wild_ cattle still remain at Chillingham, and in several other parks. 
 The beaver was common in Wales, and has left its name at Beverley, and 
 Nant-y-fFrangon, near Snowdon. " The beaver (says Prof. Boyd Dawkins) 
 was hunted for its fur on the banks of the Teiyi, in Cardiganshire, during 
 the time of the first Crusade, and became extinct shortly afterwards." 
 (Cave-hunting, p. 76.) See p. 290 of the same learned work for a passage 
 describing the fauna of the western districts in the Pleistocene age : " We 
 must picture to ourselves a fertile plain occupying the whole of the Bristol 
 Channel, and supporting herds of reindeer, horses, and bisons, many 
 elephants, and rhinoceroses, and now and then traversed by a stray hippo- 
 potamus, which would afford abundant prey to the lions, bears, and 
 hyaenas inhabiting all the accessible caves, as well as to their great enemy 
 and destroyer, Man." On the whole subject of the prehistoric fauna see 
 this work, and the same author's " Treatise on the Relation of the Pleis- 
 tocene Mammalia to those now living in Europe, Palseont. Soc, 1874." 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 a rumour or tradition that somewhere to the north of the 
 Euxine and behind the Gulf of Adria, the resort of the 
 amber-merchants, the Hyperborean people lived " at the 
 back of the north wind," and worshipped the Delian Apollo 
 with hecatombs of wild asses in a land of perpetual sun- 
 shine, where the swans sung like nightingales, and life was 
 an unending banquet. We need not pause very long over 
 the consideration of the origin of these fancies, which 
 acquired a fresh popularity when later poets and novelists 
 incorporated the Boread legends with travellers' descrip- 
 tions of the ritual of a solar worship and the brightness of 
 an arctic summer •} but we will pass at once to a detailed 
 
 ^ Hyperboreans. — There are two distinct sets of Hyperborean legends, 
 that appear to be generally confused together in those books, which 
 deal with Stonehenge and the supposed relations of the ancient Britons 
 with the Levant. The first is almost as old as Greek literature, and refers 
 to the nations north of the Euxine, the countrymen of the Scythians 
 Abaris and Anacharsis, and of the virgins who came to Delos. For these 
 H ecat3e us__Qf Miletus was the chief authority: see the full details in 
 Herodotus, iv. 32-36. For the ovutv kKaroixfioi, see Pindar's loth Pythian 
 Ode. Humboldt (Cosm. ii. 141, Sabine's Edn.) considered that the six 
 gold-bearing regions of Altai, the kingdoms of the Arimaspi and griffins, 
 were the sites of " the meteorological mythus'' of these Hyperboreans. 
 For a collection of information as to passages bearing on the locality of 
 these Scythians, see Herbert's " Cyclops Christianus." Niebuhr was in- 
 clined to place the Hyperboreans of Herodotus to the north of Italy. 
 Herodotus himself offered no opinion, and iv. c. 36, " smiled to think 
 that people were already writing circumnavigations of the world without 
 knowing anything about geography." The earliest trace of acquaintance 
 with the brief nights of the Northern summer is, perhaps, to be found in 
 Odyssey x. 36, eyyvg yap vvKToe re Kal ^/xaroc dcri KeXevBoi. Tv.<- ' 
 
 The other set of traditions begins with the romance of Hecat aeusof 
 Abder a, a contemporary of Pytheas, who wove the stories about Britain 
 and Scandinavia into connection with the more ancient legends. This at 
 least is the author's theory, which he will endeavour to fortify by autho- 
 rity in a later chapter. 
 
6 Origins of English History. 
 
 examination of the discoveries of Pytheas, " the Humboldt 
 of antiquity," whose writings for several centuries were the 
 only source of knowledge respecting the north of Europe. 
 His " Diary" was extant in a connected form as late as the 
 5 th century, since a copy of his works seems to have been 
 in the possession of Stephen of Byzantium, not long be- 
 fore the time of the Emperor Justinian/ It has now to 
 be sought in fragments, extracts, and references, preserved 
 by the geographers and historians, who used his book as 
 an inexhaustible source of information ; and the most 
 important writers of antiquity were content with his autho- 
 rity. It has suffered chiefly from the violent attacks of 
 Strabo, whose own system of geography was, as we may 
 safely admit, inconsistent in several points with the ideas 
 of the old explorer. 
 
 This chapter will be concerned with an attempt to re- 
 construct the narrative of his travels^ from Marseilles 
 
 1 Stephen of Byzantium, the last person who is believed to have actually 
 possessed the works of Pytheas, was a grammarian and professor in the 
 University of Constantinople, who flourished about a.d. 490, living in 
 the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, and perhaps as late as the reign of 
 Justinian, a.d. 527. He wrote a treatise on "Words and Places," a dic- 
 tionary of geographical names, called 'Eflvtica, which only survives in an 
 epitome by Hermolaus the Grammarian, called Etpl TioXiiav, known also as 
 the treatise " De Urbibus," which has several times been published. 
 
 This may be a convenient place for saying that, to save the reader from 
 the trouble of looking up names in the biographical dictionaries, a short 
 account will be given in alphabetical order in the Appendix, containing 
 references to the dates and works of the Greek and Latin writers whose 
 fragments are quoted in the text, or whose works contain important paS' 
 sages to which several references are made in the text. The list is merely 
 compiled from the ordinary sources, and makes no pretence to any fresh- 
 ness of information ; but without it any criticispi of a statement of 
 Hermolaus, or Cleomedes, or Jamblulus, might be unintelligible to any 
 reader who has not at command a large library of works of reference. 
 2 The passages in which the " Fragments " of Pytheas are embodied 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 round the Spanish coast, and as far as the south of 
 Britain, leaving for the next chapter the consideration of 
 his visit to Germany and the Baltic, and his famous voyage 
 to Thule. And in connection with the first part of his 
 voyage we shall deal incidentally with some other tra- 
 ditions relating to our subject, of which some have gene- 
 rally been believed without proof, and others rejected 
 without reason. We shall deal with a kind of historical 
 matter which is found in the course of every attempt to 
 explore the history of an ancient nation. Between the 
 region of fancy anH the province of authenticated history 
 lies a border-land of tradition, full of difficulties, which can 
 neither be passed without notice, nor ever perhaps very 
 clearly or finally explained. The half-lost annals of a 
 debatable time, worn out by age and obscured by neglect, 
 are preserved piece-meal in imperfect extracts from books 
 which have perished, in the notes of a scholiast or epi- 
 tomist, or the ancient criticisms which have chanced to 
 survive the objects of their attacks. 
 
 The travels of Pytheas opened the commerce in tin and 
 amber to the Greek merchants of Marseilles about the 
 middle of the 4th century before Christ ; the exact date 
 cannot be ascertained, but is found approximately by the 
 
 will be found collected and arranged in the Appendix. For the life of 
 Pytheas the student should consult Arwedson's "Fragments" (Upsala, 
 1824) ; Gassendi Opera, vol. iv. " Essay on the Ratio of the Gnomon to 
 the Solstitial Shadow;" papers published by the French Academy of 
 Inscriptions, vol. xix. ; the references under " Pytheas," which may be 
 found in the Biographie Universelle; and many German and French 
 essays on the subject, by Bessell, Meyer, Fuhr, Aout, Lelewd ; and a great 
 number of others. They are mostly in the form of small tracts or pam- 
 phlets, and it therefore seems unnecessary to give the full titles and places 
 of publication, which can be easily collected by any one undertaking a 
 study of this subject 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 facts that the astronomical discoveries of Pytheas were 
 not mentioned by Aristotle, but were controverted on some 
 points by Dicsearchus. He was the pupil of Aristotle, 
 and his writings were published not long after the famous 
 philosopher's death. 
 
 The merchants of Marseilles, and the other Greek colo- 
 nists of the " Ligurian shore," were at that time anxious to 
 strike a blow at their Carthaginian rivals, who had almost 
 a complete command of the mineral wealth of Spain. 
 Colaeus of Samos had long before discovered the wealth 
 of Tarshish along the Andalusian coast, and had brought 
 home glowing accounts of the riches of the West, and of 
 the simple barbarians, who allowed their visitors to load 
 their ships with precious ore for ballast. But the Phoe- 
 nicians had soon secured a monopoly of the mineral trade : 
 the men of Tarshish were their merchants ; " with silver, 
 iron, tin, and lead, they traded in the fairs of Tyre." ^ The 
 
 1 These words are taken from the description of the commerce of Tyre 
 in Ezek. xxvii. For the earlier mentions of Tarshish, or the coast of 
 Andalusia, see Gen. x. 4, and Exod. xxviii. 20, where the beryl or chryso- 
 lite of the high-priest's breastplate is called tarsis in the original; for the 
 prevalent east winds which impeded the trade, Ps. xlviiL 7, cf Strabo, iii. 
 144. See also IsaL ii. 16, and the "burden of Tyre," c. xxiii. For men- 
 tions of Chittim, or the region of the Pyrenees, see the chapter last cited, 
 and Ezek. xxvii. There appears to have been no city of Tarshish, but the 
 name properly applies to the whole of the Andalusian coast between the 
 Guadiana and Cape Trafalgar. The Bsetis or Guadalquivir and the Anas 
 or Guadiana River were formerly noted for their gold-bearing gravels, 
 though neither was as rich as the Tagus in this respect. 
 
 " The region Tartessus corresponded in extent with the country of 
 the Turduli and Turdetani, whose name appears to be derived from the 
 same root. On the west it was bounded by the mouth of the Anas ; on 
 the east by the prolongation of the hills, which border the valley of the 
 Bsetis on the S.E. and terminate in a low sandy point at Cape Trafalgar. 
 In the Roman times, however, the name was more widely extended, and 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 town of Ampurias, in the Gulf of Lyons, preserves the 
 name of the emporium where the Greeks attempted to en- 
 gross some part of the Spanish commerce ; but south of 
 that point the whole country was at first under the in- 
 fluence of the Phoenicians, and afterwards under the power 
 of Carthage.^ It must always be remembered that Spain 
 
 included the coast eastward of Gibraltar. Beyond the Anas was the 
 country of the Cynetes (Herod, ii. 33), extending to the Sacred Promon- 
 tory or Cape St. Vincent, the most westerly point of Europe" (Kenrick, 
 Phoenicia, iii.) 
 
 ^ The Greek name for tin, Kaaarirepoc, cassiterus, is derived from kastira, 
 the Sanskrit name for the metal. The island Cassitira must of course 
 have been in the Straits of Malacca, the source of our modem supplies. 
 Stephen of Byzantium is the authority for the description of " Cassitira, an 
 island in the ocean near India, as Dionysius says in his Bassarici, whence 
 the tin comes." For details of the modern tin trade, see Sir Henry De la 
 Beche, " Geological Report on Cornwall, &c." For the ancient trade, con- 
 sult Heeren's "Essay on the Carthaginians " and Kenrick's " Phoenicia." 
 Humboldt (Cos. ii. 128), though he agreed that the Cassiterides were in the 
 British seas, according to the common theory, pointed out that the ancients 
 were acquainted with the existence of tin, one of the rarest metals in the 
 globe, in the country of the Artabri and Callaici, in the N.W. part of the 
 Iberian mainland. "When I was in Galicia, in 1799" (he adds), "before 
 embarking for the Canaries, mining operations were still carried on, on a very 
 poor scale, in the granitic mountains. The occurrence of tin in this locality 
 is of some geological importance, on account of the former connection of 
 Galicia, the peninsula of Brittany, and Cornwall." It may also be remarked, 
 that tin-deposits have been found at Montebras in Auvergne, where the 
 newly-described mineral " montebrasite," a phosphate of alumina, is found 
 enveloping the metallic lode. Kenrick gives us the following useful sum- 
 mary : — " There can be no doubt that tin was anciently found in Spain and 
 in its southern regions. The Guadalquivir brought down stream-tin (Eust. 
 ad Dion. Perieg. 337), and, according to Festus Avienus, the mountain in 
 which this river rose was called Cassius from Cassiteros, and Argentarius 
 from the brilliancy of the tin which it produced. The mines of the south 
 of Spain have been much neglected since the discovery of America, with 
 the exception of the quicksilver mines of Almaden, and therefore it would 
 be unreasonable to call these precise statements in question, because tin 
 
lo Origins of English History. 
 
 was the Mexico of the ancient world. The Tagus rolled 
 gold, and the Guadiana silver ; the Phoenician sailors were 
 said to have replaced their anchors with masses of silver 
 for which they had no room on board, and the Iberians to 
 have used gold for mangers and silver for their vats of beer. 
 The western and northern coasts were equally rich : a 
 mountain of iron ore stood near Bilboa, and the whole 
 coast from the Tagus to the Pyrenees was. said to be 
 " stuffed with mines of gold and silver, lead and tin ; " 
 
 " genitrix haec ora metalli 
 Albentis stanni." — Avien. Descr. Orb. 741. 
 
 the moor-lands were full of tin-pebbles, the river-gravels 
 mixed with broken strings and branches of tin, which the 
 Iberian girls were able to win by light "stream-work," 
 washing the ore from the soil in wicker cradles ; and, as in 
 Cornwall, the tin was often mixed with gold, and the lead 
 
 is not now known to be found there. With regard to the jiorth-westem 
 provinces of the peninsula, there can be no doubt that tin anciently 
 abounded in them. Posidonius, quoted by Strabo, says that in the land 
 of the Artabrians, the most remote in the north-west, the soil glitters with 
 silver, tin, and white gold (Strab. iii. 147). The tin was stream-tin, and 
 no lodes of it appear to have been worked in Spain. The account given 
 by Pliny is the same : " Tin, it is now well ascertained, is produced, 
 in Lusitania and Gallaecia, sometimes of a black colour on the surface 
 of the sandy soil, and distinguishable only by weight (peroxide of tin), 
 sometimes in minute pebbles in the bed of dried torrents (stream-tin), 
 which are collected, washed, and fused in furnaces. It is also sometimes 
 found in goldmines, and separated by washing in baskets, and subsequent 
 melting" (Hist Nat. xxxiv. 16). The geological structure of Galicia and 
 the adjacent part of Portugal is very similar to that of the metalliferous 
 country of Cornwall ; and as many as seven different localities, in which 
 tin has been procured, are enumerated in a recent work on the geology of 
 the former country (Schulz, " Descripcion Geognostica di Galicia," pp. 45, 
 47). The name of Borraco di Stanno, in the neighbourhood of Viseu, in 
 Portugal, indicates the working of a tin-mine (Kenrick, Phoenic. 214). 
 
Origins of English History. 1 1 
 
 with silver. We learn the ancient wealth of the country 
 from the reports of Greek travellers, and from the Romans 
 who inherited the riches of Spain, when the power of 
 Tyre and the careless magnificence of Carthage had 
 passed away, and before the mineral deposits had been 
 very sensibly diminished. 
 
 At the time which we are now considering, the jealousy 
 of the Carthaginians had hindered the Greeks and Romans 
 from learning the secrets of the seas west of the Pillars of 
 Melkarth. There were, doubtless, vague reports of the 
 temple of Moloch which crowned the last point of Europe, 
 of a beetling cliff lashed by perpetual surf, a river that rolled 
 sands of gold, and islands where the ground gleamed with 
 silver and tin, Herodotus,^ a century before, had heard 
 
 1 Herod, iii. 115. On this passage the learned authors of the " Monu- 
 menta Historica Britannica" make the following remark : " Few historical 
 data are extant relating to Britain anterior to its invasion by Julius Csesar : 
 the only authors who have referred to it are Herodotus, under the name of 
 the Islands of the Cassiterides, Aristotle, and Polybius. It does not appear 
 that the ancients, with the exception of the three writers just mentioned, 
 knew for certain whether it was an island or an isthmus joined eastward to 
 the continent of France, nor were they certain from what countries the 
 inhabitants first migrated." (Monum. Hist. 49.) The writer hopes to esta- 
 blish a theory completely opposed to this statement ; and, in the first place, 
 would observe that Herocjptus never heard of Britain at all, that the book 
 " De Mundo" is not now attributed to Aristotle, and that the criticisms of 
 Polybius, remaining in Strabo's comments, were themselves concerned with 
 the descriptions of Britain by Pytheas, which had been accepted by Era- 
 tosthenes and Hipparchus ; in fact that, from the time of Alexander the 
 Great, the ancients had a very fair notion of the geography of Britain, 
 and certainly referred to it in a vast number of instances, which will be 
 separately dealt with in the text. The " Monumenta'' is framed on the 
 plan of citing all the passages in which Britain is named, and omitting 
 all those which only contain indirect allusions to it : and, what is of 
 more importance, the " only authors who have referred to Britain " must 
 point, excepting Polybius, to those only who have left complete works : it is 
 
1 2 Origins of English History. 
 
 the name of the Cassiterides, though he confessed a doubt 
 as to their existence, in the absence of eye-witnesses from 
 the west of Europe. The knowledge of the tin-deposits 
 was the most valuable secret of Tyre and Carthage. The 
 difficult manufacture of bronze was the most important art 
 of the ancient world, before the Celts discovered the 
 method of making the hard Noric steel. Weapons and 
 implements of all kinds were made of a compound of tin 
 and copper, the zinc-brass made with the calamine-stone 
 being little used in comparison with the use of bronze. 
 The Phoenician sailors busied themselves in all known 
 regions of the world in seeking for the precious ore. 
 " Who are these," said the sacred poet, " that fly as a 
 cloud, and as the doves to their windows ?" (Is. Ix. 8.) 
 The seas were covered with their sails, and the harbours 
 full of their ships, which they loaded with metal smelted 
 from the tin-bearing gravels of the Malayan Cassitera. 
 The Indian name of the western Cassiterides of itself 
 attests the wide spread of their commerce. 
 
 Such were the rivals with whom the Greeks were about 
 to compete. Tin had been found in Gaul, perhaps in 
 several districts, and it is possible that the Celts had some 
 knowledge of British tin before the Greek discoveries. 
 The Greeks hoped to find tin-countries in the unexplored 
 north, and might expect to light on the source of the am- 
 ber trade, which for ages had come by " a sacred road," 
 
 difficult to understand how the numerous writers whose "Fragments" 
 relate to Britain could have been omitted from consideration. It may 
 seem ungracious to blame in any way a compilation without which these 
 chapters could not perhaps be written; and the writer is the first to 
 acknowledge the importance of the work, while reserving to himself the 
 liberty of disputing the foregone conclusion, which seems to have been 
 taken for granted when the " Classical Excerpta" were arranged. 
 
Origins of English History. 1 3 
 
 from some Scythian region to the head of the Gulf of 
 Adria. There seem to have been reports or traditions 
 that tin as well as amber came from the north : and an old 
 legend passed current about statues of tin and amber being 
 erected on an island, near the trade-route which all the 
 barbarian tribes respected, somewhere in the neighbour- 
 hood of Venice or Trieste. 
 
 A Roman named Scipio, the first of the Cornelian clan 
 whose name appears in history, had some time since 
 arrived at Marseilles to inquire as to the chance of esta- 
 blishing a new frade : hoping to do an injury to the 
 wealth of Carthage. Pytheas is the authority for the story, 
 and for the statement that no one in the city could tell the 
 Roman anything worth mentioning about the north : and 
 also that nothing could be learned from the merchants of 
 Narbonne, or of " the City of Corbelo,"^ which in the age 
 of Pytheas was said to be a flourishing place, though the 
 later Romans were ignorant even of its situation. The 
 foreigner was told what perhaps he knew already, of the 
 danger of all attempts to interfere with the Carthaginian 
 commerce, — " how a ship-master of Gaddir, on his way to 
 the tin islands, was tracked by a Roman merchant-man, 
 but ran his ship upon a shoal, and led his enemies into the 
 same destruction. The captain was saved on the floating 
 wreck, and was rewarded by the Senate of Carthage with 
 the price of the sacrificed cargo." 
 
 The project of a voyage of discovery became popular 
 at Marseilles, and a committee of merchants engaged the 
 services of Pytheas, an eminent mathematician of that city, 
 who was already famous for his measurement of the decli- 
 
 1 Corbelo is said to be Coiron on the Loire, near Nantes (Martin, 
 Hist. France, i. 90). Polybius described its situation (Strabo, iv. 190). 
 
14 Origins of English History. 
 
 nation of the ecliptic, and for the calculation of the latitude 
 of Marseilles, by the method which he had recently in- 
 vented of comparing the height of a gnomon or pillar with 
 the length of the solstitial shadow. What kind of gnomon 
 he used is uncertain. Pytheas was also known for his 
 proposition " that there is no star at the pole, but a vacant 
 spot where the pole should be, marked at a point which 
 makes a square with the three nearest stars"; and for his 
 studies on the influence of the moon upon the tides.^ 
 
 1 On the use of the gnomon by Pytheas, see Gassendi, iv. 530. He 
 fixed the ratio at 24 : 7. Strabo misquoted him, as if he had made it 
 out to be 600 : 29 (see Strabo, Geo., i. 92). Modem experiments con- 
 ducted at Marseilles have shown Pytheas to be correct within a trifling 
 fraction of 40 seconds (see a pamphlet on the subject, "Etude sur Pythdas," 
 by L. Aout. Paris : 1866). With respect to his fixing the place of the 
 pole-star, it should be remembered that, in the age of Pytheas, the constel- 
 lation of the Little Bear had not yet been placed in the Greek celestial 
 sphere (Humb. Cosm. ii. 103. See Strabo, i. 3). Kenrick says that the 
 discovery of the pole-star was attributed by the Greeks to Thales. The 
 spurious writings of Eratosthenes call it ^olvIkti, or the lode-star of the 
 Phoenicians. Kenrick puts the matter clearly in the following passage : — 
 " The most important peculiarity in their navigation, however, was, that 
 while the Greeks and Romans long continued to direct their course at 
 night by the Great Bear, the Phoenicians early discovered that the 
 Cynosure, the last star in the constellation of the Little Bear, being 
 nearly identical in position with the pole, afforded them by its unchange- 
 ableness the means of ascertaining the true north, whenever the heavens 
 were visible. The Phoenicians were not the first cultivators of astronomy ; 
 in this the Egyptians and Babylonians preceded them ; but they applied 
 it practically to navigation, combining with it the art of calculation, so 
 necessary in reckoning a ship's course" (Phoen. p. 235). The Greeks for 
 a long time did not dare to imitate the Phoenicians' nocturnal voyages. 
 The same author appositely cites Manilius, 1. 304 : — 
 
 " Septem illam stellae certantes lumine signant, 
 Qua duce per fluctus Graise dant vela carinae. 
 Angusto Cynosura brevis torquetur in orbe, 
 Quam spatio tarn luce minor : sed judice vincit 
 Majorem Tyrio." 
 
Origins of English History. 1 5 
 
 Pytheas was chosen as the leader of a northern expedi- 
 tion to explore the Iberian coast, and to proceed north as 
 far as the " Celtic countries," and as much further as might 
 seem expedient. Another expedition was sent southwards 
 to explore the African coast, under the direction of Euthy- 
 menes, another man of science, with whose discoveries we 
 are not here concerned. But we may say that he reached 
 a river where crocodiles and hippopotami were seen in 
 great abundance, and that the records of his voyage are 
 almost completely lost. It will be seen hereafter that 
 Pytheas was more fortunate, a good many fragments of his 
 diary having been preserved, not only by Eratosthenes, 
 and other great geographers who accepted his accounts as 
 correct, but also in the criticisms of Polybius, which have 
 been preserved and exaggerated in Strabo's work. It is 
 known that his account was preserved in the shape of a 
 diary, recording the times of passage from port to port, 
 and it is believed that this work was embodied in two 
 books, called " The Circuit of the Earth," and " Commen- 
 taries concerning the Ocean"; and some have supposed 
 that these represented the results of two voyages, the one 
 to Britain, and the other from Cadiz to "the Tanais." 
 But a comparison of the fragments shows clearly enough 
 that only one voyage was described, its course being from 
 Cadiz round Spain to Brittany, from Brittany to Kent and 
 several other parts of Britain, from the Thames to the 
 Rhine, round Jutland along the Baltic to the Vistula 
 (which was mistaken for the Tanais); thence out of 
 
 The Phoenicians were experienced observers of the tides. Pytheas 
 and Posidonius both noticed the ebb and flow of the tide at Gaddir 
 (Cadiz), and attempted to give explanations of the phenomenon (Strabo, 
 iii. iiz). 
 
1 6 Origins of English History. 
 
 the Baltic and up the Norwegian coast to the Arctic 
 Circle; thence to the Shetlands and the north of Scot- 
 land, and afterwards to Brittany again; and so to the 
 mouth of the Garonne, where he found a route leading 
 to Marseilles. 
 
 The ships first touched at Gaddir, the Tyre of the West, 
 where the merchants lived " quietly after the manner of 
 the Sidonians, careless and secure, and in the possession 
 of riches." Here they reached the limit of Greek geogra- 
 phical knowledge, — the Pillars or Tablets of Hercules, 
 whom the Phoenicians called Melkarth.^ The voyage to 
 
 1 The Greeks altered the name to Melicertes ; and it is also believed 
 to be the original of the " Midacritus, who first brought tin fi-om the 
 Cassiterides " (Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 57). Gaddir, Gadeira, or Cadiz, was 
 founded about iioo B.C. The description of the city by Pytheas has 
 either been lost, or cannot be disentangled from the details presented by 
 the later narratives of Artemidorus and Posidonius. The following is the 
 best modern account : — " An island {Erytheid) twelve miles in length is 
 separated from the coast of Spain by a strait only a furlong in breadth at 
 its narrowest part, and it is again broken into two parts, which are con- 
 nected by a narrow sandy isthmus, a furlong across, the recess between 
 the island and the opposite shore forming one of the noblest roadsteads 
 in Europe. Two smaller islands contract the entrance and break the 
 force of the mighty waves of the Atlantic, which render the outer bay 
 unsafe. The Phoenician name Gaddir, 'an enclosure,' probably was 
 derived from the fortification carried across the sandy isthmus to protect 
 the city, which stood, like the modem Cadiz, on the western end of the 
 island. In Strabo's time, Gades was second only to Rome in numbers. 
 
 The temple of Saturn stood on the western extremity of the island, that 
 of Hercules on the eastern, where the strait narrows itself to a stadium, 
 and in the Roman times was crossed by a bridge. This temple was said 
 to be coeval with the first establishment of the Tyrian colony, and to 
 have remained, without renovation, unimpaired. The distinction between 
 the Tyrian and the Theban Hercules was well known to the ancients ; 
 but after Gades became the resort of merchants and travellers from all 
 parts of the world, the temple of Hercules received offerings and me- 
 morials, belonging rather to the Grecian than the Phoenician god. It 
 
Origins of English History. 1 7 
 
 CEstrymnis, or Cape St. Vincent, took no less than five 
 days, though the distance cannot be more than 300 miles 
 along the coast, and the prevailing winds are favourable 
 to a western voyage. And Strabo quoted the allegation 
 to cast discredit on Pytheas, though Artemidorus, a later 
 traveller, declared that he had taken nearly as long a time 
 for the journey : but there was a nearly general accept- 
 ance of what Pytheas had reported of the situation of 
 Gaddir, and of the general geography of the Spanish coast. 
 All the travellers appear to have been unaware of the 
 existence of the strong south-eastward current which com- 
 mences at the harbour of Cadiz. Pytheas noticed its 
 effects ; but he seems to have attributed them to the gene- 
 ral flow of the ocean, which all the poets had described as 
 a vast and swift river encircling the habitable earth ; and 
 he was surprised on rounding the southern face of the cape 
 to find that the current had ceased.^ 
 
 In three days more they came to the mouth of the 
 Tagus, lying between a long sharp promontory to the south 
 and the extremities of the mountain-range which reaches 
 the sea at Cape Rocca. We must stay to consider very 
 briefly the notion of the ancient geographers about this 
 district, because it is only by that means that we can ascer- 
 
 contained two columns of a metal mixed of gold and silver, with an 
 inscription in unknown characters, and therefore variously interpreted as 
 containing mystical doctrines, or a record of the expenses of erecting the 
 temple" (Kenrick, Phoen. 124, 127). The Greeks took the Pillars of 
 Hercules to be the mountainous masses of Gibraltar and the opposite 
 shore. But the first Pillars of Melkarth, mentioned in Hanno's voyage, 
 were probably votive tablets, and not pillars ; and afterwards they were 
 identified with the columns above mentioned. 
 
 1 The exact expression was d/j7rurcc£ iregaTovaQai, that " the ebb came 
 to an end " when they had reached the western point of Spain. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 Origins of English History. 
 
 tain the situation of the Cassiterides : they are often 
 taken for the Scilly Isles, but are found by a comparison 
 of the oldest authorities to be the islands situated in the 
 neighbourhood of Vigo Bay. 
 
 The ancients thought that the west side of Spain ex- 
 tended from Cadiz to a point but little north of Lisbon, and 
 that Cape St. Vincent was as nearly as possible the central 
 point of the western coast. The country between Capes 
 Rocca and Carboeira was considered to form one large 
 promontory, from which the northern coast stretched as 
 far as the foot of the Pyrenean range. All the districts, 
 therefore, between this promontory and Finisterre or 
 Nerium, were, according to their ideas, a portion of the 
 northern coast. Lusitania ended at the present northern 
 boundary of Portugal, and between that point and Cape 
 Nerium were situated the " Havens of the Artabri," in the 
 mouths of the rivers between Vigo and Finisterre ; and 
 here, not far from the shore, are the islands which the 
 Greeks called Cassiterides. They are described by many 
 writers as lying close to the Iberian shore, and north of 
 Lusitania : — " Above the country of the Lusitanians," said 
 Diodorus, "there are many mines of tin in the little islands, 
 on that account called Cassiterides, lying off Iberia in the 
 ocean." " The Cassiterides," said Strabo, " are ten in num- 
 ber, and lie near each other in the ocean towards the north 
 from the haven of the Artabri ; " but added in another 
 passage, " the Cassiterides lie over against the Artabri to 
 the north, situated out at sea somewhere within the Bri- 
 tannic region." Pliny placed them correctly on the Spanish 
 coast, which he knew to be at a great distance from 
 Britain ; but Strabo, following older calculations, believed 
 that the north of the Peninsula (by which he meant the 
 
Origins of English History. 19 
 
 neighbourhood of Lisbon) was not more than about 500 
 miles from the south of Britain. The originals of all these 
 passages will be found in the first part of the Appendix. 
 
 The well-known description of the tin-islanders (which 
 is often taken as applying to the ancient inhabitants of 
 Cornwall) appears to have been first taken from the travels 
 of Posidonius, who visited Spain, Gaul, and Britain some 
 generations after Pytheas. " The islands are ten in num- 
 ber : one is deserted, but the others are inhabited by 
 people who wear black cloaks and long tunics reaching to 
 the feet, girded about the breast : they walk with long 
 staves, and look like the Furies in a tragedy : they subsist 
 by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life : 
 and they barter hides, tin, and lead with the merchants in 
 exchange for pottery, salt, and implements of bronze." 
 
 Publius Crassus conquered the north-west of Spain about 
 a century before Christ, and found the Cassiterides, the 
 situation of which was not up to that time known to the 
 Romans. " As soon as he reached them," says Strabo, 
 "he perceived that the mines were very slightly worked, and 
 that the natives were peaceable, and already employing their 
 leisure in learning navigation : so he taught all that were 
 willing, how to make the voyage:" i.e. the voyage from Vigo 
 to Marseilles. He adds, that " this passage was longer than 
 the journey to Britain ;" by which he appears to mean, that 
 it was thought worth while to carry the tin round to Mar- 
 seilles, even though the merchants of that place had an 
 easier way of getting it by the caravan-route across Gaul. 
 
 It has been a common belief, ever since the revival 
 of archaeology in the days of Camden, not only that the 
 Cassiterides were the Scilly Isles, but that they were dis- 
 covered by the Carthaginians in very early times; the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Origins of English History. 
 
 authority being found in a geographical poem of the fourth 
 century, written by Festus^Avienus, a foolish writer, whose 
 only merit lies in the fact that he has preserved a fragment 
 of the voyage of Himilco, which had been engraved on a 
 votive tablet in a Carthaginian temple many centuries 
 before his time.^ 
 
 1 Mr. Kenrick adopts the view that the Cassiterides were the Scilly 
 Isles. He is struck by the description of the coracles and of the fact 
 that Finisterre slopes to the south; but the Iberian coracles were as 
 well known as those of the Britons, and Cape St. Vincent resembles 
 " OEstrymnis '' in stretching to the south, as well as Cape Finisterre. If 
 the lines immediately preceding the extract from Avienus are consulted, 
 it will be seen that Cape St. Vincent is intended. " That by the Cassi- 
 terides, or CEstrymnides, the ancients meant the Scilly Islands is highly 
 probable, because, though they do not in all points correspond with their 
 description, no others answer so well ; and in all attempts to identify 
 ancient with modern geography we find difficulties arising from vague 
 language and inaccurate knowledge. The following is the account of 
 them given by Avienus (Ora Maritima, 114) : — ' Beneath this promontory 
 spreads the vast CEstrymnian gulf, in which rise out of the sea the islands 
 CEstrymnides, scattered with wide intervals, rich in metal of tin and lead. 
 The people are proud, clever, and active, and all engaged in incessant 
 cares of commerce. They furrow the wide rough strait, and the ocean 
 abounding in sea-monsters, with a new species of boat. For they know 
 not how to frame keels with pine or maple, as others use, nor to construct 
 their curved barks with fir ; but, strange to tell, they always equip their 
 vessels with skins joined together, and often traverse the salt sea in a hide 
 of leather. It is two days' sail from hence to the Sacred Island, as the 
 ancients called it, which spreads a wide space of turf in the midst of the 
 waters, and is inhabited by the Hibernian people. Near to this again is 
 the broad island of Albion.' The latter part is derived from some other 
 authority than that of Himilco ; but in hk account we recognise the 
 coracle, the characteristic boat of Britain, navigating the stormy sea 
 between the Land's End and the Scilly Islands. Pliny describes the 
 coracle still more exactly, as made of wicker-work, round which leather 
 was sewed. Boats of similar construction are still used on the west 
 coast of Ireland, and can live in seas which would be fatal to craft of 
 more solid materials. It is true, that in the Scilly Islands tin is not now 
 worked ; and according to Borlase, the ancient workings were neither 
 
Origins of English History. 2 1 
 
 The subject of the Carthaginian voyages is extremely 
 interesting, but it has Httle to do with the history of 
 Britain. Himilco can be traced not to the Scilly Islands, 
 or even to the Bay of Biscay, but to the Azores, and to 
 the region of the Sargasso Sea : and he appears to have 
 discovered Madeira and the Peak of TenerifFe. " In the 
 flourishing times of Carthage" (no nearer date is known), 
 Hanno and Himilco, two brothers belonging to the domi- 
 nant clan of Mago, were despatched by the Senate to find 
 new trading stations, and to found new colonies of the 
 half-bred " Liby- Phoenician" population, from whose pre- 
 sence the State was always anxious to be freed. Each 
 admiral was in command of a powerful fleet. Hanno was 
 directed to go south from the Pillars of Hercules, and to 
 skirt the African coast : Himilco was in like manner 
 directed to keep to the coast of Spain. The records of both 
 voyages were long preserved on votive tablets in the temple 
 of Moloch ; and Hanno's account is still extant in a Greek 
 translation. Himilco's tablet is lost, though it was extant 
 as late as the fourth century of the Christian era ; but its 
 form is known from the " Periplus of Hanno," and its sub- 
 stance is preserved in certain extracts to be found in 
 Pliny, the poems of Festus Avienus, and the " Book of 
 Wonderful Stories," which long passed current under the 
 name and authority ofAristotle.^ 
 
 numerous nor deep.'' (Kenrick, Phoen. 2 1 7 ; Borlase, Cornw. 30 ; Lyson's 
 Cornw. 337.) The passage from Avienus is less confused than most of 
 the other passages in which he describes the Sacred Cape and the 
 Phoenician factories ; his whole account of the Spanish coast is a mixture 
 of various old traditions of Greece and Carthage. 
 
 1 Several extracts relating to Himilco's voyage will be found in the 
 Appendix. Hanno's voyage may be read in Cory's " Fragments of Phoeni- 
 cian, Carthaginian, and other Authors /' and also in a very good version 
 contained in the first volume of " Purchas^ Pilgrims." 
 
22 Origins of English History. 
 
 By a comparison of these authorities we find that 
 Himilco started from Gaddir and rounded the Sacred 
 Cape, proceeding northwards, and founding factories and 
 colonies, which afterwards became filled with a large Car- 
 thaginian population : that he reached the Cassiterides or 
 " CEstrymnic Islands," where he found a proud and active 
 race of men, ready for all kinds of commerce, and accus- 
 tomed to pass between the islands and to visit the main- 
 land in canoes or coracles of wicker-work covered with 
 hides : the later poets long gave them the formal epithets 
 of "rich and magnanimous Iberians." From this point 
 the fleet ventured into the open sea, and were driven to 
 the south. Thick fogs hid the sun ;^ and the ships drove 
 before the north wind. Afterwards, they came to a 
 warmer sea, and were becalmed, where vast plains of sea- 
 weed stretched for many days' journey, and the ships 
 could hardly be pushed through the interlacing branches. 
 There seemed to be no depth of water, as if the fleet was 
 passing over submerged land ; and they dreaded the neigh- 
 bourhood of dangerous reefs. Shoals of large tunnies and 
 other fish, as was afterwards noticed in the same place by 
 Columbus, swam in and out between the ships, and " the 
 
 1 Himilco's description of the fog in the paraphrase of Avienus will be 
 found in the Appendix. A more graceful version of the incident by M. 
 Flaubert, the author of a well-known romance of ancient Carthage, seems 
 to be worthy of quotation. He describes the courage of the pilots, who 
 were bold enough to explore the recesses of the ocean without compass or 
 astrolabe, and thus depicts an incident of the possible voyage : " lis con- 
 tinuaient dans I'Ouest durant quatre lunes sans rencontrer de rivages, 
 mais la proue des navires s'embarrassait dans les herbes : des brouillards 
 couleur de sang obscurcissaient le soleil, une brise toute chargde de par- 
 fums endormait les Equipages : et ils ne pouvaient rien dire, tant que 
 leur me'moire dtait troubl^e." 
 
Origins of English History. 23 
 
 sea-animals crept upon the tangled weed." With a little 
 good fortune the admiral would have discovered America 
 more than 2,000 years before the birth of Columbus, but 
 " the magicians on board " were too powerful to allow the 
 prosecution of the adventurous voyage. They had arrived 
 at the Sargasso Sea, which is said to be seven times as 
 large as France. " At the point," says Humboldt, " where 
 the Gulf-stream is deflected to the east by the banks of 
 Newfoundland, it sends off an arm towards the south, not 
 far from the Azores : this is the situation of the Sargasso 
 Sea, or that great* sea of weed or bank of fucus, which 
 made so strong an impression on the imagination of 
 Columbus, and which Oviedo calls sea-weed meadows : 
 these evergreen masses of Fucus nutans (one of the most 
 widely-distributed of the social sea-plants), driven gently 
 to-and-fro by mild and warm breezes, are the habitation of 
 a countless number of small marine animals." The sailors 
 of Gaddir used to describe "the deserted tract in the 
 ocean four days' sail to the south-west," which was full of 
 seaweed and tangle, the home of shoals of tunny-fish of 
 "wonderful size and fatness."^ The Carthaginian fleet 
 
 ^ Kenrick (Phcen. 225) says that the tunny fishery was carried on by 
 the people of Tartessus, and that the figure of this fish appears on the 
 coins of Gades. " In the waters of the Atlantic, four days' sail from 
 Gades, the marine plants on which they feed grew to unusual size, and 
 the tunnies and conger-eels of this coast were delicacies sought after in 
 Athens and Carthage ; the latter city, after she obtained possession of the 
 south of Spain, forbidding their export to any other place." This is 
 taken from the " Book of Wonderful Stories" improperly ascribed to Aris- 
 totle (De Mir. Ausc. s. 132 ; see the same work, s. 35, for an allusion to 
 Hanno's nocturnal fires). Compare the true Aristotle (Meteor, ii.) where 
 the sea outside the Pillars of Hercules is described as being calm, muddy, 
 and shallow. So in the Periplus of Scylax. A great number of legends 
 were current among the Greeks about the Carthaginian voyages. 
 
24 Origins of English History. 
 
 appears to have turned homewards from this point and 
 to have come upon the Azores and the Island of Madeira, 
 which they described on their return in such glowing lan- 
 guage that others undertook the voyage, until the Senate, 
 being afraid of an exodus from Carthage, forbade all 
 further visits to " the Fortunate Islands " on pain of 
 death. Himilco seems also to have visited Teneriffe, the 
 description of the volcano not being found in the Peri- 
 plus of Hanno, though Pliny certainly took his picture of 
 " Mount Adas " from one or other of the Carthaginian 
 voyagers, to whose authority he refers. " The wonderful 
 high crown of the mountain reached above the clouds to 
 the neighbourhood of the circle of the moon, and appeared 
 at night to be all in flames, resounding far and wide with 
 the noise of pipes, trumpets, and cymbals" (Hist. Nat. v. i.). 
 Enough has now been said of Himilco's voyage to show 
 that it is most improbable, to say the least, that he visited 
 the Cornish coast. We will therefore return, after this 
 long but necessary digression, to our consideration of the 
 voyage of Pytheas. 
 
 Leaving the Cassiterides, the travellers reached Nerium 
 or Finisterre, then occupied by Iberian tribes, but after- 
 wards known as the Celtic promontory. Little is recorded 
 of this passage round the northern coast, but it seems pro- 
 bable that the diary of Pytheas was the authority for the 
 description in the poem of Avienus of the flat-bottomed 
 punts in which the Carthaginian settlers traversed the 
 numerous estuaries, the natives keeping to their often- 
 described Lusitanian coracles. There is an old notice of 
 the native superstitions, which also seems to have come 
 from the writings of Pytheas. Passing Nerium at night, 
 .they heard the women worshipping the Earth-goddesses 
 
Origins of English History. 25 
 
 with shrill music and noisy rites, in honour of Earth and 
 Proserpina.^ 
 
 Coming to the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees, they 
 made a passage of two days to " a deserted shore of the 
 Ligurlans," if we can trust the careless Avienus, and at 
 any rate in a short time arrived at the mouth of the Loire, 
 then the northern boundary of the Iberian population, and 
 the limit of the Celtic advance.^ Here Pytheas declared 
 (and was afterwards followed by Artemidorus) that it 
 would have been far easier to have come to Celtica by 
 the overland route from Marseilles than to have under- 
 taken the difficult and tedious journey by sea. In a bay 
 near the mouth of the river they visited an island inhabited 
 by women, who worshipped a barbarous god with bloody 
 and orgiastic rites. The island was called Amnis or 
 Samnis, and the tribe to whom it belonged were called 
 Amnites, the noble Amnitae of the poets. They are only 
 known by the report of what Pytheas saw, which was 
 treated as incredible by Eratosthenes and later writers. 
 No man might land on the sacred island ; but the 
 priestesses might cross to the mainland in their coracles 
 as occasion required. A temple stood on the island, which 
 was unroofed once a year, the custom requiring that the 
 roof should be replaced in one day before the sun went 
 
 1 See the passage from Dionysius Periegetes, in the Appendix. The 
 Greek traveller Artemidorus confirmed the traveller's story of a worship 
 being paid to Ceres and Proserpina " with a Samothracian ritual" in an 
 island of the Britannic seas. This may, however, have applied to the 
 ritual found in the island at the mouth of the Loire, of which the descrip- 
 tion was preserved by Strabo. 
 
 2 Vibius Sequester, an author of unknown date, who wrote a treatise on 
 rivers, describes the Loire as dividing the Celts and Aquitanians, and 
 flowing into the British Ocean (Vib. Seq. 224). 
 
26 Origins of English History. 
 
 down. Each woman had an allotted burden of materials, 
 and an appointed share of the task ; and if any one of 
 them let her burden fall, she was torn in pieces by her 
 horrible companions : and it was said that the feast never 
 passed without one at least of the priestesses being sacri- 
 ficed in this fashion. The other rites were performed by 
 night, and the appearance of the ivy-crowned women 
 dancing in their tumultuous processions was compared to 
 that of the Msenads on the hills of Thrace.^ 
 
 1 M.- Martin (Hist, de France, i. 63) considers all these rituals to have 
 belonged to convents of Druidesses engaged in the service of Koridwen, 
 the White Fairy or Moon-goddess, to whose cult the Celtic priestesses 
 were said to be devoted. " Strabo prend Koridwen pour Kor^, Proser- 
 pine.'' " Les n^m^des (temples) des colleges ou monastferes de druidesses, 
 dont ils (les ^crivains grecs ou latins) nous rdvdlent I'existence sont situds 
 dans les iles les plus sauvages d'Armorique et de Bretagne. Dans une de 
 ces iles sacr^es, voisine de la cote britannique se cfldbrent, dit-on, des 
 mystferes pareils k ceux de Samothrace et d'Eleusis, c'est-k-dire les mys- 
 tferes de Koridwen. Un ilot situ^ en face de I'embouchure de la Loire 
 est le th^itre de mystferes plus redoutables encore. . . . Les pretresses qui 
 I'habitent, et qui appartiennent k la nation armoricaine des Nannfetes, sont 
 marines ; mais leurs maris n'osent approcher de leur inviolable asile ; ce 
 sont elles qui vont les visiter de nuit sur le rivage \ des dpoques ddtermi- 
 ndes. Le plus fameux de tons les colleges de druidesses est celui de Kle 
 de Sein ou de Sena, prfes de la cote des Corisospites, Cornouaille Frangaise. 
 Sur un rocher presque inabordable jet^ dans la haute mer, en face du Raz 
 de Plogoff, de ce vaste promontoire de granit ou le continent europ&n 
 vient mourir tristement dans un oc^an sans bornes, resident neuf prfetresses 
 vouees comme les Vestales de Rome k une perpdtuelle virginitd Oh 
 assure qu'elles gudrissent les maladies qui &happent \ la science des 
 Ovates {Druids), qu'elles souldvent et apaisent par leurs chants les vents 
 et les flots, qu'elles empruntent k volont6 la figure de tous les aniraaux, 
 qu'elles dominent sur la Nature entifere, et savent les secrets de I'avenir, 
 mais ne les d^voilent qu'aux seuls navigateurs embarquds dans le but 
 unique de consulter les oracles. Ces neuf vierges semblent dans la croy- 
 ance populaire la plus grande puissance des Gaules." M. Martin adopts 
 the best reading of Pomponius Mela, iii. 6, " Galli Senas vocant," in- 
 
Origins of English History. 2 7 
 
 Shortly after leaving the mouth of the Loire, then called 
 the Liger (as if its banks were occupied by the Ligurian 
 population, who in historical times are only found on the 
 Mediterranean coast), the travellers skirted the shores of 
 the Morbihan, and found themselves among the " Celtic 
 Islands." The mainland in the vicinity of Vannes, the 
 home of the people called Veneti in the time of Julius 
 Csesar, was then held by people whom Pytheas called 
 " Ostimii," a name otherwise unknown. The extremity of 
 the Breton mainland as far as Finisterre was held by 
 tribes called " OstidS.mnii," or " Osismici," or " Osistamnii," 
 words which are either corrupt and various readings of a 
 manuscript, or the names of different clans living near 
 each other. Cape Finisterre itself was known to Pytheas 
 as " Calbion." Opposite to this promontory they found an 
 island then known as " Axantos" or " Uxisana," and now 
 called the Isle of Ushant, where they landed, and found 
 another temple, where nine Gaelic priestesses maintained a 
 perpetual fire in honour of their god, and attended to a 
 famous oracle. These vestals professed to have magical 
 powers, to be able to transform themselves into the shapes 
 of animals, and to have fine weather and favouring winds 
 on sale for travellers, with a curious similarity in their 
 customs to the arts of the later Lapland witches. Here, 
 without knowing it, Pytheas was at his nearest point to 
 the Cornish tin-country of which he was in search : and 
 
 stead of Gallicenas or Barrigenas, and interprets the root sen to denote 
 awe and respect, " Le radical sen exprime la vdndration et I'autorit^." 
 The whole subject is very uncertain, resting only on a faint report of what 
 was said by Pytheas ; but it may be fairly supposed that if there were two 
 islands north of the Loire, in which the Celtic rituals were practised, the 
 one may be identified as Ushant (Uxisana), and the other as L'ile des 
 Saints (Sein), not far from Brest. — See Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 453, 455. 
 
28 Origins of English History. 
 
 there is no hint of any trade then existing between the 
 Bretons and the people of the opposite coast, such as 
 Posidonius soon afterwards found existing between the 
 insular Britons and the people of the neighbourhood of 
 Vannes ; so that it seems probable that the regular mode 
 of communication was by coasting as far as the Straits of 
 Dover, where the passage was less perilous than a voyage 
 over the broad and stormy Channel. Pytheas himself at 
 all events was unaware of his vicinity to Cornwall, for he 
 sailed up the Channel as far as Cantion, the North Fore- 
 land, or a port in its neighbourhood : and he noted that 
 "Britain was several days' journey from Celtica," and that it 
 lay about 170 miles to the north of the Isle of Ushant. It 
 appears that the whole group of islands were called Britain, 
 or the Britannic Isles, the two largest being even then 
 distinguished by the names of Albion and I erne. The 
 " Book of the World," a very ancient compilation, which 
 was long attributed to Aristotle, describes them in the fol- 
 lowing passage :■ — " In the ocean are two islands of great 
 size, Albion and I erne, called the Bretannic Isles, lying 
 beyond the Celti ; and not a few smaller islands around 
 the Bretannic Isles and around Iberia encircle as with a 
 crown the habitable world, which itself is an island in the 
 ocean." 
 
 Pytheas remained for some time in Britain, the country 
 to which, as he said, he paid more attention than to any 
 other which he visited in the course of his travels ; and 
 he claimed to have visited most of the accessible parts of 
 the island and to have coasted along the whole length of 
 its eastern side. He appears to have taken a great 
 number of astronomical notes and measurements, which 
 became the foundation of the system of geography 
 
OHgins of English History. 29 
 
 founded by Eratosthenes, and improved by the celebrated 
 Hipparchus : it was afterwards superseded by the Ptole- 
 maic system, which enjoyed a long popularity, until it 
 was superseded in its turn by the results of mediaeval dis- 
 coveries. The measurements of distance by the Greek 
 travellers appear to be all equally valueless ; their want of 
 scientific instruments led them to adopt a rough calculation 
 of the number of miles that a particular ship would go in 
 an hour, allowing as best they might for wind and currents 
 and other accidental sources of mistake. They employed 
 indeed the more scientific methods of calculating the dis- 
 tance between particular points by the height of the sun 
 at the winter solstice, the length of the longest day, the 
 ratio of the gnomon to the solstitial shadow, and other 
 similar processes, but the results were not of a valu- 
 able kind. Pytheas has left several of these calculations 
 with reference to different stations in Britain, but it 
 does not seem to be worth while to examine them 
 minutely. His system and those of the great geographers 
 who consistently maintained that Pytheas was a great 
 philosopher and student of truth, as well as an eminent 
 mathematician, must be disregarded ; for we are assured 
 with regard to the more precise learning of Ptolemy, that 
 " the entire ignorance of the polarity of the magnetic 
 needle and of the use of the compass rendered the most 
 detailed itineraries of the Greeks and Romans extremely 
 uncertain, from a want of knowledge of the direction or 
 angle with the meridian." " The universal geography of 
 Ptolemy has the merit of presenting to us the whole of 
 the ancient world graphically in outlines, as well as nume- 
 rically in positions assigned according to longitude, lati- 
 tude, and length of day; but often as he affirms the 
 
30 Origins of English History. 
 
 superiority of astronomical results over itinerary estimates 
 by land and water, we are unfortunately without any 
 means of distinguishing among these assigned positions the 
 nature of the foundation on which each rests, or the rela- 
 tive probability which may be ascribed to them according 
 to the itineraries then existing."^ For these reasons we 
 need not dwell very much upon those exaggerated esti- 
 mates of distance which led Pytheas to suppose that 
 Britain was a continent of enormous size, "a miniature 
 world," or a " new world," to use the phrases of those who 
 relied upon his authority. He considered that the island 
 of Britain was of a three-cornered shape, something like 
 the head of a battle-axe, and that (taking about 9 stadia 
 to the mile) the southern side, lying obliquely near the 
 coast of Gaul, was about 833 m. in length ; the eastern 
 side about 1,666 m. ; and the western side, which he had 
 not visited in person, about 2,222 m. in length. The total 
 circuit of the British Isle or Isles was therefore about 
 4,721 m., or, according to another version of his story, 
 about 4,400 m. When we read these measurements we 
 must remember at the same time that the whole habitable 
 world was then believed to be very small. The world 
 was thought to be twice as long as its own breadth : the 
 total breadth, from the spicy regions of Ceylon to the 
 frozen shores of Scythia, being taken at about 3,400 
 miles; the length, from Cape St. Vincent to the ocean 
 east of India, at about 6,800 miles. From the latitude of 
 Byzantium or Marseilles it was about 500 miles to the 
 mouths of the Borysthenes or Dnieper, and a like distance 
 was thought to reach to the northern limit of habitation. 
 
 1 Humb. Cosm. ii. 190 (Sabine's edition). 
 
Origins of English History. 31 
 
 All these calculations were upset by the exaggerated 
 measurements of Pytheas, which (it must be confessed) 
 appear to have been inconsistent among themselves, as 
 well as contradictory of the ideas which were then most 
 generally received. 
 
 Accepting the line of 2,900 miles from Ceylon to the 
 north of the Euxine, which he thought to be in the same 
 latitude as the Baltic, he proposed to add 1,300 miles as 
 the distance between the Borysthenes and the countries 
 which he had discovered within the Arctic Circle ; thus 
 making the breadth 'of the world 4, 700 miles, and being 
 compelled by the accepted formula to extend its length to 
 a line of 9,400 miles. At the same time he placed the 
 south of Britain at a point about 1,000 miles north of 
 Marseilles, and the northern point of the island at a dis- 
 tance of nearly 2,700 miles from that city, the distance 
 from Scotland to the south of Thule being estimated at a 
 further distance of six days' and nights' sail to the north- 
 ward. It is not surprising therefore that considerable 
 confusion resulted from such new and revolutionary esti- 
 mates, or that some of the later geographers should have 
 inveighed against the traveller as a deceiver and detected 
 impostor ; but the impartial student will probably discover 
 a motive for a more charitable estimate in the fact, that 
 Strabo's own measurements are as wild in their own way 
 as any which are ascribed to Pytheas. 
 
 We may now leave these barren calculations, and con- 
 sider the few details of a more valuable kind which are 
 all that remain of the description of Britain by Pytheas. 
 He appears to have arrived in Kent in the early summer, 
 and to have remained in this country until after the 
 harvest, returning for a second visit after his voyage to 
 
32 Origins of English History. 
 
 the north. He estimated the length of the day at 
 Midsummer at 19 hours; on the shortest day the sun 
 "ascended not more than 3 cubits in the sky"; and in 
 those parts of Gaul where the sun rose 4 cubits at the 
 winter solstice, he calculated the length of the longest day 
 at 18 hours ; in the extreme north of the island the nights 
 were so short in summer that there was hardly any dimi- 
 nution of light between the sunset and the sunrise ; and 
 further north still, in the neighbourhood of Thule, "if 
 there are no clouds in the way, the splendour of the sun 
 can be seen through the night, for he does not rise or set 
 in the ordinary way, but moves along the horizon from 
 west to east." 
 
 In the southern districts he saw an abundance of wheat 
 in the fields, and observed the necessity of thrashing it out 
 in covered barns, instead of using the unroofed floors to 
 which he was accustomed in the sunny climate of Mar- 
 seilles. "The natives," he said, "collect the sheaves in great 
 barns and thrash out the corn there, because they have 
 so little sunshine, that our open thrashing-places would be 
 of little use in that land of clouds and rain." He added, 
 that they made a drink " by mixing wheat and honey," 
 which is still known as "merfieglin" in some of our 
 country districts ; and he is probably the first authority 
 for the description of the British beer, which the Greek 
 physicians knew by its Welsh name, and against which 
 they warned their patients as a " drink producing pain in 
 the head and injury to the nerves." This last detail, how- 
 ever, may come from Posidonius, who visited the island in 
 a later generation, and who may also be the author of a 
 description of harvest in another part of Britain, " where 
 the people have mean habitations constructed for the most 
 
Origins of English History. 33 
 
 part of rushes or sticks, and their harvest consists in 
 cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in pits 
 under-ground : they take out each day the corn which has 
 been longest stored, and dress the ears for food." To 
 understand this description one should compare with it 
 a passage from Martin's " Description of the Western 
 Islands of Scotland," which was pubhshed in 1703 : — "A 
 woman," he said, "sitting down, takes a handful of corn, 
 holding it by the stalks in her left hand, and then sets fire 
 to the ears, which are presently in a flame. She has a 
 stick in her right h^nd, which she manages very dexter- 
 ously, beating off the grains at the very instant when the 
 husk is quite burnt ; for if she miss of that, she must use 
 the kiln ; but experience has taught them the art to per 
 fection. The corn may be so dressed, winnowed, ground, 
 and baked, within an hour after reaping from the ground." 
 We learn from a confused passage of Strabo, that Pytheas 
 described the different forms of ag^riculture and modes of 
 living in several parts of the country : " for the celestial 
 signs and scientific survey he seems to have made ample 
 use of the phenomena of the Arctic zone, as that there are 
 cultivated fruits, a great abundance of some domestic 
 animals and a scarcity of others ; that the inhabitants feed 
 on millet and other vegetables, and on fruit and the roots 
 of plants ; that they have wheat and honey, of which they 
 make a beverage," with the other details already quoted as 
 applicable to the southern districts. 
 
 Pytheas appears to have known the eastern coasts from 
 the Shetland Islands to the North Foreland, but not to 
 have visited Ireland or even the western regions of 
 Britain ; and the ancient critics argued against his accu- 
 racy from the fact that he described a great number of 
 
 D 
 
34 Origins of English History. 
 
 small islands lying north of Scotland, but did not say 
 anything about Ireland : a place which in their view 
 must have come under his notice, if he had been in those 
 regions at all ; for Ireland, as they thought, was an Arctic 
 island, lying due north of Britain, "where the savages 
 find living very difficult on account of the cold." 
 
 It has been supposed that he may have visited the west 
 of Britain, on account of the very early reports which 
 reached the Greeks of an immense round temple in 
 Britain, that was dedicated to the worship of the sun. 
 Some of the travellers who followed him may easily have 
 seen Stonehenge, but the evidence is against the theory 
 that Pytheas was ever in those parts. Doubtless he 
 learned something about the tin-trade, the chief object of 
 his visit to the island ; and he was probably the originator 
 of that commerce in the metal which was established soon 
 after his time on the route between Marseilles and the 
 Straits of Dover. It will be recollected that almost all 
 the ancient British coins (of which specimens exist which 
 at any rate are older than the second century b.c.) are 
 modelled on Greek money of the age of Philip of 
 Macedon and Alexander the Great, or in other words, 
 that the first British money of which any knowledge 
 remains was copied from pieces that were struck in the 
 lifetime of Pytheas.^ There is one piece of direct evi- 
 dence (to be quoted presently) which goes to show that 
 
 1 Some of the coins, however, are of an even older date, "the types of 
 fabric being unlike any which have been discovered in other countries, 
 and having all the appearance of being some centuries older than Cesar's 
 first expedition to Britain" (Remarks on British Coins in the "Monu- 
 menta Historica"). The whole subject is best studied in Dr. Evans's work 
 on British Coins. 
 
Origins of English History. 35 
 
 Pytheas did not visit the districts where tin was then 
 produced. These may be briefly subdivided into the dis- 
 trict of Dartmoor and the country round Tavistock, at 
 one time a very fertile source of surface-tin ; the district 
 round St. Austell, including several valleys opening to the 
 southern coast of Cornwall ; the St. Agnes district, on 
 the northern coast (where, however, the tin lies too deep 
 for us to attribute a knowledge of it to the primitive 
 inhabitants) ; and the rich district between Cape Cornwall 
 and St. Ives, to which the same remark seems to apply. 
 " From the search," s*ays Sir Henry De la Beche, " which 
 has during so many centuries been made for stream-tin in 
 Cornwall and Devon, it is difficult to obtain sections of 
 unmoved ground. Hence we can form a very inadequate 
 idea of the great accumulations which must have been 
 first worked, and consequently of the tin-stone pebbles 
 swept into the bottoms of valleys or into basin-shaped 
 depressions by the body of water which appears to have 
 passed over this land. Traces of stream-works (pits and 
 'burrows') are to be seen from Dartmoor to the Land's 
 End, often in depressions on the higher grounds ; as, for 
 example, on the former elevated region, whence tin-pebbles 
 have long ceased to be obtained, being the works of the 
 ' old men,' as the ancient miners are universally termed 
 in Devon and Cornwall." (Geol. Report, Cornw. 401.) 
 
 The point of evidence mentioned above consists in 
 the fact, that Timaeus the historian, a contemporary of 
 Pytheas and fond of quoting from his travels, mentioned 
 " an island called Mictis, lying ' inwards,' at a distance 
 of six days' sail from Britain, where the tin is found, to 
 which island the natives make voyages in their canoes of 
 wickerwork covered with hides." Whatever the meaning 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Origins of English History. 
 
 may be of the phrase " inwards from Britain," and from 
 whatever point these natives may be supposed to have 
 commenced their six days' voyage, the important fact 
 remains that the tin was only dug up in the west of Devon 
 and Cornwall ; so that the island of Mictis cannot be 
 thought to have been at a distance from the British coast. 
 To make any sense of the passage, it must be supposed 
 to have lain at six days' voyage from the mineral district ; 
 and it seems probable that we can identify it with the Isle 
 of Thanet, at which the marts were established, from 
 which the merchants made the shortest passage to Gaul. 
 The passage in this view must be taken to mean, that the 
 native boats took a week to pass between the tin districts 
 and the parts visited by Pytheas. The mineral region was 
 described by Posidonius, whose travels have already been 
 mentioned ; he drew a lively picture of the inhabitants 
 and the nature of their commerce, which is preserved in 
 the Collections of Diodorus. The account of his visit to 
 Cornwall, which he called " Belerium," a name afterwards 
 appropriated by Ptolemy to the particular cliff now called 
 Land's End, is to the following effect :— " The inhabitants 
 of that promontory of Britain which is called Belerium 
 are very fond of strangers, and from their intercourse with 
 foreign merchants are civilized in their manner of life. 
 They prepare the tin, working very skilfully the earth in 
 which it is produced. The ground is rocky, but it con- 
 tains earthy veins, the produce of which is ground down, 
 smelted, and purified. They make the metal up into slabs 
 shaped like knuckle-bones, and carry it to a certain island 
 lying off Britain called Lctis. During the ebb of the tide 
 the intervening space is left dry, and to this place they 
 carry over abundance of tin in their waggons. And a 
 
Origins of English History. 3 7 
 
 very singular thing happens with regard to the islands in 
 these parts lying between Europe and Britain ; for at the 
 flood the intervening passage is overflowed, and they seem 
 like islands ; but a large space is left dry at the ebb, and 
 then they seem to be peninsulas. Here, then, the mer- 
 chants buy the tin from the natives, and carry it over to 
 Gaul ; and after travelling overland for about thirty days, 
 they finally bring their loads on pack-horses to the outlet 
 of the Rhone [i.e. the junction of the Rhone and Saone, 
 where the wharfs ^r the tin-barges were erected)." 
 The trade is also described in the following passages, 
 which may be cited as showing the distinction which was 
 known to exist between the Cornish tin trade and the 
 commerce with the Cassiterides, which was of a much 
 higher antiquity : — " Posidonius says that the tin is not 
 found on the surface, as many authors have alleged, but is 
 dug up ; and that it is produced bath among the bar- 
 barians beyond Lusitania and also in the islands called 
 Cassiterides. And that from the British Isles tin is 
 carried to Marseilles." And, after giving the account 
 already quoted of the ^' many mines of tin in the little 
 islands called Cassiterides lying off Iberia," Diodorus 
 proceeds as follows : " Much tin is also carried across 
 from Britain to the opposite shore of Gaul, and is thence 
 carried on horseback through the midst of the Celtic 
 country to the people of Marseilles, and also to the city of 
 Narbonne."^ 
 
 The port whence most of the traffic went to Gaul must 
 have been at the narrow part of the Channel, as it was in 
 the time of C^sar, who crossed from the Portus Itius, 
 
 ' Diod. Sic. V. 38; Str^L^Oj iii. 177. 
 
38 Origins of English History. 
 
 supposed to be the village of Wissant, near Cape Grisnez, 
 then called the Itian Promontory. The island, which was 
 a peninsula at low water, where the stores of tin were col- 
 lected, may easily have been the Isle of Thanet, which 
 has only been joined to the mainland in modern times. 
 Bede tells us, that in the 7th century there was a ferry 
 over the estuary between Thanet and Kent, which was 
 nearly half a mile across at high tide, and the broad 
 stream with ferry boats and people fording the passage at 
 low water is depicted on certain ancient maps which be- 
 longed to Saint Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury. The 
 estuary, now represented by the slender stream of the 
 Wantsume River, was not completely silted up at any 
 point until the reign of Henry VIII., when a chronicler 
 cited the testimony of eight men then living, who had seen 
 barges and merchant vessels sail at high tide along the 
 whole channel from Richborough to Reculver.* There 
 would probably have been no doubt about the identity of 
 the " Mictis" of Pytheas, and the "Ictis" of Posidonius and 
 Diodorus, with the island lying so nearly opposite to the 
 " Itian Port," if it were not for the silting up of the 
 channels : these in ancient times had made the Kentish 
 islands along the southern bank of the estuary of the 
 Thames to seem like peninsulas at the ebb, while they 
 were true islands at the flood. But as the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the case became forgotten, it became usual 
 to look for " Ictis" in another direction ; and it is now 
 generally supposed to be identical with St. Michael's 
 Mount in Mount's Bay, the only place on the southern 
 coast which, in the present day, corresponds to the details 
 
 1 Twine, " De Reb. Albion." i. 25. The old map of Thanet in this 
 chapter was first published by Dugdale in the " Monasticon." 
 
Origins of English History. 39 
 
 of the ancient description. But it should be remembered, 
 that from the existence of the submarine forest in Mount's 
 Bay, and the Cornish tradition that in ancient times the 
 neck between the mount and the mainland was never 
 reached by the tide, it is more than probable that in the 
 age of Pytheas the present island or peninsula would not 
 have corresponded in any way with the description of the 
 island of Ictis. And this theory is borne out by the old 
 Cornish name for the mount, which Leland and Carew 
 have preserved, the place being called " Cara Cowze in 
 Clowze," or the Hoar Rock in the Wood.^ 
 
 1 Carew, Survey of Cornwall, 154. Leland, in his Itinerary, de- 
 scribes the rock as " Carreg lug en Kug, or Le Hore rok in the Wodd," 
 according to his antique manner of spelling. It is fair to say that writers 
 of authority prefer to accept the common theory which identifies Ictis with 
 St. Michael's Mount, though Ptolemy's identification of the place with the 
 Isle of Wight is of course rejected by every one. Mr. Kenrick says of the 
 passage in Diod. Sic. v. 22. (Phoen. 220) : " In this passage the true site of 
 the tin-mines is described : they are found chiefly in the south-western 
 comer of Cornwall, in Gwennap, Polgooth, and Redruth ; and the island 
 which at low water is joined to the mainland can be no other than St. 
 Michael's Mount, which was excellently adapted from this circumstance 
 to be the place of trade between foreign dealers and the inhabitants of the 
 continent. Some of the principal tin-mines are in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of Mount's Bay. As the Phoenicians made no settlements in 
 Britain, and merely anchored their vessels first at the Scilly Islands, and 
 afterwards at Mount's Bay, returning at the close of summer to the south 
 of Spain, it is not wonderful that no inscriptions or monuments of any 
 kind attest their presence or their influence in our island. It is, however, 
 by no means improbable that the tin which came originally from Cornwall 
 may have returned thither from Gaul or Spain, in the form of those instru- 
 ments of bronze which are some of the earliest of our British antiquities 
 in metal." He adds : " From a similarity of sound Vectis (the Isle of 
 Wight) has been supposed to be the Ictis of Diodorus ; but it can never 
 have been joined at low water to Hampshire in the Roman times ; nor 
 would it be at all a convenient market for the tin of Cornwall." Pliny 
 (iv. 16) places Vectis between England and Ireland; and Timgeus, pro- 
 
40 Origins of English History. 
 
 Here we may leave the subject of the visit of Pytheas 
 to South Britain, and will pass in the next chapter to 
 what is known of his travels in Germany and the Baltic, 
 and of his celebrated journey to the Arctic regions. 
 
 bably misunderstanding Pytheas, has transferred Ictis to the site of Thule. 
 " Six days' sail" is the distance from Britain at which Pytheas placed 
 Thule (Plin. ii. 75), and the introrsus of Pliny (iv. 16) means, on the 
 eastern side of Britain, as Pytheas certainly navigated the German 
 Ocean. See also Barham, Tract on the subject of Ictis, Geol. Soc. Corn, 
 iii. 88, and De la Beche's Geol. Report, p. 524, 
 
Origins of English History. 41 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Visit of Pytheas to Germany and the Baltic. — Criticism by Strabo. — Summary of route. 
 — Pliny's northern geography. — Description of Germany by Tacitus. — The Gothones 
 and Suiones. — The Northern Ocean. — The Amber Coast. — The Sitones. — Obliga- 
 tions of Tacitus to Greek writers. — Route of Pytheas. — Passage to Celtica. — The 
 Ostians or Ostiones — Their mode of living. — The Cimbri.-^The Chauci. — North 
 Germany. — The Hercynian Forest — Its Fauna in the time of Pytheas. — ^The reindeer. 
 — The elk. — The urus. — The aurochs. — The country of the Cimbri. — The Guttones. 
 — The Amber Islands. — Extent of commerce in amber — Voyage to Thule. — Dis- 
 coveries in the Arctic Cir(^e. — Return to Britain. — Return to Marseilles — Character 
 of Pytheas. 
 
 THE visit of Pytheas to Germany must always be in- 
 teresting to those who regard the North Sea coasts 
 as the true fatherland of the English people. It is besides 
 of great historical importance, as being the source of all 
 Greek knowledge of the countries beyond the Rhine, with 
 the single exception of the travels of Posidonius, of which 
 some fragments relating to Germany are extant. Even late 
 in the first century after Christ the Romans were forced to 
 rely mainly on the old geographers for information about 
 the regions east of the Elbe, or, in other words, upon the 
 works of Pytheas and his commentators. 
 
 Strabo indeed denied boldly that any Greek had pene- 
 trated east of the Elbe, and gave the reason for his belief. 
 If they had sailed there, he said, the ships must have come 
 out near the mouth of the " Caspian Sea," which certainly 
 had never happened. He concluded, therefore, that no- 
 thing was actually known of those parts of the world, and 
 professed a complete ignorance of the nations who in- 
 habited those northern lands, if, indeed, any people could 
 inhabit a region of such terrible cold. 
 
42 Origins of English History. 
 
 The general notions of Pytheas about the countries 
 beyond the Rhine may be briefly summarized as follows, 
 the details of his diary being reserved for closer examina- 
 tion after a notice of certain general statements in the 
 works of Pliny and Tacitus. 
 
 A Celtic country, called " Germara," or. by some such 
 name, stretched east from the Rhine to Scythia, and north- 
 wards from the " Orcynian forest " to the sea. The coast as 
 far as the Elbe was occupied by the "Ostions," or "Ostiaei": 
 next to them the Cimbri filled their famous Chersonesus : 
 south and east of them dwelt their allies the Teutones. 
 The Cimbric peninsula ran up to the mouth of an immense 
 estuary or gulf, called " Mentonomon," of which the 
 southern shores were occupied by Scythian tribes called 
 " Guttones," as far as the great river the Vistula, which 
 seemed to be the same as the Tanais (which falls into the 
 Sea of Azof) : another great river was not unlike the 
 Borysthenes. There were several islands near the Scythian 
 shore and further out in the gulf, and also beyond its 
 mouth an immense archipelago stretched from " Scania" 
 to Cape Rubeas, the northern point of the world. By 
 passing northwards from island to island a traveller would 
 come to Thule, which might itself be an island, or might 
 be part of the unknown Scythian continent. In the neigh- 
 bourhood of Thule was the Dead or Sluggish Sea, and 
 further to the north a frozen or encrusted ocean,^ 
 
 1 The word " Germara" was applied to " a Celtic nation" very soon 
 after the return of Pytheas. See the false Aristotle's " Wonderful Stories," 
 De Mir. Ausc. 5, and Stephan. Byzant. sub voce " Germara." Pytheas made 
 the Don or Tanais the limit of his northern discoveries, but he seems to 
 have doubted the identity of the Vistula and the Don. His follower, 
 Timasus, distinctly said that the northern Tanais was unconnected with 
 the Don (Died. Sic. iv. 58). The summary given above is believed to 
 
Origins of English History. 43 
 
 If we compare this sketch with Pliny's account of the 
 Baltic, or with the more elaborate account of Germany by 
 Tacitus, we shall find that a good deal of knowledge on 
 the subject had been acquired in the first century of our 
 era, which cannot fairly be said to have been borrowed 
 from Pytheas. 
 
 Pliny was acquainted with the great range of mountains 
 which separates Sweden from Norway. " Mount Sebo" 
 (the classical name for the mountains in question), and the 
 promontory of Jutland formed in his notion the horns 
 which encircled a gigantic gulf, the Sinus Codanus, in 
 which were scattered the Scandinavian islands. " Scandia," 
 he said, " is the most famous of these : one part of it alone 
 contains five hundred settlements, and it seems like an- 
 other world : then there is ' Eningia,'^ which is said to be 
 about as large. People say, that from this point round to 
 the Vistula the whole country is inhabited by Sarmatians 
 and Wends : that there is a bay called Cylipenus, with 
 an island at its mouth. Going west, one comes to the Bay 
 of Lagnum, quite close to the Cimbric peninsula : the pro- 
 montory in which the peninsula ends is called Cartris ; it 
 runs a long way into the sea, and is nearly cut off by the 
 waters.* On the other side of the promontory the islands 
 
 harmonize the fragments in which the voyage of Pytheas is mentioned : 
 but those who are interested should consult Mannert's " Geographic," or 
 the essays of Bessell and Lelewel on Pytheas, in each of which works there 
 are slight variations from the theory adopted in the text. 
 
 1 "Eningia" is taken by Bessell (Uber Pytheas, 132), to be Zealand. 
 It is called " Epigia" by the Irish monk Dicuil. It is identified with 
 Finland by Olaus Magnus, Hist. Septent. i. 2 ; and this seems to be most 
 in accordance with Pliny's description. The accompanying map of the 
 northern countries is taken from an early edition of Olaus Magnus. 
 
 2 The Liim Fjord. Cylipenus may be the Dantzic Frische Haf. 
 
44 Origins of English History. 
 
 begin, of which twenty-three have been reached in the 
 Roman wars, the best known being ' Burchana,'^ which 
 the soldiers called the Isle of Beans, from a vegetable 
 which they found growing wild : another is Glessaria, or 
 Amber Island, which the natives called Austrania;'* but 
 the later Greeks have called all the islands from Juriand to 
 the Rhine ' Electrides,' or Amber Islands; and some say 
 that there are others called Scandia, Dumni, and Bergi, 
 and Nerigo, the largest of all, from which the voyage to 
 Thule is made." 
 
 The description of the same countries by Tacitus is not 
 so accurate in its details, but is perhaps more interesting. 
 His account of " North Germany" is interspersed with 
 several anecdotes of travellers and fragments of old Greek 
 tradition. It is remarkable indeed that, though he was an 
 intimate friend of the younger Pliny, Tacitus does not 
 seem to have drawn upon the stores of information about 
 Germany, which the elder naturalist had collected for a 
 history of the German wars. And it is extremely doubtful 
 whether Pliny the naturalist would have agreed with the 
 details of the account which Tacitus received or compiled 
 " concerning the origin and manners of the whole German 
 nation." He includes in Germany all the countries lying 
 north of the Danube and west of the line of the Vistula, as 
 far as the Arctic regions : taking in Bohemia, Silesia, 
 Poland, Pomerania, and a vast number of Slavonian dis- 
 tricts besides, over an area about three times as large as 
 that which is now allowed to the Teutonic stock. The 
 case, indeed, is very much as if one should take the 
 
 1 The small portion which the sea has not swept away is called the Isle 
 of Borkum. 
 
 2 The island of Ameland, off the coast of West Friesland. 
 
Origins of English History. 45 
 
 modern German Empire, adding Poland and Bohemia and 
 several neighbouring countries, and should proceed to 
 describe the whole population as having exactly the same 
 laws, customs, and physical appearance. 
 
 Tacitus wrote in much the same way of his " Germany," 
 with its heterogeneous crowd of nations. 
 
 c. I. " The German nations," he said, "are divided from 
 Gaul and the Alpine and Illyrian provinces by the Rhine 
 and the Danube, and from the Sarmatian and Dacian 
 tribes either by ranges of mountains or mutual fears of 
 war. Their other boundary is the eticircling ocean, which 
 sweeps through broad gulfs and around islands of immense 
 extent." 
 
 c. 4. " For myself I agree with those who hold that the 
 peoples of Germany were never crossed with another race 
 in marriage, and that they belong to no one but them- 
 selves, and are a pure stock unlike any other in the world. 
 This is the reason that in such a vast multitude of men all 
 have the same bodily character — fierce blue eyes and red 
 hair, and stout bodies, good only for a charge : in fatigue 
 and hard work they have not a. corresponding endurance, 
 and they are but little able to bear thirst or heat, though 
 accustomed to cold and hunger by their climate or the 
 nature of the soil." 
 
 c. 44. " Beyond the Lygians are the Gothones, who are 
 ruled by kings a little more strictly than the other German 
 nations, but yet not more than is consistent with freedom. 
 Thence, turning from the ocean, we come to the Rugians 
 and Lemovians. And all these nations may be known by 
 their round shields and short swords, and their loyalty 
 towards their kings. And now in mid-ocean begin the 
 states of the Suiones, whose strength lies in ships as well 
 
46 Origins of English History. 
 
 as in arms and men. Their ships are of an unusual build, 
 being double-prowed, and so always able to run to shore. 
 They are not worked by sails, and have no rows of oars 
 fixed to their sides; but the oars are loose, as in some 
 river-boats, and can be changed about from one side to the 
 other, as occasion requires. They have a great respect 
 for riches, and are therefore under the sway of a single 
 king, to whose rule in this case there are no exceptions of 
 liberty, and whose power rests not on any consent of 
 theirs." 
 
 c. 45. " To the north of the Suiones is another sea, 
 sluggish and nigh unrippled, which men believe to be 
 the girdle and frontier of the world, because there the 
 brightness of the setting sun lasts until his rising, so as to 
 pale the starlight : and they are further persuaded that 
 strange sounds are heard by night, and that forms of 
 divine beings and a head crowned with rays are seen. 
 At this point, it is said with truth, the world comes to an 
 end. But to return, — on the right-hand shore of the 
 Suevic Sea the .^Estians dwell by the waves. Their reli- 
 gion and dress are Suevic, their language more like the 
 British. They worship the Mother of the Gods, and wear 
 the images of wild boars as the symbol of their belief 
 This serves instead of weapons or any other defence, and 
 gives safety to the servant of the goddess even in the 
 midst of the foe. They rarely use iron, but mostly have 
 wooden clubs. They cultivate corn and other fruits of the 
 earth with more patience than usually belongs to the idle 
 Germans. Nay, they even search the recesses of the sea, 
 and are the only people who pick up the amber (which 
 they call glesum) in the shallows and along the shore. 
 But, like true savages, they have never inquired or found 
 
Origins of English History. 47 
 
 out what it is, or how produced. And for a very long 
 time it used to lie unnoticed among the other 'jetsam' of 
 the sea, until our luxury gave it a name among them. 
 Among themselves it is of no use : it is gathered- in rough 
 pieces and carried across Europe in shapeless lumps, until 
 at last they receive a price which amazes them. One may 
 suppose, however, that it is the resin of some tree, because 
 in so many pieces are glittering forms of creeping and 
 even winged things, which must be caught when the gum 
 is liquid, and afterwards shut in as the mass becomes 
 solid.^ 
 
 "The Sitones live next to the Suiones, whom they 
 resemble in all points but one, being under the rule of a 
 woman ; so low have they fallen below the state of a free 
 man, or even of a slave. Here Suevia comes to an end." 
 
 We may omit for the present his description of the 
 population between the Rhine and the Elbe. It will be 
 sufficient for our present purpose to deal with the account 
 of the Baltic tribes, starting from the Vistula and passing 
 westwards along the Pomeranian shore. In his picture 
 of the " vast gulf," and of the nations which fringed its 
 southern coast, Tacitus certainly seems to have copied 
 
 1 The " Easte," or Esthonians, sent an embassy to Theodoric the Ostro- 
 goth, which is thus described by Gibbon, who smiled at the idea of 
 Cassiodorus quoting Tacitus to the rude natives of the Baltic : — "From 
 the shores of the Baltic the ^stians, or Livonians, laid their offerings of 
 native amber at the feet of a prince whose fame had excited them to 
 undertake an unknown and dangerous journey of 1,500 miles " (Decl. 
 and Fall, c. 39). The learned minister of Theodoric returned a most 
 friendly letter, inviting the "dwellers by the ocean" to keep up their 
 acquaintance with the Court of Ravenna, and giving them an account of 
 the amber " from the writings of one CorneHus," with suggestions for a 
 renewal of the ancient traffic. (Cassiod. Var. v. 2.) See Latham's Tac. 
 Germ. c. 45, for an argument as to the identity of the ^stii and Guttones. 
 
48 Origins of English History. 
 
 passages from the older Greeks;^ and it has even been 
 -suggested* that the whole account of "Suevia," or, at 
 least, of the northern portions, including the country of 
 the Angli, with which Englishmen are most concerned, 
 was taken direct from the " Geographica" of Eratosthenes, 
 who did not dispute his obligations to Pytheas. And much 
 might be said in favour of the opinion ; but the fact must 
 always remain doubtful for want of explicit evidence. 
 Perhaps we may go so far as to say that Tacitus took 
 most of this matter from some book, and that the only 
 books which to our knowledge had then dealt with the 
 subject were those of Pytheas, his admirers or opponents 
 or critics. 
 
 We will now examine somewhat more closely the frag- 
 ments of the Diary of Pytheas which relate to the people 
 of those coasts. From some place near " Caution," from 
 a port either in the mouth of the Thames or in the neigh- 
 
 1 " It must be remembered," says Dr. Latham, " that it was only through 
 the Romans that the Greeks knew much of Germany ; in other words, 
 their knowledge was second-hand. Even such a writer as Caesar does 
 not wholly confine his account of Germany to what he had himself 
 observed. On the contrary, he quotes Eratosthenes, and indicates the 
 opinion of other Greeks. Pliny's account is pre-eminently Greek, whilst ■ 
 Tacitus has evidently, in more places than one, allowed his reading to 
 stand in the place of first-hand investigation. Yet the Greeks were no 
 safe guides ; not because they had no powers of observation, but because 
 it was impossible for them to know such a country as Germany without 
 coming in contact with Germans " (Latham's Tac. Germ, cxviii.). With 
 every respect for Dr. Latham's great learning, one cannot fail to be sur- 
 prised at his belief that the Greek knowledge of Germany was derived 
 from the Romans. The passages which he cites from Strabo are 
 sufficient evidence to the contrary. But whether right or wrong on 
 particular points. Dr. Latham's work on Germany ought to be carefully 
 studied. 
 
 ^ By Bessell; in his Essay on Pytheas. 
 
Origins of English History. 49 
 
 bourhood of Sandwich, where the Gallic merchants must 
 have resorted from the " Itian Port," Pytheas crossed over 
 to " Celtica," or " Germara," at a place near the mouths 
 of the Rhine which cannot now be identified. The changes 
 which have taken place in the courses of the rivers Rhine 
 and Maas have completely altered the general conformation 
 of the coast of the Netherlands. According to the diary, 
 the passage took two days and a half; and the statement 
 was probably accurate. Strabo scoffed at it, on the ground 
 that, according to his ge6graphy, the mouth of the Rhine 
 and the eastern poirit of Kent were within sight of each 
 other ; an assertion based (as we may suppose) on some 
 confused remembrance of the proximity of Cape Grisnez 
 to the coast of Britain. It will be remembered that the 
 distinction between Gaul and Germany was at that time 
 unknown : except for the slight local distinction already 
 mentioned, the whole country between Brittany and Jutland 
 was treated as part of Celtica : and " the Gauls," or Cymric 
 branch of the Celtic race, were thought to include all the 
 races " who lived along the shores of the Ocean as far to 
 the east as Scythia."^ 
 
 The people who then occupied the coast as far as the 
 Elbe were called " Ostiones " by Pytheas, or " Ostiaei " 
 according to the reading adopted by his follower Timaeus. 
 Another name for the same people, or for some neigh- 
 bouring tribe, is found in the following passage from 
 Stephanus of Byzantium : — " The Ostiones, a nation on 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. V. 25. Prof. Rawlinson, " Ethnology of the Cimbri," Proc. 
 Anthrop. Inst. vi. 151 (1876), points out, that the later writers divided 
 Germany from Gaul by a sharp line at the course of the Rhine, 'and 
 counted all the tribes east of the river as Germans, using the term in a 
 geographical rather than an ethnological sense. 
 
 E 
 
50 Origins of English History. 
 
 the coast of the western ocean, whom Artemidorus called 
 Cossini, and Pytheas called Ostisei." The name of this 
 nation appears in that of the Estian Marsh/ and probably 
 in that of the Estians or " ^stii " of Tacitus, who are 
 identified by some writers with various Esthonian tribes. 
 Dr. Latham considered them to be the occupants of the 
 present coast of Prussia and Courland : the reference to 
 the amber trade " fixes the locality as definitely as Etna 
 would fix Sicily, or Vesuvius Campania." But it will be 
 presenriy shown that the true story of the amber trade 
 fixes these Estians in a very different locality from Prussia 
 and Courland ; and that they must be transferred to the 
 fens and islands between the Elbe and the Rhine, of which 
 mention has already been made. 
 
 There is not very much known about the habits of these 
 " Ostians." They occupied the territories of the Frisians 
 and Chauci, who afterwards took part in the settlement of 
 England ; so that to some extent we may regard them as 
 probable ancestors. Their language seems to have been 
 an old form of German, as far as we can judge from the 
 few words which remain. The name of the people is 
 believed to mean " the East-men," and there seems to be 
 sufficient reason for attributing the word " Thule " to their 
 idiom : the celebrated name is said to have Gothic affinities 
 (signifying an "end" or "extremity"), so that we should 
 not attribute it to the Cimbri who guided travellers on 
 the northward journey, though some of the local names 
 mentioned in the voyage to Thule appear to be of Cimbric 
 
 ^ See the account of " Estia Palus " in Pomponius Mela, iii. c. 2. 
 " Mare quod gremio littorum accipitur nusquam late patet, nee usquam 
 mari simile, verum aquis passim interfluentibus ac ssepe transgressis 
 vagum atque dififusum facie amnium spargitur." 
 
Origins of English History. 5 1 
 
 origin, and to have formed part of a vocabulary akin to 
 the Welsh. 
 
 Our traveller, and the writers of the age of Alexander 
 the Great who borrowed his picturesque descriptions, gave 
 a pitiable account of the life among the Ostians and the 
 Cimbri. Their time seems to have been consumed in a 
 perpetual struggle with the sea, which they had not yet 
 learned to confine with dykes and embankments. With a 
 high tide and an inshore wind their homes and lives were 
 always in danger of destruction. A mounted horseman 
 could barely escape by galloping from the rush and force 
 of the tide. The angry Cimbri, it was said, would take 
 their weapons and threaten the gods of the sea : they 
 lost more men in a year by water than by all their wars. 
 Others said that "the Celts practised fearlessness in letting 
 their homes be overwhelmed in the flood and building 
 them on the same spots as soon as the waves retired"; 
 and " the Celts, who did not fear earthquake or flood," 
 passed into a proverb as early as the time of Aristotle.^ 
 It is now, of course, well known that the sea has from 
 ancient times been attacking and encroaching upon all 
 the shores between Friesland and Ditmarsh ; on one 
 occasion in historical times the devouring force of the 
 German Ocean is said to have drowned all Friesland 
 and destroyed a hundred thousand men. Most of the 
 great inundations of the North Sea have broken into the 
 area of Friesland.* Yet Strabo could not believe the 
 
 1 Ethic, iii. 7 ; Eudem. Ethic, iii. i ; ^lian, Var. xii. 23. For the 
 passages from Pytheas, Ephorus, and Clitarchus, see Strabo, vii. 2 {293). 
 For the miserable condition of the Cimbri and Teutones in Ditmarsh and 
 its neighbourhood, see Pomp. Mela, iii. c. 2. 
 
 3 The most important floods in this quarter of Europe are described 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Origins of English History. 
 
 fact. Accustomed to a soft and gradual motion of the tide 
 in an inland sea, he thought that the violence of the 
 Northern Ocean must be a fiction. " The regular action 
 of the tides and the limits of the foreshore which they 
 covered must have been too well known to allow of such 
 absurdities. How can it possibly be believed (he wrote) 
 that, where the tide flows in twice a day, the natives 
 should not at once have perceived that the thing was 
 natural and harmless ; they would see that it was not 
 peculiar to themselves, but common to all who live by 
 the shores of the ocean." And he put down the story as 
 another proof of the falsehood of the pretended discoverer 
 of Thule.^ 
 
 The account of the Chauci affords the best confirmation 
 of the accuracy of Pytheas. " Twice a day in that country 
 the tide rolls in and covers the land. The miserable 
 natives get upon hillocks or on artificial banks which they 
 have made after finding out how high the water will go. 
 In their huts upon these banks they look like sailors 
 aboard ship when the tide is in, and like shipwrecked men 
 at the ebb ; and they hunt the fish round their hovels as 
 they try to escape with the tide. They have no cattle, 
 and so they cannot live on milk like their neighbours, nor 
 can they even fight with wild beasts when every stick is 
 carried out to sea. They weave fishing-nets out of sea- 
 
 in Turner's "Anglo-Saxons," ch. i. Lelewel, in his Essay on Pytheas, 
 mentions those of A.D. 1200, 1218, 1221, 1277, 1287, 1362, &c. "The 
 Frisians," says Dr. Latham, " have ever been the people of a retiring 
 frontier." Germania, 117, 
 
 1 Strabo, vii. 293. He describes " the Sigambri, and Chaubi, and 
 Bructeri, and Cimbri, the Cauci, and Caulci, and Campsiani," and many 
 other coast tribes, whose shifting nomenclature it is now hardly worth 
 while to investigate. 
 
Origins of English History. 53 
 
 tangle and rushes ; and they pick up handfuls of mud, 
 which they dry in the wind, — for they have not much 
 sunshine, and so they make a fire to scorch their food, 
 and their bodies too all stiffened by the cold of the 
 north."^ This picturesque description of the German fen- 
 levels before the erection of their dykes and embankments 
 accords with the physical circumstances of the case and 
 with the fragmentary traditions which are preserved in 
 the criticisms of Strabo. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how Tacitus, who must have 
 been familiar with the learning accessible to Pliny, could 
 have drawn the imaginative picture in which he presents 
 the same Chauci as the noblest nation in Germany. 
 " They are neither greedy nor feeble ; but, staying in their 
 quiet homes, they challenge no wars and fear no invading 
 plunderers. And it is the best proof of their courage and 
 strength that they do not insult others to show their 
 superior force. Yet every man's sword is ready, and on 
 occasion they raise an army with a mighty force of men 
 and horses ; but in time of peace their glory is none the 
 less."* 
 
 Other writers have given very dismal accounts of the 
 German mode of life. Some said that the people were so 
 rough and savage that they would pick the meat off any 
 old skin of an ox or animal killed in the chase ; others 
 thought that they were cannibals : " those who live in the 
 north are the most barbarous, and it is said that some of 
 them eat men."^ It must be remembered, however, that 
 the last charge is quite unproved, though it was commonly 
 
 ' Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. i. 
 
 * Tac. Germ. c. 35. 
 
 ^ Diod. Sic. V. 32; Strabo, iv. 200. Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 20; vii. 2. 
 
54 Origins of English History. 
 
 brought against all the tribes which for the time being were 
 beyond the limits of civilization. The Greek horror of 
 uncooked food was often distorted into an accusation 
 of cannibalism against the northern barbarians. The 
 Brahmins of the Rig-Veda brought charges of the same 
 kind against the " goat-nosed " Turanians, who worshipped 
 " mad gods," and kept up no sacred fires : " they eat raw 
 meat, and will even devour men."^ 
 
 We must now return to the journey of Pytheas. It 
 was probably during his visit to the Ostians that he first 
 heard anything of the Hercynian Forest. His account 
 was adopted at once by the Aristotelian school of physi- 
 cists, and was afterwards embodied by Eratosthenes in 
 his geographical work, from which it was long afterwards 
 extracted by Julius Csesar. The fragment of the traveller's 
 diary formed the material for several chapters of the "Com- 
 mentaries." They form a valuable record of the knowledge 
 which the Greeks had attained of those remote tribes of 
 Celts who lived on the shores of the ocean, and were bor- 
 dered by the m.ountains of the " Orcynian range." ^ 
 
 " The Hercynian Forest," in Gibbon's words, " over- 
 shadowed a great part of Germany and Poland." It 
 stretched from the sources of the Rhine and Danube to 
 regions far beyond the Vistula. Its relics remain in the 
 Black Forest, the forests of the Hartz, and the woods of 
 Westphalia and Nassau. Only one portion remains in its 
 
 1 Miiller, Chips, ii. 328. 
 
 2 The quotation is from Diodorus, v. 32. The original spelling of the 
 name was " Arcynia," and " Orcynia." For old descriptions of the forest, 
 see Strabo, vii. 291, and Hermolaus Barbarus, see Olaus Magnus, Hist 
 Septent., xviii. i, 35. Cluver, Germania Antiqua, iii. c. 47, contains an 
 account of " the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian Wood."- 
 See also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. 9. 
 
Origins of English History. 55 
 
 primeval state : the Imperial Forest of Bialowicza^ covers 
 350 square miles of marsh and jungle in Lithuania, and is 
 reserved by a benevolent despotism as the home of the 
 aurochs and the elk. In the days of Pytheas the natural 
 forest stretched eastwards from the Rhine "for more than 
 two months' journey for a man making the best of his way 
 on foot."^ 
 
 He does not appear to have visited the forest in person. 
 He collected the native reports of its vast extent, and of 
 the habits of the strange animals which were found there ; 
 and these will now bd cited at length from the transcripts 
 which we find in the " Commentaries." 
 
 Caesar first refers to certain fertile districts which were 
 scattered about the forest, and then proceeds to de- 
 scribe the forest itself under the name of the Hercynian 
 Wood, " which I find," he says, " was well known to 
 Eratosthenes, and to certain other Greeks under the name 
 of Orcynia."^ 
 
 " Of this Hercynian Wood the breadth is about nine 
 days' journey for a quick traveller; for the boundaries can- 
 not be given in any other way, nor did they {i.e. the Greek 
 travellers) know how to measure these ' days' journeys.' 
 It appears that there are many kinds of wild beasts there 
 
 1 The reader may be able to consult Baron De Brincken's " Mdmoire 
 Descriptif sur la Foret Impdriale de Bialowicza," Warsaw, 1826. 
 
 2 Caesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. 26. Tacitus mentions the forest as the home 
 of the chivalrous Chatti, the ancestors of the modern Hessians. In one 
 of his boldest metaphors the nation is described as " stretching as far as 
 the hills extend, and dwindUng by degrees ; and the Forest follows her 
 children until she leaves them on the plain." " Durant siquidem colles 
 paullatimque rarescunt : et Chattos suos saltus Hercynius prosequituT 
 simul atque deponit " (Tac. Germ. c. 30). 
 
 s C^sar, De Bell. Gall. vi. 26, 27, 
 
56 Origins of English History. 
 
 which are not seen elsewhere : the following differ most 
 from the common kinds, and seem to be most worthy of 
 mention here." 
 
 I. The Reindeer. — "There is a beast shaped like a 
 stag, with a horn projecting from the middle of its fore- 
 head ; it is longer and straighter than any ordinary horn, 
 palmated at the top, and branching into several tynes. 
 The male and female are like each other, and their horns 
 are of the same size and shape." 
 
 There is, perhaps, some confusion here between the 
 branching horns of the deer and the long spiral tooth of 
 the narwhal, which was long passed off as the unicorn's 
 horn, .^lian and the ' false Aristotle' will supply us with 
 several other mistakes, which are only interesting as far as 
 they confirm the fact that a Greek traveller had reached 
 the north as early as the time of Alexander the Great. 
 The reindeer was said to change colour like the chame- 
 leon, and to have a hide impervious to the keenest dart. 
 In each case the exaggeration was founded upon the truth. 
 The deer changes its colour in winter like other northern 
 animals ; and jerkins made of its hide were long con- 
 sidered as good as coats of mail. The discoveries in 
 natural history, which resulted from the conquest of Asia, 
 had roused the Greek world to great activity in a science 
 which had till then been neglected. Any fact about a 
 new animal was caught up and passed on, and was often 
 spoiled in the telling.^ 
 
 1 See Elian's Nat, Hist. ii. 1 7, the false Aristotle's Book of Wonderful 
 Stories, and Pliny's description of the unicorn, like an ox with white 
 spots. The reindeer has not much to do with the history of Britain. The 
 Orkneyinga Saga, however, states that in a,d. 115 9 the Norsemen hunted 
 "hrdnas" or reindeer in Sutherland; and Professors Huxley and Daw- 
 
Origins of English History. 57 
 
 2. The Elk. — " There are also animals called elks 
 (A Ices). In their figures and spotted skins they are like 
 wild goats ; but they are rather larger, and have broken 
 horns, and legs without joints ; nor do they lie down to 
 rest, nor if they fall by accident could they get up again. 
 The trees are their resting-places : they lean against them 
 to take a little sleep ; and when the hunters have noticed 
 where they resort for this purpose, they either undermine 
 all the trees in that place at the roots, or cut them so far 
 through as to leave only the semblance of a growing tree ; 
 and so, when the elks as usual lean against them, they 
 make the tottering tree fall over, and they fall with the 
 tree."^ 
 
 kins have found great quantities of their remains in the refuse-heaps on 
 the shores of Caithness. The "homed horse" of the ancient Gallic coins 
 is very like the reindeer of Caesar's description. The mediasval writers on 
 Scandinavia made a mistake which is worth remarking. They had seen 
 the real reindeer with the normal pair of horns ; but they could not reject 
 anything which had been stated as a fact by Csesar ; and they solved the 
 difficulty by defining the animal as a. three-horned deer. (See O. Magnus, 
 xvii. 26, 28.) " Errat Thevetus qui in Cosmographii sui unicornem facit 
 rangiferum : errant Olaus Magnus, Gesnerus et Jonstonius, qui tricornem 
 depingunt" (Pontopp. Nat Hist. ii. 10). Most of the mediaeval woodcuts 
 in works on natural history represent the reindeer with three long branch- 
 ing horns. 
 
 ^ Caesar's reference to the Greek authorities for these passages shows 
 that Pliny's account of the animals in the Hercynian Forest must have 
 been taken from the works of Pytheas. " There are few savage beasts in 
 Germany : howbeit that country bringeth forth certain kinds of goodly 
 great wild beasts. There is a certain beast called Alee, very like to a 
 horse, but that his ears are longer and his neck likewise with two marks, 
 by which they may be distinguished. Moreover, in the island of Scandi- 
 navia there is a beast called Machlis {mel. led. ' Achlis'), not much unlike 
 to the Alee above named. Common he is there, and much talk we have 
 heard of him ; howbeit in these parts he was never seen. He resembleth, 
 I say, the Alee ; but that he hath neither joint in the hough nor pasternes 
 
58 Origins of English History. 
 
 Another primitive account of the elk was preserved by 
 Hermolaus Barbarus ; it is taken from some ancient book 
 of travels, but we cannot be sure of its original date. 
 He described the animal as " living in Transalpine Gaul, 
 but very rarely seen : it is a beast in size between a 
 stag and a camel, and is gifted with a surprising sense 
 ofsmell."^ 
 
 3. The Urus {Bos primigenius). — " The third beast 
 (says Caesar) is the Urus. It is almost as large as an 
 elephant, but in shape and colour it more resembles the 
 bull. These animals are of great strength and speed, arid 
 they never spare man or beast after once catching sight of 
 them. The Germans take great trouble in catching them 
 by pitfalls ; and the young men gain hardness and ex- 
 perience in this laborious kind of hunting. Those who 
 kill most bulls carry back the horns as a glorious trophy of 
 the chase. The urus cannot be accustomed to mankind or 
 tamed, even if taken very young. The great spread of 
 the horns and their general appearance are very different 
 from those of our domestic cattle. The horns are carefully 
 
 in his hind-legs, and therefore he never lieth down, but sleepeth leaning 
 to a tree. And therefore the hunters that lie in wait for the beasts cut 
 down the trees while they are asleep, and so take them. Otherwise they 
 should never be taken, so swift of foot they are that it is wonderful. 
 Their upper lip is exceeding great, and as they graze and feed they go 
 retrograde," &c. — Phny, Hist. Nat. viii. 15 (Holland's version). 
 ' 1 The whole passage is cited in 01. Magnus, Hist. Septent. jcviii. i. 
 The old German name must have been " elg," or some word of the kind. 
 The modem forms are " elen-thier," and "els" or " els-dyr" in Danish. 
 The elk is not known to have inhabited Britain, though some passages in 
 the poems of the Welsh bards have been used as arguments for including 
 it in our ancient Fauna. The monstrous Irish Elk {Cervus megaceros) 
 was at one time common enough in Britain, but it did not survive into 
 the historical period. 
 
Origins of English History. 59 
 
 sought : they are set in silver and used by the Germans at 
 their extravagant feasts." 
 
 This seems to be a confused account of two distinct 
 animals, the Aurochs or Zubr {Bos Urus) of Lithuania, and 
 the extinct Urus {Bos primigenius) which Charlemagne 
 is said to have hunted near his palace at Aachen.^ The 
 latter animal was akin to the wild cattle, which are still 
 preserved at Chillingham and Chatelhdrault, and is sup- 
 posed indeed to have been the original progenitor of all 
 our English cattle except the polled and shorthorned 
 breeds of the Highlands and parts of Wales. 
 
 The extinct 'Urus' had massive and wide -spread 
 horns, and a very small mane, if we may judge at least 
 by the Chillingham bulls, which have bristles of about an 
 inch in length. But the Wissent, or Aurochs, has very 
 small horns, and a large shaggy mane nearly reaching to 
 the ground. " The Zubr is exceedingly shy and avoids 
 the approach of man. They can only be approached from 
 the leeward, as their smell is extremely acute. But when 
 accidentally and suddenly fallen in with, they will passion- 
 ately assail the intruder. In such fits of passion the 
 animal thrusts out its tongue repeatedly, lashes its sides 
 with its tail, and the reddened and sparkling eyes project 
 from their sockets, and roll furiously. Such is their innate 
 wildness that none of them have ever been completely 
 
 1 Pliny's account shows that the Greek travellers were aware of the dis- 
 tinction. " The Bison is maned with a collar like a lion : and the Urus 
 is a mighty strong beast and a swift." (Hist. Nat. viii. 15, Holland.) The 
 Aurochs, or maned Bison, is also called the Wissent and the Bonassus. For 
 an allusion to the old accounts of the Urus and Elk, see Virg. Georg. ii. 
 
 373 — 
 
 " Silvestres uri assidue capreaeque sequaces, 
 Illudunt." 
 
6o Origins of English History. 
 
 tamed. When taken young they become, it is true, accus- 
 tomed to their keepers, but the approach of other persons 
 renders them furious." '^ There are only a few hundreds of 
 them left, and the permission of the Emperor of Russia 
 under his sign-manual is required before one of them may 
 be killed. 
 
 Both animals inhabited Britain at some early period ; 
 but the Aurochs is quite prehistoric. The bones of 
 Caesar's Urus have lately been found in ancient pitfalls 
 which have been excavated in the neighbourhood of 
 Cissbury. The presence of these animals in the pit may 
 be explained by Ceesar's description : " Hurdles of gorse 
 were probably arranged on the principle of the wicker 
 hoops in a decoy, and it is easy to see how, by such a 
 plan, eked out perhaps by the firing of heaps of the same 
 useful material, a wild bull, or a herd, might be driven ' 
 over a pitfall."'^ 
 
 After leaving the country of the Ostians, presumably 
 from a point near the estuary of the Elbe, Pytheas made a 
 voyage of three days and a half to the head of the penin- 
 sula, which was then inhabited by the mysterious Cimbri ; 
 and the traveller was almost certainly the first to apply to 
 the country the long-remembered name of the Cimbric 
 Chersonesus. 
 
 Hardly anything is known of his adventures among the 
 
 1 Dr. Weissenhorn's Monograph on the " Zubr," cited in Cox's Sketches 
 Nat. Hist. 1849. See a good description of the animal by Franc. Irenicus, 
 vii. 13, cited 01. Magnus, Hist. Septent. xviii. 25, 26: "Barbas longis- 
 simas habent at cornibus breviusculis apparent." He describes the 
 narrow pitfalls in which they were caught, the sides being constructed of 
 solid beams on account of the strength of the animal. 
 
 2 Prof. Rolleston, in Proc. Anthrop. Inst., 1876 j Proc. Soc. Antiqu. 
 Scotland, ix. 667. 
 
Origins of English History. 6 1 
 
 people who were afterwards to become the terror of the 
 world. But soon after his return, Philemon the poet re- 
 corded the fact "that the northern ocean was called 
 ' Morimarusa,' or the Dead Sea, by the Cimbri, from their 
 own country as far as Cape Rubeas : beyond that cape 
 they called the ocean 'Cronium.'"^ The passage is im- 
 portant, as being the earliest in which the Cimbri are 
 mentioned by name, and also because the local names 
 appear to have a Celtic origin. " Mor marwtk" is said to 
 be good Welsh for the " sea of death" ; and " mor croinn" 
 or some similar forn!, might signify " the frozen sea." In 
 the dearth of information about the ethnic affinities of the 
 Cimbri, small circumstances like these become important 
 for deterrnining the question of their origin.* 
 
 The Teutones, who afterwards accompanied the Cimbri 
 as friends and allies in their great southward migration, 
 were settled, in the time of Pytheas, in the districts south 
 and somewhat to the east of Jutland. They adjoined the 
 country of the " Guttones," the Slavonians of the Baltic 
 coast ; and they made a trade of purchasing from their 
 barbarous neighbours the amber which was collected on 
 the Pomeranian shore. 
 
 The Guttones inhabited the whole southern coast of the 
 Baltic or "Gulf of Mentonomon" from Mechlenburg to 
 Courland and Riga Bay. The name was retained until 
 late in the Middle Ages for the Lithuanian and Esthonian 
 tribes who inhabited the neighbourhood of Kdnigsberg; 
 
 1 Pliny, Hist Nat. iv. i6. 
 
 ^ Upon the difficult question as to the intermixture of Celtic and 
 German tribes to the east of the Rhine see the discussion on the origin of 
 the Cimbri in Latham's Germany of Tacitus ; Prof. Rawlinson's " Ethno- 
 graphy of the Cimbri," Proc. Anthrop. Inst. vi. 151 (1876); and Pallman's 
 "Kimbern und Teutoner," Berlin, 1870. 
 
62 Origins of English History. 
 
 and it seems to have been used at last in a contemptuous 
 sense, to express the old-fashioned ways of the pagans in 
 those parts, who refused to accept the gospel from the 
 crusading brotherhood of the Teutonic Knights/ 
 
 Pytheas appears to have paid great attention to the 
 question of the amber-trade ; and he may reasonably be 
 supposed to have originated the commerce in that article 
 between Marseilles and the country of the Teutones, 
 which nearly superseded the old overland trade with 
 Trieste. That the latter traffic was not quite superseded 
 is due to the fact, that the region which supplied Marseilles 
 was distant some hundreds of miles from that which had 
 from ancient times been in direct communication with the 
 Adriatic. 
 
 Amber is found in two ways. In Courland, which has 
 always been the principal seat of the trade, the fossil is 
 found in strata underground, sometimes extending to a 
 thickness of thirty or forty feet. These strata are mixed 
 with a vegetable substance like charcoal and with the 
 branches and stems of the fossil amber-pine.^ In other 
 
 1 Their name is variously spelled, as Gothones, Gutthones, Guddons, 
 &c. ; and some even have proposed to identify them with the " Cossini," de- 
 scribed by Artemidorus. (Tac. Ann. ii. 62 ; Tac. Germ. c. 43, 45 ; and 
 Latham's notes.) Dr. Latham proposed to identify the Ostians of Pytheas 
 with the "^stii" of Tacitus, and the "Guttones" of Pliny: "If the 
 Germans had one term and the Slavonians another for a nation in the 
 amber country, that nation would be known to a Greek or a Roman 
 under two names ; and it is nearly certain that this was the case in the 
 present instance. The Gothones were ^stii when the notice came from 
 Germany, the jiEstii were Gothones when the notice came from Slavonia." 
 (Latham's note on Tac. Germ. c. 45.) This ingenious theory rests on a 
 supposed necessity for confining the limits of the amber-trade to the 
 vicinity of Courland, the principal source of the traffic ; but not the only 
 source, as will presently be shown in the text. 
 
 ^ Compare a well-known passage in the " Amber Witch" : " While she 
 
Origins of English History. 63 
 
 parts of the Baltic, and in many places on the North-Sea 
 coasts, the amber is washed up at the high tides and in 
 stormy weather ; and this source of the supply is thought 
 to be due to the disturbance of submarine amber-beds/ 
 
 The principal district for the tide-washed amber was the 
 coast between the Helder and the promontory of Jutland. 
 From the Rhine to the estuary of the Elbe stretched a 
 chain of islands, called Glessariae and Electrides by the 
 ancients, which are now much altered in numbers and 
 extent by the incessant inroads of the sea. Here the 
 Roman fleet in Nefo's times collected 13,000 lb. of the 
 precious "glessum" in a single visit; and the sailors 
 brought home picturesque accounts of the natives picking 
 up the glassy fossil at the flood-tide and in the pools left 
 by the ebb ; " and it is so light," they said, " that it rolls 
 about and seems to hang in the shallow water. "^ 
 
 Pytheas appears to have mentioned the Courland trade 
 as well as the traffic in the amber rolled up by the sea. 
 Philemon at any rate, who copied his works, describes 
 both kinds of commerce in the following passage. He 
 said "that amber was a fossil, and was dug up at two 
 
 was seeking for blackberries in a dell near the shore, she saw something 
 glistening in the sun, and on coming near she found this wondrous god- 
 send, seeing that the wind had blown the sand away from a black vein of 
 amber" (ch. 9). The note adds, that the dark veins held amber mixed 
 with charcoal, and that "whole trees of amber have been found in 
 Prussia, and are preserved in the Museum at Konigsberg." Both pas- 
 sages appear to contain accurate descriptions of the local phenomena. 
 
 1 For the distinction between the supplies of tide-washed amber 
 and those from inland pits and quarries, see Humboldt, Cosmos, ii. 
 128, and note (Sabine's edition), and WeriaufFs Ravhandel's Historic 
 Copenh. 1835, where the discoveries of Pytheas are discussed. 
 
 « "Adeo volubile ut in vado pendere videatur."— Pliny, Hist. Nat 
 xxxvii. 2. 
 
64 Origins of English History. 
 
 places in Scythia : the supply from one of these places 
 was white and waxy, and this was called Electrum ; from 
 the other place came the tawny or honey-coloured variety, 
 which people called Sualiternicum. Pytheas, however, 
 believed that the great estuary called Mentonomon was 
 inhabited for its whole length of 6,000 furlongs by ' the 
 Guttones a German people,' and that at one day's distance 
 from the estuary lay the island of Abalus, where the 
 spring-floods carry the amber. Pytheas himself thought 
 that this substance was the scum of the Encrusted Sea, 
 and said that the natives of those parts used it for kindling 
 their fires, and also sold amber to their neighbours the 
 Teutones ; and Timseus believed this, but called the 
 island Basilia. And Timaeus tells us that there is an 
 island opposite to Scythia which is called Raunonia, about 
 one day's journey from shore, where the amber is cast up 
 by the waves in the spring ; and Xenophon of Lampsacus 
 added that at the distance of three days' sail from the 
 Scythian coast was an island of immense extent called 
 Baltia, being the island which Pytheas called Basilia."^ 
 
 Diodorus quotes a slightly different version : — " In the 
 Scythian region beyond Gaul there lies an island in the 
 ocean which is called Basilia ; and on this island, and no- 
 where else in the world, the amber is cast up in great 
 
 1 Pliny, Hist. Nat. iv. 15 ; xxxvii. 2. The ancient relations between 
 Courland and the Greeks of the Black Sea cities dated from before tha 
 days of Pytheas, as is shown by the coins struck before B.C. 376, which have 
 been found in the Netz district (Humb. Cosm. ii. 128, and note). The 
 Roman acquaintance with the Courland amber-districts was probably not 
 earlier than the age of the Antonines, though " a Roman knight " is re- 
 ported to have made the journey in the reign of Nero. The wor4 
 " Raunonia" looks as if it had some connection with " rav" or " raf," the 
 Scandinavian name for amber. 
 
Origins of English History. 65 
 
 quantities in the spring of the year : it is collected on the 
 island and carried by the natives across to the mainland 
 opposite." 1 
 
 The island of Abalus, one day's journey from the es- 
 tuary, may have been, and probably was, one of the great 
 islands near Ditmarsh and the mouth of the Elbe, " the 
 Saxon Islands" of Ptolemy, which in the course of ages 
 have been torn and ravaged by the sea. It is useless 
 indeed to speculate on the exact configuration which these 
 shifting coasts may have shown more than seventy gene- 
 rations ago. But the details of the old description and 
 the distances measured from " the Scythian shore " are 
 sufficient to show that most of these islands belonged to 
 the Baltic, and were situated east of the Sound. The 
 Danish writers indeed, as Werlauff in the " Ravhandel's 
 Historie," and other local witnesses, have endeavoured to 
 prove that hardly any sea-washed amber was ever found 
 east of Copenhagen. But the opinion rests on the fact 
 that little is found in that way, or looked for, in our own 
 time. The mediaeval authorities are precise about the 
 great fortunes made by the guilds of amber-merchants who 
 had licences from the King of Poland and the Duke of 
 Prussia to collect the storm-tossed treasure "along the 
 Finnish and Livonian seas and the Pruthenic or North- 
 Prussian shore." The Duke of Prussia gained a con- 
 siderable revenue from a tax on several thousand casks of 
 amber which were yearly collected upon his coast-land.^ 
 
 There was a very ancient British trade in amber with 
 the " Ostians " or Germans of the shore. The traffic was 
 regulated by the Romans in the first years of the Empire. 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. V. 23. ^ 01. Magnus, Hist Septent xi. 9. 
 
66 Origins of English History. 
 
 and converted into the source of a trifling revenue.^ But 
 the exploration of the funeral barrows in the counties south 
 of the Thames has shown that the commerce must have 
 dated from a much higher antiquity. An expert might tell 
 the place of production from the colour and quality of the 
 discs, beads, and rings which have been found in the Wilt- 
 shire tumuli. In one instance a necklace of a thousand 
 beads was discovered in the tomb of a chief; in a Sussex 
 grave was found a cup carved from a solid block ; and in 
 another excavation a collar formed of two hundred beads 
 and large quadrangular dividing-plates : " The tablets were 
 perforated with a delicacy which indicates the use of a fine 
 metallic borer : the collar when worn must have extended 
 from shoulder to shoulder, hanging halfway down to the 
 waist." Amber was a charm supposed to protect the living 
 wearer from evil influences, and, as we may suppose, to 
 help the dead man in his journey to the world of the dead. 
 Hence the custom of burying one bead at least in the 
 grave, which is generally found attached or lying near the 
 skeleton neck. Hence, too, the reference in the Gododin, 
 a bardic song of the 6th century, in which the British chiefs 
 are described with Homeric minuteness : — 
 
 " Adorned with a wreath was the leader, the wolf of the holm ; 
 Amber-beads in ringlets encircled his temples ; 
 Precious was the amber, and worth a banquet of wine."^ 
 
 The amber found in the graves is of the red transparent 
 
 1 " The Britons bear moderate taxes on their exports and on their 
 imports from Celtica, which consist of ivory, bracelets, amber, glass, and 
 «uch-like petty merchandise" (Strabo, iv. 278). 
 
 2 Ab Ithel's Gododin, stanza 4. The other instances will be found 
 with much additional information, in Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wilts, vol. i.; 
 Dr. Thurnam's work on British Barrows in the Archseologia, vols. 42, 43 ; 
 and Wright's " Celt, Roman, and Saxon," 489. 
 
Origins of English History. 67 
 
 kind, and never of the blackish or honey-coloured varieties. 
 The product is found in Britain, as at Cromer, and in 
 Holderness, and on some parts of the Scotch coast near 
 Aberdeen ; but the great abundance of the remains in the 
 tumuli, especially in the southern counties, favours the 
 hypothesis that the main supply was brought from over 
 the sea.^ 
 
 We must now mention the voyage to Thule, which has 
 given rise to such intricate and interminable controversies. 
 " Pythias a dSjd, fatiguS des centaines dUcrivains, qui dans 
 Vespace de 2,270 ans I'ont combattu avec acharnement, ou se 
 sent efforcis de Vexpliquer et de lui rendre justice."^ 
 
 " Ultima Thule," the furthest of the " Britannic Isles," 
 has been identified with all sorts of localities since the time 
 when Pytheas sailed with his Cimbric guides to the country 
 of the midnight sun. The controversy is boundless and 
 its details too tedious to be examined at length. But we 
 may select sufficient evidence to show why the story of 
 the journey should be believed and to justify the selection 
 of Lapland as the northern limit of the expedition.' 
 
 1 Pliny cites Sotacus, a very ancient author, for the fact that amber 
 was found in Britain (Hist. Nat. xxxvii. i). 
 
 2 Lelewel, Pythdas de Marseille, i. 
 
 ^ Thule is usually identified with Iceland. The earliest passage to this 
 effect is in the Mensura Orbis of the Irish monk Dicuil, written about ' 
 A. D. 825. " Thile Ultima in qut sestivo solstitio sole de Cancri sidere 
 faciente transitum nox nulla. Brumali solstitio, perinde nullus dies. 
 Trigesimus nunc annus est a quo nuntiaverunt mihi clerici quia Kal. 
 Febr. usque Kal. August, in i lia insulg , manserunt, quod non solum in 
 sestivo solstitio, sed in diebus circa illud, in vespertine hori sol abscondit 
 se quasi trans parvum tumulum, ita ut nihil tenebrarum in minimo spatio 
 ipso fiat, &c." (p. 29). The whole description of Thule by Dicuil is 
 curious, and worth consulting. Gassendi took the same view, and said, 
 " Et in Islandia tropicus pro arctico est," adopting the phrase of Pytheas. 
 Columbus, about a. d. 1477, speaks in his journal of " Thule or Friesland " 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Origins of English History. 
 
 Most of our information on the subject is derived from 
 Strabo's querulous complaints, added to a few words 
 from the traveller's diary which have been preserved by 
 Cleomedes and Geminus. We will take Strabo's criticism 
 first, and add the other fragments in such order as seems 
 convenient. 
 
 (Iceland), a country with which the Bristol merchants had a thriving 
 trade. Among the writers who have accepted the same theory may be 
 mentioned Adam of Bremen, Saxo_Grammaticus, Arngrim Jonas in the 
 Tract upon Iceland ; Pontanus and Ramus in their descriptions of Northern 
 Europe ; Mannert. Geogr., i. 83 ; Bougainville, Acad, des Inscrip., xix. 
 147 ; and Bessell in his Essay on Pytheas. We may pass over the old 
 suppositions that Thule was in North Britain or Shedand, and Malte 
 Brun's idle proposal to identify it with the peninsula of Jutland. Among 
 those who have taken Thule to be part of the Scandinavian mainland we 
 may mention the Swedish historians Dalin and Lagerbring. (Arvedson's 
 Fragments of Pytheas, 21.) Before Iceland was known to them, the 
 Byzantine writers were accustomed to identify the Thule of Pytheas with 
 Norway, and sometimes with the whole peninsula of Scandinavia. For an 
 elaborate description of Norway from this point of view see Procopius, 
 De Belle Gothico, ii. 14, 15, translated by Archbishop Johannes Magnus, 
 in the history of the Goths and Swedes, and inserted by Olaus Magnus in 
 the Hist. Septent., i. c. 5. For part of the passage in question the reader 
 has the advantage of an extract in the words of Gibbon: — "One of the 
 sovereigns (of Sweden), after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found a 
 hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over one 
 of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small portion of the great 
 island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which the vague appellation of 
 Thule has been sometimes applied. That northern region was peopled, 
 or had been explored, as high as the 68th degree of latitude, where the 
 natives of the polar circle enjoy and love the presence of the sun at each 
 summer and winter solstice during an equal period of 40 days. The 
 long night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress 
 and anxiety, till the messengers who had been sent to the mountain-tops 
 descried the first rays of returning light, and proclaimed to the plain 
 below the festival of his resurrection. And this with the men of Thule is 
 the greatest of all feasts." — Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. 49. Compare 
 Jornandes, De Getar. Orig, c. 3, 610. 
 
Origins of English History. 69 
 
 " Pytheas said, that the furthest parts of the world are 
 those which lie about Thule, the northernmost of the 
 Britannic Isles, ' where the summer tropic is the same as 
 the arctic circle': but he never said whether Thule was 
 an island, or whether the world is habitable by man as far 
 as the point where the circles coincided. I should think 
 myself (says Strabo) that the northern limit of habitation 
 lies much further to the south ; for the writers of our age 
 say nothing of any place beyond Ireland, Avhich is situate 
 in front of the northern parts of Britain, where the savages 
 can hardly live for the cold. I think, therefore, that the 
 limit should be placed at this point. Eratosthenes com- 
 puted the distance from the Borysthenes to the parallel of 
 Thule, which Pytheas affirmed to be ' six days' sail north 
 of Britain,' to be about 11,500 furlongs. But who in his 
 senses would believe this ? For Pytheas, who described 
 Thule, has been shown to be the falsest of men ; and the 
 travellers, who have seen the British ' I erne/ yet say 
 nothing of this Thule, though they mention other small 
 islands round Britain. Again, a traveller starting from the 
 middle of Britain and going about 500 miles to the north, 
 would come to a country somewhere about Ireland, where 
 living would be barely possible; consequently the still 
 more distant situation which Pytheas assigned to Thule 
 would not be habitable at all ; and on what possible theory 
 Hipparchus could fix that measurement between Thule 
 and the river Borysthenes I cannot understand.'* 
 
 We have a bare mention of the Scandinavian islands 
 of Bergi and Nerigo, '*the largest of them all, from which 
 men make the voyage to Thule " ; and it is at least a 
 plausible etymology which connects these names with the 
 district of Bergen and the province of Norge, or Norway 
 
yo Origins of English History. 
 
 proper, which ends not far from the city of Trondhjem.i 
 It will be remembered that the winding fjords would make 
 it almost impossible for the first travellers to distinguish 
 the promontories and peninsulas of the coast from islands ; 
 and that a Greek would be apt to conceive the northern 
 voyage as a passage along the vast Ocean-river threading 
 the outer islands, which were supposed to form a ring 
 round the great central continent. It is easy to imagine 
 the voyage towards the Lapland coast through the long 
 summer-day and the strange level sunshine of the northern 
 night. The ship would be kept as long as possible inside 
 the unnumbered stacks and rock-islets which form "the 
 Skerry-guard " of the coast of Norway. When the arctic 
 circle is crossed, the traveller will reach the mouth of the 
 West Fjord and traverse a tract of open sea. Sailing over 
 the broad gulfs to the towering cliffs of the region that 
 stretches to the north, or looking across to the peaks and 
 fantastic shapes of the Lofoden Islands lying low in the 
 west, the Greeks might well think that they had come to 
 Thule, "the end" or at least the beginning of the end 
 of the world.2 
 
 Pytheas did not say that this new country was itself an 
 island. It seems likely that he supposed the land to turn 
 
 1 " Thule Bergarum litori opposita est " (Pliny. Hist. Nat. iii. s). The 
 name of Bergen is usually taken to mean merely " mountains," but is 
 also derived from the old word " biorg-viin,'' a mountain-echo. But if 
 the name is as old as the days of Pytheas, it is not likely that the true 
 derivation can be ascertained. The modern city of Bergen was founded 
 in A.D. 1070, with the object of attracting trade from England ; but there 
 are notices of an earlier town having existed there. On the proper limits 
 of the province of Norge, see Pontopp. Nat. Hist. L 87, and the account 
 of the settlement of the country south of Trondhjem by the first Norwe- 
 gian tribes in Worsaae's " Antiquities of Denmark " (Thoms), p. 146. 
 
 ^ " Inveniet vasto surgentem vertice Thulen " (Avien. Orb. Terr. 760). 
 
Origins of English History. 7 1 
 
 from the North Cape to join the continent of Scythia. 
 Nor do we find that he observed any signs of human 
 habitation. The king of Thule and his romantic people, 
 and the felicities of the arctic summer, are the products of 
 later fancy. His attention seems to have been mainly 
 directed to the phenomenon of the midnight sun. "In 
 some places," he said, " the night was three hours long ; 
 in others it was two hours long ; at last the sun used to 
 rise almost as soon as he had set." Again, " the sun re- 
 volved from west to east and shone through the whole of 
 the summer night"; the sun did not rise nor set, but 
 only crossed along the horizon. " Where the whole 
 tropic of Cancer was above the horizon the day was a 
 month long ; and where only part of the tropic circle 
 appeared, the day was long in proportion." " At the pole 
 itself the day and night are each six months long." And 
 the list of fragments might easily be lengthened, for every 
 astronomer who lived after him endeavoured to record 
 or explain something of the phenomena reported by 
 Pytheas.^ 
 
 Two of his phrases, by their obscure and archaic diction, 
 have given rise to repeated controversies. The first is the 
 celebrated saying that "in Thule the summer tropic is the 
 same as the arctic circle," the latter term being used in its 
 old Greek sense to denote the heavenly circle containing 
 all the stars which never dip below the horizon ; and in 
 this sense of the term every latitude had its own arctic 
 circle. The meaning of Pytheas was that at some point 
 in the north the sun never set during the summer. The 
 uncouthness of the expression was probably caused by a 
 
 1 See the passages from Cleomedes, Hipparchus, Pliny, and others, 
 which are collected in the first Appendix. 
 
72 Origins of English History. 
 
 notion that the tropic of Cancer was a physical line or 
 groove which might be seen above the horizon. 
 
 The second obscurity is contained in the passage pre- 
 served by Geminus. " The barbarians used to point out 
 to us the lair or sleeping-place of the sun ; for the nights 
 at one place were only three hours long, at another place 
 only two hours," &c. Several writers have raised unne- 
 cessary difficulties by taking the passage to mean, that the 
 barbarians showed Pytheas where the sun set at different 
 times in the year, or that, though the weather was dark, 
 they showed him the true point of sunset, and so on. 
 What the savages meant was plain enough. They had 
 watched the sun's places of rising and setting as they went 
 north, and at last had discovered the spot on the horizon 
 immediately above the cave or home where the divine 
 spirit or animal lived. There could have been nothing 
 very strange in this to Pytheas, who had himself contested 
 a fashionable theory, that the earth was a kind of enor- 
 mous whale, whose breathings and spoutings caused the 
 flux and reflux of the tide.^ 
 
 Another passage about a substance resembling the 
 "sea-nettles" or meduses, which in Greek were called 
 " sea-lungs," has become celebrated for its difficulty of 
 interpretation. 
 
 1 See Strabo, i. 92, and the passages collected in the first Appendix. 
 Gassendi explains the matter in his tract "Proportio Gnomonis," &c., 
 Op. iv. 530. 
 
 ^ Compare Homer's " homes and dancing-places of the Dawn" : 
 
 66t T Houc ^piyeveirie 
 OtKia Kal XopoL citTi Koi avToXai ' HcKloio.' — Od. xii. 4. 
 
 " Allen Gestirnen werden bestimmte Statten, Platze und Stiihle beigelegt, 
 auf denen sie Sitz und Wohnung nehmen : sie haben ihr Gestell und 
 Geriiste. Zumal gilt das von der Sonne die jeden Tag zu ihrem Sitz, oder 
 Sessel niedergeht " (Grimm, Deut. Myth. 663). 
 
Origins of English History. 73 
 
 " After one day's journey," he said, " to the north of 
 Thule men come to a sluggish sea, where there is no 
 separation of sea, land, and air, but a mixture of all these 
 elements like the substance of jelly-fish, through which one 
 can neither walk nor sail. I have seen the stuff like 
 jelly-fish, but all the rest I have taken on hearsay."^ 
 
 We cannot feel certain as to the nature of this floating 
 and blubber-like mass. The simplest explanation, and 
 perhaps the best, attributes the reference to the rotten and 
 spongy ice which sometimes fills those northern waters. 
 Others take the matte'r literally, and refer it to the medusa, 
 which are abundant in some parts of Norway, and which 
 must have been familiar to Pytheas before he commenced 
 his journey.^ Gassendi, who took Thule for Iceland, ex- 
 plained the matter as referring to the dense fumes from 
 Hekla. Others take it for a description of cold and 
 clinging fogs ; others, with Malte Brun, as a picture of the 
 quicksands near the northern shores of Jutland.^ 
 
 Many stories were afterwards told about the sluggish 
 waters described by Pytheas, and when the locality of Thule 
 was shifted to Shetland by the Roman writers, it was duly 
 noticed that " the waters are slow, and yield with difficulty 
 to the oar, and they are not even raised by the wind like 
 other seas."* 
 
 1 Strabo, ii. 142. 
 
 2 For the abundance of these creatures in Norway and the salt-water 
 lake of Mortaigne, near Narbonne, comp. Pontopp. Nat. Hist. ii. 182, and 
 Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus, ii. 129, there cited. It is, perhaps, 
 worth noticing that the Frozen Sea is or was called by the Norwegians 
 " Leber Zee," or " sea of a substance like liver." Pontanus, Descr. 
 Dan. 747 ; Arvedson's Pytheas, 26. 
 
 * The different opinions are very well collected and compared in 
 Arvedson's note, reprinted in the first Appendix. 
 
 * Tac. Agric. c. 10. " This agrees with the sea on the n.e. of Scotland, 
 
74 Origins of English History. 
 
 From the description of the Mare Pigrum, which has 
 been already cited from the " Germania," and the mention 
 in that place of the divine forms, and the head crowned 
 with rays, and strange sounds heard by night, we may 
 infer that the ancient travellers saw the Aurora 
 Borealis. The ray-crowned head may represent the dark 
 segment of sky enclosed in the electric arch and the 
 meteoric rays, which have given the name of the " Merry 
 Dancers " to the flickering Northern Lights.^ 
 
 Pytheas did not, so far as appears, explore any part of 
 the mainland of Thule, nor do we know the point at which 
 he turned his ship for the southward voyage. We must 
 suppose that he never reached the " ruddy-tinged granite" 
 of the cape that looks upon the Polar Sea. All that he 
 actually said was, that beyond the dead sea " Morimorusa" 
 was a sea called " Cronium," covered with a solid crust; 
 and, knowing nothing of the nature of the frozen ocean or 
 of its " palaeocrystic " ice, he conjectured that the amber 
 of the Baltic coast might perhaps be broken morsels from 
 the crust of the unknown sea ! 
 
 Turning from Thule they sailed south for six days and 
 nights before they reached the shores of Britain. They 
 
 not for the reason given by Tacitus, but because of the contrary tides, 
 which drive several ways and stop not only boats with oars, but ships 
 under sail" (Wallace, Essay concerning Thule. 31). "The tides in 
 Orkney run with such an impetuous current, that a ship is no more able 
 to make way against them than if it were hindered by a remora." (Wallace, 
 Orkney. 4. 7.) 
 
 1 The Aurora is called " the Morrice Dancers " in Shetland. The early 
 writers on northern phenomena published some amusing speculations on 
 the origin of the Aurora. Some took it for the reflection of distant 
 volcanoes, or the refracted image of the sun ; and "the celebrated Wolfius 
 described it as immature lightning, or an imperfect tempest." (Pontopp. 
 Nat. Hist. i. 7.) 
 
Origins of English History. 75 
 
 probably touched at the Orkneys, of which the three 
 largest were then, or soon afterwards, known as Dumna, 
 Ocetis, and Pomona: the last name has remained till 
 modern times, and from its classical form has been the 
 origin of curious myths as to the fruitfulness of the 
 northern zone. Among the islands to the north of Britain 
 the travellers noticed an extraordinary rush of the tides in 
 tortuous and funnel-shaped channels between the cliffs : if 
 Pliny's quotation^ is correct, the water rose 80 cubits or 
 1 20 feet. This height of the tide is not greater than has 
 been measured in tfie Bay of Fundy, and it is probably 
 approached in the narrow inlets of the Faroe Isles ; but 
 the circumstance is so rare in any part of the world that 
 we must suppose some mistake to have been made in the 
 calculation or in the course of making the extract. We 
 know hardly anything of the remainder of the voyage. 
 The criticisms already quoted from Strabo show that 
 Pytheas did not visit Ireland, or the western coast of 
 Britain. He must have skirted the eastern shore as far as 
 Kent and the neighbourhood of Gaul, landing (as he said) 
 when he could, and traversing the accessible parts of the 
 island. The expedition returned by the Channel and the 
 Bay of Biscay, as far as the mouth of the Gironde. Pytheas 
 was unwilling to repeat the tedious journey round Spain ; 
 and he accordingly ascended the Garonne, and from the 
 neighbourhood of the modern Bourdeaux succeeded in 
 reaching his native city by a journey over-land. 
 
 Here ended the voyage of Pytheas. Apart from later 
 criticisms and controversies we know nothing more of his 
 life or works, except that an early scholiast preserved an 
 
 1 Pliny, Hist. Nat. ii. 97. 
 
76 Origins of English History. 
 
 isolated passage about the volcano of Stromboli from his 
 book on the Circuit of the World. ^ 
 
 His discoveries were in the highest degree interesting 
 and important. His reputation at first rose high, and was 
 afterwards unjustly depreciated ; but his merits have been 
 fully recognized in modern times. " Venit mihi Pytheas 
 commendandus" said the scholar Gassendi ; and he de- 
 scribed the old traveller as " an honest man and a learned, 
 who said what he thought and distinguished what he had 
 seen from matters of guess-work or hearsay."^ ''Habile 
 astronome (added Bougainville),^ ingSnieux physicien, gio- 
 graphe exact, hardi navigateur, il rendit ses talents utiles cL 
 sa patrie : ses voyages, en frayant de nouvelles routes an 
 
 ' The passage will be found in the first Appendix. It embodies the well- 
 known legend about the forges where men left iron-ore and a proper sum 
 of money, and next day would find the sword or weapon for which they 
 had bargained with the unseen workmen. The description is terse and 
 picturesque, like everything else that he wrote. "This seems to bathe 
 home of Hephaestus, for one hears the roar of fire and a terrible bellow- 
 ing, and here the sea boils." 
 
 * Gassendi Opera, iv. 530. 
 
 8 Bougainville, in M^moires de I'Acaddmie des Inscriptions, xix. 146. 
 
 The best sources of information about Pytheas, besides the authors 
 quoted in the text, are the Fragments published by Arvedson at Upsala, 
 in 1824 ; the Essay on Pytheas by Lelewel, published in Polish (1821), 
 in German at Berlin (1831), and in French at Paris (1836); Mannert's 
 Gdographie, vols. i. and ii. ; Fuhr's Pytheas (Darmstadt, 1842); and 
 Bessell's Pytheas von Massiliem (Gottingen, 1858). We may conclude 
 the subject with a passage selected by Arvedson. " Pytheas war ein 
 Humboldt seines Zeitalters, nur als solcher kann er im Zukunft betrachtet 
 werden. Ein Mann, der schon drei Jahrhunderte vor unserer Zeitrech- 
 nung als Mathematiker, Astronom und als Muster der Nachahmung 
 glanzte, verdiente schon durch den Besitz dieser Wissenschaften das 
 grosste Zutrauen, noch mehr, wenn er, entflammt durch Liebe zu diesen, 
 weder Aufwand noch Gefahr scheute, und zur Bereicherung seiner 
 Kentniss und der Erdkunde, die damals einen wichtigen Zweig der Astro- 
 
Origins of English History. 77 
 
 commerce, ont enrichi I'histoire naturelle, et contribuS d 
 perfectionner la connaissance du globe terrestre." 
 
 nomie ausmachte, sich auf feme Reisen wagte, die Niemand vor ihm und 
 Niemand nach ihm unter den gebildeten Volkern des Alterthums unter- 
 nahm. Pytheas war ein Mann, der weit uber seinen Zeitgenossen stand, 
 und dem die Himmelskunde nicht weniger zu verdanken scheint als die 
 Erdkunde " (Brehmer, Entdeckungen im Altherthum, ii. p. 345). 
 
78 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EARLY GREEK ROMANCES ABOUT BRITAIN. 
 
 Imaginary travels based on discoveries of Pytheas. — Their confusion with records of real 
 travel. — Beginning of scepticism on the subject. — Criticism by Dicsearchus. — The 
 acceptance of Pytheas by Eratosthenes. — Euhemerus the rationalist : his account 
 of Panchaia — Argument based on his fictions. — Reply of Eratosthenes. — Criticisms 
 by Polybius and Strabo. Geographical romances. — Plato's use of the Carthaginian 
 traditions. — Atlantis. — Origin of the stories of monstrous men. — "The wonders 
 beyond Thule." — The epitome of Photius. — Plot of the romance. — Stories of Thule 
 — Of the Germans and the Hercynian Forest. — Stories about Britain. — The legend 
 of Saturn and Briareus — Demetrius the grammarian. — Story preserved by Pro- 
 copius. — Island of Brittia. — The conductors of the dead. — The communism of 
 Thule. — The King of the Hebrides — His legend. — Modem variations.— Evan the 
 Third and his law. — Mediaeval use of the legend. — The romance of " The Hyper- 
 boreans." — Description by Lelewel. — Stories of the Arctic Ocean. — Britain de- 
 scribed as " Elixoia." — The Circular Temple.— The Boread kings. — Solar legends 
 — A description of the Hyperborean customs. — The suicides of the old men.— His- 
 torical weight of the legend. — Family-cliffs and family-clubs. — Barbarous practices 
 of northern nations. — Mention of other romances. — " The Attacosi." — The descrip- 
 tion of the Fortunate Islands by Jamblulus — His accounts of strange kinds of men. 
 — Fictions rejected by Tacitus. 
 
 IT is proposed to deal in this chapter with certain 
 romances and volumes of imaginary travel which 
 were based on the discoveries of Pytheas soon after his 
 return from the North. It was a time of excitement and 
 scientific activity. The story of the new world was re- 
 ceived with a general enthusiasm ; and the popularity of 
 the subject soon led to the publication of such books as 
 " Wonders beyond Thule," and the " Hyperboreans," 
 stories tricked out and coloured with the fashionable learn- 
 ing. They were not, of course, intended to be treated 
 seriously ; but in time they had the effect of obscuring 
 and of almost effacing the Greek knowledge of Britain. 
 
Origins of English History. 79 
 
 The process will be illustrated in this chapter by extracts 
 from these curious works ; and it will be shown that they 
 were the real source of many of the legends and strange 
 traditions which have perplexed historical inquirers. 
 
 It need not be supposed that their publication had at 
 first any effect in the way of confusing the popular belief. 
 For a century or more after the termination of the northern 
 voyage, its real incidents were kept apart from the fictions 
 of its imitators. A few criticisms by Dicsearchus did not 
 diminish the general faith in the traveller's accuracy. The 
 great scholars of Alexandria endorsed the popular opinion, 
 aud the earliest maps laid down "the parallel of Thule" at 
 that distance from the equator which Pytheas had roughly 
 calculated. 
 
 But even in the lifetime of Eratosthenes (b.c. 275 to B.C. 
 195) we can trace the beginnings of the scepticism which 
 destroyed the credit of the philosopher of Marseilles. The 
 keeper of the great library of Alexandria had cited Pytheas 
 for many statements in his " Geographica," of which not 
 many sentences have survived the destruction of the library 
 by fire. But he was already pressed with the new argu- 
 ment, that these old travels could hardly be distinguished 
 from others which were clearly fictitious. 
 
 Euhemerus of Messene, inventor of the system which 
 " rationalised " the current mythology, had lately published 
 an account of the Land of Panchaia, which may still be 
 examined in the undiscriminating collections of Diodorus. 
 This Arabian land was described as the home of the 
 heroes whom the populace worshipped as Zeus and Apollo, 
 and of all the other beings who were counted among the 
 gods of Greece. The fable was a useful vehicle for the 
 spread of dangerous opinions. The author had merely 
 
8o Origins of English History. 
 
 anticipated the stratagem of Rabelais ; but some were so 
 foolish as to take the fiction for genuine history. 
 
 Others used the occasion to attack the new geographical 
 science. " How," they said, " can these travellers' tales 
 about the North be distinguished from works of fiction ? 
 Here are things which one could not believe, if Hermes 
 himself came down from heaven as a witness ; and why 
 should they be of more account than what the Messenian 
 has told us of his Holy Land ?" But Eratosthenes would 
 only reply, " I trust Pytheas, even where Dicsearchus 
 doubted ; but I think that Euhemerus lies like the man of 
 Berga."^ 
 
 The answer failed to satisfy the later critics. "It would 
 have been better," said Polybius, " if he had believed the 
 Messenian ; for he only told falsehoods about one country, 
 but this Pytheas pretended to have been to the world's 
 end, and to have peeped into every corner of the north." 
 And Strabo added, that " Eratosthenes must have been 
 joking," and used the matter as a warning for other men 
 of science. We find him saying of some story related by 
 Posidonius, " This is mere nonsense from Berga, almost as 
 bad as the falsehoods of Pytheas, and Euhemerus, and 
 Antiphanes ; we can excuse it in people whose business it 
 is to tell wonderful stories, but not in a grave philosopher, 
 one of the champions in the arena of science." 
 
 The Greeks had a peculiar skill in the construction of 
 geographical fiction. Every novelist was ready with a 
 
 1 Eratosthenica (Bemhardy, 1822), 20, 22. Compare Strabo, ii. 104, 
 and iii. 148. The Man of Berga was Antiphanes, a native of that place, 
 only known for having published some iictitious travels. The proverbial 
 phrases, Btpyatoc aviip, 'Bepyai^eiv, and Btpyaiov Sitiytjfia, preserve his 
 reputation for mendacity. 
 
Origins of English History. 8i 
 
 sham voyage, or a didactic work in the form of news from 
 Utopia. Lucian 's gay burlesque shows the existence of a 
 whole literature of adventures " among monstrous beasts 
 and cruel savages, and in strange forms of life," as curious 
 in their way as his own pictures of travel in the land of 
 the Hippogriffs.^ 
 
 Plato himself, in two of his Dialogues, had used the 
 Carthaginian voyages as material for didactic fiction. 
 The unfinished story of Atlantis shows his knowledge of 
 the oceanic weed-beds and the nature of the minerals to be 
 found in Spain. " The island disappeared, and was sunk 
 beneath the sea ; and that is the reason why the sea in 
 those parts is impassable and impenetrable ; because there 
 is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way, caused by 
 the subsidence of the island." And he thus described the 
 splendours of the palace of Atlas before the occurrence of 
 the legendary catastrophe : " The entire circuit of the wall 
 they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the 
 next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which 
 encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of 
 orichalcum."^ 
 
 The curious subject of these romances of travel will be 
 found to have some bearing on the history of northern 
 Europe. They help to show the level of the knowledge 
 which was current at the date of their publication, and they 
 afford some evidence as to the habits of our barbarian 
 ancestors before the dawn of history. They indicate the 
 real origin of the fables, which amused the Greeks, and 
 were afterwards accepted as history, by compilers who had 
 
 ^ Lucian, Vera Historia, c. i. 
 
 2 The extracts are from "Timseus" and " Critias," in Prof. Jowett's 
 translation. Plato, Dial, ii. 521, 599, 607. 
 
 G 
 
82 Origins of English History. 
 
 lost all sense of historical perspective and were ready to 
 record anything which bore the shape of a tradition. 
 Hence came the travellers' tales of one-footed men, of 
 Germans with monstrous feet and ears, of fantastic kings 
 in Thule, and Irish tribes who thought it right to devour 
 their parents, 
 
 " The cannibals that each other eat, 
 
 The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders." ^ 
 
 We propose to deal somewhat more minutely with the two 
 romances, which appear to have been based upon the 
 voyage of Pytheas. 
 
 The book called " Won_ders beyond Thule" was written 
 by one Diqgenes_Antpnius, soon after the death of Alex- 
 ander the Great." It was current as late as the 9th cen- 
 
 1 Pliny's monsters continually re-appear in the mediaeval records of 
 travel, their locality being shifted to suit the circumstances of the case. 
 We may study their habits in the pages of the painstaking Mandeville. 
 " In an yle towards the southe dwellen folk of foule stature and of cursed 
 kynde, that han no beds and here eyen be in here scholdres; and in 
 another yle ben folk of foule fasceon and schapp, that han the lippe above 
 the mouthe so gret, that whan thei slepen in the sonne thei keveren alle the 
 face with that lippe : and in another yle ben folk, that han hors' feet, and 
 thei ben strong and mighty." We find the same stories in the old Ice- 
 landic Sagas. The Norsemen in Labrador met " a onefoot-man of glitter- 
 ing appearance," who shot one of the Greenland captains, and fled swiftly 
 over the sea. 
 
 * For the epitome of "Airtura virep Qov\r\v see the Myriobiblon of 
 Pljotjus, Passow's Erotici Graci, Chardon de la Rochelle, Mtlanges. 
 Fragments of the work will be found in Diodorus, Porphyry's Life of 
 Pythagoras, Stephanus Byzantinus sub voce " Germara," the geographical 
 collection of Solinus, and in some of the minor essays which have been 
 attributed to Plutarch, and especially in those upon the decay of the 
 oracles and on the figure in the face of the moon. A modern imitation 
 may be found in the lunar travels of the once-fashionable Cyrano de 
 Bergerac. 
 
Origins of English History. 83 
 
 tury, when its twenty-four volumes were summarised by 
 the Patriarch Photius, who compressed the works of nearly 
 three hundred authors into one volume to beguile the 
 tedium of a residence in Bagdad. Our knowledge of the 
 novel is gained partly from this epitome, and partly from 
 the fragments which can be gathered from the later classical 
 writings. 
 
 The plot turns on the loves of a Syrian maiden and a 
 shepherd of Arcadia, whose adventures were recorded in 
 a manuscript which Alexander the Great was supposed to 
 find in their tomb in a country beyond the Caspian Sea. 
 By a surprising series of events the principal personages 
 in the story were assembled in the polar circle with leisure 
 to verify all the wonders which had been announced to the 
 world. They make friends with the simple inhabitants of 
 Thule, and pass beyond their country to the shores of the 
 Encrusted Sea. Here they find themselves in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the moon, and we owe the preservation of 
 several fragments of the novel to the curiosity excited by 
 their lunar travels. The story appears to have contained 
 fanciful descriptions of the whole of the north of Europe. 
 The " Germara " or Germans were described as blue-eyed 
 men who could not see by day. They were guided at 
 night through the Hercynian gloom by the light of strange 
 luminous birds. Some of the Germans of the fens had 
 horses' hoofs for feet, others had flapping and monstrous 
 ears. We find several legends relating to Britain, which 
 from their context must be attributed to the same romance. 
 According to the p seudo-Plutar ch there was an island five 
 days west of Britain " where Saturn was charmed to sleep 
 by Briareus : he was laid in a golden-coloured cave of 
 pumice-stone : birds brought him ambrosia and genii 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Origins of English History. 
 
 waited for his commands." The rest of the legend may be 
 quoted in the translation of the " Monumentajjistorica :" 
 " A little time before Callistratus celebrated the Pythian 
 games, two holy men from the opposite ends of the world 
 came to us at Delphi : Demetrius the grammarian from 
 Britain, returning home to Tarsus, and Cleombrotus the 
 Lacedaemonian. And Demetrius said, that there are many 
 small islands scattered round Britain, some of which are 
 called after genii and heroes : that he had been sent by the 
 Emperor for the sake of describing and viewing them, to 
 that one which lay nearest to the desert isles, and which 
 had but few inhabitants, all of whom were esteemed by the 
 Britons to be sacred and inviolable. Very soon after his 
 arrival there was great turbulence in the air, and many 
 portentous storms ; the winds became tempestuous, and 
 fiery whirlwinds rushed forth. When these ceased the 
 islanders said that the departure of some one of the supe- 
 rior genii had taken place. Lofty spirits afford an illu- 
 mination benignant and mild, but their extinction and 
 destruction frequently excite winds and storms, and often 
 infect the atmosphere with pestilential evils." 
 
 We may here add the legend preserved by Procopijis^ 
 " a tradition," to use his own words, " very nearly allied to 
 fable, and one which has never appeared to me to be true 
 in all respects." The origin of the fable is unknown, and 
 perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is the continu- 
 ance of the belief among the fishermen of Holland and 
 Brittany, which has been attested by trustworthy visitors. 
 " In the northern ocean," so ran the tale, "lies the Island 
 Brittia, opposite to the mouths of the Rhine, between 
 Britannia and the Isle of Thule." Then follow descrip- 
 tions of the Roman wall and of other circumstances which 
 
Origins of English History. 85 
 
 show that Procopius took Brittia to be the country which 
 others call Britain. On the eastern side of the wall all is 
 civilized : but " on the western side it would be impossible 
 for a man to live half an hour." Omitting many of the 
 less important details we will come to the main legend, 
 which the learned Senator could hardly bring himself to 
 believe. " I have frequently heard it," he said, " from men 
 of that country, who related it most seriously, though I 
 would rather ascribe their asseverations to a certain dreamy 
 faculty which possesses them. On the coast opposite to 
 Brittia are many villages inhabited by fishermen and 
 labourers, who in the course of trade go across to the 
 island. They declare that the conducting of souls de- 
 volves upon them in turns. At night they perceive that 
 the door is shaken and they hear a certain indistinct voice 
 summoning them to their work." We will cite the rest of 
 the story in the words of the Monumenta Historica. 
 " They proceed to the shore not understanding the neces- 
 sity which thus constrains them, yet nevertheless com- 
 pelled by its influence. Here they perceive vessels in 
 readiness, wholly void of men, not however their own but 
 strange vessels ; embarking in these they lay hold on their 
 oars, and feel their burden made heavier by a multitude of 
 passengers, the boats being sunk to the gunwale and row- 
 locks and floating scarce a finger from the water's edge. 
 They see not a single person : but having rowed for one 
 hour only, they arrive at Brittia : whereas, when they 
 navigate their own vessels they arrive there with difficulty 
 even in a night and a day. They say that they hear a 
 certain voice there, which seems to announce to such as 
 receive them the names of all who have crossed over with 
 them, describing the dignities which they formerly poS' 
 
86 Origins of English History. 
 
 sessed and calling them over by their hereditary titles : 
 and if women happen to cross over with them, they call 
 over the names of the husbands with whom they lived. 
 -These then are the things which men of that district de- 
 clare to take place : but I return to my former narrative."^ 
 
 There is another curious subject, of greater historical 
 importance than the legend which perplexed Procopius, 
 which seems to have a close connection with the old 
 romance of Thule. The inhabitants of Britain were 
 from the most ancient times accused of an ignorance of 
 marriage, and the institutions by which the family is main- 
 tained among civilised people. Whether from the old 
 stories of the Arcadian customs of Thule, or from their 
 levity in matters of marriage and divorce, they were said 
 to live in the state of communism that prevailed in Plato's 
 republic and was found by More in Utopia. Solinus has 
 . preserved a picture of the life in Thule, which connects 
 .this accusation with a great number of fanciful stories, 
 which long passed current as genuine history. They have 
 hardly yet lost their effect as useful political weapons. 
 
 " Es war ein Konig in ThuleT The king was taught 
 justice by poverty, and equity by the generosity of his 
 subjects. He had nothing of his own, but his subjects 
 gave him their all, and maintained him at the public ex- 
 pense. The people took it in turn to entertain him at a 
 gratuitous feast. But though he had free-quarters in all 
 
 1 For a modem version of the fable the reader may be referred to 
 " Les Derniers Bretons," by E. Souvestre. Procopius may have taken the 
 story from the " Wonders beyond Thule," or possibly the whole legend 
 may be a late invention founded on the German name of Thanet, which 
 some wrote Tanatos, a form which a Greek would naturally associate with 
 stories about death. 
 
Origins of English History. 87 
 
 his islands, it was feared that he might become avaricious 
 or selfish if he had anything which he could call his own ; 
 and he was therefore forbidden to have a wife or family, 
 though he was provided with temporary companions. 
 Such is the picture of life in the Hebrides, and in Thule 
 a little to the north, which was long accepted as true. The 
 story next appears in a legal form, familiar to the student 
 of Blackstone. In this shape it recounts the oppressions 
 of " Evenus," or " King Evan the Third," or " Evan the 
 Sixteenth," according to various versions, who, at some 
 time before the Christian era, made a law appropriating 
 the wives of his subjects to himself ; but after a quarrel, 
 which lasted for about 1,100 years, the barbarous tribute 
 was, at the request of King Malcolm's Queen, commuted 
 for a money payment. It has been discovered after much 
 research that the ancient king, his law and its repeal, are 
 all equally mythical. But the story remained down to 
 recent times the stock example of the horrors of the feudal 
 system. Every payment made at a marriage was explained 
 as a redemption of some such primitive claim. It might 
 be only a fee to the clergy for their licences and dispen- 
 sations, or a fine to the lord of the manor to compensate 
 him for the marriage of a vassal or a serf ; or the landlord 
 and neighbours might claim a supper, " a fowl and a bottle 
 of wine ;" but the payment was continually regarded, and 
 often described in manorial records, as being given in 
 exchange for some right which was thought to have ex- 
 isted " in the heathen times," or before the beginning of 
 the memory of man.^ 
 
 1 See Solinus, Polyhist. c. 22. The principal authorities on the subject, 
 besides the appropriate titles in " Ducange," are Grimm, Deutsch. Alterth. 
 384, 444; Grupen, De Uxore Theotiscd; Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. ; 
 
88 Origins of English History. 
 
 The celebrated novel of " The Hyperboreans,"^ was as; 
 remarkable as the romance of Thule for its humorousl 
 exaggeration of the contemporary discoveries of Pytheas. 
 It contains a description of Britain which must always 
 be interesting, though its importance is sometimes exag-i 
 gerated. We cannot admit that the work of the latei 
 Hecataeus is on the subject of ancient Britain " the one 
 voice that breaks the ominous silence of antiquity." A 
 more accurate estimate of its value may be found in the 
 following extract from the works of an eminent Polish 
 scholar ■} — 
 
 " Hdcatee a publid un fameux ouvrage dont le titre 
 ddcele une vieille id^e podtique rajeunie sous sa plume. 
 Elle devait s'allier aux nouvelles d6couvertes et y prendre 
 une place dminente au detriment de la science et du bon 
 sens. Hdcatde, dnumerant tous les dtres mystdrieux de la 
 geographic septentrionale, enrichit leur nomenclature d'une 
 riviere scythique recemment trouvde en Orient par le con- 
 qudrant, qu'il a appelde Paropamisos ; et plus encore des 
 promontoires et des lies Celtiques, qu'il a probablement 
 
 Fischer, Hochzeite; Boyer, Decisiones; Fl^chier, Les grands Jours d'Auvergne; 
 De Gubernatis, Usi Matrimoniali ; local customs collected in the appen- 
 dix to M. Martin's Histoire de France, vol. v., and Bouthors, CoutArm 
 locales du Bailliage d' Amiens ; Essays by M. J. J. Raepsaet, M. Louis 
 Veuillot, and M. Delpit, Reponse d'un Campagnard d, un Parisien. A list 
 of the light literature of the subject, from a play by Beaumont and 
 Fletcher to the Folk Journ'ee and the novels of Collin de Plangy, 
 may be found in an Essay on Manorial Rights by Labessade (Paris, 
 1878). 
 
 ' The work, "X-kI^ tUv 'YTrepfiopeioiv, is supposed to have been written 
 not long after the age of Alexander the Great by Hecataeus of Abdera : 
 he must be carefully distinguished from the much older Hecatsus of 
 Miletus, who first collected the Hyperborean legends. 
 
 " Lelewel. Pythdas, 45. 
 
Origins of English History. 89 
 
 puisees dans les rdlations veridiques de Pythdas pour les 
 entrelacer dans les plages superbordennes." 
 
 We will not discuss the details of the imaginary geo- 
 graphy, except to notice that the Polar Sea was called 
 " Amalciu m" a name which was adopted by science, as 
 may be seen in the preceding map of Scandinavia in early 
 times. The traveller's route from the Indian Paropamisus 
 to the Baltic and the German Ocean may be studied in the 
 " Library " of Diodorus. 
 
 Britain appears in this book as " E lixo ia." an island about 
 as large as Sicily, lyftig in the Celtic Ocean in front of the 
 mouths of a mighty river. The climate was so soft that 
 the crops ripened twice in the year. There are several 
 allusions to the insular worship of the sun, the phenomena 
 of the arctic climates, and the habits of the northern 
 savages, which are deserving of attention, as will be seen 
 from the following extracts taken from Diodorus, and from 
 Holland's picturesque version of Pliny. 
 
 We will first deal with the temple, identified so often 
 with Stonehenge, and " the Boreads," in whose name is 
 traced an allusion to the power of the Bards. 
 
 " There is in that island a magnificent temple of Apollo, 
 and a circular shrine, adorned with votive offerings and 
 tablets with Greek inscriptions suspended by travellers 
 upon the walls. The kings of that city and rulers of the 
 temple are the Boreads, who take up the government from 
 each other according to the order of their tribes. The 
 citizens are given up to music, harping, and chaunting in 
 honour of the Sun." Every 19th year, we are told, (with 
 incidents which remind us of the folk-lore about the 
 dancing of the Easter sun) the god himself appeared to 
 his worshippers about the vernal equinox, and during a 
 
90 Origins of English History. 
 
 long epiphany " would harp and dance in the sky until the 
 rising of the Pleiades." 
 
 Our next extract relates to the " happy suicides," and 
 incidentally to certain barbarous customs which once pre- 
 vailed in the Baltic regions. 
 
 " Behind the Rhipoean hills and beyond the North Pole 
 there is a blessed and happie people, if we may believe it, 
 whom they call Hyperboreans, who live exceeding long, 
 and many fables and strange wonders are reported of them. 
 In this tract are supposed to be the two points or poles 
 about which the world turneth about, and the verie ends 
 of the heaven's revolution. For six months together they 
 have one entire day, and night as longe, when the sun is 
 cleane turned from them. Once in the year, namely, at 
 our midsummer, when the Sun entereth Cancer, the Sun 
 riseth with them, and once likewise it setteth, even in mid- 
 winter with us, when the Sun entereth Capricorn. The 
 countrie is open upon the Sun, of a blissful and pleasant 
 temperature, void of all noisome wind and hurtful aire. 
 Their habitations be in woods and groves, where they 
 worship the gods both by themselves and in companies 
 and congregations. No discord know they. No sickness 
 are they acquainted with. They die only when they have 
 lived long enough : for when the aged men have made 
 good cheere, and anoynted their bodies with sweet oint- 
 ments, they leape off a certain rocke into the sea. This 
 kind of sepulture is of all others the most happie." 
 
 And in another short passage relating to the six months' 
 daylight, we read that " they sow in the morning, reape at 
 noone, at sunsetting gather the fruits from the trees, and 
 in the nights they lie close shut up within their caves." 
 
 The story of the old men, " tired of the feast of life," is 
 
Origins of English History. 91 
 
 obviously based on a tradition of customs which once 
 existed in the North. Even in comparatively modern 
 times the Swedes and Pomeranians killed their old people 
 in the way which was indicated in the passages quoted 
 above. Perhaps a tribe of poor and hungry men would 
 easily fall into the habit of killing the useless members of 
 the family ; and the practice may have survived long after 
 the dreadful necessity had ceased. We find a notice of 
 the custom in the Saga of Gottrek and Rolf. " Here 
 by our home," says the hero, "is Gillings-rock : we call it 
 the family-cliff, because there we lessen the number of the 
 family when evil fortune comes. There all our fathers 
 w ent to O din without any stroke of disease. The old folk 
 have free access to that happy spot, and we ought to be 
 put to no further trouble or expense about them. The 
 children push the father and mother from the rock, and 
 send them with joy and gladness on their journey to Odin." 
 The situation of several of these "Valhalla Cliffs" is still 
 well known in Sweden. The lakes, which stretch below, 
 were called " Valhalla-meres" or " Odin-ponds." " The 
 old people, after dances and sports, threw themselves into 
 the lake, as the ancients related of the Hyperboreans " : 
 but if an old Norseman became too frail to travel to the 
 cliff, his kinsmen would save him the disgrace of " dying 
 like a cow in the straw," and would beat him to death with 
 "the family-club."^ " Similar stories are told of the Heruli 
 
 1 Geijer, Hist. Sweden, 31, 32. One of the family clubs is said to be 
 still preserved at a farm in East Gothland. For the Heruli, see Procopius, 
 De Bell. Goth. ii. 14, and Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. 39. For instances 
 among Icelanders, Westphalians, Slavs, and Wends, see Grimm, Deut. 
 Alterth., 486, 489. " Die Kinder ihre altbetagte Eltern Blutfreunde und 
 andere Verwandten, auch die so nicht mehr zum Kriege oder Arbeit 
 
92 Origins of English History. 
 
 in the dark forests of Poland " ; and among the Prussians 
 " all the daughters except one were destroyed in infancy 
 or sold, and the aged and infirm, the sick and the de- 
 formed, were unhesitatingly put to death" :^ practices as 
 remote from the poetry of the Greek description as from 
 the reverence for the parents' authority which might have 
 perhaps been expected from descendants of " the Aryan 
 household." 
 
 We have not time to investigate the other minutice of 
 history which might be illustrated by the Greek novels, 
 and of some of these works it is sufficient to know the 
 names and subjects. One Amometus published a poetical 
 account of a nation of " Attacosi " in a sunny country 
 beyond the Himalayan range, which seems to have closely 
 resembled the account of the Hyperboreans, and to have 
 dealt with the habits of certain cannibal tribes who were 
 supposed to live in the Scythian deserts. Jamblulus, a 
 writer who is best known by Lucian's parody, described 
 the inhabitants of the Canaries, or Fortunate Islands ; but 
 he seems to have known nothing of the real story of the 
 interesting Guanche race. His imaginary voyage may be 
 studied in " Purchas's Pilgrims ;" and it will be found that 
 he was responsible for the creation of many of the mon- 
 
 dienstlich, ertodteten damach gekocht und gegessen, oder lebendig 
 begraben, &c." {ibid. 488). 
 
 1 Maclear, Conversion of the Slavs, 166. Keysler, Antiqu. Septent 
 148, cites several curious instances of this custom in Prussia from writers 
 of local authority. A Count Schulenberg rescued an old man who was 
 being beaten to death by his sons at a place called Jammerholz, or 
 "woeful wood"; and the intended victim lived as the Count's hall-porter 
 for twenty years after his rescue. A Countess of Mansfeld, in the 14th 
 century, is said to have saved the life of an old man on the Liineberg 
 Heath under similar circumstances. 
 
Origins of English History. 93 
 
 strous kinds of men, whose fantastic manners and customs 
 threw so much discredit on the true reports of the first 
 explorers of the world. We may use the words of Tacitus 
 who refused to admit the creatures of fancy into his 
 " Germany." " All the rest is legend, as that these people 
 have the faces and looks of men but the bodies and limbs 
 of beasts, and the like : of which matters I know nothing 
 for certain and therefore will leave them alone." ^ 
 
 1 Tac. Germ. c. 46. 
 
94 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Recapitulation.— Later Greek travellers.— Artemidorus. — Posidonius the Stoic— His 
 travels in Western Europe.— Condition of the Celts in Britain .—Difficulty ot 
 framing general rules. — Division of population into three stocks. — British Gauls.— 
 Insular Britons.— Prae-Celtic tribes. — Methods of finding their ancient settlements. 
 —Antiquarian research.— Philological method.— Division of the Celtic languages.— 
 Living forms in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Man, Brittany.— Dead forms : Welsh 
 of Strathclyde, Pictish, Cornish, Gaulish, Celtic of Thrace and Galatia, Celtiberian. 
 — Originals from which the groups are derived. — Lingua Britannka. — Affinities of 
 Old Welsh — Whether more related to the Irish or the Gaulish. — Theory of the 
 division of the Celtic stock, Gael and Cymry.— Origin of the Theory.— Similarity 
 of Welsh and Gaulish languages. — The likeness explained. — Arose from independent 
 causes. — The languages not similar at the same time. — Likeness between old forms 
 of Welsh and Irish. — Welsh and Irish at one time united. — Occupation of Britain 
 by one Celtic horde. — Separation of Welsh and Irish languages. — British language 
 distinct from Gaulish. — Practical result of accepting the theory. 
 
 WE have dealt, as best we might, with a subject 
 that must always remain obscure. We have 
 seen how Pytheas revealed a new world to the Greeks, 
 and how the story became confused with legend until it 
 seemed no better than an idle fancy, "as if a name and a 
 tale were invented about a country which never had been."' 
 By the aid of the ancient criticisms we are able to guess 
 very near to what the traveller said, even where his 
 personal authority cannot now be cited, and wherever his 
 actual words remain we may, of course, feel confidence in 
 the reconstructed history. It is possible, however, that an 
 incident here or there, a Gallic or a German custom, 
 should rather be attributed to Posidonius the Stoic, or to 
 Artemidorus the famous geographer of Ephesus, or some 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Jul. Caesar, i6. 
 
Origins of English History. 95 
 
 other of the Greek explorers who followed on the track of 
 Pytheas. 
 
 Of these later travellers Posidonius^ is the most impor- 
 tant. He seems to have visited every corner of the West, 
 soon after the destruction of the Cimbric horde ; and his 
 lively descriptions, first published in his lecture-room at 
 Rhodes, are still among the best authorities for the 
 customs of the peoples whom he visited. He received 
 from the lips of Marius the story of the massacre of the 
 Teutones, and drew that strange and brilliant picture of 
 the barbarian armies' which Plutarch has preserved in his 
 biography of the Roman conqueror. We have already 
 taken from Posidonius some parts of his description of 
 Northern Spain, where stood "those mountains of un- 
 coined money heaped up by some bounteous Fortune," 
 where the soil was not so much "rich" as "absolutely 
 made of riches " : we have borrowed from the sketches of 
 life in Cornwall, and on the mud-flats of the German 
 shore, which are believed to be fragments of his History; 
 and his authority will be cited again, when we come to 
 consider the manners of the Gauls in Britain. But his 
 work survives only in extracts which cannot now be 
 pieced together. Enough remains to show his enthusiasm 
 of research, and the vividness and elegance of his style : 
 but the loss of his volumes on the Celts and the Germans 
 must always be counted among the great disasters of 
 literature. 
 
 From the remains of such ancient descriptions, and 
 
 1 See Bake's Posidonius (Leyden, 1810); and for extracts and anec- 
 dotes from the fifty volumes of the " Histories," see Strabo, iii. 217, iv. 
 287, vii. 293; Diod. Sic, v. 28, 30; Athenaeus (Deipno soph.) iv. 153, 
 vi. 233; Eustath. in Odyss., viii. 475 J and in Iliad., p. 915. 35- 
 
96 Origins of English History. 
 
 from the discoveries of modern research, we shall endea- 
 vour to reconstruct another portion of our history : and 
 we shall seek in this part of the work to collect what is 
 known of the Celts in the South of Britain, at a time when 
 their local differences were not yet merged in the spread 
 of the Roman culture. 
 
 The obvious difficulty presents itself, that no single 
 description will suit an assemblage of tribes differing in 
 their origin, language, and customs. We can hardly 
 attribute the population to less than three separate stocks : 
 and it is not improbable, that the most primitive of these 
 may be resolved into several elements. The civilized 
 Gauls had settled on the eastern coasts before the Roman 
 invasions began, and were to spread across the island 
 before the Roman conquest was complete. The Celts of 
 the older migration were established to the north and 
 west, ruling from the Gaulish settlements as far as the 
 Irish Sea. And here and there we find the traces of still 
 older peoples, who are best known as the tomb-builders 
 and the constructors of the pre-historic monuments. 
 
 It is difficult, after the lapse of so many ages, to ascer- 
 tain the boundaries and limits of the ancient settlements. 
 Something, however, has been learned by exploring the 
 caves and tombs, by following the lines of old trading- 
 roads, and by tracing old earthworks and boundary-dykes ; 
 and the highest gratitude is due to the numerous scholars 
 who have engaged in these special fields of research. 
 Even more has been gained by the systematic measure- 
 ment of ancient skulls and skeletons, and the comparison 
 of the scattered ornaments, and implements of stone and 
 metal, which are found in the tombs of the chieftains. 
 But the safest method must consist in the study of the 
 
Origins of English History. 97 
 
 Celtic languages, or of their slight remains, surviving in 
 " glosses " or marginal interpretations of the words used 
 in ancient manuscripts, in the titles of gods and legendary 
 kings, in the local names of Gaul and Britain, or in 
 fragments of the superscriptions upon altars, coins, and 
 medals. 
 
 The philologists have become familiar with the subject 
 of the Celtic tongues. Very little indeed was known 
 about the matter till Zeuss, with wonderful patience, 
 constructed his comparative grammar. The science has 
 now advanced so f&r, that some of his most striking 
 conclusions seem doubtful in the light of the later evi- 
 dence ; but his methods are still fruitful, and it may be 
 said that his very mistakes are instructive. 
 
 The Celtic languages are for the most part dead, and 
 of some even the tradition is now almost forgotten. 
 Those which survive are found in Wales and Ireland, 
 in some parts of the Highlands, in the Isle of Man, and 
 in Brittany. Of those that are dead we may mention, 
 for our own country, the Pictish and the Welsh of Strath- 
 clyde, and the Cornish^ or West- Welsh, which died out 
 in Devon in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and finally 
 disappeared in Cornwall a little more than a century ago. 
 In close connection with these is the living " Brezonec," 
 or Welsh of Brittany, carried across the seas by the 
 refugees from Britain. There remain traces and remnants 
 besides of several idioms, which may all be classified as 
 Gaulish ; there were similar forms once used in Thrace 
 
 1 There were six dialects of Cornish. Many of the words are still in 
 use among the country people. See Williams, Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum, 
 1862. 
 
 H 
 
9 8 Origins of English History. 
 
 and Galatia/ and others in " Celtiberia," of which we can 
 only know that they were confused by intermixture with 
 the lost languages of Spain.^ 
 
 But several of the languages in this list may be grouped 
 under more general headings. The Old Welsh, for in- 
 stance, or " Lingua Britannica," may be treated as the 
 parent not only of modern Welsh, but of the dialects of 
 Cornwall and Strathclyde, and of the idiom which has 
 survived in Brittany : and from the names in Ptolemy's 
 lists and on the roll of the Pictish kings, we might justify 
 the addition to this group of the ancient language of 
 Scotland. The oldest Irish is found in the same way to 
 be the original not merely of the modern Erse, but also 
 of the Manx, which has been corrupted by admixture 
 with the Norse, and of the Gaelic of the Western High- 
 lands, which, from its close kinship to the Erse, has been 
 thought to take its origin from the language of the Irish, 
 invaders. And in like manner a great number of the 
 continental dialects may be summed up in one description 
 as derivatives from the oldest Gaulish. 
 
 We are concerned here with none but these parent- 
 forms. Taking therefore the oldest known varieties of 
 Welsh, Irish, and Gaulish, and comparing them together, 
 we shall find that they differed widely among themselves, 
 though all bear marks of a common descent from some 
 primitive Celtic original. Comparing them with other 
 
 1 " Galatas . . . propriam linguam, eandemque penfe habere quam 
 Treviros, nee referre si aliqua exinde corruperint." — St. Jerome, Comment, 
 ad Gal. ii. Pref. ; Valroger, Gaule Celtique, 52. M. Perrot (Revue Celt. 
 ii. 179) shows that St. Jerome is very untrustworthy on points of this kind. 
 
 2 For the attempt to recover the lost languages of Spain, see W. v. 
 Humboldt, Urbewohner Hispaniens (Berlin, 182 1), and De Belloguet, 
 Gloss. Gaul. 330, 
 
Origins of English History. 99 
 
 Aryan tongues, we find that the Gaulish languages bore 
 a close resemblance to Latin and the cognate Italian 
 dialects. The Irish, on the other hand, seems to be of 
 all the Celtic languages the furthest removed from the 
 Latin. 
 
 The question then arises, whether the oldest Welsh was 
 more like the Irish or the Gaulish, since those forms are 
 found to differ so widely from each other. Were the 
 Britons, so far as the evidence of language goes, more 
 nearly akin to the Irish Gael, or to the semi- Latin tribes 
 of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul ? Or to put the matter 
 in another form, were " the Gael and the Cymry" near 
 relatives, or only connected together by descent from a 
 distant ancestor ? The question is of great importance ; 
 for, according to the answer received, we shall lose or 
 retain a clue to several historical problems. In the one 
 case, the study of the Irish antiquities will throw light 
 upon those of Britain ; but in the other case we must 
 remain in the darkness that has gathered round the history 
 of the Gauls. 
 
 The answer has usually been, that the Irish and the 
 Welsh were as far apart and distinct as was possible 
 consistenriy with the admitted fact, that both were of the 
 Celtic blood. It was said that the original stock was 
 divided into two main families : that the Gaelic branch 
 was represented in the West by the Irish and the emi- 
 grants from Ireland; while the "Cymric" branch was 
 taken to include both the Welsh and the Gauls, and 
 almost all the other Celts whose presence has been traced 
 in Europe. 
 
 It is conjectured, by those who adopt this view, that 
 the Gael were the first to arrive from Asia, and that of 
 
 H 2 
 
loo Origins of English History. 
 
 the two main divisions they were the more numerous and 
 the more important swarm. By the names of mountains 
 and rivers their line of march has been traced along what 
 in any case was a Celtic route, from the Steppe to the 
 belts of sand between the Baltic and the Central Forest ; 
 the locality of their principal settlements is found near 
 the Rhine and the Moselle ; and the lines of their later 
 movements are shown to lie northwards to Britain and 
 eastwards as far as Galatia. The " Cymry" (a name which 
 should be confined to the modern Welsh) are stated on 
 the same hypothesis to have followed a different course. 
 Having arrived at the Alps, they are said to have spread 
 outwards from that centre, downwards to Italy and across 
 the mountains to Gaul and Spain. In course of time, it 
 is supposed, some tribes of their company were led or 
 driven to Britain, where they attacked and drove before 
 them the long-settled clans of the Gael.^ 
 
 This theory has derived its main support from the 
 belief, that the Irish language differed as radically from 
 the Welsh as it undoubtedly differed from the Gaulish. 
 We are not bound to debate the whole problem of the 
 Celtic dispersion. But it is important for our purpose 
 to consider whether that belief was correct, so far as this 
 country is concerned. 
 
 The intimate connection between the Welsh and the 
 Gauls was inferred from the similarity of their languages, 
 
 1 See Dr. Isaac Taylor's "Words and Places," 129, 157. "By far the 
 greater number of Celtic names in England are of the Cymric type. Yet 
 there is a thin stream of Gaelic names, which extends across the island 
 from the Thames to the Mersey, as if to indicate the route by which the 
 Gaels passed across to Ireland."— 7(5/^, 163. See Arnold's Hist. Rome, 
 i- 433> and the Bishop of St. David's in " Vestiges of the Gael in 
 Gwynnedd," p. 48. 
 
Origins of English History. loi 
 
 especially in those points on which they both differed from 
 
 the oldest Irish. The earliest Welsh manuscripts were 
 
 compared with the Gaulish vocabulary, as it has been 
 
 gathered from proper names and from inscriptions to the 
 
 local gods ; and it was found that the languages possessed 
 
 a common stock of sounds and letters, as P, TH, and S 
 
 between vowels, which had been dropped in Old Irish, 
 
 even if they had ever belonged to its store. But upon 
 
 a closer examination of the subject it was found that the 
 
 deduction was wrong, though the examples appeared to 
 
 be correct. The resemblance is deceptive, because the 
 
 common characteristics did not exist in both languages 
 
 at the same time. The likeness arose from causes which 
 
 worked independently of each other ; and the steps by 
 
 which the languages arrived at the same stage of growth 
 
 were separated by long intervals of time. The Gauls 
 
 used the sounds in question for some centuries before the 
 
 Welsh had learned them ; and by the time that they were 
 
 established among the Welsh, in the fifth or sixth century 
 
 after Christ, the Gaulish tongue had either ceased to 
 
 exist, or was so nearly lost in Latin, that it could only 
 
 be distinguished as a rustic mode of speaking.^ But it 
 
 appears that the Welsh and Irish languages, during the 
 
 same centuries, resembled each other in the very points on 
 
 which they afterwards differed ; and came, in fact, as near 
 
 together as the Welsh came afterwards to the Gaulish.* 
 
 1 " L'agonie du vieux Cdtique se prolongea longtemps sous ces nouveaux 
 maitres {les barbares)."—De Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul, 49. The instances 
 of late Gaulish, down to the seventh century, are collected in his 
 Introduction. 
 
 2 The whole subject is explained by Professor Rhys in his Lectures 
 on Welsh Philology (see pp. 17, 19, 26, 194, and W. H. Stokes, Irish 
 Glosses, No. 216). 
 
I02 Origins of English History. 
 
 It is true that the oldest of the manuscripts are much later 
 than the end of this period of resemblance ; and it may 
 be objected, that no sufficient proof could be given of 
 the theory which has found favour with the philological 
 authorities. But the answer lies in the fact that the forms 
 of the ancient Welsh have been recovered from sepulchral 
 inscriptions, containing Latinized proper names and some- 
 times bearing epitaphs in the same "Ogam character" 
 as is used for the oldest Irish inscriptions.^ 
 
 The result of these enquiries has been to establish a 
 presumption of identity between the earliest forms of 
 Welsh and Irish, which renders it highly probable that the 
 nations themselves were once united. There are many 
 indications that at one time they possessed a common 
 stock of religious and social ideas ; nor indeed is there 
 any evidence against their original unity, except the fact 
 that their languages became different in form. But "length 
 of time and remoteness of place introduce wonderful 
 changes in a language."^ In the lapse of centuries many 
 
 1 The Ogam character will be explained in a later chapter. For the 
 authorities on the subject of Ancient Welsh see Prof. Rhys, Lectures, 
 136, 138. The oldest of the Welsh MSS. is the "Juvencus Codex," 
 assigned to the ninth century. There are several poems by authors who 
 lived in the sixth century, and who described some of the incidents of the 
 Anglo-Saxon Conquest ; but they survive in versions of which the lan- 
 guage has been considerably modernised. Skene, Four Ancient Books 
 of Wales, Introd. ; Villemarqu^, Manuscrits des Anciens Bretons (Paris, 
 1856). 
 
 ^ Arnold's Rome, i. 437. "The bronze period was long enough to 
 admit of quite as great a differentiation in any single language as that 
 which exists between Gaelic and Cymric at present, or to allow of the 
 importation of one already differentiated dialect in more than one not- 
 recorded invasion."— Prof. Rolleston in " British Barrows,'' 633. " All 
 the most tangible differences between Welsh and Irish can be assigned to 
 various periods of time posterior to the separation." — Rhys, Lectures, 35. 
 
Origins of English History. 103 
 
 differences would naturally grow up between the nations, 
 separated by the sea, and possibly in each case by contact 
 with the peoples whom they found already in possession. 
 One chief difference would of course consist in a gradual 
 divergence of idiom. Every laftguage must continually 
 change and shift its form, exhibiting like an organized 
 being its phases of growth, decline, and decay ; and, in 
 the case of these divided peoples, it is hardly to be sup- 
 posed that their unwritten idioms would follow precisely 
 the same course of phonetic alteration. There is no 
 reason to disbelieve in their original unity, merely because 
 the Welsh insensibly approached the Gaulish form : it 
 will be remembered that the Welsh itself broke up during 
 the historical period into several different idioms ; and 
 this may help us to understand how the change of the 
 older language was effected.-^ 
 
 There are several passages from Tacitus^ which support 
 the view, that the language of the insular Britons was 
 different from that of the Gauls. But enough reasons 
 have been already adduced in support of the theory. 
 Taking it therefore to be sufficiently established for our 
 purpose, we shall now endeavour to put it to a practical 
 use. It will be found, that not only may the British 
 history be illustrated by what is known about Ireland, but 
 that the differences between the Welsh and the Gauls 
 
 1 William of Malmesbury noticed but a slight difference in his time 
 between Welsh and Breton. "Lingua nonnihil a nostris Brittonibus 
 degeneres."— Gesta, i. i. Giraldus calls the Breton an old-fashioned 
 Welsh. "Magis antique linguse Britannicae idiomati appropriate." — 
 Descr. Cambr. c. 6. 
 
 2 "Gothinos gallica lingua coarguit non esse Germanos."— Tac. Germ, 
 c. 43. And of the ^styi, " lingua Britannicae proprior."— 7J/(/, c. 45. And 
 of the Gauls and Britons, "sermo haud multum diversus."— Agric. c. 11. 
 
I04 Origins of English History. 
 
 will help us to fix approximately the sites of the Gaulish 
 colonies. There are proper names enough, inscribed on 
 coins or mentioned in the narrative of the Roman wars, to 
 furnish some slight glossary for such a purpose. Nor can 
 one fail to gain some useful knowledge from them, by the 
 use of the phonological tests, if it be remembered that 
 the Gaulish immigration was a long and gradual process, 
 and if allowance be made for the carelessness of classical 
 writers in transcribing the barbarian names.^ 
 
 ^ Cic. Pro Font. 14. Compare the " voces ferinse," Ovid, Trist. v. 12 ; 
 Pomp. Mela, Geog. iii. c. 3 ; and the complaints of the Geographer of 
 Ravenna about the names of places in Britain : " attamen nomina volu- 
 eramus, Christo nobis adjuvante, designare," Ravenn. c. 32. 
 
Origins of English History. 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GAULS IN BRITAIN. 
 
 Invasion by the King of Soissons. — Older settlements. — Kingdoms of Kent. — Forest of 
 Anderida. — The Trinobantes — Extent of their dominions. — The Iceni. — The Catu- 
 veUaunian Confederacy.— Civilization of the Gavdish settlers.— Physical appearance. 
 — Dress. — Ornaments. — Equipments in peace and in war. — Scythed chariots. — 
 Agricultural knowledge. — Cattle. — Domestic life. 
 
 FIFTY years or more before the Roman invasions 
 began the King of Soissons^ had extended his 
 rule over the southern portions of our country. The 
 transitory conquest may have increased the intercourse 
 between the Island and the Continent; but the origin of 
 that intercourse must be referred to an older date. 
 
 There are signs that an immigration from Belgium had 
 been proceeding for several generations before the age 
 of Divitiacus. There was a striking similarity between 
 the language and manners of the Gauls on both sides of 
 the Straits, the men of Kent in particular being nearly as 
 much civilized as their kinsmen across the water; and 
 there were also such slight differences as would naturally 
 be found in colonies long separated from their parent- 
 states. At a period not very remote from the life-time of 
 Cssar himself several Belgian tribes had invaded the 
 country for purposes of devastation and plunder; and, 
 finding the place to their liking, they had remained as 
 
 1 "Apud eos (Suessiones) fuisse regem, nostra etiam memoria, Divi- 
 tiacum, totius Gallise potentissimum, qui quura magnse partis harum 
 regionum turn etiam Britanniae imperium obtinuerit."-^Cssar, De Bell. 
 Gall, ii, c. 4. 
 
io6 Origins of English History. 
 
 colonists and as cultivators of the soil. C^sar could 
 recognize the names of several clans, and could point out 
 the continental states from which the several colonies had 
 proceeded.^ This can no longer be done ; but we may still 
 hope, by such methods as have already been mentioned, 
 to distinguish and identify the situations of the Gaulish 
 kingdoms in Britain. The Gauls of a later generation 
 pushed far to the north and west ; but in Caesar's age 
 they had not yet advanced to any great distance from the 
 shores of the German Ocean. They were probably not 
 yet established in the East Riding or to the westward of 
 Romney Marsh ; but their settlements were spreading all 
 round the estuary and up the valley of the Thames ; and 
 it seems likely that they had occupied all the habitable 
 districts on the coast between the Wash and the Straits of 
 Dover. 
 
 The four kingdoms of the " Cantii " stretched across 
 East Kent and East Surrey between the Thames and the 
 Channel, and the whole south-eastern district was doubt- 
 less under their power. But it should be remembered 
 that a great part of this extensive region was then unfitted 
 for the habitation of man. The great marshes were still 
 unbanked and open to the flowing of the tide;^ and several 
 hundreds of square miles were covered by the dense Forest 
 
 1 De Bell. Gall. v. c. 14. Compare Pliny's mention of the " Britanni" 
 in Belgium, Hist. Nat. iv. 17. 
 
 2 See Prof. Pearson's Historical Maps with reference to the configuration 
 of the coast at this time ; and with respect to Romney Marsh, which 
 was not reclaimed until long afterwards, see Sir G. Airy's Essays on the 
 Invasion of Britain. The Astronomer Royal states that, if the sluice at 
 Rye were broken, the whole low-lying district as far as Robertsbridge 
 would become a great tidal morass, and that such was undoubtedly its 
 condition in the age of Caesar, 
 
Origins of English History. 107 
 
 of Anderida.^ The Gaulish^ kingdoms, with, their thickly- 
 packed villages and their " infinite number of inhabitants," 
 must have lain to the east of the forest, skirting the sea 
 upon the south and bounded to the north by a wide dis- 
 trict of fens and tidal morasses which at that time received 
 the spreading and scattered waters of the Thames.* 
 
 1 This forest must at one time have covered most of south-eastern 
 Britain, and was probably connected with the other forests that stretched 
 from Hampshire to Devon. The Andred's-Wold comprised the Wealds 
 of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, taking in at least a fourth part of Kent, " the 
 Seven Hundreds of the' Weald," and all the interior of Sussex as far as 
 the edge of the South Downs, and a belt of about twelve miles in breadth 
 between the hills and the sea. Lambarde describes the Weald of Kent as 
 being " stuffed with heardes of deere and droves of hogges," and adds 
 that " it is manifest, by the Saxon Chronicles and others, that beginning 
 at Winchelsea it reached in length an hundred and twenty miles towards 
 the west, and stretched thirty miles in braidth towards the north." Per- 
 ambul. Kent, 209. See Farley's Weald of Kent, i. 372; and Kemble, 
 Anglo-Saxons, ii. 304. 
 
 « Csesar, De Bell. Gall. v. 12, 14. The Gaulish names to be noticed 
 are those of the four kings, Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus, and 
 Segonax, and that of the chieftain Lugotorix : upon the coins, those of 
 Epillus and Dubnovellaunus ; and compare the local names, Toliapis for 
 Sheppey, and Rutupim for Richborough, which appear in Ptolemy's Tables. 
 
 s The Astronomer Royal has published a paper on the Claudian Inva- 
 sion of Britain (Athensum, No. 1683), in which the ancient state of the 
 Thames is carefully described. " Whatever may be the date of the mighty 
 embankments which have given its present form to the river-channel, 
 there can be no doubt that they did not exist in the time of Claudius. 
 Those vast tracts known as the Isle of Dogs, the Greenwich Marshes, the 
 West Ham and Plumstead Marshes, &c. (which are now about eight feet 
 lower than high-water), were then extensive slobs covered with water at 
 every tide. The water below London was then an enormous estuary, 
 extending from the hills or hard sloping banks of Middlesex and Essex 
 to those of Surrey and Kent, with one head towards the valley of the 
 Thames and another head towards the valley of the Lea ; and, on the 
 whole, offering a greater resemblance to the Wash, though longer in pro- 
 portion to its breadth, than to any other place on the English coast." 
 
io8 Origins of English History. 
 
 The Trinobantes, another Belgian tribe, had settled in 
 such parts of the modern Middlesex and Essex as were 
 not covered by the oak-forests or overflowed by the sea. 
 Their western boundary may be fixed in the Valley of the 
 Lea and along the edge of the " Forest of Middlesex," 
 which once spread northwards from the swamp at Finsbury 
 and covered the Weald of Essex.^ Their northern limit 
 was fixed at the Valley of the Stour, a flat and marshy 
 tract which is thought to have been covered at that time 
 by the sea for a distance of many miles above the termi- 
 nation of the modern estuary.^ 
 
 1 For the Gaulish characteristics of this tribe see Evans' Ancient British 
 Coins, and Rhys, Lectures, 192. For a description of the forest, of which 
 some small remains exist in our own time, see Robinson, Hist. Hackney, 38. 
 Compare Fitzherbert's description of London in the reign of Henry the 
 Second, cited in Stowe's Survey. " On the north side are pastures and 
 plaine meadowes, with brooks running thorow them, turning water-mils 
 with a pleasant noise. Not farre off is a great forest, a well-wooded chase, 
 having good covert for harts, does, boars, and wild bulls." Dr. Guest 
 describes part of the tribal boundaries in an Essay on the Origin of 
 London (Athen. 1866, No. 2022). "As the western boundary of the 
 Trinobantes was undoubtedly the marshy valley of the Lea, the question 
 naturally arises. What became of the district between the Lea and the 
 Brent ? Here we have the larger part of our metropolitan county 
 unaccounted for. The district was merely a march of the ' Catuvellauni,' 
 a common through which ran a wide track-way, but in which was neither 
 town, village, nor inhabited house.'' 
 
 2 Sir G. Airy has described the boundary in his Essay on the Claudian 
 Invasion. "The Stour, traced upwards from Harwich, presents first a 
 large estuary ; secondly, a large marshy valley, which I have seen covered 
 with water for many miles in length, and which probably in the ancient 
 times was estuary." He points out the lines of defence which guarded 
 the Trinobantian country. " In regard to defence from the mouth of the 
 Lea to the mouth of the Stour it was well protected by the estuary and 
 the sea. The Lea is in a wide marshy valley and to its marshes follow 
 those of the Stort. The only part open to easy attack is the space 
 between the Upper Valley of the Stour and the Upper Valley of the 
 
Origins of English History. 109 
 
 Above them lay the territory of another Gaulish nation. 
 The Iceni, or "the Ecene" (if we name them according 
 to the legends on their coins),^ had seized and fortified 
 the broad peninsula, which fronted on the North Sea and 
 the confluence of rivers at the Wash, and was cut off in 
 almost every other direction by the tidal marshes and the 
 great Level of the Fens. This region included all the 
 
 Stort ; and this, like the gate of a castle, presents the facilities required 
 for salljdng out upon the rest of the country." The Astronomer Royal is 
 here referring to a Roman occupation of Essex ; but the description is 
 equally valuable when applied to the earlier invasion of the Trinobantes. 
 
 1 We should note the name of the King Prasutagus, which is shown to 
 be Gaulish by the use of the letter " p," and by the position of the " s " 
 between vowels. Several other " unmistakably Gaulish names " are found 
 upon the Icenian coins. Such is " Addedomarus,'' spelt in some cases 
 with the crossed " d " and with the theta : it has been identified with the 
 " Assedomarus " of a continental inscription. Other abbreviated forms are 
 "sesu," "anted," and "antth"; the last is taken for " Antethrigu," a title 
 found on coins from the West of England. See Rh;^s, Lectures, 193, 194 ; 
 Dr. Evans, Tract upon Coins found at Frome, and Anc. Brit. Coins, 
 43, 44. The coins are found in gold and in copper plated with thin 
 leaves of gold. Compare the description, tk'd. 43, of a discovery of 
 implements for striking spurious imitations of the Macedonian stater. 
 Mr. Akerman first attempted (Archseol. xxxiii.) to map the positions of 
 the tribes by means of the discoveries of buried coins. Applying his 
 method to the Iceni and the Trinobantes, he found that he could mark 
 out a line where coins of the latter people had been found, which 
 environed, if it did not strictly limit, the Icenian country, except where the 
 fens intervened. "The coins of Cunobelin or with the mint-mark of 
 Camulodunum have been found not only at Colchester, but also at 
 Debden, Chesterford, Sandy, and Cambridge." See Mr. Akerman's 
 essay and map in the Archaeologia, "Pieces with the letters ' ece' and 
 '<■««,' which in the opinion of numismatists are coins of the Iceni, have 
 been found at Weston, between Norwich and Dereham, Numis. Chron. 
 XV. 98. To this class is assigned a gold coin found at Oxnead, about ten 
 miles from Weston : none such are authenticated as found westward of 
 March in Cambridgeshire." Taylor, Topogr. East. Counties (1869), 
 P- 43- 
 
1 1 o Origins of English History. 
 
 dry and higher-lying portions of the district which was 
 afterwards known as East AngHa. On the western side, 
 where a ridge of open country rose between the fens and 
 " the dense woodlands of Suffolk," Icenia^ was guarded by 
 a rampart and fosse, now called the Devil's Dyke, which 
 in time became the limit between East Anglia and Mercia.* 
 The other Gaulish settlements of Caesar's age were 
 included in the " Catuvellaunian State,"^a central kingdom 
 which had been formed or much extended by the con- 
 
 1 For the Icenian boundaries, see Spelman's Icenia ; Camden's Britan- 
 nia, 330; Babington, Ancient Cambridgeshire, 59; and Taylor, Topogr. 
 East. Counties, 18, 40, 63, where the district is described as co-extensive 
 with the old Diocese of Norwich. Dr. Evans assigns to this tribe the 
 whole Eastern region (comprising Norfolk, Suffolk, and parts of Cam- 
 bridgeshire and Huntingdonshire), which was afterwards included in East 
 Anglia. For a description of the fen-district in the eighth century, see 
 the extract from Felix of Croyland in Leland Cygni Cantil. 62, and for 
 early instances of draining and inclosure. Gale, Decem Script. 77, 94 ; 
 Hallam, Midd. Ages, iii. 362. 
 
 2 " On the marsh-land side of Norfolk another Devil's Dyke, a line of 
 defence like the Cambridgeshire ditches, crossing a dry district between 
 fens, is said to extend with some intermission from Narburgh to Brandon." 
 Taylor, Topogr. East. Count. 40 ; Babington, Anc. Cambr. 64. 
 
 * There are many forms of this name. The form used in the text was 
 adopted by Dion Cassius, and its correctness is shown by an inscription 
 found at Cambeck in Cumberland, " Civitate Catuvellaunorum, &c.," 
 Horsley, xxvii. The people are also called " Catyeuchlani," on the 
 authority of an entry by Ptolemy. In some of the MSS. they are said to 
 be "also called Capellani," a reading which is followed by Nobbe in the 
 edition of 1843. Florus, whose "Epitome" was published not long 
 after Ptolemy's work appeared, calls the British chieftain " one of the 
 Cavelian kings." The name of the state seems to be connected with the 
 Gaulish "catu," signifying war. See Revue Celtique, i. 32. All the 
 forms of the word are of an essentially Gaulish character ; and this may 
 also be said of the name " Cassii " and " Cassivellaunus." Compare the 
 continental names, " Vercassivellaunus," and " Vellaunodunum." Rhys, 
 Lectures, 187, 194; and De Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul. 363. 
 
Origins of English History. 1 1 1 
 
 quests of Cassivellaunus. Though his power was checked 
 in the Roman war, it revived and spread when the legions 
 were withdrawn : and it is difficult for this reason to ascer- 
 tain the primitive boundaries of the kingdom. They have 
 been traced in part along the northern limit of Middlesex, 
 by following an earthwork called the Grimesditch, " from 
 Brockley Hill to the woodland of the Colne Valley, and 
 thence to the Brent, and down the Brent to the Thames."^ 
 But we have little else to guide us, except the knowledge 
 that the state in question included the site of Old Verulam, 
 and that the "Cassii" seem to have left traces of their 
 name in Cashiobury and the Hundreds of Cashio in 
 Hertfordshire. We must postpone the description of the 
 colonies in the north and west, which appear to have pro- 
 ceeded from Gaul in the century before the invasion of 
 Claudius ; and the remainder of this chapter will be con- 
 cerned with what is known of the earlier settlers. 
 
 Though nearly as much civilized as their continental 
 neighbours, they are reported to have been simpler in their 
 ways, perhaps because they had not as yet gained wealth 
 by a conquest of the mineral districts. They had not 
 even learned to build regular towns, though their kinsmen 
 in Gaul had founded cities with walls and streets and 
 market-places. What they called a town, or " dunum," 
 was still no more than a refuge for times of war, a stockade 
 on a hill-top or in the marshy thickets.^ When peace was 
 
 1 Dr. Guest, "Origin of London" (Athengeum, 1866, No. 2,022). A 
 great many earthworks are known as Grimsditches, Grimsdykes, and by 
 similar names ; and it is probable that they often represent the course of 
 old tribal boundaries. See Dr. Guest's explanation of the matter in his 
 "Early English Settlements." Archaol. (Salisbury, 1849). 
 
 2 Csesar, De Bell. Gall. v. 21. Compare vii. 3, 14, 28, 42, 58. 
 
112 Origins of English History. 
 
 restored, they returned to their open villages built of high 
 bee-hive huts with roofs of fern or thatch, like those 
 which might be seen in the rural parts of Gaul.-' These 
 "wigwams" were made of planks and wattle-work, with 
 no external decoration except the trophies of the chase 
 and the battle-field : for a chief's house, it seems, would 
 be adorned with the skulls of his enemies nailed up against 
 the porch among the skins and horns of beasts. The 
 practice was described by Posidonius as prevailing "among 
 the northern nations" ; and he confessed that, though at 
 first disgusted, he soon became accustomed to the sight. 
 The successful warrior would sling his enemy's head at 
 his saddle-bow ; and the trophies were brought home in a 
 triumphal procession, and were either nailed up outside, or 
 in special cases were embalmed and preserved among the 
 treasures of the family.^ 
 
 As they had but recently settled in the island, we may 
 suppose that in features and physi-que they resembled their 
 kinsmen on the continent. If the inference be correct, it 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 297. 
 
 2 Strabo, iv. 302 ; Diod. Sic. v. 29. For the prevalence of the habit 
 among the Bretons, see Valroger, Gaule Celtique, 301. For similar habits 
 among the Celts generally, see Sil. ItaL Punic, xiii. 482 ; among the Irish, 
 Revue Celtique, ii. 261; D'Eckstein's " Catholique " ; and Martin, Hist. 
 France, i. 35 j among the Boii, Livy, xxiii. 24 ; among the Lombards, 
 Warnefrid, ii. 28; Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, c. 45; among the Scandi- 
 navian nations, Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 363, citing the " Atla-MM," and 
 the stories in the Heimskringla of Mimir's head, and of " Malbride with 
 the buck-tooth"; Ynglinga-tal, c. 4; Harald Haarfagre, Saga ; Laing, Sea- 
 kings, i. 218, 291 ; Robertson, Early Kings ^of Scotland, i. 46. The 
 Museum of Aix contains bas-reliefs representing Gaulish knights carrying 
 home the heads of their enemies : and om a coin of the ^duan Dub- 
 norix " le chef tient d la main une tete coupee." — Napoleon, Vie de C^sar, 
 ii- 36, 361. 
 
Origins of English History. 113 
 
 follows that they differed in several respects from the 
 Britons of the preceding migration. All the Celts, accord- 
 ing to a remarkable consensus of authorities, were tall, 
 pale, and light-haired ;^ but, as between the two stocks in 
 question, we learn from Strabo that the Gauls were the 
 shorter and the stouter of limb, and with hair of a paler 
 colour.^ The accuracy of the old descriptions of the Gauls, 
 (so far, at least, as concerns the kings and the chieftains,) 
 has been ascertained by comparing the figures that remain 
 upon monuments and medals, and by an examination of 
 the skeletons from G'aulish tombs in France. The women, 
 especially, were singularly tall and handsome ; and their 
 approximation to the men in size and strength is the best 
 evidence that the nation had advanced out of the stage of 
 barbarism. If we may trust Ammianus MarceUinus, who 
 had a personal knowledge of the people, the women were 
 more formidable opponents than the men; on a quarrel 
 arising between her husband and a stranger, the Gaulish 
 woman would throw herself into the fight, like a fury, with 
 streaming hair, and would strike out with her huge snowy 
 arms or kick, "with the force of a catapult."' 
 
 The men and women wore the same dress, so far as we 
 
 1 See Livy, xxxviii. 17, 21 ; Lucan, Phars. ii. 108; Amm. Marc. xv. 10. 
 " nXtoya^ov-Ef yidyov aypwrriTi fityiQEi Ka\ ^avdorriri." Eustath. ad 
 Dionys. on the passage, "AeCm te <pvXa vijxovTai." Compare the Gauls 
 on the shield of .^neas, golden-haired and decked with gold. 
 
 " Aurea csesaries ollis atque aurea vestis, 
 Virgatis lucent sagulis. Turn lactea colla 
 Auro innectuntur." — ^Virg. ^n. viii. 659. 
 
 2 Strabo, iv. 278. Compare Tac. Agric. c. 11. 
 
 ^ " Quum ilia .... ponderans niveas ulnas et vastas, admistis calcibus, 
 emittere coeperit pugnos ut catapultas tortilibus nervis excussos." — Amm. 
 Marc. x\-. 12. See Athen. Deipnos. xiii. 8. 
 
 I 
 
114 Origins of English History. 
 
 can judge from the figures on the medals of Claudius. 
 When Britannia is represented as a woman the head is 
 uncovered and the hair tied in an elegant knot upon the 
 neck; where a male figure is introduced, the head is 
 covered with a soft hat of a modern pattern. The costume 
 consisted of a blouse with sleeves, confined in some cases 
 by a belt, of trousers fitting close at the ankle, and a tartan 
 plaid fastened up at the shoulder with a brooch. The 
 Gauls were expert at making cloth and linen. They wove 
 their stuffs for summer, and rough felts or druggets for 
 winter-wear, which are said to have been prepared with 
 vinegar, and to have been so tough as to resist the stroke 
 of a sword.^ We hear, moreover, of a British dress, called 
 guanacum by Varro, which was said to be "woven of 
 divers colours, and making a gaudy show."^ They had 
 learned the art of using alternate colours for the warp and 
 woof, so as to bring out a pattern of stripes and squares. 
 The cloth, says Diodorus, was covered with an infinite 
 number of little squares and lines, "as if it had been 
 sprinkled with flowers," or was striped with crossing bars, 
 which formed a chequered design. The favourite colour 
 was red or a "pretty crimson:" "such colours as an 
 honest-minded person had no cause to blame, nor the 
 world reason to cry out upon."^ 
 
 1 Pliny, Hist. Nat. viii. 48. 2 strutt. Chron. 275. 
 
 3 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxii. i : " Behold the French inhabiting beyond the 
 Alpes have invented the meanes to counterfeit the purple of Tyrus, the 
 Scarlet also and the Violet in graine : yea, & to set all other colours that 
 can be devised, with the juice onely of certaine herbs" (Holland's Transl. 
 ii. 115). Then follows the sentence quoted in the text. For the other 
 passages, see Diod. Sic. v. 30; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvi. 18 ; Pausanias, 
 X. 36. See also Logan's Scottish Gael. i. c. 6, for an account of the 
 ancient Highland dress, and of the manufacture of tartan in the Hebrides. 
 
Origins of English History. 115 
 
 They seem to have been fond of every kind of orna- 
 ment.^ They wore collars and " torques " of gold, neck- 
 laces and bracelets, and strings of brightly-coloured beads, 
 made of glass or of " a material like the Egyptian porce- 
 lain."^ A ring was worn on the middle finger, at the time 
 with which we are dealing ; but in the next generation the 
 fashion changed, and that finger was left bare while all the 
 rest were loaded.* 
 
 A chief dressed in the Gaulish fashion must have been 
 a surprising sight to a traveller. His clothes were of a 
 flaming and fantastic hue; his hair hung down like a 
 horse's mane, or was pushed forward on his forehead in a 
 thick shock, if he followed the insular fashion. The hair 
 and moustaches were dyed red with the " Gallic soap," a 
 mixture of goat's fat and the ashes of beechen logs. They 
 decked themselves out in this guise to look more terrible 
 in battle ; but Posidonius, when he saw them first, declared 
 
 " Bark of alder was used for black ; bark of willow produced flesh-colour." 
 "Crotilgeal," a lichen found on stone, was used to dye crimson, "and another 
 called Crotildubh, of a dark colour, only dyes a philamot" {ibid. 237). 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. V. 27; "Z« Gaulois portaient des colliers, des boudes 
 ioreilles, des bracelets, des anneaux pour les bras en or et en cuivre, suivant 
 leur rang, des colliers en ambre," &c. (Napoleon, Vie de C6sar, ii. 30). 
 
 2 Thurnam, Brit. Barrows, Archceol. xliii. 499. The glass is thought to 
 have been brought from the Alexandrian factories. It is unlikely that it 
 could have been made in Britain, because the natives were as yet unable 
 to make bronze (Caesar, De Bell. Gall. v. 12), and glass-making is said 
 to be the concomitant of the manufacture of that metal. " The scorim 
 from the bronze-furnaces are, in fact, a kind of glass, a silicate of soda, 
 coloured blue or green by the silicate of copper" (Figuier, Prim. Man, 
 Tylor's edit., p. 261). As to the green glass found in Scandinavian 
 tombs, and attributed to a commerce with Phoenicia, see Nillson, Stone 
 Age (Thoms' edit>j, p. 82. . 
 
 3 " GalUa Britanniaeque in medio (annulum) dicuntur usse. Hic nunc 
 solus excipitur; ceteri omnes onerantur, atque etiam privatim articuli 
 minoribus aliis" (Pliny, Hist. Nat, xxxiii. 24). 
 
 I 2 
 
1 1 6 Origins of English History. 
 
 that they looked for all the world like Satyrs, or " wild 
 men of the woods. "^ 
 
 The equipment of the Belgians in war^ has been often 
 and minutely described. The shield was as high as a 
 man. The helmet was ornamented with horns and a high 
 plume, and was joined to the bronze cheek-pieces, on 
 which were carved the figures of birds and the faces of 
 animals in high relief The cuirass was at first of plaited 
 leather, and afterwards was made of chain-mail or of 
 parallel plates of bronze. For offence they wore a pon- 
 derous sabre, and carried a Gaulish pike, with flame-like 
 and undulating edges " so as to break the flesh aU in pieces." 
 Their spears, or harpoons, are drawn with a double or a 
 triple barb on the medals which were struck for Claudius. 
 In addition to the bow dart and sling, the ordinary 
 missile equipment, they had some other weapons of which 
 the use is more difficult to explain. 
 
 Strabo mentions, for instance, a kind of wooden dart,' 
 
 ^ Diod. Sic. V. 28; Csesar, De Bell. Gall. v. 13. " Demens imitare 
 Britannos, Ludis et externo tincta nitore caput" (Propert. Eleg. ii. 18, 23). 
 " Prodest et sapo, Galliamm hoc inventum rutilandis capillis : fit ex sebo 
 et cinere. Optimus fagino et caprino " (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxviii. 12). 
 The same wash or dye was used by the Germans. "Spuma Batava" 
 (Mart. Epig. viii. 23). " Caustica Teutonicos accendit spuma capillos" 
 {ibid. xiv. 26). " Flavus color bellum minatur, ceu cognatus sanguini" 
 (Clemens, Psedagog. iii. 3). The subject of the hair-dressing of the 
 northern nations is discussed with much detail in the 4th part of Grupen, 
 " De Uxore Theotisca." 
 
 - For the Gaulish weapons, see Diod. Sic. v. 30; Strabo, iv. 197. 
 " Le Musk de Zurich possede une cuirasse gauloise form'ee de longties plaques 
 defer. Au Louvre et au Musee de Saint-Germain il existe des cuirasses 
 gauloises en bronze. . . . La cotte de mailles {etait une) invention gauloise." 
 (Napoleon, Vie de Ce'sar, ii. 34.) 
 
 Eirrt II Ka\ ypoafu) ioiKug ^vXov, ck xeipoc ouk e| ayKvX^g i(^iifxevoi', 
 TtiXefieXuiTcpov cat (3sXovq, « fiaXtara Kal Trpog Tag opvibii' j^pwyrai Bripag. 
 (Strabo, iv. 197.) 
 
Origins of English History. 1 1 7 
 
 used chiefly in the chase of birds, which flew further than 
 any ordinary javelin, though it was thrown without the aid 
 of the "casting-thong." The " mataris" was another 
 missile, of which the nature is now forgotten. It may be 
 the weapon which is depicted on some Gaulish coins, 
 where a horseman is seen throwing a lasso to which a 
 hammer-shaped missile is attached. And if the supposi- 
 tion is correct, it will explain many obscure passages in 
 ancient writings, where the weapon is described as return- 
 ing to the hand of the person who cast it.^ 
 
 1 The mataris is described in the same passage of Strabo, Marapls 
 jrdXrou ti tlSoQ. Cicero mentions it as a distinctive weapon of the Gauls 
 (Ad Her. iv. 32). The coins mentioned in the text are copied in the Revue 
 Celtique, i. 7, where they are connected with the worship of Dis Pater, 
 and of the Etruscan Charu or Charon. The weapons which returned to 
 the thrower were the club of Hercules, which was supposed to be attached 
 to a lasso: see Servius on Virg. &Xi.. vii. 741, "Teutonico ritu sohti 
 torquere cateiam " ; the hammer and the "anvil" of Thor, which returned 
 to the places from which they were thrown ; the club and the hand-stone 
 of the Dagda, the " Great-Fire " of the Irish mythology ; the golden ball, or 
 "apple," used as a weapon of this kind according to the legend of Fionn's 
 Enchantment, Revue Celtique, ii. ig6j the iron balls which have been 
 found in late Celtic tombs, which are marked with grooves for attachment 
 to the string j and, according to the authorities next-mentioned, the 
 javelin of Cephalus and the aquifolia described by Pliny. The interest 
 of the question lies in the fact that these reflexive missiles are sometimes 
 confused with the Australian boomerang, which if skilfully cast will wheel 
 back in the air to the thrower ; and several strange ethnological theories 
 have been founded on this supposition. See Ferguson's Essay on the 
 Antiquity of the Boomerang, Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1838 ; and Smyth, 
 Aborigines of Victoria, 327. The " catda," or spear, is treated as having 
 been at one time identical with the Australian implement. The minor 
 authorities cited are the line of Virgil already mentioned, Festus, sub voce 
 "Clava," "panda cateid," Sil. Ital. Punic, iii. 274; "torquens cateias," 
 Val. Flacc, Argon, vi. 83 ; Amm. Marcell. xxxi. 7 ; and a passage from 
 the Origines of Isidore of Seville, which is chiefly remarkable for its 
 omission of the lasso mentioned by Servius. "Clava est qualis fuit 
 
1 1 8 Origins of English History. 
 
 The "scythed chariots," or " covini" should be noticed 
 in this connection. They seem to have been low two- 
 wheeled carts, drawn by two or four horses apiece, on 
 which a number of foot-soldiers, or rather dragoons, could 
 be carried within the enemy's line. The captain or driver 
 of the chariot was in command of the party. The cha- 
 rioteers drove at full gallop along the enemy's front and 
 sought to confuse his ranks by the noise of the charge, 
 and the danger of being run down or being injured by 
 the scythes attached to the chariots. The soldiers of each 
 party meanwhile hurled darts down as they passed, and 
 when they saw an opportunity, leaped out and engaged in 
 a fight hand-to-hand. The drivers in the meantime drew 
 off and formed a line, behind which their men could rally 
 in case of need. These tactics appear to have been 
 peculiar to the British Gauls, the inland Britons being 
 accustomed to rely upon their infantry, and the Continental 
 Gauls being fonder of the cavalry arm. The Romans were 
 not so much impressed with the use of the bronze-scythes, 
 which they must have often seen in Gaul, and probably in 
 their Eastern campaigns, as with the novelty of the whole 
 manoeuvre and the wonderful skill of the drivers. " They 
 could stop their horses at full speed on a steep incline, or 
 turn them as they pleased at a gallop, and could run out 
 
 Herculis, dicta quod sit clavis ferreis invicem religata, et est cubito semis 
 facta in longitudine. Hsc est cateia, quam Horatius Caiam dicit. Est 
 genus Gallici teli ex materia quam maximfe lenta : quae jactu quidem non 
 longfe, propter gravitatem evolat, sed ubi pervenit vi nimii perfringit. 
 Quod si ab artifice mittatur, rursus redit ad eum qui misit. Hujus 
 meminit Virgilius, dicens 'Teutonico ritu etc' Unde et eas Hispani 
 'Teutones' vocant." (Isid. Orig. xviii. c. 7.) "On a remarqu^ que 
 VEspagnol dit encore Chuzon, pour un grand javelot ; mats ce mot riest 
 autre, je pense, que le Basque Chuzoa." (De Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul. 209.) 
 
Origins of English History. 119 
 
 on the pole and stand on the yoke, and get back to their 
 place in a moment."^ 
 
 The British Gauls appear to have been excellent farmers, 
 skilled as well in the production of cereals as in stock- 
 raising and the management of the dairy. Their farms 
 were laid out in large fields, without enclosures or fences ; 
 and they had learned to make a permanent separation of 
 the pasture and arable, and to apply the manures which 
 were appropriate to each kind of field. We find no trace 
 of a co-operative husbandry, such as was afterwards esta- 
 blished in the English settlements. The plough was of 
 the wheeled kind, an invention that superseded the old 
 " over-treading plough," held down by the driver's foot, of 
 which a representation in bronze has been discovered in 
 Yorkshire.^ 
 
 They relied greatly upon marling and chalking the land. 
 " The same soil, however, was never twice chalked, as the 
 effects were visible after standing the experience of fifty 
 years." ^ The effect of the ordinary marl was of even 
 
 1 Csesar, De Bell. Gall. iv. 33 ; Tac. Agric. c. 12 ; Pomp. Mela, iii. 3 ; 
 Juvenal, iv. 126. Compare Lucan, — 
 
 " Optima gens flexis in gyrum Sequana frenis, 
 Et docilis rector rostrati Belga covini." 
 
 (Lucan, Pharsal. i. 425.) 
 The scythed chariots were common in Gaul, and their remains have not 
 unfrequently been found in the tombs of the Gaulish chieftains. They 
 are said to have been used in Persia, and may have been introduced by 
 the Greeks of Marseilles. They were adopted by the Swedes, and were 
 sometimes loaded with stones, and made to run down the glads, when a 
 fort was assaulted. (Olaus Magnus, Hist. Septent. ix. 2.) 
 
 2 For the invention of the wheeled plough, see Pliny, Hist. Nat. xviii. 18. 
 With respect to the figure mentioned in the text, see Wright, Roman 
 Celt and Saxon, 256. The figure was found at Piersebridge, and is said 
 to be in Lord Londesborough's collection. 
 
 3 Arthur Young, Annals of Agric. (i793)> xxii. 547, 553, where the 
 
1 20 Origins of English History. 
 
 longer duration, the benefit being visible in some instances 
 for a period of eighty years. Pliny said that he never 
 knew a case where the marling required to be repeated. 
 But the process needed some care ; for the marl had to be 
 mixed with salt, and scattered thinly over the grass, or 
 ploughed into the arable with a proportion of farm-yard 
 manure ; and even then the effects were hardly noticeable 
 for a year or two.^ The chalk, we are told, was dug from 
 funnel-shaped pits, sometimes a hundred feet deep ; and 
 in course ,of time it became a valuable article of export.^ 
 
 Their stock was much the same as that which their 
 successors used for many years afterwards ; for there can 
 be little doubt, that almost all our domestic animals had 
 been brought to this country from the East by the races 
 that preceded the Celts. The exceptions are the domestic 
 fowl, the pigs descended from the wild swine, and the 
 cattle of the Urus type. Their horses, or ponies as we 
 should rather call them, were used apparently for food, as 
 well as for purposes of draught. Their cattle were of 
 two varieties : some were of the small Welsh breed [Bos 
 
 whole subject is discussed with reference to Pliny. The chalk-marl was 
 called "argentaria''; the lime-marl, a stonier kind, was known by the 
 Gaulish name of " acaunu-marga." After the intercourse with Gaul 
 became more constant, other varieties of marl came into use, as " the red, 
 dove-coloured, sandy, and pumice-like varieties." (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvii. 4.) 
 
 1 "Alioquin novitate, quaecunque fuerit (marga), solum Isedet, ne sic 
 quidem primo post anno fertilis.'' (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvii. 4.) 
 
 ^ See the same passage of Pliny. Several of these pits, or chalk-mines, 
 have been found in the Southern Counties. Old Sarum is said to have 
 become a centre of the chalk-trade (Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 284). A 
 British chalk merchant set up an inscription to Nehalennia, a goddess of 
 the Lower Rhine, " ob merces servatas," which has been the subject of 
 frequent discussions. (Keysler, ibid. ; Montfaucon, Antiqu. Expliqu. il, 
 under "Nehalennia"; and see Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 256.) 
 
Origins of English History. 121 
 
 Longifrons) which is called " the Celtic short-horn," and 
 others of the Kyloe or Argyllshire variety, which is hardly 
 to be distinguished from the wild cattle of Chillingham, 
 the descendants oi Bos Primigenius. It has been doubted 
 whether the sheep was known in these islands before the 
 Roman invasions, chiefly because it is difficult to distin- 
 guish its remains from those of the goat. But the latest 
 discoveries are in favour of the theory, that the goat had 
 been superseded by the sheep as early as the beginning of 
 the British Age of Bronze.^ 
 
 With the aid of these details we can form a reasonably 
 clear idea of the outdoor life of the people. And we are 
 not without information concerning their social practices ; 
 for Posidonius has left us the description^ of a Gaulish 
 banquet, which will help to explain the state of society 
 among the Gauls who had settled in Britain. The traveller 
 was delighted at the antique simplicity of his hosts, and 
 amused at their Gallic frivolity and readiness for fighting 
 at meal-times. "They were just like the people in Homer's 
 time." Not till after the feast might the stranger be asked 
 his name and the purpose of his journey. But they differed 
 from the Greek warriors in some ways, according to the 
 minuter critics : for they thought a cut from the haunch to 
 be the best part of the animal ; even the Germans, their 
 neighbours, had lost the heroic fashion, and roasted the 
 joints separately instead of taking " long slices from the 
 
 1 On this part of the subject, see Prof. Rolleston's " Essay on the 
 Prehistoric Fauna," in British Barrows (Greenwell & Rolleston), 730, 750. 
 As to the domestic fowl, ibid. 730 ; the pig, ibid. 737 ; the sheep, ibid. 740J 
 as to Bos Primigenius, ibid. 743. 
 
 - Athen. iv. 151, 153; Strabo, iv. 277 ; Diod. Sic. v. 31 ; Eustath., in 
 lUad, iii. 271, viii. 321, pp. 915, 1606. 
 
122 Origins of English History. 
 
 chines of pork " ; and besides, he said, they drank milk, or 
 wine unmixed with water. The guests sat on a carpet of 
 rushes, or on skins of dogs and wolves, not far from the 
 pots and spits of the fireplace ; or they would sometimes 
 sit in a circle on the grass in front of little tables,^ on which 
 the bread was set in baskets of British work. There was 
 always plenty of meat, both roast and boiled, of which 
 they partook " rather after the fashion of lions," for they 
 would take up the joint and gnaw at it ; but if a man 
 could not get the meat off, he would use his little bronze 
 knife, which he kept in a separate sheath by the side of his 
 sword or dagger. They drank beer and hydromel, which 
 was carried about in metal beakers or jugs of earthenware; 
 and the boys were always busy at taking it round, because 
 the guests only drank by little mouthfuls, " pouring the 
 beer through their long moustaches like water through a 
 sieve or a funnel." The minstrels sang^ and the harpers 
 
 1 Compare the little tables of the Germans, " Sua cuique mensa" 
 (Tac. Germ. c. 22). "Id est (says Brotier, in his Commentary) ex veteri 
 populorum usu, et quum vorax erat hominum genus." 
 
 ^ Posidonius did not sufficiently appreciate the bards. " The Celts 
 (he said) take about with them a sort of parasites to sing their praises 
 in public" (Strabo iv. 277; Diod. Sic. v. 31). Compare the description 
 of the Irish minstrels in Froissart's Chronicle. A knight of the court of 
 Richard the Second was appointed to look after four Irish kings. " When 
 they were seated at table, they would make their minstrels and principal 
 servants sit beside them, and eat from their plates and drink from their 
 cups. They told me that this was a praiseworthy custom of their country, 
 where everything was in common. I permitted this to be done for three 
 days ; but on the fourth I ordered the tables to be laid and covered pro- 
 perly, placing the kings at a high table, the minstrels at one below, and 
 the servants lower still. The kings looked at each other and refused to 
 eat, saying that I had deprived them of their old custom in which they 
 had been brought up." (Froiss. Chron. iv. c. 84.) See the Irish travels of 
 Barnaby Rich, Logan, Scottish Gael. ii. 147. 
 
Origins of English History. 123 
 
 played, and as the company drank they bowed to the right, 
 in honour of their god. The guests sat in three rings, — 
 nobles, shield-bearers, and javelin-men, all in order of their 
 precedence, and everyone of whatever rank had his full 
 share of the meat and drink. If the warriors quarrelled 
 about their helping of food, or on any matter of precedence, 
 they would get up and fight the question out to the death ; 
 and in more ancient times the strongest man would seize 
 the joint and defy the company to mortal combat. If no 
 duel occurred during the meal, the guests were entertained 
 with a sword-play,^ ' or sometimes a man would die to 
 amuse the rest. The careless Gaul would bargain for a 
 reward to be paid to his friends, and then would lie down 
 on his long shield and allow his throat to be cut or his 
 body to be transfixed with a lance. 
 
 1 For the German quarrels at meals, see Tac. Germ. c. 22. For the 
 sword-play, ihid. c. 24. " They have but one kind of show, and they use 
 it at every gathering. Naked lads, who know the game, leap among 
 swords and in front of spears. Practice gives cleverness, and cleverness 
 grace : but it is not a trade, or a thing done for hire ; however venture- 
 some the sport, their only payment is the delight of the crowd." 
 
1 24 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CELTS AND NON-CELTIC TRIBES. 
 
 The population outside the Gaulish settlements. — Insular Celts. — Pre-Celtic tribes. — 
 How classified. — The Stone Age. — Bronze Age. — Iron Age. — Evidence of sequence 
 in use of metals. — Special evidence as to Britain. — Remains of Palaeolithic Age. — 
 Britons of the Later Stone Age. — Tombs of the kings. — Cromlechs — Rites and 
 superstitions connected with them — Examples. — Stories of Wayland's Smithy.— 
 Trous des Nutans. — Classification of barrows — Chambered and unchambered 
 varieties — Their contents. — 'Physical characteristics of the Tomb-builders. — The 
 nature of their society. — Lake-dwellings. — Survival of the neolithic race. — Legends 
 of Irish bards. — The Firbolgs. —Black Celts. — The Silures — Their character and 
 habits. — Commencement of Bronze Age — On the Continent — In Britain. — Tribes 
 of Finnish type — Contents of their barrows — Implements — Ornaments — Their 
 agriculture — Nature of their society. 
 
 THE Gaulish settlers had become so nearly civilized, 
 that they were ready to adopt the fashions of the 
 South almost as soon as they felt the approach of the 
 Roman power. Their fitful spirit yielded in advance; 
 and their conquerors observed with contempt " how soon 
 sloth following on ease crept over them, and how they lost 
 their courage along with their freedom." Henceforth we 
 shall have to do with the history of bolder races, as much 
 excelling the Gauls in the vigour and ingenuity of their 
 defence, as they fell short in matters of culture and 
 refinement. 
 
 The districts undisturbed by the new colonies were held 
 by the Celts of an earlier immigration, save where the 
 remoter or less desirable regions may have been retained 
 by tribes surviving from the ages of stone and bronze. 
 We shall be concerned later with the history of the 
 
Origins of English History. 125 
 
 Celtic Clans ; but we must begin by analyzing in the 
 first place the more primitive elements, of which the pre- 
 sence is still to be observed in portions of the modern 
 population. 
 
 The periods of pre-historic time, so far as relate to the 
 growth of our own society, are usefully distinguished by 
 the transitions from the possession of polished flint and 
 bone to that of bronze and afterwards of iron and steel. 
 The date at which a metal or alloy became known to 
 particular peoples must have depended in each case on 
 a variety of local circumstances. No one speaking gene- 
 rally for all the world could tell whether the working of 
 iron preceded or followed the manufacture of bronze. 
 The existence of the alloy implies a previous knowledge of 
 the components. Copper " celts" are found in Ireland and 
 Switzerland, axes in Scotland, Scania, Italy, and Hungary '} 
 while the word " axe " itself is said to be phonologically 
 the same as old Celtic names for copper ; so that we may 
 conclude that the invention of bronze was the result of an 
 attempt to harden the edges of the weapons of pure copper. 
 As to tin again, no remains have been found of its use in 
 a pure state, except a few beads, coins, and knife-handles 
 of comparatively recent times ; but we are not without 
 evidence that it was used in Central Asia many centuries 
 before the Christian era, and its Eastern names imply that 
 it was introduced to supply for some purposes the place 
 which had before been given to lead ; its western names 
 have come from some unknown tongue prevailing in the 
 countries frequented by the merchants. 
 
 These calculations would take us back to the vast 
 antiquity of the Asian Empires. But if the inquiry is 
 1 Westropp, Prehist. Phases, 71 ; Wilde, Catal. R. I. Acad. 
 
126 Origins of English History. 
 
 confined to our own country, and the neighbouring coasts 
 from which its population has been from time to time 
 derived, we shall find that the "age of polished-stone," 
 when no metals were known but gold, was succeeded 
 suddenly and abruptly by a period distinguished by the 
 number and variety of its weapons, tools, implements, 
 and 'jewels of bronze'; and that several centuries must 
 have elapsed before the art of working in iron prevailed. 
 
 The nations of pre-historic Britain may be classified 
 according to a system derived from the history of the 
 metals. The oldest races were in the pre-metallic stage, 
 when bronze was introduced by a new nation, sometimes 
 identified with the oldest Celts, but now more generally 
 attributed to the Finnish or Ugrian stock. When the 
 Celts arrived in their turn, they may have brought in the 
 knowledge of iron and silver : the Continental Celts are 
 known to have used iron broad-swords at the Battle of the 
 Anio in the fourth century before Christ, and iron was 
 certainly worked in Sussex by the Britons of Julius 
 Csesar's time; but as no objects of iron have been 
 recovered from our Celtic tumuli, except in some instances 
 of a doubtful date, it will be safer to assume that the 
 British Celts belonged to the Later Bronze Age as well 
 as to the Age of Iron. 
 
 We shall now deal in order with what is known of these 
 several kinds of men, following as far as may be the course 
 of their immigration from the East. We shall collect the 
 most striking results of the inquiries into their ancient 
 customs, so that having thus cleared the ground we may 
 form some useful estimate of the influence which can be 
 attributed to their descendants. 
 
 We need not describe in detail the relics of the palaeo- 
 
Origins of English History. 127 
 
 lithic tribes, who ranged the country under an almost arctic 
 climate, waging their precarious wars with the wild animals 
 of the Quaternary Age. The searching of their caves and 
 rock-shelters, and of the drifts and beds of loam and gravel, 
 in England and the neighbouring countries, has brought 
 to light great numbers of their flint-knives, hammers, and 
 adzes, and instruments for working in leather. Their 
 rough "dug-out" canoes are found in the mouths of the 
 estuaries. The beads and amulets, and the sket ches of the 
 mammoth and groups of reindeer which have been found 
 in the French depo'sits, show that they were not without 
 some rudiments of intelligence and skill ; and, at any rate, 
 they could trap and defeat the larger carnivorous animals. 
 We cannot gain a clearer notion of their life than that 
 which is given by the picture of the Fennic tribes of whom 
 Tacitus said, that they attained the most difficult of all 
 things, to be " beyond the need of prayer." " They are 
 wonderfully savage (he said) and miserably poor. They 
 have no weapons, no horses, no homes : they feed on 
 herbs and are clad with the skins of beasts ; the ground 
 is their bed, and their only hope of life is in their arrows, 
 which for lack of iron they sharpen with tips of bone. 
 The women live by hunting, just like the men ; for they 
 accompany the men in their wanderings and seek their 
 share of the prey. And they have no other refuge for 
 their young children against wild beasts or storms, than to 
 cover them up in a nest made of interlacing boughs. Such 
 are the homes to which the young men return, in which 
 the old men take their rest."^ 
 
 ^ Tac. Germ. c. 46. Good descriptions of the palaeolithic societies will 
 be found in Figuier's Primitive Man (Tylor's edit.) and in "L Homme 
 pendant les Ages de la Pierre" by Dupont (Paris, 1872). Prof. RoUeston 
 
i2» Origins of English History. 
 
 f No continuity of race can be proved between these 
 savages and any tribe or nation which is now to be found 
 . in the West of Europe. We shall therefore pass to the 
 Neolithic Age, on which so much research has been of 
 late years expended, that we can form some clear idea of 
 the habits of the people of that time, of the nature of their 
 homes, and even of their physical appearance. 
 
 The most important relics of that period are the great 
 mounds or " Tombs of the Kings," the vaults and tribal 
 sepulchres, which remain still buried in earth or denuded 
 as " cromlechs " and standing-stones, all round the British 
 Islands and along the opposite coasts, from Brittany in one 
 direction to the inner regions of the Baltic in the other. 
 
 The mounds have been in most cases disturbed by early 
 treasure-hunters, or by persons searching for saltpetre, or 
 farmers who required the mould for the purposes of agri- 
 culture. The massive structures of stone, which were 
 thus laid bare, have been the subject of all kinds of fan- 
 ciful theories about serpent-worship and the ritual of the 
 Druids ; and in former ages they were generally regarded 
 with superstitious feelings, " fears of the brave and follies 
 of the wise," which now only linger among the most igno- 
 rant peasantry. Their names are of such forms as the 
 Giant's Grave and the " Fairy Toote,'" " Hob o' th' Hurst's 
 
 aptly cited, in a late Address to the British Association, the complaint of 
 Job against the people of the lower races, " whose fathers he would have 
 disdained to set with the dogs of the flock." " Fleeing into the wilderness 
 in former time desolate and waste, to dwell in the clefts of the valleys, in 
 caves of the earth and in rocks ; among the bushes they brayed ; under 
 the nettles they were gathered together." (Job xxx. i, 3, 6, 7.) 
 
 1 An important and interesting account of the exploration of the long 
 barrow called the Fairy Toote, at Nempnet, near Bath, by Mr. T. Bere in 
 1789, will be found in the Gent. Mag. 1789-1792, vol, lix. i. 392, and 
 2. 602 ; Ixii. 2. 1082, 1 188. 
 
Origins of Etiglish History. 129 
 
 House," the Pixy Rocks and Odin's Stone ; or in some 
 cases they recall the legend of the dragon which hides the 
 enchanted treasure. In France the names are of the same 
 kind, or arise from the story of some legendary god or 
 hero, as Roland or Gargantua, or of some precious object 
 buried there, as at the Dolmen des Pierres Turquoises. The 
 uncovered long barrows of the Province of Drenthe, in 
 Holland, are known as HUnebedden, or Giants' Beds, and 
 the chambered mounds of Denmark as Jettestuer, or 
 abodes of giants. 
 
 A few examples may be selected from the abundant 
 literature of this subject, to illustrate in the first place the 
 nature of the rites which took place at the funeral mounds, 
 after their original purpose was forgotten ; and secondly, 
 to show how these barrows became connected with the 
 ancient story of " Robin Goodfellows that would mend old 
 irons in those .^olian isles of Lipari," of which one version 
 has been quoted from a fragment of the writings of Pytheas. 
 
 The first instance is taken from the life of the Apostle 
 of Germany. When St. Boniface began the conversion 
 of Friesland, at the beginning of the eighth century, he 
 found that one of the megalithic tombs in the Province of 
 Drenthe had been turned into an altar for human sacrifices. 
 The wild Teutons " sent to Woden " any stranger who 
 fell into their hands, making him first creep through the 
 narrow openings of the stones that supported the " altar." 
 The latter practice was observed till late in the Middle 
 Ages, "especially when they caught a man from Brabant"; 
 but the bloodthirsty offering was abolished by the influence 
 of the saint.* Monuments of this kind are known to 
 
 ^ This little-known story may be found in Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 41, 
 in the Tract upon Stonehenge. It is cited from Schoenhovius, De Originc 
 
1 30 Origins of English History. 
 
 have been used as altars in Holstein and in places near 
 the mouth of the Elbe ; and a celebrated Ordinance of 
 Carloman, promulgated in a.d. 743, forbade the Franks 
 to continue the rites which they performed "upon the 
 stones."^ The way in which the cromlechs were regarded 
 by the Celts in Britain may be inferred from the archaic 
 superstitions which survive among the Bretons of the 
 Lionnais, a. district chiefly colonized by emigrants from 
 Britain, where the peasant-women make offerings for good 
 fortune in marriage to the fairies and dwarfs who are 
 believed to haunt the graves. 
 
 The other example relates to the cromlech called 
 "Wayland's Smithy,"^ at Ashbury, in Berkshire, so named 
 
 et Sedibus Francorum ; Matthseus, Analecta, i. 36. It may be useful to 
 mention some of the references to ancient writings which notice the 
 Continental long-barrows. Some will be found in the Baltic and Northern 
 Newsletters (pubhshed in Latin) for 1699, 1700, 1702. The altar near 
 the Elbe was described by Ristius, Colloqu. Menst. Dial. 6 ; others in 
 Holstein by Torkill Arnkiel, De Religione ethnici, Cimbrorum; Wormius, 
 Monum. Dan. i. 8 ; Schaten, Hist. Westphal. vii. 486 ; Hamcon. Frisia, 76; 
 Van Slichtmhorst, GA^zrssz Geschieden. 78. Of the pyramidal ^»/»/w 
 at Mentz, Schedel, Chron. Nuremberg, 39, and Tenzel, Colloqu. Menst. 
 (1698), 270. A catalogue of early tracts upon the subject is given by 
 Keysler, pp. no, 113. 
 
 1 " Quae faciunt suprk petras." See the Indiculus Superstitionum, among 
 the Ordinances of the Merovingian kings. 
 
 * For "Wayland's Smithy," see Dr. Thumam's tract in the Wilts. 
 Archseol. Mag. vii. 321; Anc. Brit. Barrows, Archaol. xliii. 205; and 
 Mr. Akerman's account, Archaol. xxxii. 312; Hoare's Anc. Wilts, ii. 47 ; 
 and the notes to Sir W. Scott's Kenilworth. Aubrey's description in the 
 still unpublished Monumenta Britannica is as follows : " About a mile 
 from White Horse Hill, on the top of the hill, are a great many great 
 stones, which were layed there on purpose ; but as tumbled out of a cart, 
 without any order; but some of them are placed edgewise," &c. He 
 added, after a visit to the place, that " the sepulchre was 74 paces long 
 and 24 broade," and was like " the rude stones " of the cromlech called 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 i.^i 
 
 after the hero Weland, the Vulcan of the Teutonic mytho- 
 logy. The monument consists of a ruined chamber, of 
 some remains of a gallery, and of a second chamber to 
 complete the cruciform plan, which were all at one time 
 buried in the earth and surrounded by a ring of stones, or 
 "peristalith" of an oblong form. It is a Long Barrow of 
 the type which is common in the neighbouring districts of 
 North Wilts. "At this place" (so the legend runs) " lived 
 formerly an invisible smith, and if a traveller's horse had 
 lost a shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to 
 bring the horse to 'this place, with a piece of money, and 
 leaving both there for some little time, he might come 
 again and find the money gone, but the horse new shod." 
 A similar story is said to be current in Oldenburg, where 
 an invisible smith called the Hiller shoed horses in a 
 
 Y Leche at Caer-Gebi, near Holyhead : " and this great sepulchre called 
 Wayland Smith is not unlikely to be a great and rude monument of 
 Hengest or Horsa, for in their countrey remain many monuments like it." 
 (Compare Lambarde's account of the Kentish cromlech called Kits Coty 
 House, near Aylesford : " The Britons returning from the chase erected to 
 the memorie of Catigern, as I suppose, that monument of foure huge and 
 hard stones, which are yet standing in this parish, pitched upright in the 
 ground, &c. For I cannot so much as suspect, that this should be that 
 which Beda and the others do assigne to be the tomb of Horsa." Peramb. 
 Kent, 409.) The oldest mention of the monument implies that it had 
 been long uncovered. King Edred, in a.d. 955, granted an estate at 
 Compton Beauchamp, of which the boundaries were marked by certain 
 barrows called Hilda's Lowe, and Hwittuc's Lowe, " and along to the 
 wide gap east of Welandes Smithan." (Kemble, Codex Dipl. v. 342.) 
 See Veland le Forgeron, Depping (Paris, 1833), and Singer's translation 
 (Pickering, London, 1847). It is somewhat remarkable that King Alfred 
 did not recognise the legend in his Boethius : " Who knows now the bones 
 of the Wise Weland, under what barrow they are concealed ? " For a 
 list of places taking their names from the demi-god, see Grimm, Deut. 
 Mythol. 350. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Origins of English History. 
 
 cavern, if a proper fee was left upon a neighbouring stone. 
 The country people living near the remains of an "altar," 
 or long-barrow, in Ditmarsh, were accustomed in like 
 manner to leave some gift at the standing-stones in the 
 hope of finding a present of money, when they came to 
 search the recess.^ And in the Belgian caves, which are 
 called " Les Trous des Nutons" a kind of dwarfs, like 
 " metal-men," were supposed to shoe the horses, or to 
 repair the broken articles of metal, which the villagers 
 deposited for the purpose with a gift of cakes, of which 
 the Nutons were especially fond ; " mais, un jour, les 
 villageois auraient mUi des cendres & la pdte ; les Nutans 
 indignis se seraient empresses de quitter ces lieux et n'y 
 auraient plus reparu." 
 
 The tombs of the Neolithic Age in England are of two 
 kinds, distinguished by the absence or presence of a stone 
 vault or a series of such vaults. The huge unchambered 
 mounds of Dorset and South Wilts are thought to have 
 been built as tribal graves by the earliest of the immigrants 
 from Asia. They are built for the most part in picturesque 
 
 1 An account of this barrow is cited by Keysler from the Baltic News- 
 letter, 1699, p. 286; Antiqu. Septent. 44. For the Oldenburg custom, 
 see Dr. Thurnam's tract mentioned in the preceding note. Prof. Boyd 
 Dawkins refers to a story from Elbingrode, in the Hartz Mountains, where 
 the dwarfs were asked to lend metal vessels for weddings ; then the appli- 
 cants retired a little way, " and when they came back, found everything 
 they desired set ready for them at the mouth of the cave ; when the 
 wedding was over they returned what they had borrowed, and in token of 
 gratitude offered some meat to their benefactors." (Cave-hunting, p. 2, 
 from Behren's Hercynia Ctiriosa.) The story of the Nutons, in some parts 
 of Belgium called Lutons, Sottais, and Sarrasins, and the references col- 
 lected for its illustration, will be found in Dupont's L Homme pendant les 
 Ages de la Pierre, 241. Compare the legend of similar magical loans at the 
 Stone on Borough Hill near Frensham, Surrey. Keightley, Fairy Myth. 295. 
 
Origins of English History. 133 
 
 and striking situations, whence they might be seen from 
 far and wide ; " Salisbury Plain is guarded by a series of 
 such Long Barrows, which look down on its escarpments 
 like so many watch-towers"; and the same care in the 
 choice of positions for the tumuli may be observed on the 
 Yorkshire Wolds. The Vaulted Tombs, or the ruined re- 
 mains of their chambers, are found in all parts of the 
 South of England, in North Wales, and in the North of 
 Scotland ; and the closest similarity in construction is 
 observed in barrows at places so far apart as Gloucester- 
 shire and the extremity of Caithness, the earthen mounds 
 being in each case held together by two or three parallel 
 walls, built inwards in a heart-shaped curve on the side of 
 the entrance-passage. Some Scotch tombs of the same age 
 retain this last peculiarity, but in other respects resemble 
 the circular tombs of Scandinavia ; and examples of the 
 same type may be found in Brittany and in the Channel 
 Islands, in the " Giants' Chambers" of the Scilly Isles, the 
 Maes Howe pyramid in Orkney, and the great chambered 
 barrows of New Grange and Dowth on the banks of the 
 Boyne. 
 
 These tombs, except in districts where the fashion of 
 cremation prevailed, are usually found to contain the frag- 
 ments of a great number of skeletons, huddled together 
 and disordered, as if there had been temporary or pro- 
 visional burials while the monument was in course of 
 construction. It is seldom that relics of any great import- 
 ance are found in British barrows of these early types. 
 The list of discoveries includes a few delicate leaf-shaped 
 arrow-heads, and some other articles of horn and polished 
 stone, and fragments of black hand-made pottery ; and 
 there are occasional deposits of bucks' horns, the tusks of 
 
r 34 Origins of English History. 
 
 boars, skulls of oxen, and the bones of geese or bustards, 
 which seem to have been thrown into the graves by the 
 guests at the funeral banquets. 
 
 From the bones which have been taken from the tombs, 
 
 and from the ancient flint-mines uncovered in Sussex and 
 
 Norfolk, the anatomists have concluded that the Neolithic 
 
 Britons were not unlike the modern Eskimo. They were 
 
 short and slight, with muscles too much developed for 
 
 their slender and ill-nurtured bones ; and there is that 
 
 marked disproportion between the size of the men and 
 
 women, which indicates a hard and miserable life, where 
 
 the weakest are over-worked and constantly stinted of 
 
 their food. The face must have been of an oval ■ shape, 
 
 with mild and regular features : the skulls, though bulky 
 
 in some instances, were generally of a long and narrow 
 
 shape, depressed sometimes at the crown and marked 
 
 with a prominent ridge, " like the keel of a boat 
 
 reversed." 
 
 Of their way of living we can judge in part by the 
 character of their implements and weapons, and in part 
 by the bones of animals found in the refuse-heaps of the 
 fishermen's villages, or in the mountain-caves, or about the 
 lacustrine settlements. They had certainly passed out of 
 the mere "hunter's life"; and were possessed of most of 
 the domesticated animals.^ According to a prevalent 
 
 1 They seem to have had no chickens, but the skeleton of a goose was 
 found in a long-barrow at Stonehenge, with bones of a stag and of a 
 short-horned ox. (Thurnam, Anc. Brit. Barrows, ArchcBol. xHii. 183.) 
 Prof Rolleston states, that no one, with the evidence properly before him, 
 "can doubt that the goat, sheep, horse, and dog, were imported as domes- 
 ticated animals into this country in the earliest neolithic times." (Brit. 
 Barrows, 750.) And though the natives may have trapped and tamed 
 the young of the Urus and wild swine, it appears by the authorities 
 
Origins of English History. 135 
 
 theory, first suggested by Professor Nilsson with regard to 
 the " gallery graves " of Denmark, the vaulted tombs 
 were copied from subterranean houses, constructed to 
 supply the want of natural caves. It has been doubted 
 indeed in many cases, whether the " Picts-houses " in 
 Scotland, and the Irish " Clochdns" which resemble them, 
 were tombs or subterranean houses ; and near one of the 
 long-barrows in Gloucestershire " there were formerly 
 several underground circular dwellings, of which one still 
 remains, furnished with recesses and seats, which can 
 hardly be regarded as other than the abodes of the people 
 by whom the barrow itself was constructed";^ and pit- 
 dwellings of a similar kind have been explored at High- 
 field, near Salisbury, and in other parts of England. 
 But on the whole there is a lack of convincing evidence, 
 that any of these earth-houses were used as the homes of 
 the neolithic men. Most of them are too narrow and ill- 
 ventilated to serve for anything but a store-house or a 
 granary ; and even in the cases where this objection is not 
 applicable, we must remember, that the Germans made 
 artificial caves of this sort as late as the age of Tacitus. 
 " They are wont (the historian said) to dig caves under- 
 ground, which they cover with heaps of manure : this 
 
 already quoted, that the Bos Longifrons and the Asiatic breed of swine 
 were certainly possessed by the Britons of the Stone Age. 
 
 1 Thurnam, Anc. Brit. Barr. Archceol. xliii. 223 ; Nilsson, Primitive 
 Inhab. Scandin. 132, 152. For the Picts-houses, see ^rjrte^/. xxiv. 127; 
 and Logan's Scottish Gael, ii. 10, 12. The Highfield pits are described 
 by Mr. Stevens, in " Flint Chips," as being " single or in groups commu- 
 nicating with each other " : they are of a beehive form, ranging in diameter 
 from s| feet to 7 feet : " in some exceptional cases they measure as much 
 as 14 feet." " The makers have studied the properties of the chalk, for 
 they have enlarged their dome-hke dwellings, when possible, beneath the 
 looser gravel." 
 
136 Origins of English History. 
 
 makes a refuge in winter, and a storehouse for the crops ; 
 because in these places the hardness of the frost is easier 
 to bear, and when an enemy invades he ravages the open 
 country, while the hiding-places either remain unknown, 
 or escape discovery from the very necessity of searching! 
 for them." (Germania, c. 16.) 
 
 More authentic remnants of the dwellings of the 
 Neolithic Age have been discovered in the Welsh and 
 English lakes, and in some of the meres and "broads" 
 of Norfolk. The villages seem to have been raised on 
 piles, or on heaped-up fascines of faggots and brushwood, 
 in the fens or over the reaches of shallow water in the 
 lakes, with galleries leading to the land for the daily 
 passage of the cattle. The lake-dwellings of the Stone 
 Age were always near the shore, but it seems that in the 
 Bronze Age a greater skill or boldness was acquired ; and 
 by using whole trees for supports, and by piling up stones 
 for a foundation, the villages were built over the deep 
 water at a safer distance from the land. The heaps of 
 stone were sometimes raised above the surface of the 
 water, as in the " Crannoges," or artificial islands of the 
 Scotch and Irish lakes : a mass of fern and boughs was 
 sunk into the mud and covered with layers of logs and 
 stones, and the whole structure was upheld and bound 
 together by a stockade of joists and beams. Of all the 
 numerous descriptions of this kind of lacustrine settlement 
 the best is still the picture which Herodotus drew of the 
 villagers on the Roumelian Lake. " Platforms supported 
 on tall piles stand in the middle of the lake, and are 
 approached from the land by a single narrow bridge. At 
 first the piles which bear up the platforms were fixed in 
 their places by the whole body of the citizens ; but since 
 
Origins of English History. 137 
 
 that time the custom which has prevailed about fixing 
 them is this : they are brought from a hill called Orbelus, 
 and every man drives in three for every wife that he 
 marries. Now the men have all many wives apiece, and 
 this is the way in which they live. Each has his own hut, 
 wherein he dwells, upon one of the platforms; and each 
 has also a trap-door giving access to the lake below ; and 
 their wont is to tie their baby children by the foot with a 
 string, to save them from rolling into the water." ^ 
 
 As the Romans advanced westwards in their British 
 conquests they observed that certain tribes were different 
 in manners and appearance from the Gaulish and the Insular 
 Celts ; and they were led, by a mistaken estimate of the 
 vicinity of Ireland to Spain, to account for this fact by the 
 hypothesis of a Spanish migration. "Who were the 
 original inhabitants of Britain " (said Tacitus, in a passage 
 which evidently reports the personal opinion of Agricola), 
 " and whether they sprang from the soil or came from 
 abroad is unknown, as is usually the case with barbarians. 
 Their physical characteristics are various, and from this 
 conclusions may be drawn. The red hair and large limbs 
 of the Caledonians point clearly to a German origin. The 
 
 1 Herod, v. c. 1 6. The following is an interesting description of a hut 
 found at a depth of x6 ft. in the Drumkellin Marsh. " Its area was about 
 S ft. squ. and its height 10 ft. ; it included two stories, each about 4I ft. high. 
 The roof was flat, and the hut was surrounded by a fence of piles, doubt- 
 less intended to separate it from other adjacent huts, the remains of which 
 are still to be perceived. The whole construction had been executed by 
 means of stone instruments, a fact that was proved by the nature of the 
 cuts that were still visible on some of the pieces of wood. Added to this, 
 a hatchet, a chisel and an arrow-head, all made of flint, were found on the 
 floor of the cabin, and left no doubt on this point ; this was in fact a 
 habitation belonging to the Stone Age." — Figuier, Prim. Man (Tylor's 
 edition), 231 ; Lyall, Antiqu. Man, 31. 
 
138 Origins of English History. 
 
 dark complexion of the Silures, their usually curly hair 
 (colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines^), and the fact that 
 Spain is the opposite shore to them, are evidence that 
 Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied those 
 parts." 
 
 The Irish bards had some remembrance of the passage, 
 and played upon the similarity of such local names as 
 Bragartza and Brigantes, Hibernus and Iberia, Gallicia 
 and Galway ; and it became an article of faith among their 
 countrymen, that the island was discovered soon after the 
 Flood by three Spanish fishermen ^ ; and according to the 
 Book of Invasions, " and particularly by that choice 
 volume called the Leabhar dhroma Sneachta or the Snow- 
 backed Book, which was written before St. Patrick arrived 
 
 1 Tac. Agric. c. 11. The phrase is ambiguous and has been variously 
 interpreted as referring to a Hght red-faced and curly-haired people, or to 
 a race with " les cheveux raides et cassants, le teint clair et colori," or to a 
 swarthy race with short frizzly hair, " le teint oliv&tre, les cheveux crepus" : 
 Jornandes expands the passage in the latter sense. " Sylorum colorati 
 vultus, torto plerique crine et nigro nascuntur, .... qui Hispanis a 
 quibusque attenduntur similes." (De Getar. Orig. c. 2.) And this is 
 probably the correct interpretation. 
 
 2 For the bardic traditions see Keating's History of Ireland, and 
 O'Flaherty's Ogygia. They might be passed over in silence, if it were 
 not that these wild legends are even now persistently quoted to prove the 
 Spanish descent of the Irish Gael. See Brash, Ogam Inscribed Monu- 
 ments (1879), 407> 409- They are not unfrequently pressed into the 
 service of the theory, that the dark population in parts of the British 
 Islands and the Basques of the Pyrenees are descended from a common 
 stock.. For the theory that the Irish were Basques {Basclenses or Navarri) 
 see Geoff. Monm. iii. c. 12, and Henry Huntingd. lib. 1, " Hibernia." 
 For the modern discussion, see Huxley's Critiques and Addresses, 134, 
 167; Boyd-Dawkins, Cave-hunting, 225; "The Basque and the 
 Kelt," Joum. Anthrop. Inst. v. 5 ; Webster, Basque Legends ; Bladd, 
 :^tudes, 217, S37; and M. Martin in the Congrh Celtique {St. Brieuc) 
 p. 171. 
 
Origins of English History. 139 
 
 in Ireland," the Milesians were settled in Spain before 
 they expelled the Fairy Race from the Green Isle " in the 
 year when Moses was buried in a valley in the land of 
 Moab." 
 
 Some think, adds the legendary historian, that the hero 
 Ith " discovered the island in a starry winter night with a 
 telescope from the top of the tower of Brigantia ; but it 
 appears that the inhabitants of both countries were known 
 to each other long before Ith was born, in consequence of 
 Eochaid, the last king of the Feru-Bolg, having married 
 the daughter of the* King of Spain. They used then on 
 either side to practise traffic and commerce, and an ex- 
 change of their wares and valuables, so that the Spaniards 
 knew Eirin, and the Irish were acquainted with Spain." ^ 
 The Milesian invasion is supposed to have been the con- 
 sequence of the murder of this hero by the Tuatha-D6- 
 Danann, a race of magicians who have since degenerated 
 into the rulers of Fairy-land. 
 
 What is most noticeable about these legends, so far as 
 they bear on the subject of modern discussion, is the fact 
 that no Spanish origin is attributed to the Feru-Bolg, or 
 Fir-Bolgs, who are identified in many other traditions with 
 "the old stock," the short and swarthy people of the 
 western and south-western parts of Ireland.^ 
 
 1 Keating, Hist. Ireland, 265. 
 
 « A celebrated antiquary named Duald Mac Firbis, who compiled 
 genealogical works in 1650 and 1666, mentions the remnant of the Feru- 
 Bolg. " There are many of their descendants till this very day in Ireland, 
 but their pedigrees are unknown." He describes them in his first work 
 as "the black-haired, mischievous, tale-loving, inhospitable churls, dis- 
 turbers of assemblies, who love not music or entertainment, these are of 
 the Fir-Bolg, the Fir-Domhnan, and the other conquered races." See 
 Fitzgerald, Anc. Irish (Fraser, 1875), and Tribes of Hy-Many (Ir. Arch. 
 
I40 Origins of English History. 
 
 Whether or not the Fir-Bolgs of Irish tradition can be 
 connected with the pre-Celtic tribes, it is clear that in 
 many parts of Ireland there are remnants of a short and 
 black-haired stock, whose tribal names are in many cases 
 taken from words for the Darkness and the Mist, and 
 whose physical appearance is quite different from that of 
 the tall light Celts.^ The same thing has been observed 
 in the Scottish Highlands, and in the Western Isles, 
 where the people have a "strange foreign look," and 
 are " dark-skinned, dark -haired, dark-eyed, and small in 
 stature." ^ And it is a matter of familiar knowledge, that 
 
 Soc. 1843), p. 85; O'Flaherty, Ogygia, pt 3, c. 11. The "arch-chiefs" 
 of the O'Kellys had the power to increase the rents of the " men of the 
 plain of the old stock " at their pleasure. " The remnants of the Fir- 
 Bolgs are the hereditary servitors of the Hy-Many." (Tribes, 87.) See, 
 however, ibid. 9, 10, 11, the description of the power of Cian, a Fir-Bolg 
 soldier, in the midst of the O' Kelly's country, and the description of a 
 dark-haired chieftain, Eoghan O'Madden, " a griffin of the race of Conn 
 the Hundred-fighter " ; he is called the Lion of Birra, and the Hawk of 
 the Shannon : " a large man of slender body, with a skin like the blossom 
 of apple-trees, brown eyebrows, black curling hair, long fingers, and a 
 cheek like the cherries" {ibid. r33). The editor adds, that the Fir-Bolgs 
 were never driven out of the Barony of Ballintober, " and the chief 
 portion of the inhabitants are distinguished from the Milesian race by 
 their jet black hair and small stature'' {ibid. 90). 
 
 1 "The enslaved tribes of Hy-Many for servitude are the Dealbhna 
 from the Ford on the Shannon to where the River Suck springs from the 
 well," &c. (Tribes, 83). This tribe, the editor adds, were generally called 
 Dealbhna Nuadhat {ibid., and O'Flaherty, Ogygia, pt. iii. c. 82). This is 
 a reference to Nuadha or Nudd, the famous god of darkness. Mr. Fitz- 
 gerald quotes a number of tribal names of the same kind, e.g., the Corca- 
 Oidce and Corca-Duibhne, the children of darkness and the night-folk, 
 and a western tribe called Hi Dorchaide, people of darkness, whose 
 territory was called "the night-country." Anc. Irish (Fraser, 1875). 
 Compare Wilde, Ethnol. Anc. Irish, 6, 7, and Girald. Cambr., Conqu. 
 Hibern. ii. 18. 
 
 2 McLean, Highland Language and People, Journ. Anthr. Inst. vii. 76. "In 
 
Origins of English History. 141 
 
 in many parts of England and Wales the people are also 
 short and swarthy, with black hair and eyes, and with 
 heads of a long and narrow shape. This is found to be 
 the case not only in the ancient Siluria, (comprising the 
 modern counties of Glamorgan, Brecknock, Monmouth, 
 Radnor, and Hereford,) but in several districts in the 
 eastern fen-country, and in the south-western counties of 
 Cornwall and Devon, with parts of Gloucestershire, Wilts, 
 and Somerset ; and the same fact has been noticed in 
 the midland counties, in districts round Derby, Stamford, 
 Leicester, and Loughborough, where we might have 
 expected to find nothing but a population with light hair 
 and eyes, and where " the names of the towns and villages 
 show that the Saxon and Danish conquerors occupied the 
 district in overwhelming numbers." ^ 
 
 these respects the Highland people bear a strong resemblance to the 
 Welsh, the South-western English, the Western and South-western Irish." 
 (ibid) Campbell, West Highland Tales, iii. 144, speaks of the short, dark 
 natives of Barra : " Behind the fire sat a girl with one of those strange foreign 
 faces which are occasionally to be seen in the Western Isles, a face which 
 reminded me of the Nineveh sculptures, and of faces seen in St. Sebastian. 
 Her hair was as black as night, and her clear dark eyes glittered through 
 the peat-smoke. Her complexion was dark, and her features so unlike 
 those who sat about her, that I asked if she were a native of the island, 
 and learned that she was a Highland girl." 
 
 1 Prof Rolleston, in Brit. Barrows, 679. " As regards the earlier of 
 the two pre-historic races, we have in this country dolicho-cephaly com- 
 bined with low stature and dark complexion in a very considerable 
 number of our population. The fact of the existence of this stock, or 
 we may perhaps say of its survival and its re-assertion of its own distinc- 
 tive character in the districts of Derby, &c., was pointed out in the year 
 1848 by the late Prof. Phillips, at a meeting of the British Association at 
 Swansea. More extended observations, but to the same effect, are put on 
 record by Dr. Beddoe, in Mem. Soc. Anth. London, ii. 350" {ibid). The 
 same passage contains a description of the Breton population, where the 
 hair is generally dark and the head short and broad, except in the Leonnais, 
 
142 Origins of English History. 
 
 These facts render it extremely probable that some 
 part of the Neolithic population has survived until the 
 present time, with a constant improvement no doubt from 
 its crossing and intermixture with the many other races 
 who have successively passed into Britain. And this 
 gives 'a particular interest to everything which can 
 be definitely ascertained about the special characteristics 
 of the " Silurians." 
 
 Their ferocious courage appears in the history of their 
 desperate wars with Rome. No disaster or loss of leaders 
 was sufficient to break their obstinate spirit ; and the 
 Roman generals, accustomed to the frivolity of the Gauls 
 and the "wild inconstancy" of the ordinary Britons, vowed 
 in vain " to extinguish the name of the Silures."^ Solinus 
 has left an account of the primitive simplicity of their 
 manners in an age when Britain, for the most part, was 
 familiar with the continental culture. " A stormy sea," he 
 
 the district colonized by the refugees from Britain. See as to the short, 
 dark, round-headed stock in South Germany, ibid. 678. For the dark 
 short subject races in Scandinavia, compare the well-known legend in the 
 Rigs-Mai. As to Belgium, it has lately been ascertained by a Govern- 
 ment inquiry, reported in 1879, that the people of the Walloon 
 Provinces (and of the French coast as far as Boulogne) are of the 
 exceptionally dark type which is attributed to a survival of the pre-historic 
 population. 
 
 ^ Tac. Annal. xii. 33, 39. Compare the account by Giraldus of the 
 people of Monmouthshire. " It seems worthy of remark, that the people 
 of what is called Venta are more accustomed to war, more famous for 
 valour, and more expert in archery, than those of any other part of Wales." 
 He then gives examples of their skill in archery, and adds, " What more 
 could be expected from a balista ? Yet the bows used by this people are 
 not made of horn, ivory, or yew, but of wild elm ; unpolished, rude and 
 uncouth, but stout ; not calculated to shoot to a great distance, but able 
 to inflict very severe wounds in close fight." Girald. Cambr., Itin. Wall, 
 ii. c. 4 (Wright's edit, p. 371). 
 
Origins of English History. 143 
 
 said, " divides the Silurian island^ from the region held 
 by the Damnonian Britons. Its natives still keep to their 
 ancient ways. They will have no markets nor money, but 
 give and take in kind, getting what they want by barter 
 and not by sale. They are devoted to the worship of 
 the gods ; and men and women alike show their skill in 
 divination of the future." 
 
 The sepulchral discoveries show that at some early 
 time these Neolithic tribes were alone in their possession 
 of Britain ; and that afterwards they were invaded by 
 the men of a differe"ht race, who had already seized the 
 dominion of the opposite coasts from Sweden to the 
 Atlantic promontories. The people of this second race 
 had advanced to Finisterre before they had learned the 
 use of any kind of metal : their tall skeletons and short 
 round skulls are found, mixed with the relics of the older 
 race, in chambered barrows where no article of bronze was 
 ever seen, though the pendants of turquoise and green 
 callais, and the hatchets made of jade and other precious 
 eastern stones, attest the existence of a commerce with the 
 nations that had metals at command. But suddenly, and 
 without the appearance of any tentative or intermediate 
 forms, the tombs are discovered to contain bronze weapons 
 of a fine manufacture, as if the course of a new trade had 
 been directed towards the north. ^ So far however as 
 
 1 Solinus, Polyhist. c. 24. The sea dividing the " island of the Silures" 
 from the opposite coast is intended for the Bristol Channel. We do not 
 hear of the name " Sylina Insula " being applied to the Scilly Isles until 
 the time of Sulpicius Severus, who lived in the fifth century. (Sulp. Sev. 
 ii. 65.) Pliny makes the Silurian country extend as far as the coast nearest 
 to Ireland. (Hist. Nat. iv. 30.) The Damnonia of Solinus included 
 Devon and Cornwall. 
 
 2 There is a bronze dagger in the Museum of Northern Antiquities at 
 
144 Origins of English History. 
 
 Britain itself is concerned, we know nothing of the second 
 race before they had become accustomed to the use of 
 bronze. Their appearance in this country seems to have 
 been coincident with the introduction of the metal ; for all 
 the graves where it is found contain their remains, either 
 alone or in company with those of the Neolithic people ; 
 but where the bones of the Stone- Age men are buried by 
 themselves, no trace of the metal weapons has ever yet 
 been discovered. 
 
 The invaders were tall men of the fair Finnish type 
 that still prevails so largely among the modern inhabitants 
 of Denmark and in the Wendish and Slavonian countries. 
 They differed remarkably from the straight-faced oval- 
 headed men who are identified with the Celts, the Ger- 
 mans of pure blood, and the "Anglo-Saxons" of our early 
 history. They were large-limbed and stout, the women 
 being tall and strong in proportion, as in a community 
 where life was easy and food cheap. The men seem to 
 have been rough-featured, with large jaws and prominent 
 chins, and skulls of a round short shape, with the forehead 
 in many cases retreating rapidly, as if there were need of 
 an occipital balance to carry off the heaviness of the large 
 lower jaw. " The eyebrows of these powerful men " (says 
 Prof. Rolleston'^), "if developed at all in correspondence 
 
 Copenhagen, of which the design is very famihar to the readers of anti- 
 quarian treatises ; it seems to indicate the source from which the bronze 
 was brought to Scandinavia. The handle is in the shape of a man, of a 
 southern or eastern type, carrying a vessel with a handle arched above it, 
 The figure seems to represent a slave. The body is slender, the aspect 
 soft and childish, and the hair close-cropped. The dress is a short kilt 
 fastened by a belt; and the ornaments are monstrous ear-rings and a 
 double necklace of beads. 
 
 1 Brit. Barr. 644, citing similar descriptions given by Dr. Thurnam of 
 
Origins of English History. 145 
 
 with the large underlying frontal sinuses and supra-orbital 
 ridges, must have given a beetling and even forbidding 
 appearance to the upper part of the face, while the boldly- 
 outstanding and heavy cheek-bones must have produced 
 an impression of raw and rough strength and ponderosity 
 entirely in keeping with it. Overhung at its root, the nose 
 must have projected boldly forwards, not merely beyond 
 the plane of the forehead, but much beyond that of the 
 prominent eyebrows themselves." 
 
 We have still some remaining indications of the course 
 and mode of the coaquest. In the intrenchments of the 
 Yorkshire Wolds " unmistakeable traces are seen of the 
 landing and subsequent operations of an united people, 
 extending for miles into the interior of the country."^ They 
 seem to have mingled peaceably in these parts with the 
 people of the older settlements ; for the round barrows of 
 the Bronze Age in this quarter contain almost an equal 
 proportion of long-shaped and short-shaped skulls ; and it 
 is reasonably argued, that this is evidence that the new 
 
 the round-headed people of the Bronze Age in the South-west of England. 
 " We have [he adds], in certain parts of Great Britain and Germany, light 
 hair and complexion combined with considerable stature and with dolicho- 
 cephaly, so as to preserve for us what excavations, combined with measure- 
 ments and with traditions, justify us very entirely in speaking of as the 
 Teutonic or Germanic type. Secondly, we have the same hair, complexion, 
 and stature, combined with brachy-cephaly, in the Finns, in the Danes, in 
 some Slavs, and in many of not the least vigorous of our own countrymen. 
 Thirdly, hair, complexion, and stature, all alike of just the opposite cha- 
 racter, may be found combined with brachy-cephaly in South Germany, 
 and in some other parts of the Continent, as for example in Brittany." 
 {Ibid. 680.) "The elongated and fairly well-filled Anglo-Saxon cranium is 
 the prevalent form amongst us in England in the present day.'' {Ibid. 646.) 
 Compare Thurnam's "Crania Britannica," and Guibert, "EthnologiQ 
 Armoricaine." Proceedings Congr^s Celtique (St. Brieuc). 
 ^ Gen. Lane Fox, in Archaol. xlii. 52. 
 
 L 
 
146 Origins of English History. 
 
 occupants agreed and intermarried with the people of the 
 older type, especially as skulls have not unfrequently been 
 found which appear to combine the characteristics of these 
 different kinds of men. In other parts, and especially in 
 the neighbourhood of Stonehenge, the invaders appear to 
 have expelled the older tribes ; for no mixed forms have 
 hitherto been found in the multitudinous graves which are 
 crowded round the ruins of the temple ; and those remains 
 which have been discovered can be attributed definitely 
 either to the age of the long-barrows or to that of the 
 people who built their round tombs in crowds on every 
 spot which had been sacred among the older race.^ 
 
 The round barrows are found in almost every part of 
 England. They vary slightly in form, being for the most 
 part bowl-shaped in the north and also in parts of Somerset; 
 
 1 This has been observed with respect to the groups of barrows near 
 Kits Coty House, at Avebury, in Anglesea, and in fact in almost every 
 part where the long barrows, or their ruins, have been found. There are 
 indications at Stonehenge, that the people of the Bronze Age were the 
 actual constructors of the temple on a site which had previously been 
 selected as a burial-ground for the chieftains of the neolithic tribes. An 
 ancient intrenchment (of the kind to which Dr. Guest has given the name 
 of " Belgic Ditches") which stretches across Salisbury Plain near Tilshead 
 passes near one of the long-barrows, " and makes a decided curve to 
 avoid the tumulus." (Anc. Wilts, i. 90.) Another ancient boundary 
 called Bokerley Ditch, in the same county, has been diverted in order to 
 avoid a long-barrow. {Ibid. 233.) The ditch is by other authorities 
 regarded as a trackway. (Guest, Belgic Ditches, Arch. Journ. viii. 147 ; 
 Thurnam, Anc. Brit. Barr. Archcsol. xlii. r75.) Dr. Thurnam adds, that 
 two of the round barrows near Stonehenge appear to be contemporary, or 
 very slightly posterior, to the date of the circle itself. " In digging down 
 to their base chippings and fragments not merely of the Sarsens were 
 found, but likewise of the blue felspathic hornstones foreign to Wiltshire 
 which assist in the formation of the megalithic structure." {Archcsol 
 xliii. 306.) 
 
Origins of English History. 147 
 
 in Wiltshire and Dorset they are mostly oval or shaped 
 like a bell or a circular disc.^ Taken as a whole, they 
 contain many evidences of a considerable advance in cul- 
 ture. The pottery is very much finer than any which is 
 found in the tombs of the Stone Age, and occurs not only 
 in shards and fragments, but in vases, perfect though still 
 hand-made, and in urns, " incense-cups,"^ drinking-cups, 
 and food vessels of various kinds. Among the hammers, 
 gorgets, and wrist-pieces of stone, which are sometimes 
 ornamented with gold, and the heads of javelins and arrows 
 which were manufactured according to the ancient pattern, 
 bronze implements are interspersed in great variety ; and 
 the miniature axes and hammers, made out of precious 
 materials and deposited at the burial of the dead, appear 
 to indicate the notion of symbolical and spiritual offerings. 
 The ornaments buried in these graves were made of glass 
 
 1 Dr. Thurnam mentions conical barrows in Norfolk and Sussex "which 
 are really campaniform," and disc-shaped barrows on the Sussex Downs. 
 The shapes vary most in Wiltshire, as will be seen by the accounts in 
 Sir R. Hoare's magnificent work on Ancient Wilts. " The comparative 
 rarity of the more elaborate types of tumuli, even in counties the nearest 
 to Wiltshire, is very remarkable. The bowl-shaped barrows abound on 
 the Mendip Hills, and on the noble Ridge-way between Dorchester and 
 Weymouth." {Archaol. xliii. 303.) The disc-shaped graves contain such 
 a profusion of ornaments of amber glass and jet, that they are thought 
 to be the burial-places of women, especially as these objects are rare in 
 barrows of the other varieties. {Ibid. 294 ; Hoare, Anc. Wilts, i. 166, 207.) 
 
 2 The perforated vessels called " incense-cups," which have been taken 
 for pots, lamps, and perfume-burners, are now regarded as having been 
 used at the solemnity of burning the body, for conveying lighted embers 
 to kindle the funeral-pile. The drinking-cups are occasionally of shale, 
 amber, and even of thin plates of gold. A food vessel, from a barrow at 
 Goodmanham on the Yorkshire Wolds, has fluted bands, which are said 
 to resemble the patterns on ancient Etruscan vases. (See Greenwell, Brit. 
 Barr. 81, 99, 286; Thurnam, Archaol. xliii. 359, 388.) 
 
 L 2 
 
148 Origins of English History. 
 
 beads or amber ; or, according to the nature of the locality, 
 were worked in jet or some other bitumenized substance. 
 All round the alum-shale beds near Whitby the true jet 
 was extensively used for this purpose ; and the complex 
 necklaces have been described as consisting of rows of beads, 
 with dividing-plates marked with punctures "arranged 
 saltire-wise and in chevrons"; or a simpler collar was 
 formed with cylinders or thin plates of jet, graduated and 
 strung side by side in the form of a flexible necklace.^ 
 Where this material did not exist, analogous substances 
 were used for making the ornaments, as Kimmeridge shale 
 in Wilts and Dorset, or lignite from the Devonshire beds, 
 or Cannel coal in Shropshire. Some few of the articles of 
 adornment, beads, cups, earrings, and thin plates to be 
 fastened on the dress, were made of the native gold, or 
 rather of the mixed gold and silver which the smiths had not 
 yet learned to separate ; and though the patterns as a rule 
 were copied from the rough designs upon the pottery, the 
 style of the workmanship was excellent. The plates of 
 metal were hammered over engraved moulds of wood, or 
 the back was "tooled in the manner of repouss^ y^ork" ; 
 and the separate pieces were skilfully dove-tailed or riveted 
 together without the use of any kind of solder.^ Many 
 
 1 The true jet is chiefly found in the neighbourhood of Whitby ; but 
 small deposits have been discovered at Cromer, at Watchet in Somerset, 
 and in the beds of the Aberthaw lias on the opposite Glamorganshire 
 coast. The finest examples of the ornaments have been found in Suther- 
 land and in the district round Holyhead. The most abundant examples 
 are seen in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Northumberland; the most southern 
 locality where a specimen of the worked jet has been found is Soham Fen, 
 in Cambridgeshire. (See Thurnam's account, Archceol. xliii. 514, 517.) 
 
 ^ Thurnam, ubi suprct, 532. These ornaments are found chiefly in 
 places where the native gold was worked, as in Cornwall and Devon, parts 
 
Origins of English History. 149 
 
 other kinds of ornament have been from time to time 
 discovered in the tumuli ; such as ivory pins and beads, 
 and crescents made of the wolf's teeth and boars' tusks 
 which were perforated and worn as charms ; and necklaces 
 of Dentalium, the shell called the Ear of Venus, and of 
 nerite-shells, and the joints of the fossil sea-lily that are 
 known as " St. Cuthbert's beads." ^ 
 
 The exploration of these barrows has produced a great 
 body of evidence to illustrate the life of the Bronze-Age 
 Britons. It is clear that they were not mere savages, or 
 a nation of hunters and fishers, or even a people in the 
 pastoral and migratory stage. The tribes had learned the 
 simpler arts of society, and had advanced towards the 
 refinements of civilized life before they were overwhelmed 
 and absorbed by the dominant Celtic peoples. They 
 were, for instance, the owners of flocks and herds ; they 
 knew enough of weaving to make clothes of linen and 
 wool, and without the potter's wheel they could mould 
 a plain and useful kind of earthenware. The stone 
 "querns" or hand-mills, and the seed-beds in terraces on 
 the hills of Wales and Yorkshire, show their acquaintance 
 with the growth of some kind of grain ; while their pits and 
 
 of North and South Wales, Cumberland, Lanarkshire, Sutherland, and 
 several parts of Ireland. The Danes of the Bronze Age were equally 
 skilful in gold-work. Worsaae, Prim. Inhab. Denm. (Thoms's edit.) 138. 
 Compare the account given by Herodotus of the Massagetse, a Finnish 
 nation in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea :— " They had no iron or 
 silver, but plenty of gold and copper : their lances and axes were of 
 copper, and their caps and belts were decorated with golden ornaments." 
 (Herod. I. c. 215.) 
 
 1 Anc. Wilts, i. 114, 202. Dr. Thurnam describes a Dorsetshire barrow 
 containing a perforated boar's tusk, and an urn at the feet of the skeleton 
 containing the burnt bones of a fox or badger, {Archceol. xliii. 540.) 
 
150 Origins of English History. 
 
 hut-circles prove that they were sufficiently civilized to 
 live in regular villages. 
 
 At what time and by what process they became incor- 
 porated with the Celtic peoples must remain altogether 
 uncertain. Where the rule of cremation has prevailed it 
 is difficult to distinguish their ornaments and weapons 
 from those of the Celtic type ; and even where a round- 
 headed population still actually survives, it is usually hard 
 to separate it from the stock of the later Danes. It is 
 clear, however, that the older Bronze- Age tribes remained 
 in some parts of the country as late as the period of the 
 Roman invasion ; and it seems probable that the further 
 labours of philologists will confirm the theory that the 
 languages of the Celts in Britain were sensibly influenced 
 by contact with the idioms of those Finnish tribes who 
 were the earlier occupants of the country. Examples to 
 illustrate this theory will be found in a subsequent chapter. 
 
Origins of English History. 151 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PRE-CELTIC ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 Beginning of the Historical period. — Theories of British Ethnology. — Fair and dark 
 races. — Iberian theory. — Aquitanians. — Diversity of Iberian customs. — Basques. — 
 Origin of Milesian legends.— Mr. Skene's view as to the. Silures.— Ethnological 
 table. — Survivals of thg pre-Celtic stocks. — Evidence from language and 
 manners. — Comparison of Aryan customs. — Local names. — Personal names. — 
 Abnormal words and constructions. — Classical notices — Vitruvius, Tacitus, Hero- 
 dian, Dion Cassius.— Caledonians and Picts.— Rock-carvings and sculptured stones. 
 — Customs of succession. — Coronation-rites. — Rehcs of barbarism in mediaeval 
 Connaught and Wales. 
 
 I 
 
 T has been claimed for the Bronze-Age men that their 
 civilizing influence was as important in the north 
 of Europe as that of the Celts in the west.^ We have 
 seen, indeed, that before the beginning of history they had 
 learned something of the arts of agriculture, and had intro- 
 duced the knowledge of the useful metals. Coasting about 
 the narrow seas they had occupied long stretches of land 
 between the forest and the shore, and tracking the rivers 
 backwards from their estuaries had built their camps on 
 the open downs and wolds, or in the glades and clearings 
 in the woods. We have seen that in our own country 
 they were forced into contact with the people of a more 
 primitive age, dark slight-limbed Silurians, and the dusky 
 tribes who were called the children of the night. Some, 
 according to their fortune in the wars, were driven by the 
 new invaders into the western woods and deserts ; others 
 
 1 See Worsaae. Prim. Inhab. Denmark (Thoms's edition), 135, 136. 
 
152 Origins of English History. 
 
 were able to hold their own until in course of time the two 
 races became fused and intermixed. 
 
 It is the object of this chapter to collect what is known 
 about their descendants within the historical period. We 
 shall endeavour to distinguish between the traces of the 
 tall Finnish race and those of the more primitive settlers. 
 It must remain impossible in many cases to separate the 
 old forms of language and traces of primeval customs 
 which are due to one or another of the prehistoric 
 societies ; but it will still be useful to deal collectively with 
 the various traces of their presence, and to estimate what 
 allowance is to be made for the continuance in an Aryan 
 nation of foreign and primitive elements. 
 
 We have chosen the simplest of the theories propounded 
 in a long debate. We have seen traces of at least two 
 nations established in these islands before the era of the 
 Celtic settlements. Some prefer to include in one wide 
 description all the fair tribes of high stature with red or 
 golden hair and blue or grey-blue eyes ; and they count 
 as true Celts all of that kind who were neither Danes nor 
 Germans. Some class together in the same way all the 
 short peoples with black hair and eyes, whether pale- 
 skinned or ruddy in complexion, calling them Iberians on 
 account of their supposed affinity with the dark races 
 remaining in the south of Europe. All the tall, round- 
 headed and broad-headed men are described together as 
 comprising "the van of the Aryan army," with whom 
 became intermingled tall dark and red-haired men from 
 Scandinavia, and fair people of Low-German descent. All 
 the short and dark races, whether long-headed or round- 
 skulled, are treated as descendants of a primitive non- 
 Aryan stock, including "the broad-headed dark Welsh- 
 
Origins of English History. 153 
 
 man and the broad-headed dark Frenchman," and con- 
 nected by blood not only with the modern Basque, but 
 with the ancient and little-known Ligurian and Etruscan 
 races. 
 
 It has sometimes been stated, that the resemblance of 
 the dark British type to the ancient Aquitanians is one of 
 " the fixed points in British ethnology." But when we 
 examine the grounds for the assertion, we find that there 
 is hardly any affirmative evidence in its favour. To learn 
 anything of the Aquitanians we must go to Strabo's 
 account of their coufltry. We find a meagre notice of 
 a score of little tribes living near the coast between the 
 Garonne and the Pyrenees. " They differ," said the 
 geographer, " from the Gaulish nation both in physical 
 appearance and in language, and they rather resemble the 
 Iberians :" and, from Agricola's remark about the Silures, 
 we must suppose that Strabo referred to their swarthy 
 complexion and dark and curly hair. But when we turn 
 to his more minute description of the various Iberian 
 tribes, we find nothing to help us to a clearer notion of 
 what Aquitanians or Silures were like. 
 
 The nations of the Peninsula differed from each other 
 on such important points as language, religion, and govern- 
 ment. Each province had a grammar and alphabet to 
 itself Some had no gods at all : others sacrificed heca- 
 tombs of goats, horses, and men to a god of war; the 
 Celtiberians and their neighbours to the north danced all 
 night at the full moon in honour of "a nameless god"; 
 some would cut off their captives' right hands, and offer 
 them as oblations at the altar. In some tribes men danced 
 singly to the sound of the flute and trumpet ; others pre- 
 ferred the fashion of dancing in a huge ring, men and 
 
154 Origins of English History. 
 
 women together. Some wore "mitres" in battle, others 
 caps of sinews knotted together, and others used the 
 helmet with a triple plume. According to Strabo, " they 
 married like the Greeks." We should rather say that they 
 lived under the " Mutter-recht," which some have thought 
 to be a relic from an Amazonian stage of society. For 
 among the Iberians, as among the ancient Lycians, the 
 women were exalted above the men. The wife governed 
 the family ; the daughters inherited the property, subject 
 to dowries for the sons on marriage ; the name and pedi- 
 gree were traced from the mother's side ; the inferiority of 
 the father was marked by the curious symbolism of the 
 Couvade, the mother going to work in the fields, while 
 the husband and child were carefully nursed at home. All 
 these abnormal circumstances should be taken into account 
 by those who assert the identity of the Iberians with the 
 Britons of the Silurian type. Several of the customs above 
 described have left distinct traces in the usages which still 
 prevail in the region of the Pyrenees. But at present 
 there seems to be no point of connection between them 
 and anything which was ever observed in this country. 
 
 The test of language has been applied, but with equally 
 little success. On the assumption that the modern Basque 
 has a connection with one or another of the Iberian dialects, 
 some have sought to correlate the British local names with 
 similar words in Basque. " Britannia" has been derived 
 from a locative " Etan" and " Siluria" from " Ur" a word 
 for water. The roots "//" and " Ur" occur in old Spanish 
 appellatives, and have been seen in some of the names of 
 rivers and islands in Scotland. But it seems now to be 
 settled that nothing can be made of the matter. The 
 Basque language is ancient in structure, but modern in its 
 
Origins of English History. 155 
 
 vocabulary, which is borrowed for the most part from 
 Celtic Latin and Spanish. The language itself is only 
 known in a modern form, and the leading philologists have 
 agreed that it is a hopeless task to compare its root-words 
 with the " non-Aryan residuum" which may be found on a 
 close examination of the Celtic vocabulary. 
 
 Before leaving this part of the subject, it will be proper 
 to mention with more detail the ethnological theory which 
 has been based upon the Irish legends. The punning 
 fancies of monks and bards have been dignified with the 
 name of a traditioft ; but they should rather be regarded 
 as the inferences of ignorant men puzzled to account for 
 the form of an unknown name or a fragment coming 
 down from some lost mythology. 
 
 Let us take as an example the story of the Milesian 
 invasion of Ireland. We have already noticed the gro- 
 tesque incidents recounted in the " Book of Invasions." 
 The nomenclature of the legend is modern. One of the 
 heroes is buried at St. Michael's Rock, and the wife of 
 another in a churchyard near Tralee; the harbour of 
 " Inbher Slainge," where the ships were wrapped in a 
 Druidical mist, retained its ancient name of " Moda," or 
 " Modonus" from the time of Ptolemy till after the death 
 of St. Adamnan, six centuries afterwards. The whole 
 story is mediaeval in every point ; yet we are asked to give 
 weight to the fact that " every peasant in the barony can 
 relate the landing of the Milesians," or to the Irish habit 
 of fixing some story of a Fenian or a fairy battle as 
 having happened near a stone-circle or the ruins of a 
 megalithic tomb. 
 
 Any one who has read Keating's " History of Ireland" 
 will perceive how the bards played on the words " bolg," 
 
156 Origins of English History. 
 
 a bag, '' domknoin," deep, and "gdi," a spear. The Fir- 
 bolgs were the " men of the bag " : the Greeks had sub- 
 jected them in Thrace to great hardship and slavery, 
 obliging them to dig earth and raise mould, and to carry it 
 in leather-sacks and place it on rocks to make a fruitful 
 soil ; and it was out of the. sacks that they made the 
 hide-bound boats for travelling to the Irish Sea. With 
 the like futility the name of the Damnonians was derived 
 from the pits which they dug in the Thracian hills to get 
 mould for the " men of the bag"; and the title of the " Fir- 
 Gaillian," another of the legendary tribes, was taken from 
 the long spears that they bore for the protection of their 
 brethren as they worked. We have been told by persons 
 of great learning and power of research that " it is not 
 difficult to recognise in this tradition the people who 
 worked the tin by digging in the soil and transporting it 
 in bags to their hide-covered boats " ; and it is added, that 
 the "traditions" of the physical appearance of the early 
 Irish colonists will lead us to the same conclusion.-^ 
 
 If we ask for the source of these last-named traditions, 
 we are referred to the " Genealogies " of MacFirbis, from 
 which a quotation was made in the last preceding chapter. 
 O'Curry^ cites passages to the following effect from its 
 strange rambling preface. The white-skinned warriors, 
 brown-haired, bounteous and brave, are the descendants 
 " of the sons of Miledh in Erinn.'' " Every one who is 
 fair, revengeful and big, and every plunderer, and every 
 musical person, and professor of music and entertainment, 
 and all who are adepts in Druidism and magic, these are the 
 children of the Tuatha De Damann in Erinn." But every 
 
 1 Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 177. 
 
 ^ Manus. Mater. Irish Hist. 223. See ante, p. 139. 
 
Origins of English History. 157 
 
 peasant who listened to the history knew well enough, or 
 thought he knew, that the fair, revengeful tribe had fled to 
 the secret palaces inside " the fairy-hills"; for there were no 
 mortal affinities in the Tribe of Gods, or " Plebs Deorum" 
 as their early worshippers had called the personified 
 powers of nature. Let us pass, however, to the picture of 
 " the men of the bag, the pit, and the spear," to judge for 
 ourselves whether it fairly represents, as we are told, the 
 Silures of the Severn Valley, and " the lowest type of the 
 Irish people."^ " Every one who is black-haired and a 
 tattler, guileful, tale»telling, noisy, and contemptible, every 
 wretched, mean, strolling, unsteady, harsh, and inhospitable 
 person, every slave, and every mean thief, these are the 
 sons of the Fir-Bolg, of the Fir-Gailiun, and of the Fir- 
 Domhnan in Erinn." 
 
 On the other hand, we are told by Mr. Skene, that the 
 black cloaks and goats' beards of the men in the Tin Islands 
 are to be taken in a non-natural sense. " They seem to be 
 an exaggerated and distorted representation of the dark- 
 ness of the complexion, and the curled hair attributed to 
 the Silures."^ And Cornwall itself is turned into an archi- 
 pelago of Hesperides lying out at sea away from the 
 Damnonian shore ; and the plain words of the old Greek 
 travellers are twisted into these obscure meanings to suit 
 Camden's geography,' and to preserve the apparent value 
 of "notions prevailing among the people themselves of 
 their ethnology, their supposed descent, and their mutual 
 relation to each other." 
 
 We have shown our reasons for rejecting the authority 
 of such false traditions. But it would not be proper to 
 
 1 Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 179. ^ Ibid, 167. 
 
 ' Camden, Britannia (Gough), 11 12. 
 
158 Origins of English History. 
 
 pass from the subject without noticing the ethnological 
 table which has been constructed by those who attach a 
 real importance to the existence of these ancient rumours. 
 The following may be taken as a fair summary of the clas- 
 sification in question : — ^ 
 
 I. The Neolithic Tribes. 
 
 A people possessing the physical characteristics of the 
 Iberians had spread at one time over the whole of Great 
 Britain and Ireland. Their representatives were — 
 
 a. The tin- workers of Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, 
 
 who traded with Spain : 
 
 b. The tribe of the Silures in South Wales : 
 
 c. The people called the Firbolg in the legendary his- 
 
 tory of Ireland. 
 
 2. The Celtic Peoples. 
 
 The people of the round-headed skulls, otherwise called 
 the Celtic Race. They are divided into two chief branches, 
 marked respectively by their Gaelic and British forms of 
 language, both branches having originally belonged to one 
 race. Each of these great branches is taken to have been 
 further subdivided, as follows : — 
 
 A. The Gaelic branch is thus subdivided : — 
 
 (a.) A fair-skinned, large-limbed, and red-haired race, 
 represented in Britain by the people of the interior, 
 whom the Romans thought to be indigenous, and who 
 were aftervvards called the Picts or painted people : 
 
 {b) "In the legendary history of Ireland, they are 
 represented by the Tuatha De Danann, and by the 
 
 1 The summary is abridged from Skene's Celtic Scotland, i. 164, 226, 
 227, the same words being used as nearly as possible. 
 
Origins of English History. 159 
 
 ' Cruithnigh,'^ a name which was the Irish equivalent of 
 the Latin Pidi, and was applied to the Picts of Scot- 
 land, and to the people who preceded the Scots in 
 Ulster." 
 
 (f.) A fair-skinned, brown-haired race, " of a less 
 Germanic type," represented by the Milesians in the 
 legendary history, and after the fourth century, called 
 the Scots. 
 
 B. The British branch. 
 
 This branch is taken to have extended itself over the 
 whole of the regions which were formed into the Roman 
 province. The people " resembled the Gauls in their 
 physical appearance." They were subdivided into the 
 following varieties ; — 
 
 1. Those whose language afterwards appears as the 
 
 Cornish : 
 
 2. Those whose language afterwards appears as the 
 
 Welsh. 
 
 1 According to the Irish legends, it was in the reign of Eireamhnon the 
 Milesian, that the Cruitnigh, or Picts, " a people from Thrace," landed at 
 Wexford Harbour, but were driven to the neighbouring Caledonian shores. 
 The chief interest in the story lies in the clue which it affords to the 
 methods of its manufacture. These Picts are called the children of Gleoin 
 Mac Ercol, that is (says Mr. Skene), the children of Gelonus the son of 
 Hercules, and they were named Agathyrsi. These are obvious allusions 
 to Virgil's "Pictosque Gelonos," Georg. ii. 115, and to the painted 
 Agathyrsi of Herodotus. Latham quotes a passage from a tenth-century 
 Life of St. Vodoal, which places the matter beyond a doubt. " The 
 Blessed Vodoal was sprung from the arrow-bearing nation of the Geloni, 
 who are believed to have come from Scythia. Concerning whom the poet 
 writes, 'pictosque Gelonos,' and from that time till now they are called Picts." 
 Ethnol. Brit. Isl. 256. Compare the "sagittiferi Geloni," .^Eneid. viii. 
 725. The usual derivation for "Cruitnigh" is a word for corn or grain, 
 which appears in the Manx language as curnaght, and in Gaelic as cruit- 
 neaght. Fitz-Gerald, Anc. Irish, Eraser (1875), xii. 99. 
 
i6o Origins of English History. 
 
 We have preferred the view that the dark tribes were 
 descended from a people or peoples of unknown affinities, 
 established in both islands as early as the Neolithic Age, 
 and that the fair round-headed tribes came from a people 
 related to the Finnish nations of the Baltic; and there 
 seems to be evidence that, though the lineage of these 
 latter tribes has never been completely traced, they were 
 at any rate distinct from the fair oval-headed men, "/« 
 race aryenne ci tite allongiel' to which belonged the true 
 Celts and the kindred stocks in Scandinavia and Germany.^ 
 
 We shall endeavour to show the presence down to late 
 times of societies deriving their origin from these pre- 
 Celtic stocks, partly by the evidence of the eye-witnesses 
 who have left accounts of their manners and physical 
 appearance, and partly by an examination of those points 
 of language and local custom which the best authorities 
 on those subjects have taken to be survivals from the 
 earliest inhabitants of Britain. 
 
 As to language, we must trust to those who (in the 
 words of Professor Rh^s^) are engaged in the laborious 
 but not impossible task of deciphering " the weather-worn 
 history" of the Celtic tongues. By the help of well- 
 established rules of phonology the search for the origin of 
 the verbal and grammatical forms in Welsh and Irish has 
 already been carried out with great success : " some of the 
 most stubborn words of the vernacular have been forced, 
 one after another, to surrender the secrets of their pedi- 
 gree;" while others can only be explained on the theory 
 
 1 Congrh Celtique {St. Brieuc, 1867), 358. Compare " British Barrows," 
 646, 656, 712; Archceol. xxxvii. 432, xlii. 175, 460; Proc. Royal Inst. 
 1870, p. n8. 
 
 ^ Lectures on Welsh Philology, 6, 89. 
 
Origins of English History. i6i 
 
 that they came from some source alien to every language 
 in the Aryan or " Indo-European" family. 
 
 As to the proof from anomalous customs and usages, 
 we must still be in the main indebted to the labours of 
 philological scholars. It has been discovered by the 
 patient comparison of the surviving Aryan vocabularies, 
 that the primitive ancestors of the Indo-German or Indo- 
 Celtic nations, before their dispersion into the eastern and 
 the western groups, had attained to what may be fairly 
 called a high standard of civilization. The picture of 
 their society has been traced by the skilful author of the 
 Indo-German Lexicon from the words for their customs 
 and family relationships, their homes, habits, food, and 
 incidents of daily life. They are shown to have been 
 organized in communities framed on the model of the 
 patriarchal household. They had adopted a system of 
 regular marriage, a family religion, and a method of 
 agnatic descent through males which was connected with 
 their piety and reverence for the dead. In the household 
 the father was the king and priest, but the wife ruled her 
 own department and bore office in the family government. 
 Outside the household the gradations in rank between the 
 chief and his noble kinsmen, and down to the servants of 
 the clan, were marked with the strictest accuracy. The 
 people had made great progress in the arts of industry : 
 they built their timber houses with doors and windows, 
 and knew how to fence the homestead against wild-beasts, 
 to harness the horse for riding and the oxen for drawing 
 the plough. Their name for the moon, " the measurer," 
 shows that they divided their years and months by her 
 periods. They met in common meals by the family hearth, 
 where the meat and pulse were cooked in cauldrons, and 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Origins of English History. 
 
 the offerings and libations were made to the sacred fire ; 
 and such was the importance that they paid to these 
 details, that in most of the derivative languages the eating 
 of uncooked meat has supplied epithets of loathing and 
 disdain for outcast and barbarian men. 
 
 But when we examine the condition of some of the 
 tribes in Britain, we shall find some that remained late 
 into the historical period far lower than the level of the 
 Aryan culture, resembling rather those rude Esthonian 
 hordes, wanderers of the Baltic coasts and the forests 
 beyond the Vistula, to whom the notion of the family and 
 the state and the benefits of law and order were things 
 which were hardly known. In such an inquiry we shall 
 derive assistance from the medieval writers, who were 
 quick to notice the "evill and wilde uses," which were . 
 foreign to their own experience. Spenser was one of the 
 first to give a philosophical account of the matter. His 
 " View of the State of Ireland " shows that he well under- 
 stood the importance of a comparison of abnormal customs 
 and beliefs in tracing the descent of nations. He was 
 desirous of showing how much the Irish had borrowed 
 "from the first old nations which inhabited the land": 
 and he saw that in the absence of authentic tradition much 
 might be gained by the study of archaic usages, "old 
 manners of marrying, of burying, of dancing, of singing, of 
 feasting, of cursing"; and though some of his theories have 
 ceased to be instructive, the value of his instances has still 
 remained unimpaired. 
 
 We must deal in the first place with the vestiges of the 
 unknown languages, in local and tribal names, in sepulchral 
 inscriptions, and in those idioms and grammatical or verbal 
 forms which are thought to bear signs of the alien influence. 
 
Origins of English History. 163 
 
 It is unfortunate that the selected tests, the occurrence of 
 the letter "p," and the use of the "s" between vowels, 
 should fail us in England itself; but the mark, which 
 denotes the existence of non-Celtic tribes in the districts 
 which the Gauls did not occupy, becomes ambiguous in a 
 place where the local names may have been given by a 
 colony or a regiment from the Continent. The presence 
 of the "Parisii" in Holderness, of the Belgians in Wilts 
 and Somerset, and the title borrowed from a Gaulish 
 goddess for the name of a river in Lancashire, must render 
 vain for those parts 'of the country the application of the 
 phonological rule, however sure we may feel for other 
 reasons that the non-Aryan elements existed among the 
 dark Lancastrians or in the mixed populations of the wolds 
 and the western hills. 
 
 We must choose those remoter districts which may be 
 taken as free from the Gaulish influence, as the Grampian 
 Hills, the Irish town " Isamnium," the river " Ausqba" fall- 
 ing into Galway Bay, and the country of the " Erpeditani" 
 surrounding the waters of Lough Eirne. 
 
 One of the regions inhabited by the tribes in question 
 included, as it seems, the wild tracts of Kintyre and Lorn 
 and the distant island of Lismore not far from the Irish 
 coast. All these places took their name from the "E^idii," 
 whose language may have influenced the language as far 
 south as "Lucopibia" in Wigtonshire, and " Epeiacum," 
 a town represented by the modern Ebchester. 
 
 Another such district may be found in North Wales, 
 where a secluded tribe bore the same name as one of the 
 dark-skinned clans on the banks of the Shannon. This 
 was the country of the Gangani, who were probably the 
 same as the " Cangi," or " Decangi" of Tacitus. They 
 
 M 2 
 
164 Origins of English History. 
 
 held the high lands round Snowdon, of which the mediaeval 
 proverb said that " the pastures of Eriri would feed all the 
 herds in Wales." There is some uncertainty as to the 
 position of their principal river. The " Tisobius" may have 
 been the Conwy, running down from Bettws-y-Coed to the 
 Great Orme's Head, or it may have been the sandy estuary 
 by Pont Aberglasslyn which receives the waters flowing 
 westward from Snowdon. In the latter case, the " Pro- 
 montory of the Gangani," which is shown upon Ptolemy's 
 map, would be the long neck of land that forms the 
 northern limit of Cardigan Bay. Very little is known of 
 the ancient history of the tribe. The brief sentences of 
 Tacitus imply that the natives showed a tameness of spirit 
 inconsistent with the reputation for courage and skill in 
 the use of the spear for which their posterity were cele- 
 brated. The army of Ostorius invaded their country in 
 the march to the Irish Sea ; the tribal pastures were 
 ravaged, and a great head of cattle driven in ; but the 
 people would not venture on an open resistance, and at 
 most attempted a few insignificant ambushes.^ 
 
 The country last described seems to have formed one 
 station in a range of non-Aryan districts, which included 
 the bleak region round " Octapitarum," or St. David's 
 Head, Anglesea and Man, some of the western islands, 
 and in Ireland the parts about Dublin, and at least a 
 portion of Munster. The opinion is based on the preva- 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xii. 32: — "Ductus inde in Cangos exercitus." Another 
 reading has been proposed: — "Ductus in Decangos exercitus." The 
 stamps " Kian" and " De Ceangi," impressed on Roman pigs of lead 
 (Monum. Hist. Brit., Nos. 134, 135), will support either view. See as to 
 these people, Rhys, Lectures, i8i, and Girald. Cambr. Itin. Cambr., cc. 
 S> 6, 7. 
 
Origins of English History. 165 
 
 lence of certain typical names which appear to be related 
 to words of a Silurian origin. The forms " Menapia " and 
 " Menevia " are applied, with trifling variations, to the 
 City of St. David's, the Isle of Man, the Menai Straits, 
 and the coast between Dublin and Wicklow ; and we can 
 hardly attribute their occurrence to any contact with the 
 " Menapii " of the coast of Flanders. Then there are 
 parallel forms, as " Mona" and " Mynyw," which in several 
 instances are given to the same Menapian districts. The 
 Isle of Man is called indifferently " Monapia," or " Mona," 
 or " Manaw" ; and irr Ptolemy's map it appears as " Mona- 
 oida." Anglesey is " Mon" or " Mona," and its channel 
 was known as the Menevian Strait. The Scottish Isle of 
 Arran is Ptolemy's Island of " Monarina." And it is held 
 by competent authorities that all these words are con- 
 nected with such names as Monmouth or " Mynwy" on 
 the Monnow River, and " Mumhain" or Momonia, the 
 ancient title of Munster.^ And Professor Rhys concludes 
 that they are all alike " vestiges of a non- Aryan people 
 whom the Celts found in possession both on the Continent 
 and in the British Isles." 
 
 Something has also been learned from the evidence of 
 personal names, occurring in early epitaphs or in other 
 kinds of inscriptions or found in lists and pedigrees of 
 kings, or in the mythological tales and legends which pass 
 for history. Hundreds of names might be found in these 
 various repositories which cannot be made to correspond 
 with the ordinary rules prevailing in the Aryan tongues. 
 We may take such examples as the names of Conn, Gann, 
 and Sreng, from the mythical history of Ireland ; or Grid, 
 Ru, Wid, and the like, from the list of the Pictish kings ; 
 ' Rhys, Lectures, 181, 182. See also Skene's Celtic Scotland, i. 69. 
 
1 66 Origins of English History. 
 
 or the epitaph of Nud the Damnonian which was found 
 on his tomb at Yarrow. But it is laid down by the philo- 
 logists that the ancient personal names in a pure Aryan 
 language were always formed by the composition of two 
 distinct ideas ; a man would be called by such a name as 
 "white-head," or "god-given," or "wolf of war," but not 
 by such simple titles as " white," " gift," or " wolf." Hence 
 came the similarity in structure of such words as Caturix 
 the lord of war, Theodorus and Devadatta, Hathowulf, 
 Bronwen of the fair bosom, Talhaearn of the iron brow. 
 And even where monosyllables are used as proper names, 
 as "Gwyn," white, or "Arth," the bear, we are assured that' 
 they can be traced back to a double form which has suffered 
 compression or elision. It is only when an Aryan language 
 has been influenced by contact with an alien form, as Latin 
 by Etruscan, that the system of nomenclature is changed. 
 But such unmeaning monosyllables as those above selected 
 bear no such traces of existence in the compound form, 
 and must therefore be supposed to have come from a non- 
 Aryan source. There are said, moreover, to be double 
 names in the Irish and Welsh inscriptions which indicate 
 their foreign origin by the very methods of their compo- 
 sition. " They are quasi-compounds fashioned after non- 
 Celtic models." Such are the double words which in 
 effect are merely patronymics, and those by which a man 
 was designated as " the slave" of a favourite god.^ 
 
 A few old words are found imbedded in the Celtic lan- 
 guages which seem to have been derived from an earlier 
 
 ^ See an article by Professor Rhys, in Nature, July 24, 1879, on the subject 
 of such names as " Mogh-Nuadhat," the slave of Nudd or Nuatha, " Mogh- 
 Neid," the slave of Ndid the Irish god of war; and compare his Lectures, 
 426. 
 
Origins of English History. 167 
 
 source, as " cimb," the word for silver, preserved in 
 Cormac's Glossary ; corca, a tribe, and Ion, when used in 
 the sense of ' an elk,' in the Welsh and Gaelic tales. 
 
 It is of more importance to observe that a Finnish 
 idiom has been traced in several of the British languages. 
 The Welsh, for example, is said to show signs of contact 
 with a grammar in which the verb and the noun were as 
 yet used indiscriminately : the inflection of the Welsh pre- 
 positions, "erof" for me, " erot" for thee, and the like, has 
 been lately connected with a Magyar usage ; and the same 
 Ugrian influence has been seen in the incorporation or 
 infixing of the pronoun in the verb which occurs in the 
 early forms of Welsh and Irish, and to some extent in the 
 more modern dialects of Brittany.^ 
 
 We must pass to the written evidence for the fact 
 that the fair race, presumably established in these islands 
 in the Bronze Age, lived on in some parts of the country 
 and maintained their primitive usages long after a higher 
 standard of culture had been introduced by the Celts. 
 That such tribes were known to the Romans admits of no 
 reasonable doubt. " There are men in the North," said 
 a writer of the Augustan age, " who have huge limbs, and 
 are full-blooded and white-skinned, with grey eyes and 
 long, straight, red hair."^ These may well have been 
 the descendants of the great -statured, round-headed men 
 whose remains have been found both in Denmark and 
 
 1 Sayce, Science of Language, i. 85. Compare the discussion on " The 
 Basque and the Kelt," Journ. Anthr. Inst., V. i. 26. 
 
 2 " Sub Septentrionibus nutriuntur gentes immensis corporibus, candidis 
 coloribus, directo capillo et rufo, oculis csesiis, sanguine multo." Vitruvius, 
 vi. I. See Camden's Britannia (Gough), xxi. Compare Strabo, iv. 200 ; 
 vii. 290; Arnold's Rome, i. 441. 
 
1 68 Origins of English History. 
 
 Yorkshire, buried in the canoe-shaped chests of oak which 
 are known as the " monoxylic coffins."^ But we can hardly 
 suppose that Vitruvius was thinking of the Celtic or 
 German nations, whose appearance was perfectly familiar 
 to the writers of that time. They had at least heard of 
 "the yellow Britons," and had seen Belgians with light- 
 brown hair, and Germans with their pale locks twisted 
 into knots and curls.* 
 
 Every one must be reminded by the description of these 
 tall, red-haired men, of the Caledonians, as drawn by 
 Tacitus, and his Germans "with their fierce blue eyes, 
 
 1 See the account of the Gristhorpe interment, Worssae's Prim. Antiqu. 
 Denm. Introd. xiii. and p. 96 : — " The bones were much larger and 
 stronger than those of a more recent date, exhibiting the lines and ridges 
 for the attachment of the muscles with a degree of distinctness rarely, if 
 ever, witnessed at the present day. The most remarkable portion was the 
 head, which was beautifully formed, and of extraordinary size. The skele- 
 ton measured 6 feet 2 inches." The body had been wrapped in a 
 skin, and was turned with the face towards the east. The coffin contained a 
 bronze spear-head, some flintweapons, and several curious ornaments of horn 
 or walrus-tooth ; by the side of the skeleton lay a basket of bark, sewed 
 together with sinews, and containing the remains of food deposited as a 
 votive offering ; and the coffin also contained a quantity of vegetable sub- 
 stance, which appeared to be the decomposed remains of the leaves and 
 berries of the mistletoe. On the breast was laid " a very singular orna- 
 ment, in the form of a double rose of riband with two loose ends,'' com- 
 posed of a substance resembling thin horn, " but more opaque and not at 
 all elastic.'' The remains were deposited in the Museum at Scarborough. 
 A similar interment was discovered in 1827, near Haderslev in Denmark :- 
 the coffin contained some long locks of brown hair, and several weapons 
 and implements of bronze, with a very thick woollen cloak edged with a 
 fringe of threads. Similar discoveries have been made in Suabia. 
 
 ^ Compare Strabo,iv. 278; Lucan's "Flavis mista Britannis," Pharsal. 
 iii. 78; and the well-known passage of Juvenal: — 
 
 " Cserula quis stupuit Germani lumina, flavam 
 Csesariem, et madido torquentem cornua cirro ? " 
 
 Sat. xiii. 164. 
 
Origins of English History. i6g 
 
 and huge bodies only fit for a sudden exertion," He may 
 have borrowed and misapplied the words of the passage of 
 Vitruvius ; but, whether this be so or not, it is clear that 
 he was mistaken in attributing a German origin to the 
 people of the Grampian range, and it appears highly pro- 
 bable that they were descended from one of the nameless 
 nations who had preceded the advance of the Celts. 
 
 They appear in Herodian's sketch as naked savages, 
 tattooed with the strange shapes of beasts and birds, of 
 which the remembrance is preserved in Claudian's fine 
 allusion to " the figures fading on the dying Pict." They 
 passed their days in the water, swimming in the northern 
 estuaries, or wading with the stream as high as the waist.^ 
 Dion Cassius adds, with his characteristic vivacity, that 
 they would hide in the mud for days together, with nothing 
 but their heads out of the water. As late as the third 
 century after Christ they had hardly become familiar with 
 the use of iron ; for they wore it in collars and bands on 
 their necks and loins, and regarded it in the place of gold 
 as an ornament and a sign of wealth. In their wars they 
 used chariots drawn by mountain-ponies, which could 
 hardly excel the speed of the troops on foot. They seem 
 to have been scantily armed; they had not even the 
 clumsy Celtic broad-sword, but fought with target and 
 dagger, and a short pike with a clattering ball of bronze 
 on the shaft to frighten the enemy with its noise. 
 
 Dion Cassius gave a pitiful account of their squalid and 
 barbarous ways. They have, he said, no towns, or fields, 
 or houses, but roam on the wild and waterless mountains, 
 
 1 Herodian, iii. 14; Dion Cassius (Xiphilinus), Ixxvi. 12. Compare 
 Oppian's "Aypia <t>v\a hpeTayvoiv aloKovwriav, Cyneget. i. 470 ; Claudian, 
 Bell. Get. 417; Solinus, Polyhist. c. 24. 
 
I JO Origins of English History. 
 
 or in deserts and marshy plains. Their scanty subsistence 
 was gained in hunting, though they got some small sup- 
 plies of food from their herds and flocks ; and they eked 
 it out with herbs, with fruit and nuts, and even with the 
 bark of the trees in the forest. They had discovered a 
 satisfying root, an earth-nut, of a sweet, cloying taste, 
 which can be dried and made into a kind of bread ; and of 
 this (said Dion) if they eat a piece as large as a bean, they 
 neither hunger nor thirst. With a superstition like that of 
 the Eskimo they refused to taste fish, though they had an 
 abundant supply within reach ; and it has been noticed, 
 that though the ancient Irish were fish-eaters, there were 
 certain parts of the country, as well as some Highland dis- 
 tricts, where " the Saxons" were despised and disliked for 
 the practice ; and it has been suggested that this absti- 
 nence was a religious observance, "derived from some 
 ancient colonists from Asia."^ 
 
 They lived naked, and barefooted, in a savage commu- 
 nism, without any organization of state or family ; and 
 even the wives and children were regarded as the pro- 
 perty of the horde. Their only merit, if we trust the 
 Greek description, was a neglect or an ignorance of the 
 practice of infanticide, which is treated by the classical 
 historians as an unexpected and startling instance of 
 natural virtue. 
 
 We hear but little in later times of these strange and 
 wild communities. It seems to be clear, however, that 
 they became merged or included in the Pictish nation, 
 and it may be hoped that something more will be learned 
 
 1 Bonwick, Anc. Irish, 72. Compare Ware, Antiquit. Hibern. c 22; 
 Campion, Tract on the Ancient Irish, 25. As to the pig-nut, or iulho- 
 castanum, see Mannert's Geograph. ii. 2, 100; and Logan's Scott. Gael. ii. 
 113- 
 
Origins of English History. 1 7 1 
 
 about them when the Pictish sculptures are interpreted. 
 The materials for one part of the inquify may be roughly 
 classed as follows: — 
 
 1. In various parts of Sweden and Denmark there are 
 inscriptions and rock-carvings of the Bronze Age, cut out 
 on the faces of smooth cliffs, or on the pillars and cap- 
 stones of the megalithic tombs. In the case of the tumulus 
 at Tegneby, in Zealand, from which the earth has only 
 been lately removed, there are pictures of war-canoes, and 
 crosses contained in circles which seem to be intended for 
 chariot- wheels. Even in the time of Olaus Magnus, who 
 was perfectly familiar with Runic, the object and meaning 
 of the inscriptions were quite unknown, and he could only 
 say that the written rocks were carved with most won- 
 derful characters. 
 
 2. Some of the rocks and tombstones (those especially 
 at Tegneby, Kivik, and Axevalla in Sweden) contain 
 sketches of the Bronze Age men pursuing their labours 
 by sea and land. We can distinguish a sea-fight with long 
 lines of war-canoes, like those of the South Sea Islanders, 
 little boats crossing a shallow reach, cattle and chariots 
 driven through still waters, bowmen and spearmen, and 
 tall naked men fighting with bronze axes fastened to long 
 handles ; in other scenes we have the sketch of a man 
 driving a chariot through a pasture where sheep are feed- 
 ing, a swordsman leading a string of naked captives, and 
 rows of hooded figures draped in long black robes. These 
 pictures help us to realize the life of the tribes described 
 by Herodian ; but the more important point is, that some 
 of the same stones contain characters from some unknown 
 alphabet, like those which have been found in the British 
 Isles, and in several of the tombs in Brittany. 
 
172 Origins 0/ English History. 
 
 3. After clearing away a large tumulus at Aspatria, near 
 St. Bees, a vault was found which contained a gigantic 
 skeleton. It is said that the man must have been some- 
 thing over 7 feet high. The comparatively late date 
 of the interment was shown by the finding of an iron 
 sword, with the hilt inlaid with silver flowers, a gold 
 buckle, a snaffle-bit, and a battle-axe. But the stones were 
 marked with the crossed and dotted circles,^ and other 
 figures which appear on the older monuments. 
 
 4. A comparison of the impressions, collected by Mr. 
 Fergusson, in his " Rude Stone Monuments,"^ from stones 
 in Scotland, from the tombs near the Boyne and on the 
 Witches' Hill at Lough Crew, and from Gavr Innis, and 
 other celebrated " dolmens" in Brittany, leads inevitably 
 to the conclusion that they were all due to one race of 
 men who used these signs as an alphabet. And there are 
 cases in England, such as the rock-carvings in Northumber- 
 land and Cumberland, and in Wales, such as those at " St. 
 Iltyd's House" in Brecknockshire, which belong to the class 
 in question. The most noticeable signs are the "plumed 
 hatchets," the stone-axe, hearts, shamrocks, crosses, and 
 circles with projecting spikes, and lines crossing a central 
 stem and enclosed in a cartouche, which look like the first 
 beginnings of what is known as the Ogmic alphabet. 
 
 5. The sculptured stones of Scotland are found on the 
 coasts and islands from Aberdeen to Shetland, and in 
 
 ^ These signs, as well as one resembling a mirror or hand-glass, are 
 found among the land-marks used in the annual division of lot-meadows, 
 both in Ditmarsh and in some of the English counties. The country- 
 people called them " the hare's-tail, the duck's-nest, and the peel or 
 doter," Williams, Land of Ditmarsh, Archmol. xxxvii. 
 
 ^ See also Olaus Magnus. Hist. Septent. i. cc. 16, 18, 21 j Stuart's 
 "Sculptured Stones of Scotland"; Brash. Ogam Monuments. 
 
Origins of English History. 1 73 
 
 some of the caves in Fifeshire. They contain a few 
 "Ogam" inscriptions, which cannot be read into Celtic 
 words, like those of England, Wales, and Ireland. Even 
 those of a late mediaeval date are covered with the 
 symbols of some forgotten heraldry, eagles and dragons, 
 worm-knots, conventional figures of the elephant, dogs, or 
 sea-snakes fighting ; some of which have also been found 
 on the Scandinavian monuments. There may be some 
 historical connection between this symbolism and the tattoo- 
 marks of the ancient Picts, " the shapes of the heavenly 
 bodies, and of all kinds of beasts and birds," of which we 
 read in Herodian ; but the subject is too obscure for any 
 positive statement to be hazarded. The figures of the 
 comb, mirror, and brooch can be explained as denoting 
 the objects buried with the dead, as seems to have been 
 first noticed in Wallace's Description of the Isles of 
 Orkney (1693). As the work is rare, it may be well to 
 extract the passage : — " At the west end of the mainland, 
 on the top of high rocks above a quarter of a mile in 
 length, there is something like a street, all set in red clay, 
 with a sort of reddish stones of several figures and magni- 
 tudes, having the images of several things, as it were, 
 engraven upon them ; and, which is very strange, most of 
 these stones, when they are raised up, have that same 
 image under, which they had engraven above. Likewise, 
 in the Links of Tranabie in Westra have been found 
 graves in the sand, in one of which was seen a man lying 
 with his sword on the one hand and a Danish axe on the 
 other; and others that have had dogs, and combs, and 
 knives buried with them." He adds many interesting 
 particulars of megalithic monuments existing in his time, 
 of which some have been since disturbed ; and his in- 
 
1 74 Origins of English History. 
 
 stances of the visits of the Eskimo, paddling in their sealskin 
 canoes, and armed with harpoon and bladder, show how 
 the earliest immigrants may have crossed the German 
 Ocean before any great advance had been made in the art 
 of boat-building.^ 
 
 Such is the principal evidence for the theory that the 
 Bronze- Age tribes, the " dolmen-builders," and construc- 
 tors of the great stone-circles, can be distinguished in 
 some parts of Britain down to a time which we may call 
 recent, having regard to the scope of our inquirj.'. On 
 this part of the subject we will only add a few details of 
 customs which have been observed in Scotland and 
 Ireland and which cannot easily be correlated with any- 
 thing that is known to be of Aryan origin. 
 
 The first example relates to the rule of succession to the 
 Pictish Crown, which was noticed by Bede in the opening 
 chapter of his history, and which has been elucidated by 
 Mr. Skene's investigation of the names occurring in the 
 several dynasties down to the time of the venerable histo- 
 rian. It was the custom in Pictland, as the saying went, 
 that the kingdom should come from women rather than 
 men. The dignity, it seems, never went from father to 
 son ; but when the king died, the crown went to his next 
 brother, or in default, to his sister's son, or in any event to • 
 the nearest male relation claiming through a female, and 
 on the female side. The list contains no instance of a son 
 bearing his father's name, or of the same name belonging 
 to both father and mother ; and the only fathers of kings 
 of whom any account has survived are certainly known to 
 
 ^ " Description," 23, 24, 27. Other instances of the arrival of cast- 
 aways or explorers from Greenland may be found in Pontoppidan's Natural 
 History. 
 
O IT gins of English History. 1 7 5 
 
 have been foreigners, the one a prince of Strathclyde and 
 
 the other a grandson of the English king of Northumbria. 
 
 We have instances here of the rules, that brothers shall 
 
 inherit in the place of sons, that blood-relationships shall 
 
 only be traced in the female line, and that it shall not be 
 
 lawful for a woman to marry within her domestic tribe, 
 
 which prevail among the savage peoples of Polynesia and 
 
 the rudest of the Asian aborigines. It is not sufficient to 
 
 suggest, with Mr. McLennan, that the Celts were lax in 
 
 their morals, and may have found it expedient that the 
 
 children's claims should always be traced through the 
 
 mother.^ He has carried, as he has said, the line of 
 
 human progress far back towards brutishness. But there n 
 
 is an abundance of positive evidence that the Aryan 
 
 nations had established the " agnatic system," by which 
 
 the family was confined to males and unmarried women 
 
 descended from a patriarchal ancestor, even before the 
 
 divisions began which brought the Celts into Europe. 
 
 The Picts in the North and the Spartans in the South 
 
 may have ignored the system of descent through males on 
 
 which civilized society was based ; but it is easier in each 
 
 case to believe in the persistence of customs belonging to 
 
 an older people, than to suppose that a section of the 
 
 civilized race had retained or revived the practices which 
 
 their ancestors had already forgotten when encamped on 
 
 the banks of the Oxus. 
 
 We rely for our next instance on a story from Giraldus 
 Cambrensis,^ which has been vehemently denied by writers 
 
 1 M'Lennan, Studies in Ancient History, loi, 145 ; Skene, Celtic 
 Scotland, i. 233 ; Hearne, Aryan Household, 153. 
 
 2 Girald. Cambr. Topog. Hibern. iii. 25. See Campion's Tract on 
 Ancient Ireland, and Ware, Antiqu. Hibern. ii. 64. 
 
1 76 Origins of English History. 
 
 upon Celtic history, but is supported by independent testi- 
 mony from the chronicles of the Pictish kingdom. The 
 story is generally told as if it must necessarily relate to 
 the great family of the " Hy Nyall," whose kings were 
 crowned at Tara. But Giraldus only said that in one 
 part of their dominions was a nation which practised a 
 barbarous rite in their mode of electing a king. A white 
 mare, or a cow by another account, was sacrificed in the 
 midst of the people : the candidate was forced to crawl in 
 on all-fours, and to lap the broth and taste the flesh, with 
 several degrading ceremonies. That some similar practice 
 long remained among the Picts is known from the words 
 of a contemporary chronicler ; for David the First of Scot- 
 land, who led the Scottish and Pictish forces to the Battle 
 of the Standard (a.d. i 153), was said to have been so 
 disgusted at the customary rites of subservience that the 
 bishops could hardly persuade him to accept the kingly 
 office.^ It is a common usage among savages to impose 
 an ordeal upon an elected chief, either to test his courage 
 and steadfastness, or to assert symbolically some claim of 
 original equality with the man to whom they are about to 
 submit. But no such humiliating observance could have 
 been claimed from the Celtic or the Teutonic princes, who 
 asserted a diviner right to represent the purest blood of the 
 race as the kindred of the elemental gods or the children 
 of Woden or Saxnoth. We know in fact how different 
 were the rites observed at the enthronement of the Celtic 
 and Scandinavian kings. Surrounded by his nobles the 
 
 1 " Unde et obsequia ilia, quae a gente Scottorum in novella regum 
 promotione more patrio exhibentur, ita exhorruit ut ea vix ab episcopis 
 suscipere cogeretur." Ailred's Chronicles, Twysden, 348. See Robertson, 
 Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 36. 
 
Origins of English History. 1 77 
 
 elected prince was placed on a coronation-stone, as the 
 seat on the Rock of Doon, the " stone of destiny " at 
 Tara, the " Moor-stone " of Upsala, the stone-chair of the 
 Danish kings at Leire, and the sacred block of sandstone 
 "lapiere de Escose" in the Abbey Church at Westminster.^ 
 The chiefs sat or stood on other stones, sometimes 
 arranged in a circle of twelve surrounding the chair of 
 honour. The people applauded, as the kneeling bard or 
 " sennachie " recited the royal pedigree ; and the ancient 
 ceremony was completed in Christian times by anointment 
 and consecration. 
 
 Many other barbarous usages existed in Spenser's day 
 among the Northern Irish and some of the Highland 
 tribes, such wild uses, as he said, that he could only 
 compare such men to the " Tartarians " and people round 
 the Caspian Sea. For those Scythians, " when they would 
 binde any solemn vow or combination amongst them, used 
 to drink a bowle of blood together, vowing thereby to 
 spend their last blood in that quarrell, and even so do the 
 wild Scots and some of the Northern Irish. The Scythians 
 used to sweare by their king's hand ; and so do the Irish 
 
 1 The value attached to the stone brought by Edward the First from 
 Scone was due in a great measure to the legend of "Scota the fairy- 
 princess." The following lines from a MS. in the Bodleian Library show 
 one form of the ancient fancy : — 
 
 " En Egipte Moise a le poeple precha, 
 .Scota la file fata ou Men I'escota, 
 Quare il dite en espirite, qui ceste piere avera 
 De molt estraunge terre conquer our serra." 
 
 See Keysler, Antiqu. Sept. 25, 30; Bonwick, Anc. Irish, 50; Skene, 
 "Coronation Stone," 1869 (Proc. Soc. Antiqu. vii. 68); Celtic Scotland, 
 i. 283. For the Scandinavian examples, see Olaus Magnus, Hist. Sept. 
 viii. I, Keysler, Antiqu. Sept. 93, and Scheffer, Upsalia, c. 17. 
 
 N 
 
1 78 Origins of English History. 
 
 use now to sweare by their lord's hand, and to forsweare 
 it they hold it more criminall than to sweare by God. 
 The Scythians also used to seethe the flesh in the hide, 
 and so do the Northern Irish. The Scythians used to 
 draw the blood of the beast living and to make meat 
 thereof, and so do the Irish in the North still." ^ 
 
 We will take our last example from Giraldus.^ The 
 adventure of a ship's crew, in what was called in the 12th 
 century the unexplored expanse of the Sea of Connaught, 
 is told in the very words of the men who saw the naked, 
 yellow-haired savages. " Some sailors told me," said the 
 traveller, "that being driven by a storm into that sea 
 they lay for shelter off a small island, and when the storm 
 abated they saw at no great distance the outline of an 
 unknown coast." Soon afterwards they noticed a small 
 canoe approaching them, made of wattled sticks covered 
 over with hides of beasts. In it were two men without 
 any clothing, except broad belts of skin round their waists : 
 they had " long yellow hair, like the Irish, falling below 
 
 1 Spenser's "View," &c., 82, 99. Compare the customs mentioned in 
 Campion's Tract and in Ware's Antiquitates HibernicEe. " As a ratifica- 
 tion of a league they drink each other's blood, which is shed for the pur- 
 pose : this custom has been handed down to them from the rites of the 
 heathen." Girald. Cambr. Topogr. Hibern. iii. 22. For the "Abyssinian" 
 practice of using the living animal for food, see Logan, Scott. Gael. ii. 112. 
 Compare the classical descriptions of the customs of the " Concani " in 
 Spain : — 
 
 " Visam Britannos hospitibus feros, 
 Et Isetum equino sanguine Concanum." 
 
 Horat. Carm. iii. 4, 33. 
 " Nee qui, Massageten monstrans feritate parentem, 
 Cornipedis fusi satiaris, Concane, vent." 
 
 Sil. Ital. Punic, iii. 360. 
 "^ Topogr. Hibern. iii. 26. 
 
Origins of English History. \<^k^ 
 
 their shoulders and covering most of their bodies." Find- 
 ing that these men were from some part of Connaught, 
 and could speak the Irish language, the sailors took them 
 on board. The men were found to be pagans, who had 
 never even heard of Christianity : they had never before 
 seen a ship, and everything indeed that they saw appeared 
 to excite their surprise. " Bread and cheese being offered 
 to them, they refused to eat, not knowing what they were. 
 They said that they lived entirely off flesh, fish, and milk, 
 and never wore clothes, except sometimes the skins of 
 beasts in case of a great necessity. They knew nothing 
 of the measurement of the month or the year, and the 
 names of the days of the week were matters entirely 
 beyond their conception." 
 
 We will conclude this part of the subject with a few 
 instances of peculiar usages, long continuing in the districts 
 about the frontier of Wales, which can hardly be referred 
 to any other origin than the persistence of ancient habits 
 among the descendants of the Silurian tribes. We need 
 not dwell on such facts as that the country-people of 
 Anglesea or St. David's, or of the legend-haunted Vale of 
 Neath, were prone to believe in fearful goblins, in magical 
 wells and rocks that spoke or flew by night, in half-human 
 snakes, and " stones of contention" at which the domestic 
 animals would dance and fight as if possessed by a demon. 
 The strangeness of the " lower mythology " prevailing in 
 Wales and Britanny might afford some evidence in favour 
 of its pre-Celtic origin. But no country in Europe is free 
 from those gross superstitions which seem to indicate an 
 underworld of barbarism and remnants of forgotten 
 nations not wholly penetrated by the culture of the domi- 
 nant races. We find instances of a more special and 
 
 N 2 
 
1 80 Origins of English History. 
 
 localised kind in the peculiarities noted by Giraldus 
 among the brown-skinned and black-haired people, whom 
 he called " Dardanians," thinking that their forefathers had 
 fled before the Greeks upon the plains of Troy, and in 
 whom more modern ethnologists have recognised the 
 remnants of the Neolithic tribes. 
 
 We may observe, for instance, his account of the Silurian 
 Soothsayers, who were found only in the districts which 
 were held by the dark-skinned race. " There are certain 
 people there," (he said,) "whom you will never find any- 
 where else : when consulted upon any doubtful event, they 
 roar out violently and are beside themselves and as it were 
 possessed by a spirit." When roused from their ecstasy 
 they seemed to be waking from a deep sleep, and until 
 they were violently shaken they did not return to their 
 proper senses. One might compare with this account, and 
 with the similar suggestions of Solinus, the story which 
 was told of the gathering at St. Almedha's Fair. A little 
 to the east of Brecknock is a hill where the people of the 
 country-side assembled at an annual feast. There, said 
 Giraldus, you might see them, in the dance which goes 
 round the churchyard, leaping about, or falling to the 
 ground in a trance, or mimicking the actions which they 
 had wrongfully committed upon holidays. "You might 
 see one man putting his hand to the plough, and another 
 goading on the oxen and lightening their labour with his 
 rustic song : one would be working like a shoemaker, and 
 another as a tanner. You might see a girl with a distaff, 
 drawing out the thread and winding it round the spindle, 
 another walking and sorting the threads for the web, and 
 another in the act of throwing the shuttle and seeming to 
 weave the cloth ; but when they were brought into the 
 
Origins of English History. i8i 
 
 Church and led to the altar with their offerings, you would 
 be astonished to see them awake and suddenly come to 
 themselves."^ 
 
 In the same connection we may mention the " Cursing- 
 wells," where the jealous and disappointed might imprecate 
 destruction, as at the Altar of the " Mount of Cursing," on 
 the basket and store of their neighbour, "the fruit of his 
 body and the fruit of his field." It was thought that by 
 performing the rites of an impious service, by casting in a 
 pin or a pebble inscribed with the enemy's name, the spirit 
 of the well would cailse the victim to pine and die unless 
 the curse should be willingly removed.^ 
 
 Our last example of these abnormal usages shall be 
 taken from the superstition of the Sin-eater, which cer- 
 tainly prevailed in Herefordshire, though it may be 
 doubtful whether it extended to the neighbouring parts of 
 Wales. " In the County of Hereford," said Aubrey, " it 
 was an old custom at funerals to hire poor people who 
 were to take upon them the sins of the person deceased. 
 
 ^ Girald, Cam. Itin. Cambr. i. c. 2 ; Descr. Cambr. i. c. 16. 
 
 * St. Elian's Well in Denbighshire is described as " the head of the 
 Cursing-wells." A full description of the ceremonies will be found in Mr. 
 Sikes' recent work upon the Welsh folk-lore, Brit. Gobi. 355. Among the 
 authorities cited are Camb. Pop. Antiq. 247; Archaeol. Cambr. ist Ser. i. 46. 
 Compare Souvestre's account of the Chapel oi Ndtre Dame de la Haine at 
 Tr^guier in Brittany. " Une chapelle d^dik d Notre-Dame de la Haine 
 existe toujours prh de Treguier, et le peuple n'a pas cessk de croire d, la 
 puissance des prieres qui y sont faites. Parfois encore, vers le soir, on voit 
 des ombres honteuses se glisser furtivement vers ce triste kdifice plac'e au haul 
 d'un coteau sans verdure. Ce sont des jeunes pupilles lassSs de la surveil- 
 lance de leurs iuteurs, des veillards jaloux de la prosperity d'un voisin, des 
 femmes trop rudement froisskes par le despotisme d'un mari, qui viennent Id 
 prier pour la mart de I'objet de leur haine. Trois 'Ave ' dh'otement r'ep'etes, 
 aminent irrevocablement cette mart dans Vannk." Demiers Bretons, i. 92. 
 See as to Cursing-stones in Devon and Ireland, N. & Om 5) v. 223, 363. 
 
1 82 Origins of English History. 
 
 The manner was that when the corpse was brought out 
 of the house and laid upon the bier a loaf of bread was 
 brought out and delivered to the Sin-eater over the corpse, 
 as also a Mazard-bowl of maple-wood full of beer which 
 he was to drink up, and sixpence in money, in considera- 
 tion whereof he took upon him ipso facto all the sins of 
 the defunct and freed him or her from walking after they 
 were dead."^ 
 
 1 Aubrey, in the " Remains of Gentilisme," now in the course of publi- 
 cation by the Folk-lore Society ; Sikes, Brit. Gobi. 325 ; Hone, Year-book, 
 858. " I remember,'' says Aubrey, " one of these Sin-eaters, he was a 
 long, lean, ugly, lamentable, poor rascal, and lived in a cottage on Rosse 
 highway. This ceremony, though rarely used in our days, yet by some 
 people was observed in the strictest days of the Presbyterian government." 
 And he adds several examples of its use in the seventeenth century. Mr. 
 Sikes adds an apposite quotation from Schuyler's " Turkestan," ii. 28 : — 
 " One poor old man seemed constantly engaged in prayer. On calling 
 attention to him, I was told that he was an ' iskatchi.' a person who gets 
 his living by taking on himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforth de- 
 voting himself to prayer for their souls : he corresponds to the Sin-eater 
 of the Welsh border," 
 
Origins of English History. 183 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CUSTOMS OF INHERITANCE AND FAMILY RELIGION. 
 
 Customs foreign to Celtic and Teutonic usage. — Anomalous laws of inheritance. — 
 Borough-English. — Maineti.—Jungstm-Recht. — Various theories of their origin. — 
 Their wide extent. — Primitive forms in Wales and Shetland — In Cornwall and 
 Brittany. — Distribution of Junior-right in England. — South-eastern district. — 
 Danish towns. — Customs of Kent. — Of Sussex. — Neighbourhood of London. — 
 Manor of Taunton-Deane. — Distribution on the Continent. — North-western France 
 and Flanders. — " Theel-boors " of East Friesland — Germany — Bornholm — Russia. 
 — Attempts to explain the custom. — Comparison with early forms of primogeniture. 
 — "Principals" or Priciput. — Eldest daughter. — The Law of the Sword. — 
 Glanville. — Bracton. — Old primogeniture customs in the Pays de Caux — Ireland- 
 Norway — Athens. — Religious origin. — Priesthood of the eldest. — Laws of Manu. — 
 The domestic religion and its survivals. — The fire. — The remembrance-bowl. — 
 Household spirits. — Feast of All Souls. — " Brande Erbe." — Theory of analogous 
 origin of the Junior-right. — Priesthood of the youngest. — Early extension of Altaic 
 peoples. — Mongolian and Uglrian junior-right. — Tchudic household superstitions. — 
 The Mandrake. 
 
 ONE might collect a large assemblage of English 
 country customs having no apparent affinity to 
 Celtic or Teutonic usages, some living still in remote and 
 simple districts, some dying and some dead, but all im- 
 portant and interesting to the student of ancient history. 
 There are ceremonies of an old idolatry and relics of the 
 worship of animals which will be more conveniently con- 
 sidered in a chapter devoted to mythology. Others are 
 mere remnants of old codes and dooms of powers and 
 principalities that have long since been merged in the 
 modern kingdom ; and for some no origin can even be 
 guessed. 
 
 We shall confine our attention for the present to that 
 anomalous class of usages, which in England are commonly 
 
1 84 Origins of English History. 
 
 called Borough- English and are known abroad by such 
 names as MaineU and Jungsten-Recht. The English 
 name is taken from a local word used in a trial of the time 
 of Edward III. It appears from the report in the Year- 
 book for the first year of that reign that in Nottingham 
 there were then two tenures of land, called burgh-Engloyes 
 and burgh-Frauncoyes : " and the usages of these tenures 
 were such, that all the tenements whereof the ancestor 
 died seised in burgh-Engloyes ought to descend to the 
 youngest son, and all the tenements in burgh-Frauncoyes to 
 the eldest son as at the common law."^ It is said that 
 Nottingham remained divided as late as 1713 into the 
 English-borough and the French-borough, the customs of 
 descent remaining distinct in each ; and even at the pre- 
 sent time there are similar customs in that neighbourhood.^ 
 The law-courts take official notice of the strict custom of 
 borough-English, by which the benefit is confined to the 
 youngest son, and the name ought not in theory to be 
 applied to any other usage. There are, however, many 
 analogous rights additions and enlargements springing out 
 of the original custom, by which a preference or pre-eminence 
 in birthright is secured to remoter heirs. Such a custom 
 establishes a new principle which is ever ready to extend 
 itself until a new check is devised ; and there are at any 
 
 ^ Yearbook, i Edw. Ill, 12 a; Robinson's "Gavelkind," Appendix. 
 
 3 Corner's " Borough-English jn Sussex," 14. He notices its prevalence 
 in Scrooby and four other manors, and in the district called the Soke of 
 Southwell. The custom in the last-named district is or was as follows :— 
 If a tenant had children by two or more wives, the youngest son of the 
 first wife, or in default of sons her youngest daughter, took the family 
 inheritance. If lands were purchased during a subsequent marriage, the 
 youngest son of that marriage succeeded to the purchased lands. Com- 
 plete Copyholder, 506; Blount's Tenures (Hazlitt), 290. 
 
Origins of English History. 185 
 
 rate scores if not hundreds of little districts in England 
 where the right has extended to females, — the youngest of 
 the daughters, or as the case may be the youngest sister 
 or aunt, being preferred above the other coheiresses. 
 
 These extensions of the custom are all called " borough- 
 English" by analogy to the principal usage, but they 
 should be classified under some more general name. It is 
 not easy, however, to find the appropriate word. We have 
 a choice between " ultimogeniture," the awkward term pro- 
 posed by the Real Property Commissioners of the last 
 generation, and such foreign forms as Jungsten-Recht, and 
 Juveignerie, which can hardly be excelled for simplicity ; 
 or one must coin a new phrase, like juniority or junior- 
 right. 
 
 Every kind of explanation has been offered to account 
 for the origin of these customs. To some they have 
 appeared unnatural, to others they seem so simple that 
 they might have been expected to grow up in every quarter 
 of the world. But hitherto all the explanations appear to 
 have been unsuccessful ; and it may be that the problem 
 is not only difficult but insoluble. The subject, however, 
 is so interesting and so important to the comparative his- 
 tory of society, that it seems to be worth while to deal 
 with the discussion once more, or at least to collect some 
 of the materials which may hereafter be used for the solu- 
 tion of the long-standing difficulty. 
 
 If we are to describe the area from which we must 
 collect examples of the junior-right, we shall find that it 
 has flourished not only in England and in most parts of 
 Central and Northern Europe but also in some remote 
 and disconnected regions with which our subject is not at 
 present concerned. We shall find it occurring among 
 
1 86 Origins of English History. 
 
 Ugrian tribes about the Ural Mountains, in Hungarian 
 villages, and in Slavonic communities ; and we might 
 trace its presence in Central Asia, on the confines of 
 China, in the mountains of Arracan, and even, it is said, 
 among the New Zealand Maories. It is plain that we 
 must to some extent restrict the scope of our inquiry. 
 We shall find reason later for extending it over a wider 
 tract comprising the regions in the North and East of 
 Europe and the neighbouring parts of Asia. But our 
 attention will for the present be mainly directed to the 
 Celtic countries and to those of the western peoples with 
 whom the English nation is connected. 
 
 We have not as yet found examples of this exceptional 
 law either in Scotland or in Ireland.^ In the Shetland 
 Isles, however, it was the practice, from whatever source 
 derived, that the youngest child of either sex should have 
 the dwelling-house when the property came to division.^ 
 
 The custom appears in Wales in what was probably its 
 most primitive form. According to the laws of Hoel the 
 Good, dating from the tenth century at latest, the inherit- 
 ance was to be so divided that the homestead with eight 
 acres of land and the best implements of the household 
 should fall to the youngest son. The different editions of 
 these laws are contained in the Dimetian Code for South 
 Wales, and in the Venedotian Code for " Gwynnedd " or 
 the northern parts of the principality. Both are to the 
 
 1 For a discussion of the question, whether a preference of the youngest, 
 similar in kind to the custom of borough-English, can be traced in the 
 old Irish family settlements, see Maine, Hist. Earl. Inst. 210, 216, 223; 
 Senchus Mor. ii. Iv. 279 ; iii. cxl. 333, 493 ; McLennan, Studies, 452. 
 As to Hungary, see Kovy, Summ. Juris. Hungaric. s. 351. 
 
 ^ Wallace, Description of Orkney, 91. 
 
Origins of English History. 187 
 
 same effect as regards the point in question; but the 
 former is the more precise and best adapted for quotation : 
 — "When brothers share their patrimony" (so ran the 
 enactment or statement of custom) " the youngest is to have 
 the principal messuage {tyddyn), and all the buildings and 
 eight acres of land, and the hatchet the boiler and the 
 ploughshare, because a father cannot give these three to 
 anyone but his youngest son, and though they are pledged 
 yet they can never become forfeited : then let every son 
 take a homestead with eight acres of land ; and the 
 youngest is to divide,* and they are to choose in succession 
 from the eldest unto the youngest." ^ But the rule only 
 applied to estates comprising at least one inhabited house ; 
 and on dividing a property of any other kind the youngest 
 son was entitled to no exceptional privilege.^ 
 
 The privilege of the youngest existed in other Celtic 
 districts, as in parts of Cornwall and Devon, and in several 
 extensive lordships in Brittany. But we have no means of 
 estimating its original influence in the last-named region ; 
 for when the customs of the province were codified by the 
 feudal lawyers the nobles set their faces against the 
 abnormal usage ; and we are told that in the seventeenth 
 
 ^ Leges Walliae (Dimet. Code), ii. 23, (Venedot. Code), ii. 12, 16. 
 Compare the customs of Lille : — " Du droit de Maismte. Par la cout{).me, 
 quand pire ou niire termine vie par mart, d'elaissant plusieurs enfans, et un 
 lieu manoir et heritage cottier venant de son patrimonie, aufils maisne appar- 
 iient droict de viaisnet'e audit lieu et heritage. Pour lequel il pent prendre 
 jusques d, un quartier d' heritage seulemenf au mains si tant ne contient le dit 
 lieu : avec la mattresse chambre, deux couples en la maison, la porte sur quatre 
 esteux, les porchils carin foumil et colombier, s'ils sont separez, le burg du 
 puich, et tous arbres porfant fruicts et renforcez, et autres choses repute es pour 
 heritages, cr'c. En deffaut de fils la fille maisn'ee a pardl droict en faisant 
 recompense telle que dessus." Coutflmier General, ii. goi. Compare also 
 the similar customs of Cassel, ibid, i. 699. 
 
1 88 Origins of English History. 
 
 century the area in which it survived was almost daily- 
 diminishing.^ 
 
 The distribution of the junior-right in England requires 
 a more particular notice. The custom was most prevalent 
 in the south-eastern districts, in Kent Sussex and Surrey, 
 in a ring of manors encircling ancient London, and to a 
 less extent in Essex and the East-Anglian kingdom. 
 There are few examples in Hampshire, but further west a 
 great part of Somerset In one continuous tract was under 
 the law or custom in question. In the Midland counties 
 the usage was comparatively rare, at the rate of two or 
 three manors to a county ; but it occurred in four out of 
 the five great Danish towns — in Derby Stamford Leicester 
 and Nottingham, as well as in other important boroughs, 
 as Stafford and the City of Gloucester. To the north of a 
 line drawn between the H umber and Mersey the usage 
 appears to have been unknown.^ 
 
 1 The districts affected by the custom are enumerated in the Cout&mier 
 General. They included the Duchy of Rohan the Commandery of 
 Pallacrec and the domains of the Abbeys of Rellec and Begare. The 
 pecuHar descent was an incident of the servile tenure known as Qu'evaise. 
 " Lhomme laissant plusieurs enfans legitimes, le dernier des males succede 
 seul au tout de la tenue t F exclusion des autres, et cL d'efaut des males la der- 
 nitre desfilles.'' Usance de Qudvaise Art. 6. ; Cout. G^n. iv. 407. " En 
 succession directe de pere et de mire., le fils juveigneur et dernier ni desdits 
 tenanciers succlde au tout de la tenue, eten exclut les autres, soientfils oufilles.'' 
 Usance de Rohan, Cout. G&. iv. 412. " Vers Corlay il y a une usance, 
 telle qu'elle se pratique en quelques endroits du Duche de Rohan, s(avoir est le 
 droit de Quevaize, auquel le dernier ne, soil fils ou fille, demeure seigneur de 
 tout I'heritage. Es terres dependantes de I'Abbaye du Rellec Von observe la 
 mesme usance qu'audit Corlay, s^avoir est le droit de Quevaize, qui jourmllt- 
 ment s'altlre en droit convenancier." Usage de Cornouaille, Cout. G^n. iv. 
 410. 
 
 ^ Mr. Corner gives the following list of instances : — " The custom is 
 much more extensive than is generally supposed. In Cornwall I have 
 
Origins of English History. 1 89 
 
 It will be sufficient to examine two or three of the most 
 important districts. We shall consider the character of 
 this local law as it anciently existed in Kent, and as it is 
 found in Sussex in the vicinity of London and as far to 
 the west as the Valley of Taunton Deane. 
 
 Every one knows that most of the land in Kent is sub- 
 ject to the " Custom of Gavelkind," or in other words 
 that on the death of a landowner who leaves no will his 
 sons will inherit equally, without any preference of the 
 eldest. There are other qualities attached to lands of this 
 tenure which need not be here discussed. But there was 
 at one time a custom throughout the county, which is 
 described in the local codes with considerable minuteness 
 of detail, by which a distinct birthright was secured for 
 the youngest of the customary heirs. We shall quote the 
 entire passage from the thirteenth-century Custumal. 
 
 I. "If any tenant in gavelkind die, having inherited 
 
 found one manor subject to it ; in Derbyshire the town of Derby ; in 
 Devon two manors ; in Essex eight (this should be ' fourteen ' : vide 
 Charnock's Customs of Essex, p. 9, and authorities there cited) ; in 
 Glamorganshire one ; in Gloucestershire the city of Gloucester, where it 
 governs the descent of freeholds ; in Hampshire nine ; in Herefordshire 
 four ; in Hertfordshire one ; in Huntingdonshire three ; in Kent one manor, 
 (this should be corrected to include the whole county) ; in Leicestershire 
 one ; Stamford in Lincolnshire ; in Middlesex sixteen ; in Monmouthshire 
 one, (this should be two, Pencame and Liswery) ; in Norfolk twelve ; in 
 Northamptonshire one ; in the town of Nottingham this customary mode 
 of descent is now unknown, but it exists at Scrooby and Southwell and in 
 three other manors ; in Shropshire three ; in Staffordshire part of the 
 borough of Stafford and two manors ; in Suffolk thirty ; in Surrey twenty- 
 eight; in Sussex 140 manors; and in Warwickshire two, in which the 
 custom of borough-English is the law of descent." Borough-English, 
 13, 14. See other lists in Robinson's " Gavelkind," and Watkins " On 
 Copyholds." Some of the districts here counted as simple manors are in 
 reality Sokes, comprising in each case a number of subordinate manors. 
 
I go Origins of English History. 
 
 gavelkind lands and tenements, let all his sons divide that 
 heritage equally. And if there be no male heir, let the 
 partition be made among the females in the same way as 
 among brothers. And let the messuage (or Homestead) 
 also be divided among them, but the Hearth-place shall 
 belong to the youngest son or daughter (the others receiv- 
 ing an equivalent in money), and as far as 40 feet round 
 the Hearth-place, if the size of the heritage will allow it. 
 And then let the eldest have the first choice of the por- 
 tions and the others afterwards in their order." ^ 
 
 The next paragraph relates to the case where several 
 houses had been built within the inclosure or curtilage of 
 one homestead : and here again the youngest heir enjoyed 
 a "junior-right," being allowed in each house the principal 
 fire-place, making contribution to the rest as before. 
 
 2. " In like manner of other houses which shall be found 
 in such a homestead, let them be equally divided among 
 the heirs, foot by foot if need be, except the cover of the 
 Hearth which remains to the youngest, as was said before: 
 nevertheless, let the youngest make reasonable amends to 
 
 1 a. " Si ascun tenant en gauylekende murt, et sett inheritt de terres e de 
 tenementz in gauylekende, que touz ses fitz partent eel heritage per ouele por- 
 cioun. Et sinul heir madle ne seit, sett la party e feit entre les females sicome 
 entres lesfre^es. Et la mesuage seit autreci entre eux departi, mes le astre de- 
 morra al pune \ou alpunte\, e la value seite de ceo livre a chescun des parceners 
 de eel Mr it age a xl. pes de eel astre, si le tenement le peut suffrir. Et donkz 
 le eyn'e \frlre\ eit la primere eleetioun, e les autres aprks per degree." The 
 reading followed is that of the copy belonging to Lambarde the antiqua- 
 rian, which was admitted in evidence to prove the customs of Kent, in 
 the case of Launder v. Brookes, in the reign of Charles I., Cro. Car. 562. 
 See Lambarde, Peramb. Kent, 549 ; Robinson's Gavelkind, 355. The 
 words within brackets are omitted in Tottel's printed edition of the " Con- 
 suetudines Kancise," 1556, and in the MS. at Lincoln's Inn, which are 
 considered to be of inferior authority. 
 
Origins of English History. \ 9 1 
 
 his co-parceners for their share by the award of good 
 
 men."i 
 
 These, it is added, were among the usages of the 
 Kentishmen "before the Conquest, and at the Conquest, 
 and ever since until now." * The practice of preferring the 
 youngest, however, has in this county been for a long 
 time obsolete. 
 
 The principle of "junior-right" prevails so generally 
 upon copyhold lands in Sussex that it has often been 
 called the common law of the county ; and in the Rape of 
 Lewes the custom in, fact is nearly universal.^ A com- 
 parison of the manorial usages will show the following 
 results. The privilege is usually extended to the heirs in 
 remote degrees; the youngest of the sons daughters 
 brothers or sisters, uncles or aunts, or male and female 
 
 1 h. Ensement de mesons que serront trouets en tieus mesuages, seient 
 departye entre les heirs per ouele porcioun, ceo est asavoir per petes stl est 
 mistier, sauue le couert del astre, que remeynt al punt ou al punke sicome il 
 est atiandist, issi que nequedont que le punk face renable \recisonable\ gr'e a 
 ces parceners de la party e que a eux appent par agard de bone gentz." The 
 word "astre" is often used in old documents for the hearth, and for the 
 dwelling-house. Bracton, ii. 85 ; Coke upon Litt. 8 b. ; Liber Assisarum, 
 23. A provincial use of the word in the latter sense in Shropshire is 
 noticed by Lambarde, Peramb. Kent, 563. See "Tenures of Kent," 171. 
 Other instances are found in the local idioms of Montgomeryshire, and in 
 many parts of the West of England, where " Auster-land " is that which 
 had a house upon it in ancient times. 
 
 ^ " Ces sont les usages de gavylekend, e de gavylekendeis en Kent, que 
 furent devant le conquest e en le conquest e totes houres jeskes en (a.'' This 
 conclusion is only found in the best copy of the Custumal. 
 
 * Comer, Borough-English in Sussex. The customs of 140 manors 
 are collected in this useful work, which was reprinted from the 6th volume 
 of the Sussex Archaeological Collections. There is another hst of the 
 Sussex customs among the collections for that county preserved in the 
 British Museum. 
 
192 Origins of English History. 
 
 collateral relations, being entitled to the customary pre- 
 ference. When there are several kinds of tenure the 
 benefit of the custom is confined to the more ancient. In 
 some places, for example, there are two kinds of copyhold 
 land, the one called "Bond-land" and the other "Soke- 
 land." In such cases the custom is confined to the Bond- 
 land ; and in some manors the privilege of the youngest is 
 lost if his predecessor were the owner of Soke-land at 
 the time of his coming into the Bond-land. " Some of 
 these customs are very strange" (said a learned writer^), 
 " such as that of the manor of Wadhurst, where there are 
 two sorts of copyhold tenures ; and the custom is, that if 
 the tenant was first admitted to Soke-land and afterwards 
 to Bond-land the heir-at-law should inherit both ; and if he 
 was first admitted to Bond-land then his youngest son 
 should inherit both ; but if he was admitted to both at the 
 same time, then his eldest son should take the whole." 
 There is a similar usage in the manors of Framfield and 
 Mayfield, where in each case the written collection of 
 customs forms a valuable repository of ancient law. In 
 those districts and in many others in the neighbourhood 
 the copyhold lands which have been reclaimed from the 
 forest-waste are known as "Assart-lands." The distinc- 
 tion between them and the more ancient holdings appears 
 in the following extract : — " If any man or woman be first 
 admitted to any of the Assart-lands and die seised of 
 Assart-lands and Bond-lands, then the custom is that the 
 eldest son be admitted for heir to all, and if he or she have 
 
 1 Nelson, Lex Maneriorum, citing the observations of Chief Justice 
 Anderson, in Kemp v. Carter, i Leonard, 55. Most of the customs men- 
 tioned in the text will be found in the Appendix to Coventry's edition of 
 "Watkins on Copyholds." 
 
Origins of English History. 193 
 
 no son, then the eldest daughter likewise. And if the said 
 tenant be first admitted to Bond-land, the youngest son or 
 youngest daughter shall be heir to all his customary lands."' 
 
 In Pevensey also there are three different tenures of 
 freehold lands, of which the first goes to the common-law 
 heir and the rest go to the youngest son. And in other 
 parts of the county, as in the manor of Plumpton and on 
 the lands "between the watch-crosses at Boxgrove," there 
 are freeholds that are subject to the customary rule. 
 
 In the cluster of manors round London there are several 
 varieties of the custom. Its benefit in Islington and 
 Edmonton was confined to the youngest son ; at Ealing 
 Acton and Isleworth it extended to the brothers and 
 male collateral heirs ; and in a great number of instances 
 the privilege was given to females as well as to males in 
 every degree of relationship.^ These variations are of no 
 very great importance, the custom being modified in all parts 
 of the country by the rule, that special proof must be given 
 of any extension of that strict form of borough- English for 
 the benefit of the youngest son of which alone the courts 
 have cognizance. But it is of greater interest to observe, 
 that in several places near London "it is the custom for 
 the land to descend to the youngest, if it is under a par- 
 tible value, as five pounds ; but if it is worth more, it is 
 parted among all the sons."* 
 
 ' At Rotherfield the custom is still more intricate. There are three 
 kinds of land, Assart Farthing-land and Cotman-land. To the first the 
 eldest son is heir : to the second the youngest son, and in default of 
 sons the youngest daughter; and the Cotman-lands descend to the 
 youngest son, but failing a son are divided among all the daughters. 
 
 ^ As at Fulham, Putney, Sheen, Mortlake, Battersea, Roehampton, 
 Wimbledon, Wandsworth, Down, Barnes, and Richmond. See " Tenures 
 of Kent," 169. 
 
 ' First Report, Real Property Commission; Evidence, p. 254. 
 
 O 
 
194 Origins of English History. 
 
 We have shown the existence of a wide district, ex- 
 tending along the whole line of the " Saxon Shore " from 
 the Wash to the neighbourhood of the Solent and taking 
 in the whole of the seven south-eastern counties, in which 
 the anomalous custom is known to have especially pre- 
 vailed. And we shall now turn to that extensive district 
 in Somerset which is known as the Manor of Taunton- 
 Deane. It extends over five hundreds and no less than 
 twenty-six parishes besides the town of Taunton; and 
 throughout this large tract of country the custom of pre- 
 ferring the youngest has survived in a peculiarly definite 
 form. The manor is perhaps best known for its strange 
 exaggeration of the law of dower : " If a tenant dies seised 
 of copyholds of inheritance, his wife ought to inherit the 
 same lands as heir to her husband, and to be admitted 
 thereto to hold the same to her and her heirs for ever." 
 But we are only concerned here with the case in which 
 the tenant dies without leaving a widow to inherit. In 
 that case says the Custumal, " if he hath more sons than 
 one, the youngest hath used to inherit the same as sole 
 heir to his father : and so likewise of daughters, if he die 
 without issue male the youngest daughter ought to inherit 
 the same as sole heir to her father. But if he has neither 
 wife nor son nor daughter, then the youngest brother is to 
 inherit, and if he has no brother then the youngest sister ; 
 and if he has neither brother nor sister, then this is a rule 
 in the said custom that the youngest next of kin .... 
 ought and hath used to inherit and hold the lands to him 
 and his heirs for ever."^ 
 
 1 Shillibeer, Customs of Taunton Deane, 42 ; Locke, Customs of the 
 Manor of Taunton, 2; Watkins, Copyh. App. 12; CoUinson, Hist 
 Somerset, iii. 233. 
 
Origins of English History. 195 
 
 When we pass to the Continent, we find examples too 
 numerous to be mentioned in detail : but their distribution 
 will appear sufficiently from the following general list : — 
 
 a. The Junior-right existed under the names of 
 " Mainetd" and " Madelstad," and in forms ranging be- 
 tween the descent of the whole inheritance and the privi- 
 leged succession to articles of household furniture, in 
 Picardy Artois and Hainault, in Ponthieu and Vivier, in 
 the districts round Arras, Douai, Amiens, Lille and 
 Cassel, and in the neighbourhood of St. Omer.^ The 
 same custom has been noticed at Grimberghe in Brabant.* 
 
 ^ Bouthors. " Coutflmes locales du Bailliage d' Amiens," (Amiens, 
 1853). The following is a list of the customary districts in Picardy and 
 Artois, described by M. Bouthors : "Adinfer, Arras, Bavaincourt, Blairville, 
 Brontelle, Callien, Croy, Gouy, Gu^mappes, Hebuterne, Homoy, Lig- 
 niferes, Rassery, Rettembes, Rdzencourt, Selincourt, Warlus, Wancour." 
 See Corner's Borough-English, 13; Merlin, Repertoire, "Maineti"; 
 Ducange, " Mainefe^' and the Flemish Custumals of Lille and Cassel. 
 The word " madelstad," as there used, seems to signify " manoir," or 
 "principal dwelling-house." M. Bouthors classifies the customs as 
 follows : — (i) Privilege du puind, maisnd fils ou maisnde fiUe, sur cer- 
 taines successions: Coutlimes i. 177, 199, 384, 389, 406, 428; ii. 269 
 272,274, 305, 389. (2). Choix d'un manoir, ii. 219, 277, 366, 517 
 (3). Chef-lieu ou principal manoir, i. 167, 182; ii. 419, 432, 495, 615, 
 617. (4). La maison des pfere et mbre appelde Quief-mez, ii. 622. (5) 
 Restrictions. Le maisnd prend la moiti^, &c., ii. 286, 366, 498, 505, 622 
 666, 700. (6). Prdciput mobilier, Choix de trois pieces de manage, &c. 
 ii. 420, 432. We may add one or two examples from the Coutdme de 
 Saint Omar : — " Quand le trefas du dernier vivant est advenu . . . le fils 
 maisnk peut, cotnme en Bredenarde, avoir la manoir ainsy que I'avoif le 
 dernier vivant, en grandeur de cincq quarterons de terre, S^c. Et Id ou il 
 riy a nulfils, le droit appartient d, la fille puisnk." (Audruic), p. 253, 265. 
 ^'Le fils mains Agi peut retenir le manoir qu^avoit le dernier vivant desdits 
 pire et mire de la grandeur de cinq quartiers de terre, di^c.'' (Bredenarde), 
 p. 147, Append, xiii. 
 
 '^ " C'Hait le plus jeunefils qui Mritait de la propri'etk patemelle dans le 
 Pays de Grimberghe en Brabant." Bastian, Rechtsverhaltniss. 185. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 Origins of English History. 
 
 b. Similar customs were prevalent in many parts of 
 Friesland. The most noticeable of these was the " Jus 
 Theelacticum" or custom of the " Theel-Iands," doles or 
 allottable lands, at Norden in East Friesland not far from 
 the mouth of the Ems. The " Theel-boors " of this dis- 
 trict continued even in the present century to hold their 
 allotments under a complicated system of rules designed 
 to prevent an unprofitable subdivision of estates. An 
 inherited allotment was indivisible : on the death of the 
 father it passed intact to the youngest son, and on his 
 death without issue it fell into the possession of the whole 
 community.^ 
 
 c. Another set of instances may be taken from local 
 customs, now superseded by the Civil Code, in Westphalia 
 and those parts of the Rhine provinces which were under 
 the " Saxon Law," and in the Department of Herford 
 near Minden, of which the natives claim to belong to the 
 purest Saxon race. So strong, we are told, is the hold of 
 the custom on the peasants that " until quite recently no 
 elder child ever demanded his legal obligatory share : the 
 
 1 " Es ist gleichwohl ein grosser Unterschied zwischen Erb-Theelen und 
 angekauften Theelen, welches aus nachfolgenden Exempel leichtiich zu 
 vernehmen. Hat ein Vater in einem Theel ein Erb-Theel und hat 
 zugleich viele Sohne und der Vater stirbet so behalt der Jiingste Sohn die 
 Erb-Theele fiir sich allein, als des Vaters jiingster Erbe, die andern 
 Briider aber mogen als eheliche Erben ein jeder ein Theele, so bald sie 
 sich verheurathet, und eher nicht angreiffen und Bauren-Recht thun und 
 verrichten. Hat er aber ein Kauff-Theel, und verstirbert, so konnten die 
 kinder, so viel deren sind, ein jeglicher einen ganzen Theel, wie vorhin 
 von denen Erb-Theelen vermeldet, nicht angreiffen, sondern dann 
 dividiren sie einen Theele unter sich allein." Wenckebach, Jus Theelach- 
 ticum Redivimm (1759), p. 69. See Edinb. Rev. (1819), vol. xxxii. for 
 an article on the Frisian Customs ; and Robertson's " Early Kings," ii. 
 253, 266. But the rules are difficult of comprehension except by the 
 light of the cases and references in Wenckebach's elaborate treatise. 
 
Origins of English History. 197 
 
 children acquiesced in the succession of the youngest, 
 even if no portions were left to them, and never dreamed 
 of claiming under the law of indefeasible inheritance ; and 
 even if the peasant die without making the usual will the 
 children acquiesce in the passing of the undivided inherit- 
 ance to the youngest son."^ 
 
 d. A fashion of a similar kind has grown up in Silesia 
 and in certain parts of Wiirtemberg, where the laws of 
 succession have failed to break down the time-honoured 
 privilege of the youngest, whose rights are preserved by a 
 secret settlement or By the force of the local opinion.^ 
 
 e. There are properties called " Hofgiiter" in the 
 Forest of the Odenwald, and in the thinly populated dis- 
 trict to the north of the Lake of Constance, which cannot 
 be divided, but descend to the youngest son or in default 
 of sons to the eldest daughter. And many examples 
 might be found in Suabia, in the Grisons, in Elsass and 
 other German or partly German countries, where old 
 customs of this kind have existed and still influence the 
 feelings of the peasantry although they have ceased to be 
 legally binding.* 
 
 f. There is no sign of the Junior-right in Denmark or 
 on the Scandinavian mainland. But the youngest son has 
 
 1 Foreign Office Report on Tenure of Land, 1869, i. 235, 424 (Harris- 
 Gastrell). 
 
 ' Report on Tenures, i. 79, ii. 133. A similar practice has been 
 noticed in the country round Winhoring on the Inn, near Neu-Otting in 
 Bavaria. 
 
 ' Report on Tenures, i. 94. For other instances see Ducange, "Mainete," 
 "Locum habuisse in famiHa Hochstatana auctor est Guicciardinus in 
 Pescriptione Belgii." "In Carvei erbte der jiingste Sohn das Haus. 
 Im Hofe Or folgte der alteste, im Hofe Chor der jiingste Sohn." Grimm, 
 Alterth, 475. For Elsass, see Bastian, Rechtsverh., 185 ; as to Altenburg, 
 see Getting. Gelehrt. Anz. (1865), 453. 
 
198 Origins of English History. 
 
 his privilege in the Island (once the Kingdom) of Born- 
 holm, an outlying appendage of the Danish Crown : and 
 the traces of a similar right have been observed in the 
 territory of the old Republic of Lubeck.' 
 
 ^. In the south and west of Russia it is becoming the 
 fashion to break up the joint families and to establish the 
 children in houses of their own ; and it is said that the 
 youngest son is regarded in such cases as the proper suc- 
 cessor to the family dwelling-house. In the northern 
 provinces, however, the ordinary rule of primogeniture is 
 preferred. 
 
 The general similarity of the customs which we have 
 found alike among Celts Germans and Slavonians must lead 
 to the belief that they had their origin in some common 
 principle, as it would appear that the youngest son has a 
 special interest in the place which the parents have in- 
 habited. But so capriciously is the belief distributed and 
 in such widely separated areas, that it seems impossible to 
 ascertain the lines along which it has passed or the centres 
 from which it has radiated. The explanations which have 
 been put forward are too narrow to cover the facts ; and 
 on the wider survey which has only of late years become 
 possible we are forced to surrender the arguments which 
 found an origin for the custom in the principles of the 
 English law. 
 
 We need not repeat the stories which passed current a 
 century ago, accounting for the preference of the youngest 
 by the tyranny of heathen lords, wild tales of barbarism, 
 and fantastic legends of Thule. Nor need it be supposed 
 that (in the words of an eminent antiquary) " the custom 
 
 1 Report on Tenure of Land (1869), 9, 194. 
 
Origins of English History. 199 
 
 was catched we know not how, and by the name may- 
 seem to have been brought in by some whimsical odd 
 Angle that meant to cross the world." ^ Nor do we attach 
 importance to that passage in the preface of Thomas de 
 Walsingham where he derives the Danish practice from 
 an age before the taking of Troy.^ The reason advanced 
 by Littleton " had a greater air of probability," and it may 
 be taken as the best exposition of the arguments which a 
 lawyer might employ if engaged in supporting the custom. 
 For it is true, no doubt, that "the youngest son after the 
 death of his parents* is least able to help himself and most 
 likely to be destitute of other support ; and therefore (as 
 we are told) the custom provided for his maintenance by 
 casting the inheritance upon him."^ The commentator 
 added that this would appear to be the true reason, if one 
 considered where the practice had prevailed ; for in an 
 ancient borough a tradesman could expect no more than a 
 competent maintenance and a convenient habitation; "as 
 he was not rich himself he could not bring up his sons to 
 idleness, but found it most for his own ease and their 
 benefit to send them out into the world advanced with a 
 portion of his goods ; but as the youngest son was last in 
 turn he was the child, if any, left unadvanced at the death 
 of his father, and therefore the custom prudendy directed 
 the descent of the real estate, generally little more than 
 the father's house, where it was most wanted." And 
 where the usage prevailed in country districts, it was 
 easy in the same way to account for it by the poverty of 
 the tenants ; " being men of the meanest sort and con- 
 
 1 N. Bacon, Laws of England (1739), 66; Corner, Borough-English, 4. 
 
 2 See Blackstone, Comm. ii. 2, 6 ; Walsingham, Ypodeigma Neustriae, i, 
 5 Littleton's Tenures, s. 167, 211 ; Year-book, 8 Edw. IV., 19a. 
 
200 Origins of English History. 
 
 dition, below the hopes of breeding their sons to be gen- 
 tlemen, the elder sons applied themselves to husbandry, 
 or obtained farms for themselves on the same hard terms 
 as before ; and the small advantage of the father's tene- 
 ment was left to descend to the youngest son, as a mean 
 support of his infancy."^ 
 
 Sir Henry Maine has connected the growth of the right 
 with the prerogative of the father, as head and master of 
 the family. The unemancipated son would be preferred 
 in the inheritance "according to ideas which appear to 
 have once been common to the Romans, to the Welsh and 
 Irish Celts, and to the original observers, whoever they 
 were, of the English custom." ^ Others have traced it, by 
 a similar train of thought, to a practice observed by 
 Tacitus. It was not the German habit for anyone to bear 
 arms before his capacity was approved by the State. A 
 chieftain, in a public meeting, or the father or one of the 
 kinsmen, invested the boy with a spear and shield. That 
 was their way of coming of age, the first step towards 
 honour. " Up to that time the boy was regarded as part 
 of a household, but afterwards as a member of the Com- 
 monwealth." ' It is assumed, but without much reason, 
 that this entitled a young man to be supported in future 
 by the State ; and that in general the youngest son alone 
 would remain in a subordinate position as part of his 
 father's household.* While there was land enough to spare 
 the emancipated children would be independent of the 
 family ; and by the time that all the lands had been distri- 
 
 1 These comments on the origin of Borough-English are taken from the 
 Appendix to Robinson's " Gavelkind." 
 
 2 Maine, Early Hist. Inst. 224. s Tac. Germ. c. 13. 
 '* Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, ii. 268. 
 
Origins of English History. 201 
 
 buted, in a later stage of society, the right of the youngest 
 would have risen in dignity, and his brothers would have 
 lost their inheritance merely because some of their ancestors 
 had received an original allotment. 
 
 When we look to the actual words of Tacitus,^ it seems 
 far more probable that the Germans of his day divided the 
 inheritance among all the sons, with some reservation of a 
 birthright or extra share for the eldest. A privilege of 
 this kind was secured by the customs of many districts to 
 the eldest son or daughter ; the house and a plot of land 
 "as far as a chicken could fly," or particular articles of 
 furniture, were exempted from the usual partition : and in 
 some parts of Westphalia the descent of the peasants' 
 farms has always been from father to eldest son.^ 
 
 Notwithstanding the affection displayed for the sister's 
 children, a man's own sons, said Tacitus, succeeded to 
 the whole of his property ; and if there were no sons, the 
 next in degree to inherit were the brothers and the uncles 
 on both sides. So we are told that the wife's portion of 
 cattle and armour was left to descend to her sons ; and it 
 was only in one tribe that the war-horse was given to the 
 son who was most distinguished for bravery, instead of 
 
 1 Tac. Germ. 18, 20, 32. In the last passage the usual reading is, 
 "Excipit fiiius non ut cetera maxiraus natu." The MSS. have "ut exstat," 
 which makes no sense. It is open to conjecture that "ut ceteri" may 
 have been the original. 
 
 ^ Report on Tenures, i. 235, 427. Compare Grimm: "Die oldeste 
 sohne were neger bi den lande to bliven;" Loener Hof-Recht. s. 49. 
 " Noch heut zu Tag pflegt bei manchen Erbschaften der alteste Sohn oder 
 die alteste TxDchter einige Stiicke voraus zu empfangen ;" Alterth. 475. 
 Compare the French customary privilege called "Vol du chapon." "Gentil- 
 homme qui n'a que des filles, les doit partager tgalement ; mais Vainee outre 
 sa portion aura la maison patermlk et le vol du cMpon." Etabliss. St. 
 Louis, i. 10. 
 
202 Origins of English History. 
 
 passing as an heir-loom to the eldest according to the 
 German fashion. 
 
 It is in the history of primogeniture that we must look 
 for the origin of the privilege of the youngest. The rights 
 of the eldest have been collected from many sources ; but 
 at present we shall not stop to consider how the right of 
 the eldest heir to the kingdom was established in the 
 Middle Ages, or by what steps an artificial rule of inherit- 
 ance was extended by the feudal lawyers. The point of 
 importance for our argument is that an ancient custom of 
 primogeniture or benefit of eldership prevailed in many 
 parts of England before the feudal system was invented. 
 
 In Bede's Life of St. Benedict a passage occurs which 
 shows that some such privilege was even in his day 
 reserved to the eldest son " as the first-fruits of the family," 
 when a heritage came to be divided according to the laws 
 of Northumbria.^ In some parts of the country this birth- 
 right took the form of a succession to the house or the 
 best of the houses, or to the best of each kind of furniture. 
 In the district known as Archenfield, between Hereford 
 and Monmouth, where the oldest local codes show a 
 curious mixture of Welsh and English customs, the house 
 and lands were divided between the sons on the death of 
 their father : but there is this difference, says the ancient 
 record of their laws,^ that certain principals, as they call 
 them, pass to the eldest as heirlooms, and are not subject 
 to partition, such as the best bed and furniture, the best 
 
 1 " Quomodo terreni parentes, quem primum partu fuderint, eum prin- 
 cipium liberorum suorum cognoscere, et ceteris in partienda sua heredi- 
 tate praeferendum ducere solent." Bade, Vita S. Bened. s. ii. 
 
 "^ Rot. de Quo Warn 20 Edw. I. ; Blount's Tenures, 165 ; and Hazlitt's 
 edition under " Irchinfield." 
 
Origins of English History. 
 
 table and the like, all which the men of Archenfield retain 
 as derived to them from great antiquity even before the 
 Norman Conquest. And so by the custom of the Hun- 
 dred of Stretford^ in Oxfordshire the eldest son was 
 entitled to keep for his "principals" the best article of 
 every kind of chattel, as the best waggon and plough, the 
 best table and chair, the best of the chests and cups and 
 platters. A right of this kind was very common in 
 France, where the benefit of the eldest was known as the 
 Priciput. 
 
 The preference of the eldest daughter in succession to 
 the cottages and little tenancies of the copyholders in 
 several English districts appears to indicate the survival 
 of some ancient leaning towards primogeniture, inde- 
 pendent in its origin from the maxim of the feudal policy 
 that certain dignities offices and castles held by " the law 
 of the sword," should be inheritable by the eldest co- 
 heiress.^ The traces of such a custom are found in the 
 Isle of Man, in the extensive domains of Castlerigg and 
 Derwentwater in Cumberland, Kirkby Lonsdale in West- 
 morland, Weardale in Durham, and in several parts of 
 the Southern and Midland Counties.' At Tynemouth it 
 
 1 Coke, First Inst. i8 b. 
 
 ^ Bracton, De Legibus, ii. 76; Coke, First Inst. 165 a. 
 
 ' For the custom in the Isle Man, see Camden's Britannia, i4S4; 
 King, Descr. Isle of Man; Isle of Man Statutes, 1643, 1703, 1777. 
 For the Northern Counties, Nicholson and Burn's Hist. Westmorland, 
 and other local histories ; Real Prop. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. 4; Kenny, 
 Primogeniture (Cambridge, 1878), 39. For the custom of Tynemouth, 
 see Robinson, Gavelkind, c. 2, and Appendix. See also Watkins, Copy- 
 holds, Appendix; and Blount's Tenures, and Coke, First Inst. 140 b, 
 for similar customs in the following list of manors : Bray in Berkshire, 
 Marden in Herefordshire, Cashiobury and St. Stephens in Hertfordshire, 
 Middleton Cheney in Northamptonshire, Chertsey Beaumond, Farnham, 
 
204 Origins of English History. 
 
 was the local law that the eldest daughter surviving her 
 parents should take the father's estate for her life. And 
 in some of the southern manors the primogeniture of 
 females is not confined to daughters, but extends in some 
 places to the eldest sister or aunt and elsewhere to rela- 
 tions in more distant degrees. 
 
 A similar distinction between the feudal rule and the 
 ancient rustic custom may be found in the writings of the 
 great jurists who explained the nature of the English 
 common law. 
 
 We should first consider that remarkable passage from 
 Glanville which is equally applicable to the state of 
 England and Scotland in the twelfth century. In the first 
 place he took the case of a knight or a tenant by military 
 service. To such the new Norman law was applicable, 
 and the firstborn son succeeded to the whole of his 
 father's property. But if the estate was held by a 
 money-rent or by the rendering of agricultural services, 
 which was called a tenure in socage, the custom of the 
 district was left to determine whether the inheritance 
 should pass to all the sons, or to the eldest, or to the 
 youngest. "If he were d. free-socman, the inheritance in 
 that case will be divided among all the sons according to 
 their number in equal shares, if this socage tenement were 
 partible by ancient custom ; the chief messuage being, 
 however, reserved for the firstborn son in honour of his 
 seniority, but on the terms of his making compensation 
 to his other brothers from the rest of his property. But 
 if it were not anciently partible then by the custom of 
 
 Worplesdon, and Pirbright, all in Surrey; the same usage appears at 
 Cheltenham, according to one edition of the customs, and at Framfield in 
 Sussex, where it applied only to "Assart Lands." 
 
Origins of English History. 205 
 
 some places the firstborn son will take the whole inherit- 
 ance but by the custom of others the youngest son is 
 the heir."i 
 
 In the course of the century following the rule of primo- 
 geniture was extended in several directions. The King 
 claimed a prerogative of abolishing such laws and customs 
 as diminished the strength of the kingdom, or at least 
 to change them by his special grace in the case of a 
 deserving and faithful follower ; and the right was freely 
 exercised in Kent, bofh by the King and the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury to whbm the privilege was delegated, until 
 it was disallowed in part by the judges in the reign of 
 Edward II., and soon afterwards became wholly obsolete.^ 
 
 ^ " Cum quis hsereditatem habens moriatur, si unicum filium hseredem 
 habuerit, indistinct^ verum est quod filius ille patri suo succedit in toto. 
 Si plures reliquerit filios tunc distinguitur utrum ille fuerit miles seu per 
 feodum militare tenens, an liber sockmannus. Quia si miles fuerit vel per 
 militiam tenens, tunc secundum jus regni Anglise primogenitus filius patri 
 succedit in totum, ita quod nuUus fratrum suorum partem inde da jure 
 petere potest. Si vero fuerit liber sockmannus tunc quideni dividetur 
 hsereditas inter omnes filios quotquot sunt per partes aequales, si fuerit 
 socagium illud antiquitus divisum ; salvo tamen capitali messuagio primo- 
 genito filio pro dignitate eesnecise suae, ita tamen quod in aliis rebus satis- 
 faciat aliis ad valentiam. Si vero non fuerit antiquitus divisum, tunc 
 primogenitus secundum quorundam consuetudinem totam haereditatem 
 obtinebit ; secundum autem quorundam consuetudinem postnatus filius 
 hseres est. Item si filiam tantum unam reliquerit quis heredem, tunc id 
 obtinet indistinct^ quod de filio dictum est. Sin autem plures filias, tunc 
 quidem indistinct^ inter ipsas dividetur hereditas, sive fuerit miles sive 
 sokemannus pater earum, salvo tamen primogenitse filiae capitali mes- 
 suagio sub formi prKscripta." — Glanv. vii. 3. 
 
 ^ The question was discussed in Gatewyk's Case, commenced in 6 
 Edw. II. and adjourned into the Common Pleas j 9 Edw. II. C. B. Rot. 
 240 ; Rot. Cart. 4 Edw. I. No. 17. The Charter on which the case turned 
 will be found in the Abbreviatio Placitorum, in Robinson's Gavelkind, c. 5, 
 and Tenures of Kent, 369. This "notable record" contains a plea, 
 
2o6 Origins of English History. 
 
 There are even indications that such a right was claimed 
 by some of the barons without a special licence from the 
 Crown. It appears at any rate that Simon de Montfort 
 granted a charter dated in 1255 "whereby as a great 
 
 that the tenure of the land was changed to knight-service by the grant 
 of the lord, confirmed by the King, and ought therefore to descend to 
 the eldest son : the King wrote a letter to the judges informing them 
 of his prerogative, but apparently without much effect; and in the 
 course of his letter he quoted at length the following charter granted by 
 Edward I. : — 
 
 " Edwardus, Dei gratii .... archiepiscopis &c. et fidelibus suis salutem. 
 Ad regise celsitudinis potestatem pertinet et ofificium, ut partium suarum 
 leges et consuetudines, quas justas et utiles censet, ratas habeat, et obser- 
 vari faciat inconcussas ; illas autem, quae regni robur quandoque diminuere 
 potius quam augere aut conservare videntur, abolere convenit, aut saltern 
 in melius apud fideles sues et bene meritos de speciali gratii commutare: 
 cumque ex diutinS, consuetudine, quae in comitatu Kanciae quoad divi- 
 sionem et partitionem terrarum et tenementorum, quae in gavelikendam 
 tenere solent, frequenter acciderit, ut terrae et tenementa, quae in quorun- 
 dam manibus Integra ad magnum regni subsidium et ad victum multorum 
 decenter sufRcere solent, in tot partes et particulas inter cohaeredes post- 
 modum distracta sunt et divisa, ut eorum nuUi pars sua saltem sufficere 
 possit ad victum: Nos obsequium laudabile dilecti et fidelis nostri 
 Johannis de Cobeham, quod nobis gratanter exhibuit, gratia speciali et 
 honore prosequi volentes, concedimus eidem et prascipimus pro nobis et 
 haeredibus nostris ut omnes terrae et tenementa sua quae ad gavelykendam 
 in feodo tenet et habet in comitatu praedicto ad primogenitum suum vel 
 alium haeredem suum propinquiorem post ipsum, sicut et ilia quae per 
 serjantiam tenet vel per servitium militare, integre et absque partitione 
 inter alios inde facienda descendant, et eidem et ejus hasredibus sub 
 eidem lege, salvis in omnibus capitalibus dominis suis servitiis et con- 
 suetudinibus, aliisque rebus omnibus quae ad eos de dictis tenementis 
 pertinere solent imperpetuum remaneant ; praesertim cum in nuUius prae- 
 judicium cedere videatur, si circa terras et possessiones, quas aliis extra- 
 neis licenter concedere posset, ad ejus instantiam et consensum succes- 
 sionis suae modum commutemus. Quare volumus et firmiter prsecipimus 
 pro nobis et haeredibus nostris, quod omnes terrse et tenementa, quae 
 praedictus Johannes in gavelykendam in feodo tenet et habet in comitatu 
 pr^dicto, ad primogenitum suum vel alium haeredem suum propinquiorem 
 
Origins of English History. 207 
 
 favour to his burgesses of Leicester, at their earnest suppH- 
 cation and for the benefit of the town, and with the full 
 assent of all the burgesses, the Earl granted to them that 
 thenceforward the eldest son should be the heir of his 
 father instead of the youngest, as was then the custom of 
 the town."' But the same effect was afterwards obtained 
 over a great part of the country by the more simple 
 method of reversing the old presumption that primogeniture 
 was a local exception to the ordinary rule of partition, and 
 by requiring special proof of the existence of a custom to 
 exclude the eldest sdh. 
 
 In the time of Bracton, whose treatise was published at 
 the end of the reign of Henry III., the old customs of 
 primogeniture (as opposed to the Norman rule), appear 
 to have been confined to those more privileged holdings 
 of the peasants, which were then known as " villein-socage," 
 and which developed afterwards into copyholds.^ 
 
 The same kind of custom occurred in Normandy, not 
 only in the fiefs held by military service, but in the case of 
 
 post ipsum, sicut et ilia quae per serjantiam tenet vel per servitium mili- 
 tare, integre absque partitione inter alios inde facienda descendant, et 
 eidem et ejus haeredibus sub eMem lege, salvis in omnibus capitalibus 
 dominis suis servitiis et consuetudinibus, aliisque rebus omnibus, quae ad 
 eos de dictis tenementis pertinere solent, imperpetuum remaneant, sicut 
 prsedictum est. His Testibus, &c.'' Dated May 4th, 4 Edw. I. 
 
 ' Corner, Borough-English in Sussex, 12. 
 
 2 "Si liber socmannus moriatur pluribus relictis et participibus, si 
 haereditas partibilis sit et ab antique divisa, quotquot erunt habeant partes 
 suas aequales; et si unicum fuerit messuagium, illud integre remaneat 
 primogenito, ita tamen quod alii habeant ad valentiam de communi. Si 
 autem haereditas non fuerit divisa ab antique, tunc tota remaneat primo- 
 genito. Si autem socagium fuerit villanum, tunc consuetudo loci est 
 observanda ; est enim consuetudo in quibusdam partibus quod postnatus 
 praeferatur primogenito, et e contrario." De Legibus, ii. 76 ; Fleta, v. c. 9, 
 fol. 313. 
 
2o8 Origins of English History. 
 
 the farmers and cottagers, whose eldest sons might retain 
 their parents' homesteads. And by the special usage of 
 the Pays de Caux and of certain districts in Picardy the 
 eldest son had exclusive, or almost exclusive, rights from a 
 period of unknown antiquity.^ 
 
 There are other relics of the same ancient system to be 
 found among Celtic Teutonic and Scandinavian peoples. 
 In Ireland, for example, "the cattle and land were equally 
 divided, but the house and offices went in addition to his 
 own share to the eldest son.^ And so in Norway, under 
 
 1 " Z« fils aisn'e au droit de son aisnesse pent prendre et choisir par 
 precipu tel fief ou terre noble que bon lui semble." Coutiime de Normandie, 
 337. " S'il n'y a qu'un manoir roturier aux champs, anciennement appell'e 
 Hehergement et Chef d'Hkritage en toute la succession, I'aisnt peut avant que 
 faire lots et partages, dklarer en justice qu'il le retient avec la court clos et 
 jardin, en baillant rkcompense d ses puisnes.'' Ibid. 356. " L'aisni faisant 
 partage . . . pent retenir par precipu le Lieu Chevels . . . anciennement 
 appelle Hebergement, soil en ville ou en champs, de quelque estendue qi^il soit, 
 ^c.'' Usage locale de Bayeux, Coutumier General, iv. 77, 78, 94. "Z'«- 
 meurant le manoir et pourpris en son integrite au profit de I'aisne, sans qu'il 
 en puisse etre disposk a son prejudice, ny qu'il soit tenu en faire recompense 
 ausdits puisnez." Succ. au Bailliage de Caux, ibid. 74. " On a pen de 
 lumiire (says Richebourg, in his learned note on the last-cited passage), 
 touchant torigine des CouMmes du Bailliage de Caux. Ce qui paroist plus 
 vrai-semblable est que le Fays de Caux, sipari du reste de la Province de 
 Normandie par la rivilre de Seine, faisoit partie de la Gaule Belgique; car 
 dttoit cette riviire qui distinguoit la Gaule Celtique de la Belgique. Et 
 comme ces peuples Hoient diffkrens dans leurs mceurs que par les CoutHmes 
 des Beiges qu'ils avoient tirtes des Allemands leurs voisins tout I'heritage 
 demeuroit d. Vaisn'e, les Cauchois qui faisoient partie des Beiges avoient aussi 
 conserve le meme usage. On voit en> effet que dans la Province voisine du 
 Pays de Caux, qui est la Picardie, laquelle ktoit aussi de la Belgique, la 
 condition des aisnez y est avantageuse. Les Cauchois, quoique r'eunis sous un 
 meme Souverain avec la reste de la Normandie, continulrent den user 
 comme auparavant." 
 
 ^ Hearne, Aryan Household, 80, 82 ; Sullivan, Introd. to O'Curr/s 
 Lectures, clxxix. 
 
Origins of English History. 209 
 
 the " Odal-law," every freeholder, according to Pontoppi- 
 dan, had vanity enough to think himself as good as a 
 noble : " and this law consists" (he said) " in having from 
 time immemorial the right of primogeniture united with 
 the right of redeeming the land from purchasers, which has 
 always existed in Norway."' If we turn to the ancient 
 world we find that at Athens the eldest son took the 
 father's house as an extra share by virtue of his "Presbeia" 
 or privilege of eldership.^ And so by the Laws of Manu 
 the eldest son was entitled to a double share.* The sons 
 were directed to divide the patrimony ; but before the 
 partition they were all under the rule of the eldest. 
 
 As to the origin of these customary rights we shall find 
 the best and the earliest explanation in some passages of 
 the Laws of Manu. The eldest son, it was said, had his 
 very being for the purpose of accomplishing the rites of 
 the family religion, of offering the funeral cake, of pro- 
 viding the repasts for the spirits of the dead. The right 
 of pronouncing the prayers belongs to him who came into 
 the world the first. " A man must regard his elder brother 
 as equal to his father. ... By the eldest, at the moment of 
 his birth, the father discharges his . debt to his own pro- 
 genitors : the eldest son ought therefore before partition 
 to manage the whole of the patrimony." 
 
 Sir Henry Maine has drawn a distinction between such 
 
 1 Pontoppidan, Nat. Hist. Norway, ii. c. 10, s. 6; (English edition, 
 p. 289). 
 
 ^ Demosth., Pro Phormione 34 ; and see Coulanges, La Cite Antique, 
 92. The most ancient Roman customs are unknown, owing to the Re- 
 volution in B.C. 450, resulting in the establishment of the Laws of the 
 Twelve Tables. 
 
 * Laws of Manu, ix. 105, 106, 107, 126; see the whole section on 
 " Le droit d'Ainesse," in c. 6 of " La Cite Antique." 
 
 P 
 
2IO Origins of English History. 
 
 "customs of the tribe" and that strict modern form of 
 primogeniture which he has traced to the power of the 
 chieftain. Taking primogeniture in the sense of an ex- 
 clusive succession of the eldest son to property, he finds 
 no sign of its existence before the irruption of the bar- 
 barians into the provinces of the Roman Em.pire. It was 
 -unknown, he says, to the Hellenic and the Roman world. 
 " Even when the Teutonic races spread over Western 
 Europe, they did not bring with them primogeniture as 
 their ordinary rule of succession : the allodial property of 
 the Teutonic freeman, that share which he had theoreti- 
 cally received at the original settlement on their domain 
 of the brotherhood to which he belonged, was divided 
 at his death, when it was divided at all, equally between 
 his sons or equally between his sons and daughters,"^ 
 
 There is no necessary opposition between this state- 
 ment and the theory of M. De Coulanges. The former 
 is dealing with that official primogeniture which became 
 the bond of the feudal society, a prerogative of the King 
 the chief or the manager of the undivided household 
 over a demesne which belonged to them in a special 
 sense and descended as an appanage of office to their 
 successors. The other is confined to those old customs of 
 the Aryan household which connected the position of the 
 eldest son with the duty of guarding the hearth and per- 
 forming the family rites : and from that source is traced 
 the wide-spread local usage that the eldest son should 
 take his father's dwelling-house when a property fell into 
 partition. There is nothing perhaps which marks more 
 
 1 Maine, Early Hist. Inst., 198. The admission of the daughters to 
 inherit by the Visigoths and other Teutonic nations must apparently be 
 ascribed to the influence of the Roman Law. 
 
Origins of English History. 2 1 1 
 
 distinctly the inherent difference between these forms of 
 primogeniture than the fact, that in the local customs it is 
 not usually a double share or a larger value which is given 
 to the eldest son but a privilege of retaining the hearth- 
 place on condition of making compensation to the others 
 who shared the inheritance. 
 
 We need not repeat the details of the domestic religion. 
 It is enough to observe that in the East and the West, in 
 the ancient and modern world, we find abundant traces of 
 the worship of the deifie d an cestors, the househ old g ods, to 
 whom the father offfered prayers and fragments from the 
 common meal and for whom the mother of the household 
 maintained the perpetual fire. The spirits of the dead 
 fathers were thought to haunt the fireplace as well as the 
 ancestral tomb, and to bring prosperity or plagues upon 
 their race according to the observance or neglect of the 
 daily offerings of meat and drink and of the annual obla- 
 tions at the Feast of the Dead.^ 
 
 The private religion of the Celts, of the Germans and 
 Scandinavians, and of the kindred nations to the eastward 
 appears in each case to have been charged with an antique 
 symbolism which can only be referred to some similar 
 worship of the dead and to services performed in their 
 honour at the fire or by their family graves. A few of 
 these superstitions deserve a more particular mention. We 
 will select in the first place those relating to the veneration 
 for the fire, and afterwards one or two examples relating 
 to funeral rites and the propitiation of the household spirits. 
 
 The Scottish and Irish chronicles are full of instances of 
 the use of prayers and ceremonies on the lighting of fires 
 
 1 Maine, Anc. Law, 191 ; De Coulanges, Citk Antique, 33, 71; Revue- 
 Celtique, ii. 486. 
 
 P 2 
 
2 1 2 Origins of English History. 
 
 and candles, of the special sanctity of the hearth-place, so 
 that the " trampling of the cinders " was the worst of in- 
 dignities for the household, of the prohibition to take fire 
 from a cottage when the owner is attacked with illness. 
 We might compare what Pennant saw at christening-feasts 
 in the Highlands, where the father placed a basket of food 
 across the fire and handed the infant three times over the 
 food and the flame.^ Or one might recur to the " heirship- 
 ales " and solemn feasts described in the Northern Sagas, 
 where before the high-chair was ascended the loving-cup 
 or " remembrance-bowl " must be drunk in honour of the 
 dead, after passing the goblets backwards and forwards 
 through the fire in the centre of the hall or the temple. 
 The Princess Hildegonda, in one of the most lifelike of 
 the histories, makes ready at her father's command to carry 
 the ale round to the Vikings. She takes the silver cup 
 and bows as she begins the ceremonies ; and drinks 
 " Health to all Ylfing men : this cup to the memory of 
 Rolf Kraka." In a later form of the rite the honour of 
 the lovj:ng-cup was transferred from the dead ancestors to 
 St. John or St. Gertrude, some prophet or archangel 
 chosen as the patron of a family or a drinking-guild. We 
 see the point of transition in the story of the Vikings of 
 Jomsburg. King Swend of Norway was giving a "suc- 
 cession-feast" after the death of King Harold his father: 
 " and he sent word to the Vikings to come to drink the 
 funeral-ale for their fathers at the feast which he was 
 giving." The king's high-seat was on the middle of a 
 bench, and other benches were ranged round the central 
 
 1 Pennant, Tour in the Highlands, iii. 46 ; O'Curr/s Manners of the 
 Anc. Irish, intr. 278; Spenser's State of Ireland, 82, 99; Wood, Anc. 
 Irish, 170; Logan, Scott. Gael. ii. 337 ; Hearne, Aryan Household, 51. 
 
Origins of English History. 213 
 
 fire ; the ale was passed round in great bowls and was 
 handed through the flame ; the first day of the feast, 
 before King Swend went up into his father's seat he drank 
 the bowl to his father's memory, and made a solemn vow 
 to go with his army to England, and this heirship-bowl 
 all drank who were at the feast ; then the largest horn that 
 could be found was filled and drunk for the chiefs of the 
 Vikings ; when that bowl was emptied all men drank 
 another to Christ's remembrance, and a third to the memory 
 of St. Michael.^ 
 
 The subject might be illustrated by reference to a mul- 
 titude of superstitions connected with the family fire-place, 
 the reverence for the snake, the cricket, the moths flying 
 round the light, the " Welcome, Grandfather ! " of the 
 Russian peasant when the fire raked from the old stove is 
 brought to the new home of the family,^ the household 
 fairies for whom the hearth must be swept and food and 
 water left by night. It is probable that all the household 
 spirits, the Brownies and Pixies, the Irish " Pookas and 
 Leprachauns," the long-locked "Gruagach" for whom the 
 Highland girls leave bowls of milk on the "gruagach- 
 stones," are shadows or reminiscences of gods dethroned. 
 Burton's list of their labours will suffice for our purpose.^ 
 
 1 " Enn er that minni var afdruckit, thk scylldi drecka Cristz-minni aller 
 menn. Hit thridia var Michials minni, oc drucko that allir. Enn eptir 
 that drack Sigvalldi Jarl minni fodor sins," &c. Olaf Tryggvesson's 
 Saga, Heimskr. vi. c. 39. Compare Sagas, i. c. 41 ; iv. c. 16 ; vii. c. 113 ; 
 Lamg's Sea-kings of Norway, 1404; Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 357, 359 ; 
 Jomsviking Saga, c. 27. Grimm mentions the survival of " minne-drinking" 
 as a religious rite in some parts of Germany : a chalice of wine is blessed 
 by the priest and handed to the congregation to drink as /ohannis-Segen, 
 "St. John's Blessing;" Deutsch. Mythol. 52. 
 
 ^ Ralston, Songs of Russia, 120, 138. 
 
 ' Anatomy of Melancholy, i. 2, i. p. 125. 
 
214 Origins of English History. 
 
 In almost every family in Iceland, said his ancient authors, 
 they had some such familiar spirits, and they were common 
 in many places of France. " Paracelsus reckons up many 
 places in Germany where they do usually walk in little 
 coats some two feet long. A bigger kind there is of them 
 called hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows that would in 
 those superstitious times grind corn for a mess of milk, cut 
 wood, or do any manner of drudgery work, to draw water, 
 dress meat, or any such thing." These were the 
 " Fortunes," whom Gervase of Tilbury professed to have 
 known in England.^ They are described as little old men 
 with patched coats, who help in the housework and warm 
 themselves by the fire when the family have left the room. 
 They are represented in another form by Milton's "lubber- 
 fiend," by the Yorkshire " Boggart," Luridan of the Orkneys, 
 the German " Heinzelmanner" and Kobolds, the "Nisseys" 
 of the Danish and. Norwegian farms, and the "old man of 
 the house" to whom the Swedish peasant sets out an 
 annual dole of cloth and tobacco and a shovelful of 
 clay.^ 
 
 The ancient ritual survives in its strongest form in those 
 annual observances on the Feast of All Souls which were 
 common at one time to Celts Germans and Slavs and 
 which still survive in a modified form in almost every part 
 of Europe. Among the Slavs, as we are told,' a yearly 
 feast is held for the dead, to which the departed souls are 
 actually believed to return: "silently little bits of food 
 
 1 Gerv. Tilbur. Otia Imperialia, Script. Rer. Brunov. i. 980. A trans- 
 lation and many illustrative passages will be found in Keightley's Fairy 
 Mythology, 285. 
 
 ^ Keightley, 147 ; Grimm, Deutsch Mythol. 473, 492. 
 
 ^ Hearne, Aryan Household, 60 : Spenser, Sociol. I. App. A. 
 
Origins of English History. 2 1 5 
 
 are thrown for them under the table," and people have 
 believed " that they heard them rustle and saw them feed 
 on the smell and vapour of the food." In Brittany, says 
 Mr. Tylor, the crowd pours into the churchyard at even- 
 ing, " to kneel bareheaded at the grave of dead kinsfolk, 
 to fill the hollow of the tombstone with holy water or to 
 pour libations of milk upon it : in no household that night 
 is the cloth removed, for the supper must be left for the 
 souls to come to take their part ; nor must the fire be out, 
 where they will come to warm themselves." ^ 
 
 Some notice appears to be due to the Northern custom 
 of setting aside particular lands for bearing the expense 
 of a funeral. If a man had no descendant or kinsman 
 to give him proper burial, he might leave his estate 
 as Brande-Erbe or " burning-land " for an endowment 
 to meet the expense of the funeral pyre or the burial ; 
 and the friend who accepted the gift and undertook to 
 perform the necessary ceremonies was allowed to count 
 the land as part of his "Odal-land," or privileged family- 
 estate.^ This certainly looks as if there was a distinct 
 connection between the ideas of inheritance and of per- 
 forming the family ceremonies, just as among the Hindoos 
 " the right to inherit a dead man's property is exactly co- 
 extensive with the duty of performing his obsequies," 
 and as in ancient Rome an inheritance could not be dis- 
 
 1 Tylor, Prim. Cult. ii. 34. " Les mets sont laiss'es sur la table; car une 
 superstition touchante /aiti croire aux Bretons qu'd, cette heure ceux qu'ils 
 regrettent se Ihvent des cimetilres, et viennent prendre sous le toit qui les a vu 
 naltre leur repas annuel." Silvestre, Dern. Bret. i. 11. "On en voyoit 
 plusieurs . . . qui mettoient des pierres auprh dufeu . . afin que leur s per es 
 et leurs ancestres vinssent s'y chaufer d, I'aise." Revue Celtique, ii. 485. 
 
 ^ Robertson, Early Kings, ii. 323. These endowments were replaced 
 in Christian times by the numerous gifts in " francalmoigne." 
 
2 1 6 Origins of English History. 
 
 tributed under a will "without a strict apportionment of 
 the expenses of these ceremonies among the different 
 co-heirs."^ 
 
 By such indications we are led to the conclusion that 
 the oldest customs of inheritance in England and Germany 
 were in their remote beginnings connected with a domestic 
 religion and based upon a worship of ancestral spirits, of 
 which the hearth-place was essentially the shrine and altar; 
 and we are brought to the further conclusion that the old 
 form of primogeniture, by which the eldest got the advan- 
 tage of the father's house,- had come down from a people 
 who thought it right that the eldest son should take the 
 lead in the domestic priesthood and in the performance of 
 the funeral and commemorative ceremonies. 
 
 The question may be worth proposing, whether the 
 before-mentioned Celtic German and Slavonic forms of 
 the Junior-right may not have been derived from some 
 other domestic religion, based on the worship of ancestors 
 and a consequent reverence for the hearth-place, but be- 
 longing to a people who saw no natural pre-eminence in 
 the eldest. It may be impossible to prove the existence 
 of a race with such religious views in Europe within the 
 historical period. But there is evidence which tends in 
 that direction ; and it should be remembered that the 
 ethnologists have only lately begun their careful research 
 into the history of the peoples who spread outwards from 
 the Ural and Altai Ranges, their possible identity with. 
 the men of the Bronze Age in Northern Europe, and the 
 
 ^ Maine, Anc. Law, 191. " Les dieux qui conferlrent a chague famille 
 son droit sur la'terre, ce furent les dieux domestiques, le foyer et les manes. 
 La pre77iilre religion qui eut V empire sur leurs Ames fut aussi celle qui con- 
 stitua chez eux la Jiropriete." De Coulanges, Citd Antique, 7 1. 
 
Origins of English History. 217 
 
 traces which they may have left on the languages and 
 customs of the nations of our modern world. It seems to 
 be certain that some great proportion of the population of 
 the Western Countries is connected by actual descent with 
 the pre-Celtic occupants of Europe ; and it is regarded as 
 highly probable that one branch or layer of these earlier 
 inhabitants should be attributed to that Ugrian stock, 
 which comprises the Quains, Finns, Magydrs, Esthonians, 
 Livonians, and several kindred tribes whose territories 
 abut upon the Baltic the White Sea and the Volga. It is 
 said that a case can be made out for an early extension of 
 the Livonians or Liefs of Courland and of certain Estho- 
 nian races as far west as the Oder and possibly as far as 
 the mouth of the Elbe •} and we have seen that there is 
 reason to think that at one time some branches of the 
 Finnish race had reached as far west as the Atlantic 
 shores. On the other side of the world all the above- 
 mentioned nations are connected by blood with the 
 Mongols of Central Asia. 
 
 ' M. De Mes6-K6wesd, in the Report on the French Scientific Expe- 
 dition to Russia, Siberia and Turkestan (vol. iii. c. 3), has provisionally 
 classified the remaining Altaic peoples as follows : They form, he says, a 
 family of the Mongolic peoples, and are subdivided into several stocks, one 
 of which comprises the four divisions of the " Ugro-Finns." These four 
 divisions are distinguished as follows : a. Finns of the Baltic, or Western 
 Finns ; b. Eastern Finns ; c. the Finns of the Volga ; and d. the Ugrians 
 properly so-called. The Baltic Finns are further divided into two prin- 
 cipal classes, viz. Carelians, including the Scandinavian and Bothnian 
 Quains and the "Suomis" of the Baltic coast; and Tchuds, including the 
 Esthonians, the Livonians, and the almost lost " Cours " of Courland, the 
 "Votes" in the provinces of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, and the 
 "Vepses" or Northern Tchuds, living mostly in the neighbourhood of 
 the Lakes Ladoga and Onega. For evidence of the identity of the Bronze 
 Age men with tribes between the Amour and Volga, see Aspelin, Ant. 
 Nord. Finno-Ougrien (Paris, 1879), i. 45, 77. 
 
2i8 Origins of English History. 
 
 Among these widely-separated nations we find a con- 
 tinual recurrence of the rule that the youngest son ought 
 to inherit his father's dwelling-place. As early as the 
 days of Pere Du Halde it was known that the custom 
 prevailed among the Mongols of the Chinese Empire.^ 
 In Hungary it was the law of the country districts that 
 the youngest son should inherit the father's house, making 
 a proper compensation to the other coheirs for the pri- 
 vilege. Among the Northern Tchuds, although the chief 
 of the family can delegate his power to the eldest or 
 youngest son, or even to a stranger if he so pleases, yet 
 the house in which he lives must go to the youngest son 
 at his death.^ 
 
 We find traces among the same peoples of a worship of 
 ancestors connected with a respect for the family hearth.' 
 The following extract from the French report on the 
 peoples of Central Asia relates to the Northern Tchuds, 
 who maintain the privilege of the youngest son in its 
 
 1 " Utdschigin (Feuerhiiter) hiess der jiingste Sohn bei den Mongolen, 
 als erbend." Bastian, Rechtsverh. 185. See also Getting. Gelehrt. Anzeig. 
 (1865), 453. and Heidelb. Jahrb. (1864), 210. For the story of the pre- 
 ference of the youngest among the Scythians see Herod, iv. 5, 10 ; Berg- 
 mann, " Les Gltes" (Paris, 1859), 82; and as to Prester John, "fratrum 
 stiorum minimus" see Alberic. Trium Fontium. ii. 508. The latter instances 
 may be connected with the well-known preference of the youngest in the 
 fairy tales. 
 
 2 See the Essay by M. De Mezo-Kovesd, " Les Vepses ei leur pays!' 
 " Le grand-plre ou I'aieul est le chef absolu de la famille. II peut se fain 
 succeder comme chef de famille par le cadet de sesfils, si Vaini ou les autres 
 lui diplaisent pour une raison ou une autre . . . Le plre de famille a le 
 droit d'instituer comme son heritier qui bon lui semble parmi sa famille, mais 
 la maison quHl habile doit appartenir au plus jeune des fils." Report iii. 
 81, 82. For the Hungarian law, see Kovy, Summ. Jur. Hung. 351. 
 
 3 Keightley, Fairy Mythol. 488. Compare Burton, Anat. Melanch. i. 
 pt. 2, p. 125. 
 
Origins of English History. 219 
 
 simplest and most usual form. " L' esprit de la maison 
 est un farfadet, lutin bienfaisant qui se tient derniere le 
 poile. Si on laisse tomber du feu dans le foin, il I'^teint. 
 Quand on construit une nouvelle maison, on I'invite d 
 demeurer avec vous. On prend d cet effet de la cendre 
 dans le poile et on Vemporte dans la nouvelle maison. 
 Quand on ouvre la porte de la nouvelle maison, on doit 
 entrer du pied droit et jeter un pain noir dans la chambre. 
 Ensuite on fait entrer un coq, et si le coq chante cest un 
 bon signe, cela signifie que le lutin est la et qu'il prendra 
 sain des nouveaux arAvSs." ^ 
 
 When further information is obtained about the obscure 
 history of the Finns and their influence upon Western 
 Europe, it may become possible to prove that the custom 
 of descent to the youngest flowed as naturally from their 
 primitive institutions as the old custom of primogeniture 
 from the position which was given to the eldest in the 
 service of the family religion. 
 
 Meanwhile it should not be forgotten that there was 
 one magical possession, an idol of the domestic worship in 
 the mediaeval German households, which we find passing 
 at the father's death to the youngest son upon the express 
 condition that he performed certain heathenish rites in 
 
 i.De Mez6-K6vesd {Les Bachkirs, les Vhpes, &c.) iii. 84. Compare 
 Mr. Lang's Essay on the Folk-lore of France, Folk-lore Record, i. loi. 
 "The beliefs connected with the dead are of the ordinary kind. The 
 mattress on which any one dies is to be burned. ... In some places in 
 the Department of the Vosges the ashes are allowed to lie on the ground 
 all night, and if in the morning the trace of a footstep is found among 
 them it is supposed that the dead has returned. When one adds to these 
 beliefs the custom of sacrificing a cock when a family takes possession of 
 a new house, it is plain that remains of very early ' animistic ' and re- 
 ligious ideas survive among the peasantry." 
 
220 Origins of English History. 
 
 relation to the father's funeral. The " mandrake," a plant 
 with broad leaves and bright yellow flowers and with a 
 root which grew in a semi-human form, was found beneath 
 the public gallows and was dragged from the ground and 
 carried home with many extraordinary ceremonies. When 
 secured, it became a familiar spirit, speaking in oracles if 
 properly consulted and bringing good luck to the house- 
 hold in which it was enshrined.^ We are not concerned 
 with the mystical powers of Mandragoras, which was the 
 Fie Magloire and " Hand of Glory" of the later magicians 
 who mistook the meaning of the word. But it is very 
 
 1 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 1153; Rechts-Alterth. 475; Deutsche 
 Sagen, No. 83 ; Roth, De Imagunculis Germanoium. 1737. The nature 
 of the worship of the mandrake appears very clearly in Keysler's account 
 of an idol of this kind which was preserved in his time in the collection of 
 Dr. Heinsius, Antiqu. Septent. 506. A specimen may be seen in this 
 country in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Keysler 
 prints a letter from a citizen of Leipzic to his brother in Livonia, dated in 
 1575, in which after discussing his brother's bad fortune in every matter 
 of his household he proceeds as follows : — " So habe ich mich nu von 
 deinetwegen ferner bemiihet und bin zu den Leuten gangen, die solches 
 gehabt haben, als bey unsern Scharff-Richter, und ich habe ihn dafiir geben 
 als nehmlich mit 64 Thaler und des Budels Knecht ein Engels-Kleidt zu 
 Drinckgeldt solches soil dir nu lieber Bruder aus Liebe und Treue 
 geschencket sein, und so soltu es lernen wie ich dir schreib in diesen 
 Brieve wen du den Erdman in deinen Hause oder Hofe iiberkiimmest so 
 lass es drey Tage ruhen ehr du darzu gehest, nach den 3 Tagen so hebe es 
 uff und bade es in warmen Wasser, mit dem Bade soltu besprengen dein 
 Vieh und die Sullen deines Hauses do du und die deinen iibergehen so 
 wird es sich mit dir woll bald anders schicken, und du wirst woll wiederura 
 zu den deinen kommen wen du dieses Erdmanneken wirst zu rade halten 
 und du solt es alle Jahr viermahl baden und so offte du es badest so solt 
 du es wiederum in sein Seiden Kleidt winden und legen es bey deinen 
 besten Kleidern die du hast so darffstu Ihnen nicht mehr thun u.s.w. 
 Nun lieber Bruder dis Erdmanneken schicke ich dir zu einem gliickseeligen 
 neuen Jahr und lass es nicht von dir kommen das es magk behalten dein 
 Kindes-kind hiemit Gott befohlen." 
 
Origins of English History. 221 
 
 important for our purpose to observe, that the idol or 
 " Galgen-mannlein " became the property of the youngest 
 son on condition that he buried with the body a morsel 
 of bread and a piece of money according to the old pagan 
 practice. If the youngest son died in his father's lifetime, 
 the question arose whether the eldest son could take the 
 " Alraun" or mandrake ; and it was held that the domestic 
 god would fall into his share, provided always that he had 
 fulfilled the ceremony of the bread and money on the occa- 
 sion of his younger brother's funeral.-' 
 
 1 For a plant-superstition among the Finns, resembling the belief in the 
 powers of the Mandrake, see Keightley, Fairy Myth. 488. 
 
2 22 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BRITONS OF THE INTERIOR. 
 
 Physical condition of the country — Misrepresented by Roman orators — State under 
 Agricola, the Plantagenets and Elizabeth — Absence of genuine early descriptions- 
 Sources of the statements of Bede and his school — Notice of British pearl- 
 fisheries — Comparison of the accounts of Ireland — The picture of Britain by 
 Gildas — True sources of information — Special records — Allusions of writers on 
 general history — Giraldus, Aneurin, Pliny — The Celtic races of Northern and 
 Western Britain — Little affected by the English invasions — The evidence from 
 language of uncertain value — The tribes of the South-West — Their superior culture 
 ■ — Their foreign trade — Description of their ships — The tribes of the West of low 
 civilization and mixed blood — The Silures — The Dobuni of the Cotswolds — 
 The Cornavians — The Ordovices of North Wales — Their mixed descent — The 
 Central Tribes — The name "Coritavi" applied to several distinct races — Notices 
 by Strabo and Cassar — The ruder tribes migratory — The confederated tribes of the 
 North — Their success in ytax — The story of Queen Cartismandua — Rules a 
 Brigantian tribe — Commands the Brigantian army — The Brigantians compared with 
 the Irish by Tacitus — Their life at home and in the field. 
 
 WE turn from the speculation on the origin of these 
 ancient customs to collect what is known about 
 the Britons of the Interior before they adopted the Gaulish 
 fashions, or were drawn by Agricola' s policy step by step 
 to " the lounge, the bath, and the banquet," and to all that 
 provincial refinement which was but a disguise of their 
 servitude. We shall endeavour to describe their manners 
 and habits of life ; but it will be necessary in the first 
 place to take some general view of the physical condition 
 of the country. 
 
 It was a land of uncleared forests, with a climate as yet 
 not mitigated by the organized labours of mankind. The 
 province in course of time became a flourishing portion of 
 
Origins of English History. 223 
 
 the Empire ; the court-orators dilated on the wealth of 
 " Britannia Felix" and the heavy corn-fleets arriving from 
 the granaries of the North ; and they wondered at the 
 pastures almost too deep and rich for the cattle, and hills 
 covered with innumerable flocks of sheep " with udders 
 full of milk and backs weighed down with wool." The 
 picture was too brightly coloured, though drawn in the 
 Golden Age. It is certain that the island when it fell 
 under the Roman power was little better in most parts 
 than a cold and watery desert. According to all the 
 accounts of the early travellers the sky was stormy and 
 obscured by continual rain, the air chilly even in summer, 
 and the sun during the finest weather had little power to 
 disperse the steaming mists. The trees gathered and con- 
 densed the rain ; the crops grew rankly, but ripened slowly, 
 for the ground and the atmosphere were alike overloaded 
 with moisture. The fallen timber obstructed the streams, 
 the rivers were squandered in the reedy morasses, and 
 only the downs and hill-tops rose above the perpetual 
 tracts of wood. 
 
 It is difficult to measure the slow advance of agriculture. 
 We know that at one time the wolves swarmed in Sher- 
 wood and Arden, the wild boar roamed in Groveley, and 
 the white-maned Urus was hunted in the northern forests. 
 The work of reclaiming the wilderness began in the days 
 of Agricola. The Romans felled the woods along the 
 lines of their military roads ; they embanked the rivers and 
 threw causeways across the morasses, and the natives 
 complained that their bodies and hands were worn out in 
 draining the fens and extending the clearings in the 
 forests. In the course of centuries the woodlands shrank 
 to a mere fraction of their former extent. The ground 
 
224 Origins of English History. 
 
 was required for corn and pasture, the trees were consumed 
 for fuel, or used in building or making the charcoal required 
 in the mineral furnaces ; and the hill-sides were kept bare 
 as sheep-farming increased by the neglect to fence and 
 protect the coppices.. The area of cultivation was con- 
 tinually increasing ; yet even under the later Plantagenets 
 there were no less than sixty-eight royal forests, besides 
 thirty which had been converted into private chases ; in 
 each was included " a territory with great woods for the 
 ■secret abode of wild beasts " ; and it is estimated that even 
 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth one-third of England was 
 in waste. 
 
 The trees grew so thickly that some districts could 
 hardly be traversed or penetrated. The Forest of Dean 
 was described as " very dark and terrible " by reason of its 
 shades and cross-ways. Sherwood, said Camden, was 
 anciently set with trees whose entangled branches were so 
 twisted together that they hardly left room for a man to 
 pass. In the Warwickshire Arden it was said that even 
 in modern times a squirrel might leap from tree to tree for 
 nearly the whole length of the county. Denbighland in 
 the 15th century was one immense forest from the Dee to 
 the wilds of Arvon 'among the Snowdonian Hills.' And 
 great districts in all parts of the country are shown by the 
 mediaeval records to have produced no profit to their 
 owners except a little herbage, a few hawks' nests, " honey 
 nuts and hips," (for to such small matters do the foresters' 
 accounts extend,) " hares, cats and badgers and vermin of 
 that kind." 
 
 There is no trustworthy account of the ancient condition 
 of the inland districts. It is possible indeed that large 
 tracts of land may have long remained unexplored. The 
 
Origins of English History. 225 
 
 original settlements would of course be clustered round 
 the estuaries, and the later colonists would occupy the 
 interior valleys, following as much as possible the course 
 of the rivers and avoiding the thick woods and the 
 " watery lengths " of moor. 
 
 The general statements on this point of Bede and his 
 mediaeval imitators appear to be based upon no original 
 authority. They are evidently founded on a few allusions 
 in the classical writings, and these in their turn upon the 
 reports of merchants who were only familiar with the 
 coast. A part of Bede's description^ relates only to the 
 relics of the Roman dominion, the vineyards and baths at 
 the Hot Wells, the remains of cities and scattered forts, 
 the iron-works and mines of copper and silver-lead. The 
 rest would be more useful for our purpose if we had 
 reason to believe It correct. Some parts of the picture 
 are true enough. Britain was rich in corn and trees, and 
 fit for the pasturing of herds and flocks ; it abounded with 
 birds, and the rivers were covered with waterfowl and 
 well-stored with eels and salmon. He adds that whales 
 seals and dolphins were continually caught ; but the state- 
 ment is probably a mere reminiscence of Juvenal's simile.^ 
 We are told of a great abundance of shells. Among them 
 were "the clams and mussels producing not only the pure 
 white pearls, but others of the finest quality in all kinds of 
 colours, some pink or purple, some as blue as jacinth, and 
 others as green as grass." The truth seems to be that 
 the pearl-fishery was a thorough failure, so that men 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccles. i. c. i. 
 
 3 Compare Henry of Huntingdon : " Capiuntur et saspe delphines et 
 balenK : unde Juvenalis (Sat. x. 14), Quantum delphinis batena Britannica 
 major." Hist. Angl. i. c. i. 
 
 Q 
 
226 Origins of English History. 
 
 hardly believed in the British origin of the corslet which 
 Caesar suspended in the Temple of Venus.^ " The British 
 Ocean (said Tacitus,) produces pearls, but they are of a 
 dusky and livid hue : some think that those who collect 
 them have not the requisite skill, since in the Red Sea the 
 living animal is torn from the rocks, while in Britain they 
 are gathered just as they are thrown upon the shore. I 
 would rather believe that the pearls have a natural defect 
 than that Romans were wanting in keenness for gain."^ 
 
 According to Bede there was almost too great an 
 abundance of the whelk or murex which produced the 
 scarlet dye ; " and the lovely tint never fades in the sun or 
 the rain, but becomes more beautiful with age." But it is 
 not known that the shell-purple was ever made in Britain, 
 " nor is it likely that the simple blood of a shell-fish, how- 
 ever beautiful at first, could have proved a lasting dye." 
 It has been thought that both the purple and the scarlet 
 dyes were fixed by a preparation of grains of tin'; and 
 there may have been some manufacture of this kind in 
 Roman Britain. 
 
 The accounts of Ireland were of the same vague and 
 inaccurate kind; and on this point we may fairly adopt 
 the criticism of Giraldus.* " The island is rich in meadows 
 
 1 "Uniones ... in Britannia parvos atque decolores nasci certum 
 est : quoniam Divus Julius thoracem quem Veneri Genetrici in templo 
 ejus dicavit ex Britannicis margaritis factum voluerit intelligi." Pliny, 
 Hist. Nat. ix. 57. Compare Suetonius, Jul. Cses. 47. The story begins 
 to be exaggerated in Solinus, Polyhist. c. 53. ^lian calls the British 
 pearls "golden-coloured and with a dull and dusky surface." Hist. xv. 8. 
 
 ^ Tac. Agric. c. 12. 
 
 ^ Hawkins, Tin Trade of the Ancients, 24. 
 
 * Girald. Cambr. Topogr. Hibern. i. c. 6. He adds, that it may be 
 alleged that in Bede's time there were possibly some few vineyards there. 
 
Origins of English History. 227 
 
 and pastures, in milk and honey, and also in wine though 
 not in vineyards. Bede indeed says that it does not lack 
 vineyards, while Solinus and Isidore affirm that there are 
 no bees. But with all respect for them they might have 
 written just the contrary, that vineyards do not exist there 
 and bees are found in the island. , . . Bede also affirms 
 that Ireland is famous for the hunting of stags and wild- 
 goats, whereas it is a fact that it never possessed any 
 wild goats and is still without them." 
 
 Another very old account of Britain may be read in the 
 History of Gildas ; but its details are quite inconsistent 
 with the actual historical evidence. " The island of 
 Britain lies in almost the utmost corner of the earth: 
 it is poised in the divine balance in which the world is 
 weighed, and stretches from the south-west towards the 
 
 pole It is enriched by the mouths of two noble 
 
 rivers, the Thames and the Severn, two great arms by 
 which foreign luxuries were of old brought in, and by 
 other rivers of less importance. . . . The plains are 
 spacious : the hills set pleasantly and adapted for the best 
 of tillage : the mountains are admirably fitted for the 
 seasonable pasturing of the cattle. The many-coloured 
 flowers spread like a beautiful carpet beneath the feet of 
 men. Britain stands like a bride adorned in her jewels, 
 decked with bright springs and full rivulets wandering 
 over snow-white sands, and the clear rivers as they 
 murmur by offer rest and slumber to the travellers reclin- 
 ing on their banks." The passage is interesting so far as 
 it discloses the method of the writer, who appears to 
 
 and that St. Dominic of Ossory, as some say, introduced bees long after 
 the time of Solinus. The bees were probably very scarce until the 
 disappearance of the yew-forests. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 Origins of English History. 
 
 have strung together the "jewels five-words-long" which 
 Ausonius had thought to be appropriate to his Idyl on the 
 scenery of the Moselle.^ But as a picture of Ancient 
 Britain it is clearly of no practical use. 
 
 To gain a clear notion of the primitive condition of 
 Britain we should study the history of embanking and 
 inclosure, the records of the monasteries, and especially 
 those of the Benedictine monks who "swarmed like bees" 
 into every desert, and the descriptions by mediaeval 
 witnesses of the unreclaimed regions in Scotland Wales 
 and Ireland. The subject can only be made clear by 
 minute local research ; but one may learn much meantime 
 by observing the slight allusions of the writers who have 
 dealt with a more general kind of history. From Asser, 
 for example, we hear something of the great forest in 
 Somerset ^ which the Britons called " Coet Mawr," of that 
 
 1 Gildas, De Excidio Britannis, s. i. Compare Ausonius, 
 " Telluris medio quae pendet in aere Libra est, 
 Et Solis Lunseque vias sua libra coercet. 
 Libra die somnique pares determinat horas. 
 Libra Caledonios sine litore continet aestus." 
 
 De Ratione Librae, 29. 
 And ior a great deal of the imagery which Gildas has applied to Britain, 
 see his Idyl on the Moselle. 
 
 " Lucetque latetque 
 Calculus et viridem distinguit glarea museum. 
 Nota Caledoniis talis pictura Britannis, 
 Quum virides algas et rubra corallia nudat 
 .^stus et albentes concharum germina baccas, 
 Delicias hominum locupletum, quseque sub undas 
 Assimulant nostros imitata monilia cultus." 
 
 Mosella, 66. 
 ^ " In the seventh week after Easter Alfred rode to the Stone of Egbert 
 which is in the eastern part of the wood that is called Selwood, which in 
 Latin is Silva Magna and in British Coet Mawr. Here he was met by all 
 
Origins of English History. 229 
 
 wood of Berroc, "where the box-tree grows in abundance," 
 from which Berkshire was thought to derive its name, and 
 of the Cave-houses of Nottingham which the Welsh called 
 " Tig-ogobauc." Whoever again may have been the author 
 of the chronicle attributed to Ingulf, no doubt has been 
 cast on the story of Richard of Deeping, who made a 
 " garden of delight " out of the " horrible fens of Croy- 
 land." The History of Ely tells of the great meres which 
 " begirt the island like a wall." Two thousand square 
 miles of fen were given up to wild beasts and birds, stags 
 roes and goats in the groves and " geese, coots, didappers, 
 ducks and water-crows more than man could number, 
 especially in the winter and at the moulting-time." Lesley 
 speaks of the hunting of the mountain-bull in the vast 
 Caledonian Forest. Giraldus describes the great herds of 
 wild hogs in Ireland, the abundance of capercailzies, or 
 "wild peacocks" as they were called from the brightness 
 of their plumage, the immense flights of snipe and wood- 
 cock, " multitudes of quails and clouds of larks singing 
 praises to God." ^ 
 
 The wildness of the country is shown by many slighter 
 signs, as by the occurrence of beaver-dams, where the 
 beavers " defended their casdes" in vain against the sharp 
 poles of the well-armed hunters :^ it is implied in Aneurin's 
 
 the neighbouring folk of Somerset Wilts and Hampshire who had not 
 for fear of the pagans fled beyond the sea." Asser, Life of Alfred, under 
 the year 878. SelwQod reached from Frome to Burham. 
 
 1 Girald. Cambr. Topog. Hibern. i. c. 10. Bishop Hatfield's Survey 
 of Durham, in 1343, contains entries of estates held by the rent of "one 
 wood-hen," which may be the capercailzie, or perhaps the hazel-hen or 
 gelinotte. 
 
 2 Girald. Cambr. Itin. Camb. ii. c. 3. His examples apply to Scotland 
 as well as to Wales. 
 
230 Origins of English History. 
 
 picture of the British chief in his coat of the speckled skins 
 of young wolves, in Pliny's story of the fondness of the 
 Britons for the meat of the sheldrake, which is now a rare 
 and transitory visitor of our streams.^ 
 
 This part of the subject may be appropriately closed 
 with a sketch from a work in which all the descriptions are 
 based on the authority of the ancient writers. The time 
 of year is the end of the summer, when the oats and rye 
 were reaped and the lawns and meadows round the home- 
 steads had been mown. " The cattle are on the downs or 
 in the hollows of the hills. Here and there are wide beds 
 of fern or breadths of gorse and patches of wild raspberry 
 with gleaming sheets of flowers. The swine are roaming 
 in the woods and shady oak-glades, the nuts studding' the 
 brown-leaved bushes. On the sunny side of some cluster 
 of trees is the herdsman's round wicker house with its 
 brown conical roof and blue wreaths of smoke. In the 
 meadows and basins of the sluggish streams stand clusters 
 of tall old elms waving with the nests of herons : the 
 bittern coot and water-rail are busy among the rushes and 
 flags of the reedy meres. Birds are ' churming ' in the 
 wood-girt clearings, wolves and foxes slinking to their 
 covers, knots of maidens laughing at the water-spring, 
 beating the white linen or flannel with their washing-bats, 
 the children play before the doors of the round straw- 
 thatched houses of the homestead, the peaceful abode of 
 the sons of the oaky vale. On the ridges of the downs 
 rise the sharp cones of the barrows, some glistening in 
 
 1 Aneurin, Gododin. st. 90. Pliny describes the bustard, capercailzie, 
 and sheldrake in the same chapter. " Quibus lautiores epulas non novit 
 Britannia, chenerotes fere ansere minores." Hist. Nat. x. 29. 
 
Origins of English History. 231 
 
 white chalk or red with the mould of a new burial, and 
 others green with the grass of long years." ^ 
 
 We have endeavoured to give a general description of 
 the physical aspect of the country, and may now proceed 
 to consider in greater detail the manners and institutions 
 of the Celtic nations which had occupied the interior of the 
 island. The story of these Gaelic peoples more nearly 
 concerns ourselves than the scanty traditions of Picts and 
 Silurians, or even the fuller history which we possess of 
 the civilized Gaulish settlers. The Gauls lived mostly in 
 the south-eastern half of England,^ and their posterity must 
 have been expelled or destroyed with comparatively few 
 exceptions in the later wars of massacre. The English 
 may be credited with turning out their enemies " as com- 
 pletely as it has ever been found possible for invaders to 
 do." Some of the natives must have remained in the cities 
 and fortified places, which long continued undisturbed : a 
 few of the greater chiefs may have purchased security for 
 their people, "especially in the districts appropriated by 
 
 1 Barnes, Notes on Ancient Britain, 53. 
 
 2 Professor Rhys has estimated that about one-half of what is now 
 England belonged in the time of Julius Caesar to tribes of Gaulish origin, 
 " that is, all east of the Trent, the Warwickshire Avon, the Parret and the 
 Dorsetshire Stour, excepting a Brythonic peninsula reaching as far as 
 Malmesbury, and widening perhaps to the south to take in Wareham. 
 Against this may be set the Coriiavii, whose territory consisted of a strip 
 of land running from the Avon along the east of the Severn and stretching 
 to the mouth of the Dee. The tract of country over which the English 
 (in the beginning of the seventh century) ruled south of the Humber, 
 coincided almost exactly with the Gaulish portion of Britain.'' Lectures, 
 185. It does not seem to be quite necessary to include the Cornavii 
 among the Gauls, though the Gaulish name of " Fennocrucium" in the 
 Itinerary of Antoninus shows that there were Gauls in the Severn valley 
 in the fourth century. 
 
232 Origins of English History. 
 
 the smaller bands of adventurers " : and multitudes of the 
 Celtic women must have been retained in marriage or 
 servitude.^ But it is admitted that to the north of the 
 Trent and throughout the Western Counties the character 
 of the population suffered no such overwhelming change. 
 The signs of the Celtic element in the nation are apparent 
 in the tone and even in the idiom of some of the provincial 
 dialects, in the names of our rural geography and in the 
 words of daily life used for common and domestic things ; 
 and some have even distinguished the presence in our 
 literature of a bright colouring and a romantic note which 
 they ascribe to an abiding Celtic influence. 
 
 Judging by the distribution of local names we can trace 
 the Gaelic settlements in almost all parts of Britain and 
 Northern Ireland. The Ptolemaic map of Britain (Plate 
 VI.) will furnish sufficient examples of similar or identical 
 names appearing in widely separated districts. But care 
 must be taken to distinguish between the forms which 
 belong to the Gaelic idioms and those which are either 
 ambiguous or clearly to be traced to a Gaulish source. 
 We know, for instance, that the Britons of the interior 
 had no towns before the commencement of the Roman 
 invasions ; and we can therefore attach but little import- 
 ance to the fact that " Lindum " was the name of the 
 places which are now called Lincoln and Linlithgow, or 
 to the appearance of a "Venta" among the Iceni, at 
 Winchester in the territory of the Belgae and at "Venta 
 Silurum " in Monmouthshire.^ 
 
 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 62. 
 
 ^ The " Venta Icenorum " seems to have been at Caistor in Norfolk. 
 The name of the "Venta Belgarum" is preserved in the word "Win- 
 chester." The Silurian "Venta" gave a name not only to "Caer-Went" 
 
Origins of English History. 233 
 
 The same caution is required in dealing with the words 
 for such natural objects as mountains and promontories, 
 or with the river-names which are so continually repeated, 
 Stour Avon or Dee, or " Alaunus " and " Alauna," which 
 are found in every quarter. In such cases it is clear that 
 words belonging to several nations might have been 
 derived from some common Celtic source. A cape might 
 be called "the Height" or a stream "the Divine" in a 
 number of cognate dialects without our being able to trace 
 the name with certainty to an insular or a continental 
 language.^ The safefV method lies in the comparison of 
 national names. We find "Cantse" in Ross-shire and 
 "Cornabii" in Caithness: there were "Vennicones" in 
 Forfarshire and " Vennicnii " on the Western Coast of 
 Ireland ; and the Brigantes appear in Wexford as well as 
 in the great British kingdom which stretched from the 
 Lothians to the line of the H umber and Mersey. There 
 were Damnonians not in Cornwall and Devon only but 
 all over Central Scotland from Galloway to the mouth of 
 the Tay.^ The limits of a third Damnonia can be traced 
 
 but to several divisions of Monmouthshire. Leland, for instance, divides 
 the county into Low Middle and High Vinceland : " the principal town 
 of Low Gwentland is Chepstow about two miles from Severn shore." 
 Compare Guest's Early Engl. Settlem. in the Archceologt'a (Salisbury Vol. 
 1849), and Taylor, Topogr. East. Count. 4, 22. 
 
 ^ Many of the names of hills and promontories are taken from a word 
 meaning " high." It appears in O. Welsh as uchel, in O. Irish as uasal, 
 and in Gaulish as uxel in compound words. Compare the Gaelic form 
 in such words as Ocelum for Flamborough Head, Tunnocelum for Bowness, 
 Ochiltree and the Ochil Hills, with the Gaulish Uxella, Uxellodunum near 
 Carlisle and an identical name in Gaul. Caesar, De Bell. Gall. viii. 32 ; 
 Rhys, Lectures, 181. For the names of rivers see the articles by M. 
 Pictet, Revue Celtique, i. 299, ii. i. Joyce, Irish Names, 434. 
 
 ^ Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 127 \ Robertson, Early Kings, ii. 231, 
 
234 Origins of English History. 
 
 in the midland and western parts of Ireland. The Kings 
 of Connaught and the famous dynasty of Tara traced their 
 descent from the " Fir-Domhnoin," whose remembrance 
 has survived in the Celtic names for the Malahide River 
 near Dublin and the Damnonian Peninsula on the western 
 coast of Mayo.^ And another home of the race was 
 founded in a later age when the exiles from Britain carried 
 the old names, 
 
 " Et parvam Trojam simulataque magnis 
 Pergama,'' 
 
 to the wild district between the shore of Brittany and the 
 Forest of Brocdliande.^ 
 
 It will be useful to give separate descriptions of several 
 of the principal nations, since it is clear that the difference 
 in their local circumstances must have prevented them 
 from attaining to any uniform standard of culture. 
 
 We shall first deal with the Western Tribes, the 
 Damnonians of Devon and Cornwall and their neighbours 
 the " Durotriges" who have left a vestige of their name in 
 the modern " Dorchester " and " Dorset." Their territory 
 may be taken as extending from the Land's End to the 
 Belgian frontier in the neighbourhood of Southampton 
 Water. Their eastern limit stretched from the New 
 Forest to the neighbourhood of "Ischalis" or Ilchester 
 and to the great marshes in which the stream of the 
 Parret was lost in those early times. The lines of old sea- 
 beaches about Sedgemoor, the remains found far inland 
 
 1 Reeves. Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, 31 ; Robertson, Early Kings, 
 ii- 355, 388; Rhj-s, Lectures, 35. 
 
 2 Valroger, Gaule Celtique, 288; De Coursons, Hist. Bret. i. 200; 
 Halleguen, Armorique, i. 17; Revue Celtique, ii. 74. 
 
Origins of English History. "235 
 
 of " islands where the sands were drifted and a shingle 
 beach thrown up," and the Roman antiquities found in the 
 embankments and silt of the marshes, show that much of 
 the land has been reclaimed within the historical period.^ 
 It is probable that these Damnonian tribes were isolated 
 from their eastern neighbours by a wide march of woods 
 and fens. It may be that these natural causes helped to 
 preserve for them that superiority of culture which distin- 
 guished them from the inland tribes. 
 
 Diodorus has shown us that these southern nations had 
 been taught to live* " in a very hospitable and polite 
 manner " by their intercourse with the foreign merchants. 
 Some of their ports and markets can even now be iden- 
 tified. The discovery of a huge "knuckle-bone" of tin, 
 dredged up near Falmouth in 1823, marks the station on 
 the Truro River called by Ptolemy "the Outlets of 
 Cenion " ; a deposit of weapons and gold coins at Oreston 
 in Plymouth Sound shows the position of the ancient 
 "Tamara"; and the emporium at "Isaca" cannot have 
 been far from the site which the Romans selected for their 
 permanent camp at Exeter. The course of the metal- 
 trade is shown by the names of places on the coast-road 
 leading eastward from the Exe, as Stansa Bay and Stans 
 Ore Point in Hampshire. The Greeks came for minerals, 
 the Gauls for furs and skins and for the great wolf-dogs 
 which they used in their domestic wars. There must 
 have been many other. sources of information by which the 
 natives could learn what was passing abroad. There were 
 students constantly crossing to take lessons in the insular 
 Druidism; the slave-merchants followed the armies in 
 
 1 De la Beche, Geol. South-West Counties, 421, 422. 
 
236 Origins of English History. 
 
 time of war, the pedlars explored the trading-roads to sell 
 their trinkets of glass and ivory, and the travelling sword- 
 smiths and bronze-tinkers must have helped in a great 
 degree to spread the knowledge of the arts of civilized 
 society.^ 
 
 The Damnonians had the advantages of trade and 
 travel. It appears from a passage in Caesar's Commen- 
 taries that their young men were accustomed to serve in 
 foreign fleets and to take part in the Continental wars. 
 The nation had entered into a close alliance with the 
 " Veneti " or people of Vannes, whose powerful navy had 
 secured the command of the Channel. A squadron of 
 British ships took part in the great sea-fight which was 
 the immediate cause of Caesar's invasion of the island; 
 and his description of the allied fleet shows the great 
 advance in civilization to which the Southern Britons had 
 attained. " The enemy," he said, " had a great advantage 
 in their shipping : the keels of their vessels were flatter 
 than ours and were consequently more convenient for the 
 shallows and low tides. The forecastles were very high 
 and the poops so contrived as to endure the roughness of 
 those seas. The bodies of the ships were built entirely of 
 oak stout enough to withstand any shock or violence. 
 The banks for the oars were beams of a foot square, 
 bolted at each end with iron pins as thick as a man's 
 thumb. Instead of cables for their anchors they used iron 
 chains. The sails were of untanned hide, either because 
 
 1 The principal sources of information on the subject of the commerce 
 
 of the Damnonians are Woodward's " Isle of Wight " ; Chattaway's 
 
 "History of the Damnonians"; Short, "Sylva Antiqua Iscana"; Hawkins' 
 
 " Tin-trade of the Ancients "; Pulman, " Book of the Axe "; and Davidson, 
 
 'Roman and British Remains.'' 
 
Origins of English History. 237 
 
 they had no Hnen and were ignorant of its use, or as is 
 more likely because they thought linen sails not strong 
 enough to endure their boisterous seas and winds." ^ We 
 are told by a later writer that the ships and their sails 
 were painted blue for the purpose of making them less 
 conspicuous at a distance. 
 
 We say nothing for the present about the Belgse, the 
 neighbours of the Damnonians to the eastward, because 
 they seem to have been a Gaulish people whose conquests 
 were of a later date than the age of Julius Caesar. We 
 therefore pass to tht Silurians across the Severn Sea, 
 to the " Dobuni " of the Cotswolds and the Vale of 
 Gloucester, and the " Cornavii " who held a narrow terri- 
 tory between the Malvern Hills and the mouth of the 
 Dee. 
 
 None of these tribes appear to have shared in the 
 culture which the Damnonians had gained from their 
 intercourse with foreigners. What little commerce they 
 undertook was carried on in the frail " curraghs " in which 
 they were bold enough to cross the Irish Sea. Boats of 
 
 1 Cxsar, De Bell. Gall. iii. 9, 13; Vegetius, De Re Milit-iv. 37. See 
 Hawkins, Tin-trade of the Ancients, 50. With this description should be 
 compared that of the boats which have at various times been found in the 
 silt at Glasgow. " Two were built of planks, and one was very elaborately 
 constructed. It was 18 feet in length. Its prow was not unlike the 
 prow of an antique galley : its stem, formed of a triangular piece of oak, 
 fitted in exactly like those of our day. The planks were fastened to the 
 ribs partly by singularly-shaped oaken pins and partly by what must have 
 been nails of some kind of metal ; these had entirely disappeared, but 
 some of the oaken pins remained. In one of the canoes a beautifully 
 polished axe of greenstone was found, and in the bottom of another a 
 plug of cork which could only have come from the latitudes of Spain 
 Southern France or Italy." Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 48 ; Ferguson, 
 Rude Stone Monuments, 303. 
 
238 Origins of English History. 
 
 that kind are still used in Ireland with the substitution of 
 tarred canvass for the original covering of bull's hide. 
 The method of building these boats appears from an anec- 
 dote of Caesar's Spanish campaign. Being in want of 
 vessels for transport we are told that he remembered the 
 pattern of the canoes which he had seen on the British 
 rivers. The keel and principal timbers were cut from 
 thin planking and nailed together : then the sides were 
 filled in with basket-work of willows or hazels plaited in 
 and out, and the whole was covered with stout coats of 
 hide.^ There are figures on the tessellated pavements that 
 have been found at Lydney Park in Gloucestershire which 
 show the British fishermen paddling in little coracles about 
 the mouth of the Severn, and one figure " enveloped in a 
 hooded frieze mantle " is drawn in the act of catching a 
 large salmon which he is pulling into the leather canoe. 
 These native boats are still to be seen in use upon the 
 Dee : " they were made of wicker, and were not oblong 
 or pointed, but rather triangular in shape, and were 
 covered both inside and outside with hides." ^ 
 
 1 Caesar, De BelL Civil, i. 54; Solinus, Polyhist. c. 24. Compare 
 Lucan : — 
 
 " Primum cana salix madefacto vimine parvam 
 Texitur in puppim, csesoque inducta juvenco 
 Vectoris patiens tumidum superenatat amnem. 
 Sic Venetus stagnante Pado, fusoque Britannus 
 Navigat Oceano." — Pharsal. iv. 131. 
 
 ^ Girald. Cambr. Descr. Cambr. i. 18. He adds that "when a salmon 
 thrown into one of these boats struck hard with its tail, it would overset 
 the boat and endanger both the vessel and navigator." See King's Roman 
 Antiqu. Lydney Park ; and an article by Professor Rhys on this subject, 
 Nature, July 24th, 1879. 
 
Origins of English History. 239 
 
 These tribes were probably of a mixed race, if we may 
 judge from the persistence of the Silurian features among 
 the modern population of the district. Their neighbours 
 the " Ordovices," from whom the Cornavians were sepa- 
 rated by the shifting waters of the Dee/ appear to have 
 been a nation of Gaelic descent. They are sometimes 
 described as holding all North Wales : but this is incon- 
 sistent with what is known of their physical appearance 
 as well as with the plain words of a passage in the Life 
 of Agricola. 'A tribe of the Ordovices' in the year 
 A.D. 78, had destroyed a regiment of cavalry which was 
 quartered upon their territory. The general made haste 
 to collect an army and at once made war upon the whole 
 nation of which the tribe formed part ; the Ordovices 
 abandoned the flat country and retired into their moun- 
 tains, but were followed and defeated by the Romans, and 
 we are told that " almost the whole nation was put to the 
 sword." Immediately afterwards Agricola determined to 
 attack the people of Anglesea : and it is clear from the 
 words of Tacitus that the new undertaking was regarded 
 as dangerous and important, so that we can hardly sup- 
 pose that the army was dealing with a mere residue or 
 fragment of the nation which had been so nearly exter- 
 minated.'^ 
 
 1 " The inhabitants of these parts (says Giraldus) assert that the waters 
 of this river change their fords every month, and as it inclines more 
 towards England or Wales they can prognosticate which nation will be 
 successful or unfortunate during the year." Itin. Cambr. ii. c. 11. "It 
 is not improbable that the Dee was associated with war long before the 
 English reached its banks." Rhys, Lectures, 308. 
 
 2 Tac. Agric. c. 18. As to the differences in physical appearance 
 between the Ordovices and their neighbours see De Belloguet : ''■ Les 
 habitants du comti de Flint sont petits avec un teint basani, me chevelure 
 
240 Origins of English History. 
 
 Passing from the western districts we come to a central 
 region bounded on the south by the GauHsh kingdoms and 
 on the north by the Brigantian territories, and belonging 
 to a mixed assemblage of tribes who became known under 
 one name as the nation of the Coritavi} They consisted 
 in part of Celtic clans and in part of the remnants of a 
 ruder people. The mixture of races is distinctly shown in 
 the pictures which C^sar and Strabo drew of the rude 
 aborigines of the interior. 
 
 "The men," said Strabo, "are taller than the Celts of 
 Gaul : their hair is not so yellow and their limbs are more 
 loosely knit. To show how tall they are I may say that 
 I saw myself some of their young men at Rome, and they 
 were taller by six inches than any one else in the City ; 
 but they were bandy-legged and had a clumsy look."^ 
 Their customs, he said, were in part like those of the Celts 
 and in part more simple and barbarous, a remark which 
 can only be interpreted as referring to a mixture of races. 
 Some were quite ignorant of agriculture and did not know 
 anything of the management of a garden : and some could 
 not even make cheese though their supply of milk was 
 abundant. 
 
 Caesar's description is to much the same effect. " Most 
 
 brum, et des yeux de couleur foncee . . . Le type Cimrique est r'epresentk 
 comme ayant fait simplement une trou'ee dans le pays de Galles septen- 
 trional oil le type brun I'entoure encore d, droite et d, gauche, et en face 
 dans rile d Anglesey." Ethnog. Gaul. 263. Compare Giraldus Cambrensis. 
 "Venedotia robustis virorum corporibus fecundior." Descr. Cambr. i. c. 6; 
 a.nd ibid. ii. c. 15. Basil Jones, Vestiges of the Gael, 72. 
 
 1 In Ptolemy's time their principal towns were in the neighbourhood of 
 the modern Lincoln and Leicester. " Next to the Cornavi are the Coritavi 
 whose towns are Lindum and Rhage (or Ratce)." See Plate VI. 
 
 ^ Strabo, iv. 278. 
 
Origins of English History. 241 
 
 of the island people grow no corn at all, but live off meat 
 and milk and are clad in the skins of beasts."^ They 
 disfigured themselves with woad, and this fashion seems to 
 have survived in the districts conquered by the Gauls. 
 The men used it as a war-paint, staining their faces and 
 limbs blue and green to look more ghastly and terrible, 
 for they thought like the savages on the Vistula that an 
 enemy could never withstand an army of such grim 
 aspect.^ 
 
 Long after Caesar's time the Romans observed that 
 some of the British" tribes were too careless to trouble 
 themselves with agriculture,^ as if they had no patience to 
 wait for the turn of the seasons and preferred to trust to 
 the chances of war for food and plunder. 
 
 The Celts in the midland districts may have lived in 
 permanent villages, raising crops of oats or some rougher 
 kind of grain for food, and weaving themselves garments 
 of hair or of coarse wool from their puny, many-horned 
 sheep. But the ruder tribes, who subsisted entirely by 
 their cattle, would naturally follow the herd, living through 
 the summer in booths on the higher pasture-grounds, and 
 only returning to the valleys to find shelter from the 
 
 1 Csesar, De Bell. Gall. v. c. 14. 
 
 ^ Tac. Germ. c. 43 ; Csesar, De Bell. Gall. v. c. 14 ; Pomp. Mela. iii. 3 ; 
 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxii. 12. Compare the"Virides Britannos" of Ovid, 
 Amor. ii. 16, 39; the "Cserulum Saxona" of Sidonius, viii. 9; and the 
 vermilion-painted Goths described by Isidore of Seville, Orig. xix. 23 ; 
 Grupen, De Uxore Theotisci, 173 ; Robertson, Early Kings, ii. 225. The 
 woad-plant, called vitrum from its use in the manufacture of glass, has 
 properties like those of indigo. " The herb usually yields a blue tint, but 
 when partially de-oxidated it has been found to yield a fine green ; the 
 black colour was a third preparation, made by the application of a greater 
 heat." Herbert's Britannia, Ivi. 
 
 ■'' Tac. Ann. xiv. c. 38. 
 
 R 
 
242 Origins of English History. 
 
 winter-storms. There is' a line of dry chalk-downs running 
 transversely from the Yorkshire Wolds to the coast of 
 Dorset. " This is the region of the tumuli, and on its 
 surface are seen the foundations of the British huts. On 
 the hills are their long boundary-fences ; below the edges 
 of the hills rise innumerable bright streams, and by these 
 springs no doubt were the settled habitations." ^ 
 
 To the north of the Coritavi stretched a confederacy or 
 collection of kingdoms to which the Romans applied the 
 single name of " Brigantia." We first hear of these confe- 
 derated states about the year a.d. 50, when their combined 
 territories extended on one coast from Flamborough Head 
 to the Firth of Forth, and on the other from the mouth of 
 the Dee to the valleys on the upper shore of the Solway. 
 "A line," says Mr. Skene, "drawn from the Solway 
 Firth across the island to the Eastern sea exactly 
 separates the great nation of the Brigantes from the 
 tribes on the north, the Gadeni and the Otadeni: but 
 this is obviously an artificial separation, as it closely fol- 
 lows the line of Hadrian's Wall : otherwise it would imply 
 that the southern boundary of these barbarian tribes was 
 precisely on a line where nature presents no physical 
 demarcation." ^ 
 
 1 Relations of Archaeology (Phillipps). Archseol. Journ. vol. 39. 
 
 2 Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 71. When Antoninus advanced the limit 
 of the province to the Firths of Forth and Clyde he was said to have taken 
 land from the Brigantes. Pausan. viii. 43. The chief tribes of the Brigan- 
 tians appear to have been the " Setantii," whose port was not far from 
 Lancaster, the "Gadeni" and "Otadeni" of Cumberland and North- 
 umberland and the districts immediately to the north, the " Selgovae" ex- 
 tending along the northern shore of the Solway as far as Nithsdale, and 
 the " Gabrantovici " of the North Riding of Yorkshire. There were pro- 
 bably a great number of Brigantians clans both of Celtic and pre-Celtic 
 origin of which the names have now been forgotten. 
 
Origins of English History. 243 
 
 The people seem to have been comparatively rich and 
 prosperous. They were so eminent in war that they 
 repeatedly repulsed the advance of the Imperial legions. 
 Seneca boasted that the Romans had bound with chains 
 of iron the necks of the blue-shielded Brigantes : but it 
 was long before the turbulent mountaineers were actually 
 subdued, and even in the second century they seem to 
 have preserved some remains of their ancient liberty. 
 Pausanias writing at that time has noticed one incident of 
 a forgotten war, and tells us how the Emperor Antoninus 
 " cut off more than half of the territory of the Brigantes " 
 because they had attacked a tribe who were living under 
 the protection of Rome.^ 
 
 The story of Queen Cartismandua is the best illustra- 
 tion of the character and habits of her people. The luxury 
 of her court may have had no existence except in the 
 fancy of Tacitus : but the barbarian queen was doubtless 
 rich in her palace of wicker-work, in a herd of snow-white 
 cattle covering the pastures of the royal tribe, an enamelled 
 chariot, a cap or a corselet of gold. She was the chief 
 of one of the many tribes of which the Brigantian nation 
 was composed. In a time when every valley had its king 
 with an army of villagers, an ale-house council, and a 
 precarious treasure of cattle gained and held by the law of 
 the strongest, it was seldom possible for the nation to unite 
 in any common design, even for the purpose of resisting 
 the peril of a foreign invasion. The gathering of a 
 national army was an affair of meetings and treaties and 
 solemn sacrifices to the gods. When the sacred rites were 
 
 1 Pausanias, viii. 43. The Brigantes had invaded the lands of the 
 " Genuni," a people who are not elsewhere mentioned. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 Origins of English History. 
 
 fulfilled, the blood tasted, and the rival deities and chief- 
 tains united by a temporary bond, the noblest and bravest 
 of the tribal leaders was chosen as a war-king or general in 
 command. But as often as not the treaty failed and the 
 clans fought or submitted as each might feel inclined. 
 " Our greatest advantage," said Tacitus, " in dealing with 
 such powerful nations is that they cannot act in concert : 
 it is seldom that even two or three tribes will join in 
 meeting a common danger ; and so while each fights for 
 himself they are all conquered together."^ 
 
 Cartismandua was of such noble blood, so near to the 
 line of the gods, that she was chosen to lead the national 
 armies. She was married to Venusius, the chieftain of a 
 neighbouring tribe, who was himself remarkable for his 
 skill in the arts of war ; but the alliance seems in no way 
 to have diminished her domestic power, and she still made 
 wars and alliances on her own account. The queen was 
 far-seeing enough to understand the hopelessness of a 
 contest with Rome. She knew that a firm and extended 
 sovereignty and a share of the plunder, which seemed like 
 unbounded riches, would be secured to her as the price of 
 submission. 
 
 Caractacus, the Gaulish prince who for nine years 
 had led the armies of the West, sought refuge in the 
 Brigantian territory. The queen entrapped him with all 
 his family and delivered them in chains to the invaders. 
 Caractacus was carried to Rome and shown to the people 
 with a pomp of which the details are still preserved. First 
 came his officers and body-guard carrying his jewels and 
 collars, the harness of his horses and chariot-trappings, and 
 
 1 Tac. Agiic. c. 12. 
 
Origins of English History. 245 
 
 the treasures which he had gained in the wars. Next 
 came his brothers, and his wife and daughter, and lastly 
 the chieftain himself; and it was observed that he alone 
 was calm and proud while the others were weeping and 
 praying for their lives. 
 
 Cartismandua attained the height of fame when it was 
 allowed that she had gained a triumph for Caesar. But 
 her arrogance increased with her riches, and she began to 
 think herself exempt from the laws of her tribe and nation. 
 Her husband was cast off for an armour-bearer, and in the 
 civil war that followed she lost her crown and country. 
 She held out against the army of Venusius until her 
 Roman allies could arrive, and even succeeded with a 
 savage skill in capturing her husband's family as hostages ; 
 but the kingdom was lost after a long and doubtful 
 struggle, though the queen herself was rescued. We hear 
 litde more of the Brigantes from that time until they 
 adopted the Roman customs and ceased to be distin- 
 guishable from the foreign population which gathered 
 round the camps and fortresses along the line of Hadrian's 
 wall.^ 
 
 Tacitus, or perhaps Agricola, who was fond of discuss- 
 ing with him the projects for the conquest of Ireland, 
 thought that the Brigantes were very like the Irish in 
 their character and habits of life.^ Solinus has left a 
 sketch of an Irish home which will enable us to under- 
 stand what Tacitus intended. "It is," he said, "a surly 
 and a savage race. The soldier in the moment of victory 
 
 ^ For the story of Cartismandua, see Tac. Ann. xii. c. 36 ; Hist. iii. 
 c. 45, and compare Agric. cc. 12, 24. 
 * Tac. Agric. c. 24. 
 
246 Origins of English History. 
 
 takes a draught of his enemy's blood and smears his face 
 with the gore. The mother puts her boy's first food for 
 luck on the end of her husband's sword and lightly pushes 
 it into the infant's mouth with a prayer to the gods of her 
 tribe that her son may have a soldier's death. The men 
 who care for their appearance deck the hilts of their 
 swords with the tusks of sea-beasts, which they polish to 
 the brightness of ivory : for the glory of the warrior 
 consists in the splendour of his weapons."^ We seem to 
 see the Brigantian soldier with his brightly-painted shield, 
 his pair of javelins and his sword-hilt " as white as the 
 whale' s-bone " : his matted hair supplied the want of a 
 helmet, and a leather jerkin served as a cuirass. When 
 the line of battle was formed the champions ran out 
 to insult and provoke the foe ; the chiefs rode up and 
 down on their white chargers, shining in golden breast- 
 plates. Others drove the war-chariots along the front, 
 with soldiers leaning out before their captain to cast their 
 spears and hand-stones : the ground shook with the 
 prancing of horses and the noise of the chariot-wheels. 
 We are recalled to the scenes of old Irish life which so 
 strangely reproduce the world of the Greek heroes and 
 the war upon the plains of Troy. We see the hunters 
 following the cry of the hounds through green plains and 
 sloping glens : the ladies at the feast in the woods, the 
 game roasting on the hazel-spits, "fish and flesh of boar 
 and badger," and the great bronze cauldrons at the fire- 
 place in the cave. The hero Ciichulain passes in his chariot 
 brandishing the heads of the slain : he speaks with his 
 horses, the Gray and the " Dewy-Red," like Achilles on 
 
 1 Solinus, Polyhist. c. 24. 
 
Origins of English History. 247 
 
 the banks of Scamander.^ The horses, in Homeric 
 fashion, weep tears of blood and fight by their master's 
 side : his sword shines redly in his hand, the " light of 
 valour " hovers round him, and a goddess takes an earthly 
 form to be near him and to help him in the fray. 
 
 1 See the " Death of Cilchulain," abridged from the Book of Leinster, 
 by Mr. Whitley Stokes; Revue Celtique, iii. 175 ; the legend of Fionn's 
 Enchantment (Campbell), Revue Celtique, i. 174, and the story of the 
 Princess Deirdre in "Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisneach." 
 
248 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Religion of the British tribes — Its influence on the literature of romance — Theories 
 about Druidism— The Welsh Triads — Their date and authority — Legend of Hugh 
 the Mighty — Mythological poems of the Bards — Taliesin — Nature of the poems 
 written under his name — Religion of the Gauls — Its nature — The greater gods — 
 Dis Pater — The mode of reckoning by nights — The Gaulish Mercury and Minerva 
 —The worship of Belenus — Adoration of plants — Esus — Teutates — Camulus — 
 Taranis — Goddesses and helpmates of gods — Local deities — The Mothers — Giants 
 — Inferior gods — Origin of Druidism — Druidism in Britain —Scottish and Irish 
 Druids — The nature of their ceremonies — Their magic — Position of the Druids 
 in Gaul — Their philosophy — Human sacrifices — -Relics of the practice — Its traces 
 in Britain and Ireland — Slaughter of hostages — Sacrifices for stability of buildings 
 — Doctrines of the Druids — Their astronomy — Metempsychosis — Disappearance of 
 Druidism — From the Roman provinces — From Ireland and Scotland — Other 
 remains of British religions — How preserved — In legends of saints — In romance- 
 General character of the religion — Nature of the idols — Superstitions about natural 
 phenomena — Mirage — Sunset — Mineral springs — Laughing wells — Worship of 
 elements — The Irish gods — The Dagda — Moon-worship — Degradation of British 
 gods — Their appearance as kings and chiefs — In the fabulous history — In the heroic 
 songs — Principal families of gods — Children of Don — of Nudd — of Lir — Legends 
 of Cordelia — Bran the Blessed — Manannan Mac Lir — Ritual — Relics of Sun- 
 worship — Of fire-worship — Rustic sacrifices — Offerings of animals to saints — Sacred 
 animals — Prohibition of certain kinds of food — Connected with claims of descent 
 from animals — Origin of these superstitions. 
 
 THE religion of the British tribes has exercised an 
 important influence upon Hterature. The mediaeval 
 romances and the legends which stood for history are full of 
 the " fair humanities " and figures of its bright mythology. 
 The elemental powers of earth and fire, and the spirits 
 which haunted the waves and streams, appear again as 
 kings in the Irish Annals or as saints and hermits in Wales. 
 The Knights of the Round Table, Sir Kay and Tristram 
 and the bold Sir Bedivere, betray their divine origin by the 
 attributes which they retained as heroes of romance. It 
 was a goddess, " Dea qucedam phantastica" who bore the 
 
Origins of English History. 249 
 
 wounded Arthur to the peaceful valley.^ " There was 
 little sunlight on its woods and streams, and the nights 
 were dark and gloomy for want of the moon and stars." 
 This is the country of Oberon and of Sir Huon de 
 Bourdeaux. It is the dreamy forest of Arden. In an 
 older mythology it was the realm of a King of Shadows, 
 the country of " Gwyn ab Nudd,"^ who rode as Sir Guyon 
 in the Faerie Queene 
 
 " And knighthood took of good Sir Huon's hand 
 
 When with King Oberon he came to Fairyland." 
 
 » 
 
 The history of the Celtic religions has been obscured 
 by many false theories which need not be discussed in 
 detail. The traces of revealed religion were discovered 
 by the Benedictine historians in the doctrines attributed to 
 the Druids : if the Gauls adored the oak-tree it could only 
 be a remembrance of the plains of Mamre ; if they slew a 
 prisoner on a block of unhewn stone, it must have been in 
 deference to a precept of Moses. A school pretending to 
 a deeper philosophy invented for the Druids the mission 
 of preserving monotheism in the West.* In the teaching 
 of another school the Druids are credited with the learning 
 of Phoenicia and Egypt. The mysteries of the " Thrice- 
 
 ^ Girald. Cambr. Spec. Eccles. c. 9; Itin. Cambr. i. c. 8. 
 
 ^ " Gwyn ab Nudd " was the Welsh fairy-king. See Guest's Mabinogion, 
 263. In the curious story of " Kilhwch and Olwen " we find hfm 
 described as " Gwynn the son of Nudd whom God has placed over the 
 brood of devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race." 
 {Ibid. 241.) He is represented as a warlike spirit or battle-god in a 
 dialogue cited {ibid. 263) from the Myvyrian Archaeology, i. 165. "Gwyn, 
 son of Nudd, the hope of armies, legions fall before thy conquering arm, 
 swifter than broken rushes to the ground." 
 
 ^ " Les Druides ne nous afparaissent que dans la splendeur de Dieu." 
 Reynaud, L'Esprit de la Gaule, 5 ; Leflocq. Mythol. Celt. 49. 
 
250 Origins of English History. 
 
 great Hermes" were transported to the northern oak- 
 forests, and every difficulty was solved as it rose by a 
 reference to Baal or Moloch. The lines and circles of 
 " standing-stones " became the signs of a worship of snakes 
 and dragons. The ruined cromlech was mistaken for an 
 altar of sacrifice with the rock-bason to catch the victim's 
 blood and a holed-stone for the rope to bind his limbs. 
 
 The Welsh Triads became the foundation of another 
 theory. They profess to record the exploits of a being 
 called Hugh the Mighty, who led the Cymry from the 
 Land of Summer to the islands of the Northern Ocean. 
 If the legend had not been accepted by M. Martin and 
 other French historians as containing the echo of a real 
 tradition, we might disregard it as completely as the 
 adventures of the Irish in Egypt or the prophecies of the 
 dreamer Merlin. We may expect that the mythical 
 history will soon fall back into oblivion ; but meanwhile it 
 seems necessary to give some short account of the story 
 itself and of the controversy respecting its origin. 
 
 The date of the historical Triads has been approxi- 
 mately fixed by the form of their language and by other 
 internal evidence.^ Although some few are found in 
 poems of the twelfth century it is clear that they mostly 
 belong to the period between the Conquest of Wales and 
 the rebellion of Owen Glendower, whose bard " lolo the 
 Red " was the chief compiler of the history of Hugh the 
 Mighty, whom the Welsh call " Hu Gadarn." The prin- 
 cipal collection is preserved in the Red Book of Hergest 
 in the library of Jesus College at Oxford, and the pre- 
 
 ^ Stephens, Literature of the Kymry, 169, 429, 493; Turner, Hist 
 Anglo-Saxon, i. c. 2 ; Skene, " Four Ancient Books of Wales," and 
 " Celtic Scotland," i. 172 ; Valroger, Les Celtes, 395. 
 
Origins of English History. 251 
 
 ceding contents of the book show that this collection was 
 made after the commencement of the fourteenth century. 
 The Triads failed to attract much attention in England 
 until their publication in the Myvyrian Archaeology in the 
 early part of this century. They were soon afterwards 
 translated into English, and were published by Probert as 
 an appendix to his " Ancient Laws of Cambria." They 
 became famous for a time when Sharon Turner in Eng- 
 land and Michelet in France vindicated the historical 
 character of the ancient British poems ; but in our own 
 country they have relapsed into neglect, though a few 
 speculations are hazarded from time to time as to the 
 origin of the word " Lloegria " or the position of " the 
 Hazy Sea." ^ 
 
 The legend of Hugh the Mighty certainly contains 
 direct allusions to the Welsh mythology, but in the main 
 it is a travesty of the life of the Patriarch Noah, tricked 
 out with such scraps of learning as a bard might have 
 gathered in a library. It is confused by an intermixture 
 of the exploits of Hugh of Constantinople, a paladin of 
 romance who took part in the adventures of the legendary 
 armies of Charlemagne. There are further allusions which 
 imply that all this mystical doctrine was nothing but 
 orthodoxy in disguise ; and the change may have become 
 necessary when the legend was accepted as the plot of a 
 popular miracle-play. 
 
 The language of some of the poems would suggest that 
 Hugh the Mighty was a solar god. His chariot is de- 
 
 1 "M6r Tawch" may mean the "Hazy" or the "Dacian" Sea, the 
 latter word being taken in the sense of Danish. If the last interpretation 
 is correct, the date of the Triad in which the phrase occurs will be fixed 
 about the twelfth century. Stephens, Literature of the Kymry, 428. 
 
252 Origins of English History. 
 
 scribed as " an atom of glowing heat " : he is said to be 
 greater than all the worlds, "light his course and active, 
 great on the land and on the seas " ; and his two great 
 oxen are bright constellations in the firmament.^ 
 
 In the first age of the world he instructed the Cymry in 
 the arts of agriculture poetry and government. When the 
 earth was destroyed by fire and water he saved a remnant 
 of men and animals in his ark. The monster which caused 
 the deluge was dragged from the waters by the sacred 
 oxen : the enchanter " Gwydion" sets a rainbow in the sky 
 as the sign of a covenant with mankind. The Cymry are 
 settled at first in " Deffrobani," which can only be intended 
 for " Taprobane," the classical name of Ceylon ; but the 
 scribe has added in a note, " this is where Constantinople 
 stands." The Cymry are followed by the Lloegrians from 
 Gascony, whose name is probably derived from that of the 
 River Loire, and by the "Brythons" from the shore of 
 Armorica. Three "refuge-seeking tribes" take shelter in 
 the Highlands and the Isle of Wight ; and there are 
 allusions to the Caledonian Forest and to the ancient 
 floods which overwhelmed the Cimbri. We then read of 
 the invading tribes, the Picts, the Coranians of the eastern 
 coast and the Saxons, in whose arrival the secular tragedy 
 culminates. "The crown of monarchy" is wrested from 
 the Cymry : the Lloegrians unite with the German in- 
 vaders, " and of the Lloegrians who did not become Saxon 
 there remain none but those who inhabit Cornwall and the 
 Commote of Carnoban."" 
 
 The Welsh bards retained a stock of tropes and allu- 
 
 1 Nash, Taliesin, 307 ; Guest's Mabinogion, 284. 
 
 2 This district is described in the Triads as being " in the Kingdom of 
 Deira and Bernicia." 
 
Origins of English History. 253 
 
 sions which derived their origin from the ancient British 
 paganism. There was enough reality for the purposes of 
 an ode or sonnet in the Enchanter " Gwydion " who 
 fashioned a woman out of flowers of the oak the broom 
 and the meadow-sweet, the Giant "Ogyrfen," and " Aerfen" 
 the fierce goddess of the border-stream " where the blow- 
 ing Bala Lake fills all the sacred Dee." Even with 
 ourselves it is "Jupiter who gives whate'er is great, And 
 Venus who brings everything that's fair." But it would 
 be absurd to treat the poets who used the conceit as con- 
 scious worshippers of a sun-god, the followers of a deified 
 patriarch, or the custodians of traditional secrets descended 
 from the age of the Druids. " The minstrels were plain, 
 pious, and very ignorant Christians, who believed in 
 nothing worse than a little magic and witchcraft." ^ The 
 songs ascribed to Taliesin have been called the romance 
 of metempscychosis. A Druidical dogma of the transmi- 
 gration of souls is thought to lie hidden in the poet's 
 account of his wonderful transformations, but as often as 
 not they are merely borrowed from Ovid or c^dapted from 
 the Arabian Nights. The wars of the dwarfs and elves 
 are mistaken for a presentment of the religious beliefs pre- 
 vailing in Gaul and Britain at the commencement of the 
 Roman Conquest. But an examination of these celebrated 
 poems will show that, though they are full of mythological 
 allusions, they conta,in nothing which can be treated as 
 a real tradition of doctrine. They seem to have been 
 founded in several cases on some myth of the moon and 
 shadows. The White Fairy Ceridwen makes war upon 
 
 1 Kennedy, Irish Fiction, 311; Skene, "Four Ancient Books of 
 Wales," i. 16. 
 
254 Origins of English History. 
 
 the prince of the dwarfs. In one form of the story the 
 fairy becomes an old witch, and the dwarf is a boy who 
 watches the boiling cauldron. Three drops of the liquor 
 of knowledge are tasted by Gwion. Pursued at once by 
 the hag, " he changed himself into a hare and fled, but she 
 transformed herself into a greyhound and turned him ; and 
 he ran towards the river and became a fish, and she in the 
 form of an otter chased him under water till he was fain 
 to become a bird of the air": and so on in a series of 
 adventures imitated from those which appear in the tale of 
 the " Second Royal Calender." ^ The first part of the 
 legend appears in slightly different forms in the Irish 
 stories of Finn mac Cumhal and also among the adven- 
 tures of Sigurd in the Song of the Nibelungs. The poet, 
 or school of poets, who wrote under the name of the 
 Taliesin, borrowed incidents and allusions from every kind 
 of literature. The fairy becomes the Muse of Poetry and 
 her cauldron is the fount of inspiration. At another time 
 she resembles the Madre Natura, or "the Witch of 
 Atlas," and turns, according to the minstrel's fancy, from 
 a princess to a "black screaming hag" or a demon of the 
 air. The dwarf becomes the poet himself or an idealized 
 figure of his mind, flying with the swiftness of thought 
 through distant times and on the confines of space. He 
 sees Lucifer fall from heaven and Absalom hanging in the 
 oak-tree : he was in the Chair of Cassiopeia before 
 Gwydion was born, and stayed for ages in the court of 
 a goddess inhabiting the Northern Crown. He was with 
 Nimrod and Alexander : he describes Behemoth and the 
 oxen of the goddess who guarded the streams of the Dee : 
 
 1 Nash, Taliesin, i8o, 182; Stephens, Literature of the Kymry, 170. 
 
Origins of English History. 255 
 
 he takes the character of an ancient prophet, predicting 
 the invasions of Britain ; " their Lord they will praise," he 
 cried, "their speech they will keep, their land they will 
 lose, except wild Wales." ^ And yet through all changes 
 he still claims to be Taliesin, " the prince of song and the 
 chief of the bards of the West." 
 
 The figures of all times and countries pass in a strange 
 procession, and we recognize among them several beings 
 who were worshipped as gods in Ireland and Western 
 Britain. But we shall find nothing about the Druids ; 
 their very name had" been forgotten for centuries before 
 the modern travesty of their doctrines was propounded 
 under the title of " Bardism." Nor again will anything 
 be found about the Gaulish gods whose rites were trans- 
 ported to Britain at first by the Belgian settlers and 
 afterwards by Roman soldiers. For them we must rely 
 on the classical descriptions, obscure and scanty as they 
 are, wherever the patient research of the Continental 
 scholars has failed to bring fresh life~ into the almost 
 forgotten tradition. 
 
 It will be convenient to deal separately with the main 
 divisions of the subject. Some account will first be given 
 of the religions of Ancient Gaul. We shall treat in the 
 next place of the Druids and the character of their teach- 
 ing, and we shall afterwards try to collect what is known 
 about the nature of the Gaelic paganism. 
 
 The religion of the Gauls appears to have borne some 
 general resemblance to that of the Gaelic tribes.^ It has 
 become known, in part of course by the sketch in Caesar's 
 Commentaries, by Pliny's chapters on magic and a few 
 
 ' Nash, Taliesin, 162, 304. ^ Tac. Agric. c. 11 
 
256 Origins of English History. 
 
 scattered allusions of the Latin poets, but in a greater 
 degree by the comparison in modern times of inscriptions 
 upon ruined altars and of legends and observances in 
 which some fragments of the old creed have been by- 
 chance retained. A figure of Roland in the market-place, 
 the cakes at the village-fair impressed with the sign of 
 Gargantua, the miracles recurring at the shrines which 
 replaced the heathen temples, the processions dances and 
 devotions of the peasantry, have all helped in their turns 
 to explain the nature of the old beliefs. When the Chris- 
 tian Church took possession in the fourth century of the 
 temples and sanctuaries of paganism more than one 
 Gaulish god was enrolled among the provincial saints. 
 The heathen rites were preserved under Christian names ; 
 and the older religion survived in the dedication-feasts, 
 the January-fires, the May-games and the Midsummer- 
 fairs, the garlands set by the fountains and the sacrifices 
 made at favourite shrines to avert sterility or to procure 
 good fortune in marriage.^ 
 
 The Roman writers have left us little definite informa- 
 tion on the subject. They seem to have felt a natural 
 contempt for the superstitions of their barbarous neigh- 
 bours. Cicero, for example, was a friend of the Druid 
 Divitiacus ; yet he did not think it necessary to record the 
 result of their curious discussions. Julius Caesar was him- 
 self a Pontiff and published a book upon divination, but 
 he noticed the foreign religions only so far as they were 
 connected with public policy. He does not mention the 
 British religion at all ; and as to the German beliefs he 
 
 1 See the article on the gods of the AUobroges by M. Vallentin, Remt 
 Celtique, iv. 2, and his work on the local gods of Vocontium (Grenoble, 
 1877), and Gaidoz, Religion des Gaulois" (Paris, 1879). 
 
Origins of English History. 257 
 
 merely observes that of all the gods they seemed only to 
 recognise those whose benefits were obvious to the senses. 
 We owe his short sketch of the Gaulish Pantheon to the 
 fact that for practical purposes it was the same as that of 
 the Roman world : it was clear that if Druidism could be 
 abolished the new province would easily fall into the 
 official forms of belief 
 
 The public or national faith should be distinguished from 
 the private religion of the tribe and also from the worship 
 of those local gods to whom particular woods or streams 
 were sanctified. The' " greater gods " were revered under 
 various titles by every nation in Gaul ; and their wor- 
 shippers held much the same doctrine about them as all 
 the rest of the world. A Pluto reigned in darkness, and a 
 Jupiter in heaven. Mars was the "lord of war": Apollo, 
 Mercury and Minerva brought precious gifts to mankind.^ 
 
 The Gauls were taught by the Druids to call themselves 
 the children of Pluto, and the parable may have referred 
 to the idea that all things have come from Chaos. Caesar 
 attributed to this belief their practice of reckoning by 
 nights instead of days. A birthday, or the first of the 
 month or year, was considered to begin at sunset on the 
 previous evening. The habit was common to all the 
 northern nations, and seems to have been a natural con- 
 sequence of the measurement of time by the moon. The 
 Gauls began their months on the 6th night after the moon 
 was new and just before her face was half-full.' The 
 year began with the same phase of the satellite and so also 
 did the cycle of thirty years. It follows from this that the 
 year consisted of thirteen lunar months, falling short of the 
 
 1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. c. 16. 
 
 ^ Jbid. c. 1 7 ; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvi. 98. 
 
 S 
 
258 Origins of English History. 
 
 true solar year by about one day. In the course of about 
 twenty-nine years they would have apparently gained a 
 month on the solar year, and in order to make the solstices 
 and equinoxes fall within the appropriate lunar months 
 it became necessary to intercalate a whole month or to 
 repeat the thirteenth month in the last year of the cycle. 
 
 The GauHsh " Mercury " and " Minerva" were the most 
 human of all their deities. The one presided over roads, 
 markets, and boundaries, and was imagined to be the dis- 
 coverer of all the sciences^ : the other taught mankind 
 their useful arts and labours, to spin and weave, to work 
 in the smithy, to sow and till the ground.^ The goddess 
 was worshipped in Britain under the title of " Belisama," 
 and a relic of her worship is found in the name of the 
 river Ribble in Lancashire, to which the later Gaulish 
 settlers gave the title of their favourite goddess. 
 
 Next to the merchants' god in dignity came the god of 
 the healing powers in whom the Romans saw the radiance 
 and majesty of Apollo. The lines in which Ausonius 
 described the Temple of Belenus at Bayeux, and the 
 remains of statues found at Bath, show that his worship 
 
 1 For an account of the worship of Mercury under his Gaulish names 
 of Dunates, Vasso, Visucius, and Marunus, see Montfaucon's Antiquit't 
 Expliqu'ee. Gaidoz , Religion des Gaulois, 9, 10; De Belloguet, Gloss. 
 Gaul. 327, 392; Ethnog. Gaul. 213. Some of the temples of the god 
 are described in Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 18 j Minuc. Felix, 49; Greg. 
 Turon. Hist. Franc, i. 30 ; Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 70. For British 
 notices of his worship see an inscription of a.d. 191, to "the god who 
 invented roads and paths," Hubner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 271, and the 
 passage in the Welsh Triads, as to " Beli the constructor of roads and the 
 protector of travellers." The identification of Mercury with " Teutates," 
 now abandoned, was founded on a false reading in Livy, xxxvi. 44. 
 
 2 Caesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. c. 17 ; Orelli, Inscr. 143 1, 1969 ; Valroger, 
 Les Celtes, 145 ; De Belloguet, Ethnog. Gaul. 240. 
 
Origins of English History. 259 
 
 was connected with solar rites at any rate after the esta- 
 blishment of the state religion. But he seems at first to 
 have represented the health-giving waters and herbs them- 
 selves, and to have been worshipped under a multitude 
 of local names wherever such things were found. He was 
 the " Borvo " of the boiling springs which have given the 
 name of Bourbon to so many places in France, the 
 " Grannus " of the wells at Aix-la-Chapelle, the " Belisa," 
 whose shrine stood at Aquileia by the side of the Fountain 
 of Belenus.-' The ceremonies observed in gathering the 
 herbs and simples are recounted by Pliny in the Natural 
 History. The service at the cutting of the mistletoe seems 
 to have come from a time at which the thing itself had 
 been worshipped. The plant when growing upon the oak 
 was thought to be a panacea or " all-heal." Its infusion 
 cured sterility in cattle, the pounded leaves healed sores, 
 and it was used in other forms in cases of epilepsy and 
 poisoning. Its appearance on the sacred tree betokened 
 the presence of the "god. The service took place on a 
 holiday at the beginning of a month. A Druid clothed in 
 white, with a chaplet of oak-leaves on his head, cut the 
 plant with a golden sickle shaped like the moon when six 
 nights old and caught it in a long white cloak. As it fell 
 the sacrifices began, and the company burst out into 
 prayer. A banquet followed, and at last the mistletoe was 
 carried home on a waggon drawn by two snow-white 
 bulls which had never felt the yoke.^ 
 
 ^ Ausonius, Profess. 4, 10 ; Herodian, viii. 7 ; Tertullian, Apolog. c. 
 24; Orelli, Inscr. 1967, 1968; Gaidoz, R'eligion des Gaulois, 10; De 
 Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul. 379; Valroger, Les Celtes, 145. 
 
 ^ " Tanta gentium in rebus frivo lis plerumque religio est." Pliny, Hist. 
 Nat. xvi. 95 ; Keysler, " De visco Druidum," Antiqu. Septent. 304. 
 
 S 2 
 
26o Origins of English History. 
 
 The club-moss {Selago) was a fetish of another kind. 
 The man who carried the divine object was secure against 
 all misfortune : and blindness could be cured by the fumes 
 of a few of its leaves, which were dried and thrown into 
 the fire. It had to be gathered with a curious magical 
 ceremony. The worshipper was dressed in white : he 
 must go to the place barefoot and wash his feet in pure 
 water before approaching the plant. No metal might be 
 used in taking it, but after offerings of bread and wine it 
 was snatched from the ground with a thievish gesture, the 
 right hand being darted under the left arm. The Breton 
 peasants are said to retain their respect for the plant. 
 They call it " I'herbe d'or" ^ and the lucky finder still 
 follows the fashion of his ancestors ; "pour le cueillir il 
 faut ^tre nu-pieds et en chemise : il sarrache et ne se coupe 
 pas!' The " samolus" or water-pimpernel was a specific 
 against murrain in swine and cattle. The finder was re- 
 quired to go to the place fasting and to pluck the stalk 
 with his left hand, and then without looking back to carry 
 it at once to the drinking-troughs. And there were many 
 other herbs which were thought to be gifts from Belenus, 
 as the henbane or " insane root," which the Gauls used for 
 their poisoned arrows, and the " fieliocanda " which the 
 Greek physicians made up into poultices for wounds.^ 
 
 1 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxiv. 4 ; Villemarque, Barzas Ereiz. 62, 76. The 
 plant mentioned in the text may either be the club-moss or one of the 
 plants of the family " Selago," some of which are the foundations of 
 powerful drugs. Davies identified it with a plant which the Welsh called 
 "gris Duw" or "the grace of God," and the samolus with the Anemone 
 Pulsatilla. Brit. Myth. 274, 280. Compare Virg. ^neid, vi. 187, 204. 
 
 ^ Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxiv. 4. For an account of the henbane, called 
 " Belinuntia " and " ApoUiiiaris Insana," see Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxv. 17; 
 Dioscorides, iv. 69, 115. It was also called " Belisa," and in modern 
 
Origins of English History. 261 
 
 An obscure passage in the Pharsalia has preserved the 
 names of three gods who cannot be identified with 
 certainty. The poet speaks of the grim Teutates, of Hesus 
 with his bloody sacrifices, and of Taranis whose altars were 
 as cruel as those of the Scythian Diana.^ Very little need 
 be said about " Hesus," because no trace of his worship 
 has been found in Britain. His statues have been found 
 in France ; at Rheims he was represented as a bearded 
 figure of a man with horns on his head, seated with an ox 
 and a stag feeding at his feet.^ Nothing however is 
 known as to his attnbutes ; and it may be to this obscurity 
 that he owes the exaggerated respect which has been paid 
 to the " Jehovah des Gaulois " by the Continental his- 
 torians. 
 
 Teutates has been identified with several deities in 
 turn : he was probably the war-god, worshipped under 
 many names, for whom the piles of spoil were heaped in 
 the market-place and the altars ran with the blood of 
 captives killed as thank-offerings.' Many ingenious 
 attempts have been made to connect the name of the god 
 
 German is " 6t/sen-krauf." De Belloguet, G/oss. Gaul. 150. Compare 
 the instances collected by Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 11 50. 
 
 1 Lucan, Pharsal. i. 445 ; Lactantius, Inst. i. ; Schedius, De Dis 
 German. 346; Valroger, Les CelUs, 145. 
 
 ^ The name oi Hesus or Esus has been derived from a root " is," signi- 
 fying to wish. Revue Celtique, i. 259, ii. 303. Compare Grimm, Deutsch. 
 Mythol. 126 ; Martin, Hist. France, i. 57, 469. The name of the god is 
 set over one of the figures in the slab found in 1 7 1 1 under the choir of 
 Notre-Dame ; but the figure seems to be meant for a Druid cutting the 
 mistletoe. Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 366. 
 
 ' Caesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. 16; Revue Celtique, i. 451; Valroger, 
 Gaule Celtique, 145. For an attempted identification of Teutates with 
 " Gwion," the dwarf who appears in the romance of Taliesin, see Martin, 
 Hist. France, i. 57. 
 
262 Origins of English History. 
 
 with the names of places in England. It has been iden- 
 tified with those of several British saints, as St. Teuth and 
 St. Tydew ; the ill-spelt vocabulary of the Ravenna Geo- 
 grapher has been ransacked to find words which might in 
 their original form have been applied to the temples ; and 
 every "toot-hill" or "Tothill" has been imagined to 
 represent the site of a shrine or a statue of the martial 
 god.^ The name " Teutates " seems to have been hardly 
 ever used in this country,^ and in any case it is clear that 
 the deity was better known as " Camulus," a word which 
 appears on British coins in connection with warlike 
 emblems and is used as a compound in the names of 
 several forts which were erected in the Roman pro- 
 vince.^ 
 
 Taranis was the Northern Jupiter, and was worshipped 
 by the Britons under titles derived from words for fire and 
 thimder. He was the summer-god who brought the rain 
 and sunshine and dispensed the fruits of the earth. He 
 is the Red-bearded Thor of Scandinavia, and the Thunder- 
 
 1 For an account of these saints, see lolo MSS. 421; Rees, British 
 Saints, 515, 600; Pearson, Hist. Engl. i. 19. Mr. Pearson selects the 
 words " Corio-tiotav '' and " Neme-totacio," from the Ravenna Geo- 
 grapher's list as probable sites of the temples of Teutates. " Toot-hill " 
 means nothing more than a hill, a lump, a curl. " In that medewe is a 
 litylle toothille with toures & pynacles all of gold." Mandeville, Travels, 
 c. 36. "Tutuli. . . . capilli matronarum convoluti et in altum congesti." 
 Grupen, De Uxor. Theotisc. 164. The derivations of " Belenian hills " 
 and " Hessary Tors " from Belenus and Hesus may be also disregarded, 
 
 2 An Inscription '^ Marti Toutati" was found in Hertfordshire in 
 A.D. 1748. Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 84. 
 
 ^ Examples may be found in the names of Camulodunum, Camunlodunum 
 or Cambodunum (Slack, in Yorkshire), and Camulosessa, a place which 
 is only mentioned by the Ravenna Ge.ographer. The god was also 
 called Cocidius, and Belatucadrus. For the inscriptions " Deo Marti 
 Belatucadro" and the like, see Hiibner, Uhi suprd., 318, 746, 885, 957. 
 
Origins of English History. 263 
 
 god to whom the Esthonians prayed "that their straw 
 might be red as copper and the grain as yellow as gold."^ 
 The Slavonians have transformed him into the Prophet 
 Elijah, driving in the tempest with a chariot and horses of 
 fire, who can withhold the rain and dew or blacken the 
 heavens with clouds and wind. He is the " Dieu 
 tonnant" oi the mediaeval songs, and the " Tonans" of 
 Merlin's prophecy : " therefore shall the revenge of the 
 Thunderer show itself, for every field shall disappoint the 
 husbandman." He was worshipped in the forests, and 
 captives were offered in his honour beneath a tall 
 "Thunder-oak." His sacred plants were the house-leek 
 or " joubarbe" the ash and the hawthorn which were 
 thought to avert the lightning : and it seems likely that 
 the old festival of the Summer-king and the Cornish 
 jubilees in May were originally held in honour of Taran 
 or " Etirun" the god of the heathen Britons.^ 
 
 The names of a host of minor deities appear in the 
 inscriptions or are vaguely preserved in the country 
 
 1 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 153, 157, 160; Uhland, "MythusvonThor." 
 ^ The Irish Dinn-Senchus mentions ^^ Etirun, an idol of the Britons.'' 
 The name Taran appears in the Welsh legendary tales, Mabinogion, 251. 
 For Merlin's prophecy, see Geoff. Monm. Hist. Brit. vii. 3. The 
 Helstone " Furry-Day" festival is described in the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 June, 1790, and in Bell's Ballads of the Peasantry, 168. The pro- 
 cession of the King of Summer at Lostwithiel is described in Carew's 
 Survey of Cornwall, ii. 137, and Hazlitt's Tenures of Land, 206. For 
 Celtic instances of the mock-battle on May-day between the Kings of 
 Summer and Winter, and its connection with the burning of the " bell- 
 tree "in the Beltain fire, see Revue Celiique,\y. 194. A description of 
 certain statuettes found in France, and supposed to be figures of Taranis, 
 will be found in Gaidoz, R'eligion des Gaulois, 11, 22. 
 
 M. Gaidoz finds a reference to the same name in the inscriptions "Deo 
 Taranucno " and " lovi Taranuco." Compare Revue Celtique, i. i. 
 
264 Origins of English History. 
 
 legends. The greater powers had each his wife or help- 
 mate. The goddesses of the healing springs were honoured 
 as the companions of Apollo. " Rosmerta " shared the 
 altars of Mercury, and the war-god was attended by Furies 
 like those of the Irish mythology.^ Divine beings, or half- 
 divine, mediated everywhere between mankind and 
 heaven. The sea-nymph of the Breton shore is still 
 revered under the name of St. Anne. Melusina's fountain 
 Sabrina's throne beneath the "translucent wave" and 
 " Bovinda " in her palace by the clear-running Boyne, are 
 figures which show the nature of the worship that was 
 paid to the streams. The mountains were dedicated to 
 airy powers : the Pennine Jove ruled on the Mont St. 
 Bernard and " Arduinna " in the Forest of Ardennes. 
 Every village was protected by the " mothers " or guar- 
 dian spirits who appear in mediaeval legends as the White 
 Ladies, the " three fairies," the " weird sisters," and wild 
 women of the woods. Their worship was common to the 
 Celts and Germans, and it is uncertain to which race we 
 should attribute the numerous inscriptions and images 
 which were set up in their honour by the soldiers of the 
 Roman regiments in Britain. It has been observed, how- 
 ever, that the inscriptions found in England are always to 
 " the mothers " in general terms, while the Continental 
 examples are usually distinguished by some local epithet ; 
 and so it is concluded that the soldiers who erected the 
 altars in Britain were worshipping the guardians of their 
 foreign birth-places.^ 
 
 1 " Nemetona," a Gaulish war-goddess, has been identified with 
 " Nemon," one of the battle-furies who appear so constantly in the Irish 
 mythological tales. Revue Celtique, i. 39. 
 
 ^ Wright, " Roman Celt and Saxon," 347. The best British example is 
 
Origins of English History. 265 
 
 Some of the minor deities reappear as giants in nursery- 
 tales and legends ; and it seems probable that most of the 
 gigantic figures which adorned the mediaeval processions 
 were connected with the worship of some local god. The 
 festivals of Gargantua in Normandy and Poitou imply the 
 pagan origin of the giants "Gurgunt" and "Goemagot" 
 who appear in the fabulous histories of Britain.^ The 
 monsters of the children's tales may have been drawn from 
 the many-headed gods of the Slavonians, or from such 
 figures as the three-headed idols which have sometimes 
 been found in France. There are other images to which 
 no meaning can now be attached with certainty. 
 
 A woman sitting on horseback is taken to be " Epona," 
 a goddess concerned with the breeding and management 
 of horses. " Tarvos Trigaranus," or the bull with the 
 three cranes, is believed to represent the Sun.^ " Cernun- 
 nus," in the shape of an old man with stag's horns, is 
 represented on the bas-relief dug up in the Cathedral of 
 Notre-Dame ; but the details of his worship have been 
 
 that of the three figures found at Ancaster. The goddesses are seated on 
 chairs, and hold baskets of fruit and flowers. See as to the " mothers " 
 in Gaul and Germany, Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 401, and Keysler's 
 elaborate discussion of the subject, Antiqu. Septent. 369. For similar 
 superstitions in Scandinavia, see Olaus Magnus, De Gent. Septent, iii. c. 9. 
 
 ^ See the article " Sur le vrai nom de Gargantua,^' Revue Celtiqne, i. 
 136, and the legends of the Cornish giants in Geoffr. Monm. Hist. Brit, 
 i. 16 ; Keysler, Antiqu. Septent. 209. The local legends of the Castle of 
 Gurgunt at Norwich and the Gogmagog Hills near Cambridge will be 
 found in Taylor's " Eastern Counties." 
 
 ^ See the figures in Montfaucon, Antiquite Expliquee; Gaidoz, JSsquisse 
 de la Religion des Gaulois, 11, 13. The bull and cranes may be connected 
 with the Welsh myth of Gwyddno Garanhir, whose horses and basket of 
 abundance seem to have some relation to a solar deity, Mabinogion, 286, 
 472. 
 
266 Origins of English History. 
 
 forgotten. Other images have been found both in France 
 and England, to which not even a name can be assigned. 
 Those found in our own country have been almost all 
 destroyed ; they have been burnt or lost or built into 
 walls. In the rural communes of France, where sacred 
 images are matters of a deeper interest, the figures have 
 occasionally been accepted as the gift of miracle and the 
 " Vierges Noires " have been again adored in the churches 
 which stand on the sites of the heathen temples.^ 
 
 We have described the chief figures in the Gaulish 
 Pantheon, and we have now to attempt the more difficult 
 task of defining the nature of Druidism. The system is 
 believed to have been invented in Britain, and its abnormal 
 character makes it easy to suppose that it was devised by 
 the wild Silurians.^ We may infer that it existed among 
 the Belgian colonists from Caesar's statement that the 
 Gauls in Kent differed but little in their way of living 
 
 1 " Zes statues miraculeuses de la Vierge Marie trouvkes dans la 
 terre a diverses kpoques etaient sans doute les statues de dksses-meres 
 gauloises ou gallo-romaines." Gaidoz, Esquisse de la Religion des 
 Gaulois, 12. 
 
 ^ " The doctrine is thought to have been invented in Britain and to 
 have been carried over to Gaul ; and at the present time those who wish 
 to gain a more precise knowledge of the system travel to that country for 
 the purpose of studying it." Caesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. c. 12. Professor 
 Rh^^s refers the adoption of Druidism by the Insular Celts to a time before 
 the British and Irish Celts had separated. " Druidism is probably to be 
 traced to the race or races which preceded the Celts in their possession of 
 the British Isles. The Irish word for Druid is draoi, which in Irish 
 literature mostly means a magician or soothsayer, and is usually rendered 
 by magus in the lives of the saints. It has not been proved, as is 
 pointed out by M. d'Arbois de Jubainville in the Revue Archeologigue 
 (Paris, 1875), that Druidism found its way into Gaul before 200 B.C. 
 When it did get there, it was undoubtedly through the Belgse who had 
 settled in Britain." Lectures, 33. 
 
Ofigins of English History. 267 
 
 from their kinsmen across the Channel. We know from 
 the words of Tacitus that a college of Druids served a 
 temple in Anglesea. The soldiers of Paullinus were 
 amazed at a wild procession ; the British ranks opened 
 and a band of women marched out, looking like stage- 
 furies with their floating hair and the blazing torches in 
 their hands ; on their right and left stood the Druids 
 with hands uplifted and calling down vengeance from 
 heaven. But they were soon " rolled in their own fires," 
 the sacred groves were destroyed and the altars levelled 
 to the ground.^ ' 
 
 Our traditions of the Scottish and Irish Druids are 
 evidently derived from a time when Christianity had long 
 been established. These insular Druids are represented 
 as being little better than conjurors, and their dignity is 
 as much diminished as the power of the king is exagger- 
 ated. He is hedged with a royal majesty which never 
 existed in fact. He is a Pharaoh or Belshazzar with a 
 troop of wizards at command ; but his Druids are sorcerers 
 and rain-doctors who pretend to call down the storms and 
 the snow, and frighten the people with " the fluttering 
 wisp " and other childish charms. They divine by the 
 observation of " sneezing and omens," by their dreams 
 after the holding of a " bull-feast " or chewing raw flesh in 
 front of their idols, by the croaking of their ravens and 
 chirping of tame wrens, or by licking the hot adze of 
 bronze taken out of the rowan-tree faggot. They are 
 like the Red Indian medicine-men or the " Angekoks " of 
 the Eskimo, dressed up in bulls'-hide coats and bird-caps 
 
 ^ Tac. Ann. xiv. 30. The allusion to the Furies is evidently a remi- 
 niscence of the Iberians described by Strabo, and of the Iberian origin 
 which Agricola had invented for the Silurians. 
 
268 Origins of English History. 
 
 with waving wings. The chief Druid of Tara is shown 
 to us as a leaping juggler with ear-clasps of gold and a 
 speckled cloak ; he tosses swords and balls in the air, 
 " and like the buzzing of bees on a beautiful day is the 
 motion of each passing the other." ^ 
 
 We need not suppose that the Druids in Gaul were 
 exactly like their insular brethren. The latter seem to 
 have been more expert in magic. " Britannia to this day," 
 said Pliny, "celebrates the art with such wondrous cere- 
 monies that it seems as if she might have taught the Magi 
 of Persia." ^ The Gaulish Druids were more cultivated. 
 They knew the Greek modes of reckoning and were pro- 
 bably acquainted by hearsay with the doctrines of Pytha- 
 goras. They had gained a political supremacy ; their 
 judgments were taken as the voice of the gods, and they 
 were themselves exempt from all earthly service. They 
 were in fact ecclesiastics of the mediaeval type, and men 
 of the highest rank were eager to belong to their church. 
 The Druids of Strabo's description walked in gcarlet and 
 gold brocade and wore golden collars and bracelets " ; but 
 their doctrines may have been much the same as those of 
 the soothsayers by the Severn, the Irish " medicine-men," 
 or those rustic wizards by the Loire, whose oracle was a 
 sound in the oak-trees and whose decisions were rudely 
 scratched upon the blade-bone of an ox or sheep.* 
 
 ^ O'Curry, Lect. 9, lo ; Cormac's Glossary, 94 ; Revue Celtiqiie, i. 261 ; 
 Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii. 114. 
 
 2 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 21 ; Csesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. c. 13; Valer, 
 Max. ii. c. 6 ; Timagenes, cited in Animian. Marcell. xv. 9. 
 
 ^ Strabo, iv. 275. 
 
 * In the little comedy of " Querolus," written in the 4th century, the 
 discontented hero is bidden by the familiar spirit to go to the banks of 
 
Origins of English History. 269 
 
 Their doctrine seems to have belonged to that common 
 class of superstitions in which the magician pretends to 
 have secret communication with the spirits ; and in such 
 cases it is almost inevitable that the mediator should judge 
 and rule the nation. These men assumed to be inter- 
 preters of the designs of Heaven ; and they even used a 
 sacred jargon which passed for the language of the gods. 
 " They tamed the people as wild beasts are tamed " ; so 
 runs the famous description, which can only be ascribed to 
 Posidonius. The Druids and their subordinates foretold 
 the future by the 'flight of birds and the inspection of 
 victims offered in sacrifice. The Druids of Mona used to 
 slay their captives, and tell fortunes from the look of their 
 bodies. A rite which seemed to Posidonius " so strange 
 as to be almost incredible " is familiar to us from stories of 
 the sacrifice of Antinous and the pedantic iniquities of the 
 Renaissance. The Druids would devote a man to the 
 gods and strike him down with a sword ; and as he fell 
 they would gather omens from his mode of falling and 
 convulsive movements, and from the flow of blood which 
 followed.^ 
 
 The Romans were familiar with the idea of human 
 sacrifice. The State had often been saved by such means 
 in obedience to the sacred oracles. But they were aston- 
 ished at the recklessness of the Gaulish massacres. The 
 slaughter was continuous, though no Sibyl had spoken and 
 
 the Loire. " Vade, ad Ligerim vivito. Illic jure gentium vivunt homines : 
 ibi nullum est prsestigium ; ibi sententise capitales de robore proferuntur 
 et scribuntur in ossibus ; illic etiam rustici perorant et privati judicant j 
 ibi totum licet." The response is, " Nolo jura hjec silvestria." Querolus, 
 ii. I. 
 ' Diod. Sic. V. 31 ; Strabo, iv. 277 ; Tac. Ann, xiv. 30. 
 
270 Origins of English History. 
 
 the nation had fallen into no universal danger. If any 
 person of importance were in peril from disease or the 
 chance of war, a criminal or a slave was killed or promised 
 as a substitute. The Druids held that by no other means 
 could a man's life be redeemed or the wrath of the gods 
 appeased ; and they went so far as to teach that the crops 
 would be fertile in proportion to the richness of the harvest 
 of death.^ It became a national institution to offer a 
 ghastly hecatomb at particular seasons of the year. In 
 some places the victims were crucified or shot to death 
 with arrows ; elsewhere they would be stuffed into huge 
 figures of wicker-work, or a heap of hay would be laid out 
 in the human shape, where men cattle and wild beasts 
 were burned in a general holocaust. The memory of the 
 public sacrifices seems to have been preserved by the Irish 
 proverb, in which a person in great danger was said to be 
 "between two Beltain fires." In the Highlands, even in 
 modern times, there were May-day bonfires at which the 
 spirits were implored to make the year productive ; a feast 
 was set out upon the grass, and lots were drawn for the 
 semblance of a human sacrifice ; and whoever drew the 
 " black piece " of a cake dressed on the fire was made to 
 leap three times through the flame.^ In many parts of 
 France the sheriffs or the mayor of a town burned baskets 
 filled with wolves foxes and cats in the bonfires at the 
 Feast of St. John ; and it is said that the Basques burn 
 vipers in wicker panniers at Midsummer, and that Breton 
 villagers will sacrifice a snake when they burn the sacred 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 275 ; Caesar, De Bell. Gall. vi. 15. 
 
 "- See Cormac's Glossary under "Beltene." Revue Celtique,vf. 193; 
 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 579. 
 
Origins of English History. 271 
 
 boat to the goddess who has assumed the title of St. 
 Anne.^ 
 
 The Welsh and Irish traditions contain many other 
 traces of the custom of human sacrifice. Some of the 
 penalties of the ancient laws seem to have originated in an 
 age when the criminal was offered to the gods. The thief 
 and the seducer of women were burned on a pile of logs 
 or cast into a fiery furnace ; the maiden who forgot her 
 duty was burned or drowned or sent adrift to sea.^ The 
 lives of the saints and the household fairy-tales are full of 
 the miracles by which the innocent queen or princess is 
 saved from an unjust doom. 
 
 The gods were propitiated with a human victim in times 
 of disaster and pestilence. A sacrifice of this kind is 
 mentioned in a description of one of the fairs which were 
 held at the tombs of the Irish chieftains. A god is in- 
 voked at sunrise to stay the plagues that afflict the land, 
 and afterwards the " hostages " are brought out and a 
 
 1 " Cktait en beaucoup d!endroits en France I'usage de jeter dans le feu de 
 la Saint-Jean des mannes ou des paniers en osier contenant des animaux, 
 chats, chiens, renards, hups. Au silcle dernier meme dans plusieurs villes 
 i'etait le maire ou les ichevins qui faisaient mettre dans un panier une ou 
 deux douzaines de chats pour brMer dans le feu de joie. Celte couttime 
 existait aussi d. Paris, et elle n^y a etk supprimke qu'au cotnmencetnent du 
 rigne de Louis XIV." Gaidoz, Esquisse de la Rkligion des Gaulois, 21. 
 
 ^ O'Curry, Manners of the Ancient Irish, introd. cccxxii. ; Liber 
 Landavensis, 323 ; Guest's Mabinogion, 282. Compare the custom for- 
 merly observed by the miners on the Mendip Hills. " Whoever among 
 them steals anything and is found guilty is thus punished : he is shut up 
 in a hut and then dry fern furzes and such other combustible matters are 
 put round it and fire set to it : when it is on fire the criminal, who has 
 his hands and feet at liberty, may virith them (if he can) break down the 
 hut and get free and be gone. This they call Burning of the Hill." 
 Camden, Britannia (Gibson) 185. 
 
272 Origins of English History. 
 
 captive prince is immolated. It appears that prisoners 
 were also killed at the funeral games. A remarkable 
 passage in the " Book of Ballymote " tells us how one of 
 the kings brought fifty " hostages " from Munster. The 
 conqueror died of his wounds before he reached the palace 
 of Tara. When the funeral-mound was raised, and his 
 name inscribed on an Ogam-stone, " the hostages, whom 
 he brought from the south, were buried alive round the 
 grave, that it might be a reproach to the Momonians for 
 ever. 
 
 It has been a common superstition in almost all parts of 
 Europe that a new building can only be made secure by 
 sprinkling the foundation with a child's blood or by 
 walling up a girl alive in the masonry. The custom was 
 altered in Christian times to the burial of a horse or lamb 
 under the foundation-stones of a church, or the sacrifice of 
 a fowl when the building of a house began, and in some 
 such forms as these the practice still survives in the East 
 of Europe. In ancient times a human life was almost 
 invariably required. The mason in the Greek legend 
 builds his bride into the wall that the king's palace may 
 
 1 The first story is from the description of the Fair of Tailtd, in the old 
 topography called the " Dinn-Senchus." O'Curry, Manners of the Ancient 
 Irish, ii. 222, introd. cccxxxv. dcxl. For the extract from the Book of 
 Ballymote, see ibid, cccxx. Mr. Sullivan adds that the reproach consisted 
 in treating the Munster nobles as if they were dependants or slaves. " It 
 may be also that putting them to death in this way, and burying them 
 round him as they would have sat in fetters along the wall of his banquet- 
 ing-hall consecrated them to perpetual hostageship even among the 
 dead." Compare the Scandinavian legend of the slaying of hostages, 
 when "the men of Vanaland suspected that the men of Asaland had 
 deceived them in the exchange of chieftains." Heimskringla, Ynglinga- 
 Tal, c. 4. 
 
Origins of English History. 2 73 
 
 stand. The Romans are said to have drowned the victim's 
 cries with a noise of flutes and trumpets, and they dis- 
 tracted the child's attention with caresses or handed in 
 toys and sweetmeats until the last stone was ready for 
 closing the aperture.^ 
 
 The tradition is preserved in those household stories 
 which tell how the first living being that crosses the new 
 bridge or enters the house is devoted to the spirit who has 
 helped the builders ; but the fiend is usually cheated by 
 the sending of a dog or cat across the fatal line. 
 
 Examples of this kind of sacrifice are found in the 
 History of Nennius and in the Irish mythical tales. 
 King Vortigern is represented as choosing a site on 
 Snowdon for a castle which might be safe against the 
 barbarian Saxons. The king collected all the materials 
 for building, but they disappeared as often as they were 
 brought to the chosen spot. Vortigern seeks from his 
 magicians a remedy for this waste of labour, and they 
 reply, " You must find a child born without a father, and 
 must put him to death and sprinkle with his blood the 
 ground where the castle is to stand."^ A somewhat similar 
 rite is mentioned in an Irish story called the " Courtship of 
 
 1 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 40, 1095. "Auf derBurg Liebenstein um 
 sie fest und uniiberwindlich zu machen wurde ein Kind eingemauert das 
 eine Mutter um schnodes Gold hergab, der Sage nach soil es beim 
 einmauem eine Semmel gegessen und gerufen haben : ' Mutter ! ich 
 sehe dich noch.' Dann spater: 'Mutter! ich sehe dich noch ein 
 wenig': und als der letzte Stein eingefugt wurde, 'Mutter! ich sehe 
 dich nun nicht mehr.' " Compare the instances mentioned in the Revue 
 CeUique, iv. 121. 
 
 ^ Nennius, Hist. Brit s. 40. Compare the account of building the 
 stone fort in the " Book of Lecan." " The top of the house of the groan- 
 ing hostages one stone closed." O'Curry, Mann. Anc. Irish, ii. 9. 
 
 T 
 
2 74 Origins of English History. 
 
 Becuma." A queen who has incurred the displeasure of 
 the gods becomes the wife of Conn the Hundred-fighter. 
 A blight comes over the country and there is a dearth of 
 corn and milk : the Druids assign the cause of the famine 
 to a crime which the queen had committed, and an- 
 nounce that it can only be removed " by slaying the son 
 of an undefiled couple and sprinkling his blood on the 
 door-posts and over the land of Tara." ^ A still more 
 striking example appears in the Life of St. Columba. In 
 the fabulous story of the building of the church at lona 
 the Saint addresses his followers in words which obviously 
 point to a human sacrifice. "It is good for us that our 
 roots should go under earth here : it is permitted that one 
 of you should go under the clay of this island to hallow it." 
 Odrdn rises and offers himself to his master. " If thou 
 shouldst take me," he said, "I am, ready." The Saint 
 readily accepted the offer, and we are told that thereupon 
 " Odrdn went to heaven."^ 
 
 It is not necessary to inquire minutely into the secrets 
 of the Druidical doctrine. The laws which they adminis- 
 tered are forgotten. Their boasted knowledge of ethics 
 only provokes a smile. We are told that they concerned 
 themselves with astronomy, the nature of the world and 
 its proportion to the rest of the universe, and the attributes 
 and powers of the gods. One or two of their dogmas 
 have been accidentally preserved. ' The world ' (they said) 
 
 1 The story is taken from the " Book of Fermoy." O'Curry, Mann. 
 Anc. Irish, introd. cccxxxiii. See also the instances from the Welsh 
 Triads in Guest's Mabinogion, 381. 
 
 * Myth. Notes by Whitley Stokes in the Revue Celtique, ii. 201 ; Cormac's 
 Glossary, 63. Other instances are collected in " Three Irish Glossaries," 
 xli.; Herbert, "Irish Nennius," xxv.; Reeves, Life of St. Columba, 203. 
 
Origins of English History. 275 
 
 ' can never be destroyed : but the elements are at war, and 
 Fire and Water will prevail in the end.' It will be remem- 
 bered that the legend of Hugh the Mighty is interwoven 
 with the story of a deluge of fire and water, and there is 
 another allusion to the dogma in the description of a later 
 personage in the Welsh mythical tales/ 
 
 The Gauls had once believed, like their Latin neigh- 
 bours, in some shadowy existence of the dead in a Hades 
 or Elysium fashioned after the type of the present world. 
 They used to cast on the funeral-pyre whatever things 
 the dead man had loved that his spirit might enjoy them 
 in the world to come ; and at the end of the funeral his 
 favourite slaves and dependants were burned alive on the 
 pile and sent to keep their master company. But in the 
 time of Julius Caesar the Druids had learned or invented a 
 totally different doctrine. They endeavoured to persuade 
 their followers that death was but an interlude in a suc- 
 cession of lives. In this or in some other world the soul 
 would find a new body and lead another human life and 
 so onwards in an infinite cycle of lives ; and their people 
 they thought could hardly fail in courage when the fear of 
 death was removed. " One would have laughed," said a 
 Roman, " at these long-trousered philosophers, if we had 
 not found their doctrine under the cloak of Pythagoras,"^ 
 
 ^ The " son of Kynyr " is thus described in the parade mythological of 
 personages in the story of "Kilhwch and Olwen." "His heart will be 
 always cold and there will be no warmth in his hands . . . and no one 
 will be able to resist fire and water so well as he." Mabinogion, 226. 
 
 * Valer. Max. ii. c. 6 ; Diod. Sic. v. 28 ; Cassar, De Bell. Gall. vi. 13, 
 18; Pomp. Mela, iii. 2. Compare Lucan's phrase: — 
 
 " regit idem spiritus artus 
 Orbe alio : longse, canitis si cognita, vit» 
 Mors media est" — Pharsal. i. 45 1. 
 T 2 
 
276 Origins of English History. 
 
 The continuance of the Druidical hierarchy would have 
 been plainly inconsistent with the government of a Roman 
 province. But we do not find that the order was abolished 
 by any process of law either in Gaul or Britain. We are 
 told indeed by Pliny that the "swarm of prophesying 
 quacks" was suppressed in the reign of Claudius ; but the 
 statement seems only to relate to the abolition of the 
 human sacrifices on which their principal authority had 
 depended. They long maintained the pretence of dragging 
 a victim to the altar and of symbolizing the desire of the 
 gods by the infliction of a ceremonial wound. But the 
 gods themselves went out of fashion. They were either 
 merged in the greater splendour of the deities of the state 
 religion or fell into obscurity as the objects of a rustic 
 superstition. The servants of Belenus might call them- 
 selves Druids to their Gaulish congregation ; but in the 
 view of the State they were ordinary priests of Apollo. 
 A few Druids of the old school took refuge among the 
 outlaws of the forests in Armorica, but their religion as a 
 system became extinct, and at last we find its titles assumed 
 by every old witch in the country-side. A "female 
 Druid " warned Alexander Severus, crying out in Gaulish 
 as the Emperor passed, " Go your ways to be beaten and 
 never trust your soldiers"; and Diocletian used to tell 
 how his future glory was discerned by a " Druidess " at 
 whose inn he was billeted as a private soldier.^ 
 
 It is clear that the class of Druids remained in Ireland 
 and Scotland until the people were converted by the 
 
 1 Lampridius, "Alexander," 60; Vopiscus, "Carinus," 14; Pompon. 
 Mela, iii. 2; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxx. 4; Suetonius, "Claudius," 25. See 
 the article, " Comment le Druidisme a disparu," by M. De Coulanges, 
 Revue Celtique, iv. 37. 
 
Origins of English History. z'j'j 
 
 Christian missionaries. The lives of St. Patrick and St. 
 Columba are full of their contests with the royal magicians 
 who are called " Druids " in the native chronicles. St. 
 Patrick's hymn contains a prayer for help " against black 
 laws of the heathen and against the spells of women, smiths 
 and Druids." The saint lights the Paschal flame when 
 the king and his Druids were beginning the sacrifices at 
 the Beltaine Feast in Tara ; and he is tried for a breach 
 of the law that every light in the kingdom must be re- 
 kindled by a flame from the sacred bonfire. At another 
 time he preaches at a fountain which the Druids wor- 
 shipped as a god. The Chief- Druid with nine sub- 
 ordinates robed in white comes out " with a magical host " 
 against him. The Druid of a Pictish king threatens to 
 impede Columba's voyage ; "I can make the winds un- 
 favourable, and cause a great darkness to envelope thee " ; 
 and the Picts of Ireland had magicians of the same kind 
 " to scorch them with incantations." ^ 
 
 After the conversion of Ireland was accomplished the 
 Druids disappear from history. Their mystical powers 
 were transferred without much alteration to the abbots and 
 bishops who ruled the " families of the saints." The 
 authority in matters of law, which must have been their 
 prerogative so long as their sorcery was feared, may 
 have passed in Ireland to the " Brehons " or hereditary 
 lawyers, though there is no positive evidence that such a 
 succession took place.* 
 
 ^ Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii. in, 114 j Usher, Trias Thaumat. 125; 
 Confess. S. Patric. apud Bolland. (March), i. 533, 536 ; Betham, Antiqu. 
 Restit. ii. app. v.; Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, i. 21, ii. 21, 23. 
 
 ' See Sir Henry Maine's observations on this theory, Hist. Early 
 Instit. 28, 31, 32, 35 ; Gaidoz, Esquisse de la Religion des Gaulois, 17. 
 
2 78 Origins of English History. 
 
 Apart from the traditions of Druidism the remains of 
 the British religions must be investigated by the same 
 methods as those which have been used to restore the 
 knowledge of the gods of Gaul. We shall find relics of 
 the old creed in heroic poems and nursery tales : the ritual 
 of the ancient sacrifices has survived in the unconscious 
 heathenism of the peasantry, and even the lives of the 
 saints will be found to be full of incidents which are 
 obviously of a pagan origin. 
 
 The names and attributes of mythological beings appear 
 in the pedigrees of the " holy tribes " of Wales, and in the 
 romance of Irish hagiology. We are told how a certain 
 saint created a miraculous spring on the " Hill of the 
 Sun," which became St. Michael's Mount : others were 
 the owners of wandering bells and flying rocks, and of 
 trees and animals which can never be hurt or destroyed ; 
 and some of them were fierce and gloomy beings, ever 
 ready to smite their enemies with monstrous kinds of 
 vengeance.^ The heads of the saintly families, as Caw of 
 North Britain and the mythical King Cunedda, have 
 ancestors and descendants who bear the names of Celtic 
 gods and heroes. " Edeyrn son of Nudd" was the child 
 of a god of darkness whose worship will be presently 
 described ; but he also appears in Welsh history as an 
 ancestor _of the King Cun edda, as a knight of the Round 
 Table, as a bard who became a hermit, and as a holy 
 person to whom a chapel at Holyhead was dedicated.' 
 The great saints Brychan and Dubricius were of the 
 kindred of those " maniac kings," whose flocks were the 
 
 ^ See the lives of Cadoc and Carannog in Rees, Brit. Saints, 358, 397 ; 
 and Girald. Cambr. Topogr. Hibern. ii. 55. 
 ^ Rees, Welsh Saints, 298; Mabinogion, 195. 
 
Origins of English History. 2 79 
 
 stars in the firmament, and who seem in reality to have 
 been the figures of a constellation or a sign in some 
 ancient zodiac : they were the two oxen of Hugh the 
 Mighty transformed into beasts for their pride, " a yoke of 
 horned cattle in the plough, one on either side of the high- 
 peaked mountain."^ The goddess of love was turned into 
 St. Brychan's daughter, as " St. Hermes " grew out of the 
 worship of the Gaulish Mercury : and as late as the 14th 
 century lovers are said to have come from all parts to 
 pray at her shrine in Anglesea and to cure their sorrows 
 at her miraculous wfell.' 
 
 A god^of fire appears in mediaeval romance as " blessed 
 Kai," the seneschal of King Arthur's court. " Very subtle 
 was Kai : when it pleased him he could make himself as 
 tall as the highest tree in the forest, and so great was the 
 heat of his nature that when it rained hardest whatever he 
 carried became dry, and when his companions were coldest 
 it was as fuel to them for lighting their fire." 
 
 A more singular example of this kind is found in the 
 confusion between St. Bridget and an Irish goddess whose 
 gifts were poetry fire and medicine. The saint became 
 the Queen of Heaven, and was adored as "the Mary of 
 the Gael " : but almost all the incidents in her legend can 
 be referred to the pagan ritual. Her worship was like 
 that which Pytheas discovered in the " Celtic Island," or 
 that described by Solinus in his picture of Minerva's temple 
 at Bath, where the goddess " ruled over the boiling springs, 
 and at her altar there flamed a perpetual fire which never 
 whitened into ashes but hardened into a stony mass." * 
 
 1 Mabinogion, 229, 236, 281. ^ Sikes, Brit. Gobi. 350. 
 
 * Ante, p. 27; Solinus, Polyhist. c. 24; Geoff. Monm. Hist. Brit. ii. c. 
 10. A full account of the temple will be found in Lyson's Reliquice and 
 
28o Origins of English History. 
 
 The symbol of St. Bridget is a flame, representing the 
 column of fire which shone above her when she took the 
 veil. The house where she dwelt was said to have blazed 
 with a flame which reached to heaven. The sacred fire 
 was maintained for ages in her shrine at Kildare ; it was 
 extinguished in the 13th century but was soon renewed, 
 and it remained alight until the suppression of the mon- 
 asteries. Each of her nineteen nuns had charge of it for a 
 single night, and on the twentieth evening the nun in 
 attendance said " Brigit ! take care of your own fire, for 
 this night belongs to you." The women might take the 
 bellows or a fan to increase the flame, but might not use 
 their breath. The shrine was surrounded by a brushwood 
 fence within which no male might enter on pain of a 
 miraculous vengeance. The saint was called " the greatest 
 of eaters " and the " woman of the mighty roarings " : her 
 sacred animals were an undying falcon and goats which 
 never brought forth young.^ 
 
 We shall examine the general character of the religion 
 before proceeding to the description of particular gods, 
 and shall close the subject with such an account of its 
 ritual and ceremonies as can be gathered from actual 
 
 in Collinson's History of Somerset. The titles of the goddess were 
 " Sulivia," " Sulina," and " Suli Minerva." She is thought to have been 
 connected with the " Sulfas " or sylphs, " une foule de Sullves, la petite 
 monnaie de Vancienne Sulivia" who protected the district of Chamonix. 
 Orell. Inscript. 2051, 2099, 2100, 2101 ; De Belloguet, Ethnog. Gaul. 240. 
 1 Girald. Cambr. Topogr. Hibern. ii. 34, 35; Whitley Stokes, "Three 
 Middle-Irish Homilies." See the notes in Todd's Irish Nennius, and the 
 description in Cormac's Glossary of the " Three Brighids " who were the 
 goddesses of poetry smith-work and medicine. For Bridget's sacred oak- 
 tree at Kildare, see the Revue Celtique, iv. 193, and as to her connection 
 with the superstition of the " Cursing-stones," ibid. 120. 
 
Origins of English History. 281 
 
 tradition or from a comparison of the pagan observances 
 which have been noticed in Scotland Wales and Ire- 
 land. 
 
 When the Britons became civilized they built temples 
 and set up statues of the gods : but when we first hear of 
 them their religion seems to have been free from this kind 
 of display. Gildas speaks of the grim-faced idols which 
 stood in his day on the mouldering city-walls, and it is not 
 long since the statues of gods might be seen built up into 
 the masonry of the gateways at Bath.^ These figures 
 were apparently of "Roman workmanship, but the costume 
 and the mode of dressing the hair and some of the emblems 
 in their hands show that they must have been intended as 
 representations of native deities. The image called "La 
 Couarde " or the " Venus of Quinipily," which was wor- 
 shipped in Brittany till the end of the 1 7th century, may 
 furnish us with a notion of the appearance of the Celtic 
 idols. It is described as a huge mis-shapen figure about 
 7 feet high with " a large and uncouth body, a flattened 
 bust, and eyes nose and mouth like those of an Egj^ptian 
 god."" St. Patrick found the Irish worshipping an idol 
 
 1 Gildas, Hist. s. 4. Besides figures which might be taken for Hercules 
 Mars and the Sun's face surrounded with flaming curls, there was a hare 
 running, a naked girl carrying two crested snakes, and a youth in the 
 British dress holding as a wand a snake or dragon of the same kind. 
 Among the nineteen bronze idols which were dug up at Devizes in 17 14 
 there are some which cannot be identified with any of the classical 
 divinities. A figure in tunic and breeches has a snake twined round its 
 legs and arms. Others are dressed like Britons but carry no special 
 emblems. Musgrave, Antiqu. Romano-Brit. (17 19). For a description 
 of these statues see Hearne's Leland Itin. ii. 62, 64, 65, and Camden's 
 Britannia (Gibson) 88. 
 
 " The worship of the goddess continued until the removal of the statue 
 from its old altar in 1696. " Offerings were made to it, the sick touched 
 
282 Origins of English History. 
 
 called " Black Crom," whose festival about the beginning 
 of August is even now called " Cromduff Sunday." 
 " There were twelve idols of stone around him and him- 
 self of gold " : and by another account his statue was 
 covered with gold and silver, and the twelve subordinate 
 deities were ornamented with plates of bronze.-^ 
 
 Before the Celts used images a tall spear-oak was a 
 sufificient emblem of the Thunderer : ^ they recognized the 
 presence of a god in the brightness of the sky, the stirring 
 of the bubbles in the spring, or the loneliness which op- 
 pressed them in the forest. They easily transformed 
 natural objects into deities. The brimming rivers were 
 " Mothers " bringing food and abundance of riches. The 
 whirling eddy concealed a demon, the lake was ruled by 
 a lonely queen, and every well and grotto in the forest 
 was haunted by its fairy or nymph. They saw the palaces 
 of Morgan la Faye in the mirage and the coloured clouds 
 at sunset, and believed that on the "blue verge of the sea" 
 were the shores of the Land of Youth, of O'Brasil the 
 Island of the Blest, and of the " green isles of the flood" 
 which vanished at the fishermen's approach. The earthly 
 paradise was always on the sea-horizon ; it was set by 
 different tribes in Somerset in the Isle of Man and in 
 fabulous countries off the Irish Coast. The inhabitants 
 
 it in order to be cured of diseases, women after the births of children 
 bathed in the large granite basin at its foot, and various foul and pagan 
 rites were enacted before it." See the article on the Venus of Quinipily 
 in Macmillan's Magazine, June, 1876. 
 
 ^ The " Crom-cruach " is described in the " Dinn-Senchus " and in 
 Jocelyn's Life of St. Patrick. See Mr. Fitzgerald's article on the Ancient 
 Irish, Fraser's Magazine, 1875, xii. 104; and Revue Celtigue, i. 260. 
 
 ^ "AyaX^a Se Aide keKtlkov vxpriXfi cpve. Max. Tyr. Dissert. 38; Pliny, 
 Hist. Nat. xvi. 95 ; Schedius, De Dis Germanorum, 346. 
 
Origins of English History. 283 
 
 of these homes of summer were a divine race of the pure 
 Celtic type, "long-faced yellow-haired hunters," and 
 goddesses with hair like gold or the flower of the broom.^ 
 
 To a childish people the wrath or favour of Heaven is 
 seen in every strange appearance of nature. The rough- 
 bearded comet is the sword of God, the meteors are stars 
 fighting in the heavens. " There is some divine trouble 
 in earth or in air." A mist creeps about the weed-beds of 
 the lake and is taken for an aerial city set round with 
 gardens and pastures. When the holy well becomes 
 turbid or its waters streaked with red from a vein of ore, 
 the credulous worshippers are convinced that it runs with 
 milk or wine or is turned into a river of blood. The flat 
 shores of an estuary are covered with string-like sea- 
 weeds which glitter at sunset like the surface of broad 
 scarlet pools, a haze looms out at sea in a time of heat, or 
 the waves at night are lit with phosphoric flame : and 
 
 1 Queen " Medb,'' who ruled all the " spirits of the glens," is described 
 in the Irish legends as " a beautiful pale long-faced woman with flowing 
 golden hair upon her.'' The Princess Edain had hair "like red gold 
 or the flowers of the bog-fir in summer." O'Curry, Manners and Customs 
 of the Ancient Irish, iii. 190 ; Sullivan's Introd. Ixxiv. The Irish O'Brasil 
 " the isle of the blest " was drawn in some of the mediaeval maps as a 
 country lying to the west of Ireland. (See Plate X.) Its inhabitants were 
 thus described by the fairy-messenger who carried away an Irish queen. 
 
 " O Bdfinn ! wilt thou go with me 
 ,To a wonderful land which is mine ? 
 The hair there is as the blossom of waterflags, 
 Of the colour of snow is the fair body : 
 There will be neither grief nor care. 
 White the teeth, and black the brows, 
 Pleasant to the eye is the number of our hosts 
 With the hue of the fox-glove on every cheek." 
 
 O'Curry, uM supra, iii. 191. 
 
284 Origins of English History. 
 
 all these natural phenomena are accepted as miracles or 
 messages from the gods.^ The springs and intermittent 
 " winter-bournes " which rise suddenly at certain seasons 
 in the chalk-districts were thought to be harbingers of 
 pestilence and famine. In times of trouble every move- 
 ment of the elements was watched with wonder and 
 alarm. Even the Roman armies were infected by 
 these superstitions. Tacitus has recorded a long list of 
 omens which foreboded the rebellion of Boadicea : " a 
 murmur was heard in the council-house and a wailing 
 noise in the theatre ; in the estuary of the Thames men 
 saw the likeness of a sunken town ; the high sea was 
 tinged with blood, and as the tide went down what seemed 
 to be human forms were left upon the shore ; and all these 
 things were of a nature to encourage the Britons, while 
 the veterans of the garrison were overwhelmed with 
 fear.^ 
 
 There are many mineral-springs which can be excited 
 to " laugh " or break into bubbles by throwing in some 
 little object of metal, and others which are troubled when 
 pieces of bread are cast on their surface. 
 
 This seems to be the origin of those practices of divin- 
 ation, by which the name of a thief was discovered by an 
 offering of bread at the fountain, and of all those super- 
 stitions about "pin-wells" which prevail so extensively in 
 
 1 St. Winifred's Well at Holyhead was supposed to have sprung from 
 the spot where the head of the saint was thrown down : " the stones are 
 covered with blood, the moss smells as frankincense, and the water cures 
 divers diseases." There are a great number of similar legends about wells 
 in Wales and Ireland. See Girald. Cambr. Topogr. Hibern. i. c. 7, and 
 Itin. Cambr. ii. c. 9 ; Sikes, British Goblins, 345 ; Farrer, Primitive 
 Manners, 306. 
 
 ^ Tac. Ann. xiv. c. 32. 
 
Origins of English History. 285 
 
 Wales and Scotland. There are also wells in England 
 which the country-girls never pass without making the 
 customary offering.^ There is usually a " rag-bush " by 
 the well on which bits of linen or worsted are tied as a 
 gift to the spirit of the waters. The present is always of 
 a symbolical kind and of small value, as an &gg, a coin, 
 or a crooked pin. The antiquity of the ceremony is 
 proved by the classical descriptions of the money glittering 
 in the clear pool of Clitumnus and the sacred tanks which 
 hid " the gold of Toulouse " : and Gregory of Tours has 
 left us a picture of tlie villagers feasting by a Gaulish lake 
 and throwing to the water-gods " scraps of cloth and linen 
 and locks of wool," with little cakes of wax and figures of 
 loaves and cheeses.^ 
 
 The principal Gaelic gods may be grouped according to 
 their connection with the elemental powers. " A blind 
 people," said Gildas, " paid divine honour to the moun- 
 tains wells and streams." Their altars were pillars of 
 stone inscribed with emblems of the sun and moon or a 
 beast or bird which symbolized some force of nature. 
 They bound themselves by vows to the heavens and the 
 earth, to day and night, to the rain the dew and the 
 wind.' 
 
 1 Farrer, Primitive Manners, 306; Hazlitt's Tenures of Land, 151. 
 Compare the account of the children's sport in Brocdliande, by M. De 
 Villemarqu^, Revue de Paris (1837), xli. 47 : " Ris done, Fontaine de 
 Berendon, etje ie donneraiune ipingle." See Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 562, 
 and Mabinogion, 67. For an account of the "laughing-wells" in Cornwall' 
 see De la Beche, Geol. Rep. Cornw. 517, and as to the Scottish pin-wells, 
 see Logan's Scott. Gael. ii. 345, and Mitchell, Past in the Present, 151. 
 
 '^ Pliny, Epist. viii. 8; Strabo, iv. 287; Diod. Sic. v. c. 9; Greg. Turon. 
 Gloria Confess, c. 2. 
 
 ' Gildas, Hist. s. 4; Petrie's "Tara," 169. Cormac's Glossary explains 
 the word " indelba " as an altar carved with the sign of an element, " verbi 
 
286 Origins of English History. 
 
 The father of the Irish Olympus was a spirit of heat, 
 who ruled all fires in earth or heaven. He was called 
 " Dagda," or the Great Good Fire. We are told that he 
 was " greyer than the grey mist " : his cauldron was the 
 vault of the sky and his hammer was the thunderbolt. 
 He is attended by a company of divine artificers, and by a 
 physician who healed all disease. His son " Luga," a per- 
 sonified flame, was master of all the sciences. Among 
 his children were Angus the Smith and the fiery Brighid, 
 and " sun-faced Ogma" the patron of music and prophecy.' 
 
 The moon was " Aine," or " Anu," the queen of heaven 
 and mother of the gods. Her gloomy worship was tainted 
 with death and slaughter. She was worshipped upon the 
 hills at Midsummer and at the winter-feasts, when the 
 spirits of the dead were propitiated.^ In one form she was 
 
 gratia, figurd, solis.'' Gregory of Tours noticed the same practice among 
 the Gauls : " Sibi silvarum atque aquarum avium bestiarumque et aliorura 
 quoque elementorum finxere formas. " — Hist. Franc, ii. c. lo. 
 
 1 For the supposed connection between Ogma and Ogmius, "the 
 Gaulish Hercules," see Lucian's account of the latter god : " This old 
 Hercules was drawing a large number of people after him whom he 
 seemed to have bound by the ears with slender chains of gold and amber 
 made like beautiful necklaces." — Franklin's transl. ii. 340 ; Brash, Ogam 
 Inscr. Monum. 18, 25 ; Rhj^s, Lectures, 298. See also Fitzgerald's Essay 
 on the Ancient Irish in Fraser's Magazine (1875), ™^- i°7) ^^^ the 
 descriptions of the Irish gods in O'Curry's Lectures. 
 
 2 Revue Celtique, iv. 189, 194. As to the worship of the Moon 
 in Brittany see the extracts from the Life of Nobletz ; ibid. ii. 484: 
 " C'estoii dans ces mesmes lieux une coustuvie receiie de se mettre h 
 genoux devant la nouvelle lune et de dire rOraison Dominicale en son 
 honneur." See Camden's account of the Irish : " I cannot tell whether the 
 wilder sort of the Irishry yield divine honour unto the Moon ; for when 
 they see her first after the change commonly they bow the knee and say 
 over the Lord's prayer, and so soone as they have made an end they 
 speake to the Moone with a loud voice in this manner, ' Leave us whole 
 and sound as thou hast found us.' " Camden, Britannia (Gibson), 1415. 
 
Origins of English History. 287 
 
 a battle-goddess and leader of the Furies and Choosers of 
 the Slain. Like Pallas at the slaying of the suitors she 
 sits in the form of a bird to watch the rush of the battle. 
 The fancy of the Irish transformed the birds which fed on 
 carrion into goddesses like grey-necked crows ; and in the 
 moon shining on the battle-field they saw both the Queen 
 of the Night and a lean bird-like demon gloating over the 
 bodies of the slain. The " red-mouthed, sharp-beaked 
 crows" fluttered and screamed in the confusion of the 
 fight, and came at night " with satyrs and sprites and 
 devils of the air " to tear the dead and the wounded.^ 
 
 The gods of Britain suffered the common fate of their 
 kind, and were changed into kings and champions or 
 degraded into giants and enchanters. The great "Belinus" 
 shrinks to the form of a mortal conqueror. According to 
 the mythical histories he marched to the siege of Rome 
 when "Gabius and Porsena" were consuls; he devastated 
 Gaul and Dacia ; he built Caerleon upon Usk, which in a 
 later age was to be known as the City of Legions ; and " he 
 also made a gate of wonderful design in Trinovantum 
 upon the banks of the Thames which the citizens to this 
 day call Billings-gate after his name, and over it he 
 built a prodigiously large tower, and under it a haven for 
 ships."* Most of the gods of war were converted into 
 
 1 Revue Celtique, i. 32 ; ii. 489. The Dinn-Senchus contains a 
 notice of " Ndib, the god of war among the pagan Gaidel, and Nemon 
 his wife." The Irish " Badb " or battle-fury was a personification of the 
 hooded crow. The other furies were Nemon, who "confounded her 
 victims with madness," Macha who revelled on the bodies of the slain, 
 and the moon-goddess or " Mor-rfgain," who incited warriors to brave 
 deeds but appeared sometimes in the form of a demon. " Over his head 
 is shrieking, A lean hag quickly hopping, Over the points of their weapons 
 and over their shields." — Revue Celtique, i. 39. 
 
 2 Geoffr. Monm. Hist. Brit. iii. c. 10. 
 
288 Origins of English History. 
 
 heroes, who fought under Arthur's banner against the 
 heathen of the Northern Sea. They march with the hosts 
 of Urien and die on the field of Cattraeth. If we turn to 
 Aneurin's famous poem we see them fighting in the ranks 
 like the Olympians round the body of Patroclus. They 
 are disguised as mortal warriors; but we recognize a 
 divine form in Gwydion " the Eagle of the Air " ; it is a 
 war-god who leads the herd of Beli " the roaring Bull of 
 battle " ; it is a goddess in the likeness of Aphrodite who 
 " leaves the foaming billows " and takes her share in the 
 ruin of Britain. The poet never mentions "Owain" or 
 his father, the Prince of Reged, without some allusion to 
 the army of ravens which rose as he waved his wand and 
 swept men into the air and dropped them piecemeal to 
 earth. A battle-goddess is adored before the fight begins : 
 " the reapers sang of war, war with the shining wing " : 
 Pryderi leads his army from a land of shadows and 
 enchantments ; the ravens hover round the head of the 
 Giant Eidiol ; and " Peredur " with his magic spear, 
 Gwynn the fairy-king, Manannan the sea-god, and a host 
 of other divine beings take part in the legendary conflict.^ 
 There seem to have been three principal families, the 
 children of " Don " and "Nudd" and " Lir," whose wor- 
 ship was common to the British and Irish tribes. The 
 
 1 See Aneurin's " Gododin," in Ab Ithel's translation. Mr. Stephens 
 took the subject of the poem to be an expedition of the Ottadeni against 
 the town of Cataracton in the Brigantian territory. — Lit. Kymry, 3. For 
 an account of some of the other " historical poems," see Nash, Taliesin, 
 ch. 3. The poems seem not to be earlier than the twelfth century, 
 though they contain numerous allusions to legends as old as the age of 
 paganism. It should be remembered that the Welsh historians have found 
 a date and a local habitation for every person who is named in these 
 romances. 
 
Origins of English History. 289 
 
 first group consisted of the heavenly powers whose homes 
 were set in the stars and constellations. Gwydion son of 
 Don is celebrated in the Welsh household tales and in the 
 poems ascribed to Taliesin. He is the great magician, the 
 " master of illusion and phantasy," who changed the forms 
 of men trees and animals. His home was in the Milky 
 Way, which was known as the Castle of Gwydion. Don 
 gave his name to the constellation of Cassiopeia, and 
 his daughter, the Princess Arianhrod, inhabited the bright 
 circle of stars which is called the Northern Crown. 
 We fiind in the sarne group Amaethon the Good Hus- 
 bandman, " Math the son of Mathonwy " who has been 
 called the Cambrian Pluto, and a mystical being who was 
 described as "the Lion with the steady hand."^ 
 
 The story of the family of " Nudd" (or " Nyth" as the 
 name may be spelt and pronounced in English) is dis- 
 persed in the legends of fairyland and the obscure lives of 
 the saints and bards of Wales. The figured pavements 
 and inscriptions discovered on the site of a Roman villa in 
 Gloucestershire have disclosed his identity with "Nodens," 
 a god of the deep sea, who is depicted as a Triton or 
 Neptune borne by sea-horses and surrounded by a laugh- 
 ing crowd of Nereids. He appears in Ireland as King 
 Nuada of the Silver Hand, whose magic sword prevailed 
 
 ^ There are several other members in the group whose attributes have 
 been obscured by time. For the story of Gwydion, see Grimm, Deutsch. 
 Mythol. 137, 331, 384, 1214; Nash, Taliesin, 190, 328; Guest's Mabino- 
 gion, 414. In the fabulous Welsh history Don is an Irish king who leads 
 a colony to North Wales in a.d. 267, and Gwydion is the king of Angle- 
 sea and Carnarvon, who first taught literature from books to the men of 
 " Mona and Ireland." For the origin of the words " Math'' and " Arian- 
 hrod," see Rhys, Lectures, 374, 414. " Arianrhod and several of the other 
 names resembling it are probably not of Celtic origin." Ibid. 426. 
 
 U 
 
290 Origins of English History. 
 
 against the Fir-bolg tribes at the first Battle of Moytura, 
 and who fell in the second fight before " Balor of the Evil 
 Eye": "fearful," says the old legend, "was the thunder 
 that rolled over the battle-field, the clashing of the straight 
 tooth-hilted swords, the sighing and winging of the spears 
 and lances." ^ 
 
 "Lir" was another Ocean-god who was worshipped 
 both in Ireland and Britain. He appears in the Irish 
 romance on " the fate of the Children of Lir" as a king of 
 the divine race whose children were turned into swans by 
 enchantment: "and the men of Erin were grieved at 
 their departure and they made a law and proclaimed it 
 throughout the land, that no one should kill a swan in 
 Erin from that time forth." ^ In the Welsh histories he 
 becomes King Lud, the brother of Cassivellaunus, who 
 " rebuilt the walls of London and encompassed it about 
 with numberless towers " ; and he appears as King Lear 
 in another form of the legend. According to the version 
 in Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, which Shakespeare 
 adopted as the frame-work of the tragedy. King Lear built 
 the town of Leicester about the time when Amos was a 
 prophet in Israel ; and his daughter Cordelia is repre- 
 
 1 O'Curry, Manners of the Anc. Irish, ii. 253. For other accounts of 
 Nuada, and his connection with " Diancecht " the divine physician and 
 Luga the fire-god, see Joyce, Old Celt. Romances, 403; Fitzgerald, Anc. 
 Irish (Fraser's Mag. 1875, xii. 106); Rhys, Lectures, 144, and the article 
 on "Nodens" by Professor Rhys describing the Lydney Park discoveries, 
 "Nature," July 24th, 1879 ; and Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 137, I4°- 
 
 ^ Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 18. In the Welsh popular tales "Lir" 
 is called " Llyr Llediaith" and " Lludd" or " Lludd Llaw Ereint." See 
 the stories of " Kilhwch and Olwen," " Branwen the daughter of Llyr," 
 "Manawyddan the son of Llyr,'' and "Lludd and Llevelys" in the 
 Mabinogioa 
 
Origins of English History. 291 
 
 sented as burying him in a vault under the River Sore, 
 which had been originally built as a Temple of Janus.^ 
 Cordelia herself appears in the Welsh stories as that 
 "splendid maiden" for whom Gwynn ap Nudd and an- 
 other mythical being were to fight on every ist of May 
 until the day of doom ; and the explanation of the legend 
 seems to lie in the tradition of the " Two Kings of the 
 Severn " which is found in a list of marvels appended to 
 some of the editions of Nennius ; two lines of waves were 
 said to meet in the estuary and to make war upon each 
 other by pushing and butting like rams.^ 
 
 The group of the "Children of Lir" included several 
 other divinities who came to be regarded as characters of 
 romance. The Lady Brangwaine, who helps and hides the 
 loves of Tristram and Iseult, is no other than " Branwen of 
 the Fair Bosom," the Venus of the Northern Seas, whose 
 miraculous fountain still preserves her name in an islet off 
 the shore of Anglesea. "Bran son of Lir" has under- 
 gone a more remarkable kind of transformation. A great 
 number of allusions in the Welsh Triads and the songs of 
 the mediaeval bards show that Brin and his son Caradoc 
 were originally gods of war. But the forms of their names 
 were sufficient in an age of ignorance to identify the one 
 with Brennus who led the Gauls to Rome and the other 
 with the brave Caractacus ; and the legend in its final form 
 shows " Brin the Blessed " accompanying his son into 
 
 ' Geoffir. Monm., Hist. Brit. ii. c. 14. The fabulous narrative contains 
 several other notices of Roman antiquities which either existed in the age 
 of Geoffrey of Monmouth or were described by older writers. 
 
 * See the Tract " De Mirabilibus Britannise," which is often printed 
 with the Historia Britonum. For the Welsh story of Cordelia, see Guest's 
 Mabinogion, 251, 259. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 Origins of English History. 
 
 captivity and returning converted from Rome to preach 
 the faith of Christ to the Cymry.^ 
 
 The most important character of the group is the famous 
 " Manannan Mac Lir." In him we see personified the 
 splendour and swiftness of the sun ; the god rushes over 
 the waves like a "wheel of fire," and his three-legged 
 shape recalls the three giant strides of Vishnu. He was 
 the patron of traffic and merchandise, and according to 
 " Cormac's Glossary " he himself was an old and celebrated 
 trader of the Isle of Man, who could predict the changes 
 of the weather and tell the signs of the sky. The best 
 weapons and jewels from across the sea were thought to 
 be gifts from the god. In the description of the " Fairy 
 Host," contained in an Irish romance, the chieftain rides 
 Manannan's mare : " she was as swift as the clear cold 
 wind of spring, and she travelled with equal ease on land 
 and on sea " : he wore Manannan's coat of mail and had 
 on his breast the god's cuirass which could not be pierced 
 by a weapon : " his helmet had two glittering precious 
 stones, one set in front and one behind, and when he took it 
 off his face shone like the sun on a dry day in summer."^ 
 
 We have seen enough of the religion to understand its 
 general character, although but a few of the multitude of 
 its gods have been described. The nature of its ritual 
 must be inferred from the superstitions which have lingered 
 in the country districts, from rural sacrifices and ceremonial 
 fires, from services at the "cursing-stones" or the "wishing- 
 
 1 Rees, Welsh Saints, 77; Haddan "Early Councils," i. 22; Stephens, 
 Lit. Cymry, 429; Guest's Mabinogion, 385. 
 
 2 Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 38. Compare O'Curry, Manners of the 
 Anc. Irish, ii. 301. In the Welsh legends the god is called " Manawyddan 
 son of Llyr." See Guest's Mabinogion, 411. 
 
Origins of English History. 293 
 
 well " with its thorn-bush or ancient oak-tree hung with 
 votive rags and ribands. The old Welsh names for the 
 cardinal points of the sky, the north being the left-hand 
 and the south the right, are signs of an ancient practice of 
 turning to the rising sun.^ The survival in remote districts 
 of the habit of moving " sun-wise " from east to west, may 
 indicate the nature of the processions in which the British 
 women walked, " with their bodies stained by woad to an 
 Ethiopian colour."^ 
 
 The vestiges of an adoration of the sun may be seen in 
 the devotions of the Irish peasant who crawls three times 
 round the healing spring in a circuit that imitates the 
 course of the sun. When Martin visited the Hebrides he 
 saw the islanders marching in procession three times from 
 east to west round their crops and their cattle : " if a boat 
 put out to sea it began the voyage by making these three 
 turns : if a welcome stranger visited one of the islands the 
 inhabitants passed three times round their guest : a flaming 
 brand was carried three times round the child daily until it 
 was christened."' A worship of fire has survived in the 
 curious ceremonies by which the " forced-fire " or " will- 
 fire" was produced in the North of Scotland. If a mur- 
 rain attacked the cattle a new and pure flame was raised 
 by the friction of wood. The instruments employed for 
 the purpose were of various kinds. In Mull they used a 
 wheel turning in the line of the sun's course over nine 
 spindles of oak-wood ; in Caithness a wooden auger was 
 worked up and down in a groove on the floor of a hut 
 constructed for the purpose ; in some of the Western 
 
 1 Rhys, Lectures, 10 ; Revue Celtique, ii. 103. 
 
 '^ Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxii. 2. 
 
 ^ Martin, Descr. West. Isl. 113, 116, 140, 241, 277. 
 
294 Origins of English History. 
 
 Islands eighty-one married men were employed by nine at 
 a time to rub two planks together. It seems to have been 
 thought necessary to extinguish all the other fires in the 
 district that they might be lighted afresh from the magical 
 flame. The service was accompanied by incantations and 
 there were strict rules against the wearing of any kind of 
 metal ; and in ancient times there were several symbolical 
 rites which connected the superstition with a worship of 
 the sun in the character of a fertilizing and productive 
 god.' 
 
 Pennant has left us a description of a rural sacrifice 
 which in his time was performed on the ist of May in 
 many Highland villages. They cut a square trench, and on 
 the turf lighted a- fire at which a pot of caudle was cooked. 
 " The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the 
 ground by way of a libation : on that every one takes up a 
 cake of oatmeal upon which are raised nine square knobs, 
 each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed pre- 
 server of their flocks and herds, or to some particular 
 animal, their real destroyer : each person then turns his face 
 to the fire and breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his 
 shoulder says ' This I give to thee, preserve thou my 
 horses ; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep,' and so on. 
 
 1 Martin, Descr. West. Isl. 113J Toland's History of the Druids, 107; 
 see an essay on Martin's work, Fraser's Mag. 1878, xvii. 443, Grimm, 
 Deutsch. Mythol. 576, and an account of raising the "will-fire" in 1826, 
 cited -by Kemble, Anglo-Sax. i. .360 (Birch's edition). Several extracts 
 from the Chronicle of Lanercost and from Harl. MSS. 2345, f 50, will be 
 found in the same part of Kemble's work, which will show the nature of 
 the orgies which anciently accompanied the production of the sacred fire. 
 For a description of the pagan practices which accompanied the " Burning 
 of the Clavie" at Burghead, see Mitchell, Past in the Present, 256; 
 Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 789. 
 
Origins of English History. 295 
 
 After that they use the same ceremony to the noxious 
 animals : ' This I give to thee, O fox ! spare thou my 
 Iambs ; this to thee, O hooded crow ! this to thee, O 
 eagle ! ' When the ceremony is over they dine on the 
 caudle, and after the feast is finished what is left is hid by 
 two persons deputed for the purpose ; but on the next 
 Sunday they re-assemble and finish the relics of the first 
 entertainment." ^ 
 
 Another harmless sacrifice was performed in Martin's 
 time in honour of a water-god who was worshipped by the 
 natives of the Hebrides. The families came together at 
 Hallowe'en and stood by the shore of the sea. A man 
 carrying a cup of ale waded out in the darkness and cried 
 aloud to the god : " Shony ! I give you this cup of ale 
 hoping that you will be so kind as to send us plenty of 
 sea-weed ! " After the libation they all went up to the 
 church and there stood silent, until at a given signal a 
 candle at the altar was extinguished and all returned to 
 their homes .^ 
 
 There are many other instances of sacrifice performed 
 in comparatively modern times either to a local god dis- 
 guised as a saint or to some real person whose memory 
 has become confused with a pagan legend. There are 
 records, for example, of bulls being killed at Kirkcud- 
 bright "as an alms and oblation to St. Cuthbert," of 
 
 1 Pennant, Tour in Scotland, 1772, p. 94. A poem on "the Sons of 
 Llyr " which passes under the name of Taliesin contains an allusion to 
 some similar rustic offerings in honour of Ogyrven, whose name is 
 connected with the invention of letters. Rhys, Lectures, 303. " For 
 praising Ogyrven the water of the brook will suffice, and new milk, dew, 
 and acorns." Nash, Taliesin, 193. 
 
 ' Martin, Descr. West. Isl. 29. 
 
296 Origins of English History. 
 
 bullocks offered to Saint Beuno, "the saint of the Parish of 
 Clynnog " in Wales, and to the patron-saint of Applecross 
 near Dingwall. The registers of the Presbytery of Ding- 
 wall under the years 1656 and 1678 contain many entries 
 relating to the killing of bulls on the site of an ancient 
 temple in honour of the Saint Mourie, or "ane god Mourie" 
 as he was sometimes styled by his worshippers.^ In other 
 places a heifer was killed in case of a failure to produce the 
 " forced fire " in times of pestilence, and if the animal was 
 infected by the murrain the diseased part was cut out while 
 the beast was alive, and solemnly burned in the bonfire.^ 
 A sacrifice of this kind is said to have been performed in 
 Morayshire about twenty years ago,^ and it is by no means 
 uncommon to hear of cocks and hens being buried alive or 
 killed as a preservative against epilepsy.* 
 
 ' The extracts from the parochial registers and a full account of the 
 suppression of the idolatrous practice will be found in Mitchell's Past in 
 the Present, 271, 275. A letter printed in Leland's Itinerary describes the 
 sacrifice of a bullock to St. Beuno in 1589. The offerings to St. Cuth- 
 bert took place in the twelfth century. Horses were at one time sacrificed 
 at St. George's Well near Abergeleu. "The rich were wont to offer one 
 to secure a blessing on all the rest." Sikes, Brit. Goblins, 361. 
 
 2 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 576. 
 
 8 Mitchell, Past in the Present, 274; Simpson, Archseol. Essays, i. 41, 
 205 ; Liebrecht, Volkskunde, 293; Revue Celtique, iv. 121. 
 
 * ' ' For the cure of epilepsy there is still practised in the north of Scotland 
 what may be called a formal sacrifice. On the spot where the epileptic 
 first falls a black cock is buried alive with a lock of the patient's hair and 
 some parings of his nails.'' Mitchell, Past in the Present, 146, 265. The 
 disease is called " Tegla's Evil " in Wales, and is cured at St. Tegla's Well 
 near Wrexham by the offering of a cock or hen according to the sex of 
 the sufferer. The fowl is carried round the weU and also round the 
 church, and is left by the patient at the place. " Should the bird die it is 
 supposed that the disease has been transferred to it, arjd the man or woman 
 is consequently thought to be cured." Sikes, Brit. Goblins, 330, 349 ; 
 ArchKol. Cambr. I. i. 184. 
 
Origins of English History. 297 
 
 There were certain restrictions among the Britons and 
 the ancient Irish by which particular nations or tribes were 
 forbidden to kill or eat certain kinds of animals. It was a 
 crime, for instance, in Southern Britain to taste the flesh 
 of the hare the goose or the domestic fowl, though the 
 creatures were reared and kept for amusement.^ The 
 reason for the prohibition is unknown, but it should be pro- 
 bably connected with the fact that in some parts of Europe 
 these animals have retained a sacred character. We have 
 seen that in France and in Russia a fowl is offered as a 
 propitiation to the household spirits, and in the last-named 
 country the goose is sacrificed to the gods of the streams.^ 
 The hare is an object of disgust in some parts of Russia 
 as well as in Western Brittany, where not many years ago 
 the peasants could hardly endure to hear its name.' The 
 oldest Welsh laws contain several allusions to the magical 
 character of the hare which was thought to change its sex 
 every month or year, and to be the companion of the 
 witches who often assumed its shape. In one part of 
 Wales the hares are called " St. Monacella's Lambs," and 
 it is said that up to a very recent time no one in the dis- 
 trict would kill one. " When a hare was pursued by dogs 
 it was believed that if any one cried ' God and St. Mona- 
 cella be with thee!' it was sure to escape."* In Ireland 
 
 1 Caesar, De Bell. Gall. v. c. 12. 
 
 ^ Anie,p. 219; Ralston, Russ. Pop. Songs. 129; Jievue Celtique,\\. 195. 
 
 ^ Figuier, Prim. Man. (Tylor's edition), 268 ; Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 
 679. The people of the Swiss lake-dwellings are believed to have shared 
 the superstitious feeling against eating the hare, but the neolithic tribes in 
 Britain used the animal for food. Boyd Dawkins, Cavehunting, 217. 
 The ancient Irish ate its flesh, and one of the prerogatives of the kings of 
 Tara was to be fed on " the hares of Naas." O'Curry, Mann. Anc. Irish, 
 ii. 141. 
 
 * The legend is related by Pennant in his " Tour through Montgomery- 
 
298 Origins of English History. 
 
 also the local saints were believed to guard the lives of 
 certain kinds of animals. St. Colman's teal could neither 
 be killed nor injured; St. Brendan provided an asylum 
 for stags, wild-boars, and hares ; and St. Beanus protected 
 the cranes and hazel-hens which built their nests upon the 
 Ulster mountains.^ 
 
 We may notice in this connexion the fact that the 
 names of several tribes or the legends of their origin show 
 that an animal, or some other real or imaginary object, was 
 chosen as a crest or emblem, and was probably regarded 
 with a superstitious veneration. A powerful tribe or 
 family would feign to be descended from a swan or a 
 water-maiden or a " white lady " who rose from the moon- 
 beams on the lake. The moon herself was claimed as the 
 ancestress of certain families. The legendary heroes are 
 turned into " swan-knights " or fly away in the form of 
 wild geese. The tribe of the " Ui Duinn," who claimed 
 St. Brigit as their kinswoman, wore for their crest the 
 figure of a lizard which appeared at the foot of the oak- 
 tree above her shrine.^ We hear of " Griffins " by the 
 Shannon, of " Calves " in the country round Belfast : the 
 men of Ossory were called by a name which signifies the 
 "wild red-deer."^ There are similar instances from 
 
 shire.'' See also Sikes' Brit. Goblins, 162. The sacred character of the 
 animal is indicated by the legend of Boadicea who, according to Dion 
 Cassius, " loosed a hare from her robe, observing its movements as a kind 
 of omen, and when it turned propitiously the whole multitude rejoiced 
 and shouted." Dion Cass. Ixii. 3. 
 
 1 Girald. Cambr. Topogr. Hibern. ii. cc. 29, 40. Compare the same 
 writer's story of the loathing shown by the Irish chieftains on being 
 offered a dish of roasted crane, Conqu. Hibern. i. c. 31. 
 
 '^ Revue Celtique, iv. 193. 
 
 ' O'Curry, Mann. Anc. Irish, ii. 208. The " Lugi " and " Mertse " are 
 
Origins of English History. 299 
 
 Scotland in such names as " Clan Chattan " or the Wild 
 Cats, and in the animal-crests which have been borne 
 from the most ancient times as the emblems or cognizances 
 of the chieftains. The early Welsh poems will furnish 
 another set of examples. The tribes who fought at 
 Cattraeth are distinguished by the bard as wolves bears or 
 ravens ; the families which claim descent from Caradoc 
 or Owain take the boar or the raven for their crest. The 
 followers of " Cian the Dog " are called the " dogs of war," 
 and the chieftain's house is described as the stone or castle 
 of "the white dogs."^ 
 
 It seems reasonable to connect the rule of abstaining 
 from certain kinds of food with the superstitious belief 
 that the tribes were descended from the animals from 
 which their names and crests or badges were derived. 
 There are several Irish legends which appear to be based 
 on the notion that a man might not eat of the animal from 
 which he or his tribe was named.^ 
 
 placed by Ptolemy in the modern Sutherland. "Lugia" is his name for 
 Belfast Lough. " The Irish name was Loch Laogh and Adamnan renders 
 it by Stagnum Vituli. 'Laogh' is a calf in Irish, and is probably the 
 word meant by Lugia. If the same word enters into the name ' Lugi ' 
 it is rather remarkable that ' Mart ' should be the Irish word for a heifer. 
 It would seem that the tribes took their names from these animals." 
 Skene, Celtic Scotland, i. 206. 
 
 1 Aneurin's Gododin, St. 9, 21, 30; Guest's Mabinogion, 37, 328. 
 There are many traces of the same practice among the Teutonic nations. 
 Their heroes were believed in many cases to have descended from divine 
 animals, like the children of Leda and Europa. The Merovingian princes 
 traced their origin to a sea-monster. The pedigrees of the Anglo-Saxon kings 
 contain such names as "Sigefugel," "Saefugol," and "BeOTn," which 
 seem to be connected with legends of a descent from animals. Compare 
 such patronymics as " Bering," " Harting," " Baring," and the like. 
 
 ^ In the story of the Death of Cuchulain, contained in the Book of 
 Leinster, some witches offer the hero a dog cooked on spits of rowan- 
 
300 Origins of English History. 
 
 Such facts suggest an inquiry whether the religion of 
 the British tribes may not in some early stage have been 
 connected with that system of belief under which " animals 
 were worshipped by tribes of men who were named after 
 them and were believed to be of their breed." This form 
 of superstition prevails at the present day among Indians 
 in North and South America among the natives of 
 Australia and in some of the African kingdoms.^ Traces 
 of its existence have been found in the early history of 
 Germans Greeks and Latins, as well as in the traditions of 
 the Semitic peoples in Arabia and Palestine. In countries 
 where this belief has prevailed it is generally found that 
 relationship was traced through females exclusively, and 
 it appears in many cases that marriage in its modern form 
 
 wood. Cilchulain's name signified "the Hound of Culand," and was 
 connected with the cult of a god called Culand the Smith. The story 
 turns on the idea that " one of the things he must not do was eating his 
 namesake's flesh." See the translation of the story by Mr. Whitley Stokes, 
 Revue Celtique, iii. 176; O'Curry, Mann. Anc. Irish, ii. 363. The legend 
 of Einglan, king of the birds, shows the existence of an ancient tradition 
 that birds were formerly considered by some Irish tribes to be sacred. 
 Conaire the Great, a mythical king of Ireland, was the son of the Bird- 
 king, and was therefore forbidden to kill birds of any kind. O'Curry, 
 Mann. Anc. Irish, introd. ccclxx. Compare Martin, Descr. West. Isl. 273. 
 ^ The system mentioned in the text is usually called "Totemism" from 
 the word " totem " or " dodhaim" which the Red Indians apply to the 
 plant animal or other natural object representing the ancestor and pro- 
 tector of the group of persons who share the name and crest. The 
 " totem '' may not be eaten by any member of the group. Another rule 
 provides that persons with the same "totem" may not intermarry. The 
 theory of the wide distribution of " Totemism '' among the nations of the 
 ancient world (especially among the Greeks) is due to Mr. J. F. M'Lennan, 
 who first explained it in the Fortnightly Review, 1869, 1870. See with 
 regard to the Semitic peoples an essay on the subject by Professor 
 Robertson Smith in the Journal of Philology, 1880, ix. 75. See also Mr. 
 A. Lang's article on "The Family'' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
Origins of English History. 301 
 
 was at one time quite unknown. It is, at any rate, a 
 plausible hypothesis that the fabled descents from animals 
 and plants or from the divine influences of the waters or 
 the moon or stars may have originated in a time when 
 paternity was as yet unacknowledged and a fiction was 
 required to keep the mother's offspring united in one 
 family group. 
 
302 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF BRITAIN. 
 
 Character of the Roman Conquest — The century of peace after Caesar's invasion- 
 Increase of commerce with Gaul — Fresh settlements of Gauls in Britain— The 
 Atrebates — The Belgae — The Parisii — Prosperity of the native slates —Metallurgy — 
 List of exports — End of the peace — The capture of Camulodunum —The triumph 
 of Claudius — Massacre of the captives — Enrolment of British regiments — Conquest 
 of the Southern Districts —The colony of Camulodunum — Tyrannical measures- 
 Revolt of the Iceni — Victory of PauUinus — The province constituted — Agricola's 
 beneficial government — The visit of Hadrian — The four legions— Description of 
 Caerleon — Growth of towns— Hadrian's Wall — Description of its remains — The 
 Wall of Antoninus — Tablets erected by the soldiers — -Theirworship and superstitions 
 — The expedition of Severus — Death of the Emperor at York — The revolt of 
 Carausius — Influence of the Franks — Diocletian's scheme of government — Reigns 
 of Constantius and Constantine the Great — A new system of administration — The 
 military roads —Whether identical with the medieval highways —Course of Watling 
 Street — The Roman system of communications — Three lines from north to south — 
 Transverse routes in the North — Connections with roads in the South and West— 
 The district of the Saxon Shore — Course of the Ikenild Way — The routes in the 
 Antonine Itinerary — The Peutingerian Table — The effect on Britain of the new 
 constitution — Increase of taxation — Establishment of Christianity in Britain- 
 Gradual decay of paganism — Pantheistic religions — State of the frontiers — The 
 Picts and Scots — The Franks and Saxons — Victories of Theodosius — The Revolt 
 of Maximus — The successes of Stilicho — Usurpation of Constantine — The treason 
 of Gerontius — The independence of Britain. 
 
 THERE is something at once mean and tragical about 
 the story of the Roman Conquest. Begun as the 
 pastime of a fooHsh despot and carried on under a false 
 expectation of riches, its mischief was certain from the 
 beginning. Ill-armed country-folk were matched against 
 disciplined legions and an infinite levy of auxiliaries. Vain 
 heroism and a reckless love of liberty were crushed in 
 tedious and unprofitable wars. On the one side stand the 
 petty tribes, prosperous nations in miniature, already en- 
 riched by commerce and rising to a homely culture ; on 
 the other the terrible Romans strong in their tyranny 
 
Origins of English History. 303 
 
 and an avarice which could never be appeased. " If their 
 enemy was rich, they were ravenous, if poor they lusted for 
 dominion, and not the East nor the West could satisfy 
 them."i 
 
 They gained a province to ruin it by a slow decay. 
 The conscription and the grinding taxes, the slavery of 
 the many in the fields and mines, must be set against the 
 comfort of the few and the glory of belonging to the 
 Empire. Civilization was in one sense advanced, but all 
 manliness had been sapped ; and freedom had vanished 
 from the province long before it fell an easy prey to the 
 great Earls and "mighty war-smiths," -the Angles and 
 Saxons who founded the English kingdom. 
 
 The first invasions of Julius Caesar had been followed 
 by a century of repose. The fury of the civil wars secured 
 a long oblivion of Britain, and when the Empire was 
 established the prudence of Augustus forbade the exten- 
 sion of the frontier. His glory was satisfied by the 
 homage of a few chieftains who came with gifts to the 
 Capitol, and the names of the " suppliant kings " are still 
 recorded in the imperial inscriptions. The wish of 
 Augustus was a law to his successors, and the islanders 
 were left for two reigns to boast of their alliance with 
 Rome. It had become the fashion to despise a country 
 which was hardly worth a garrison. " It would require," 
 said some, " at least a legion and some extra cavalry to 
 enforce the payment of tribute, and then the military 
 expenses would absorb all the increase of revenue." ^ 
 Others laughed at the exploits for which a three-weeks' 
 thanksgiving had once seemed barely sufficient. " Divine 
 
 1 Tac. Agric. c. 30. ^ Strabo, iv. 278. 
 
304 Origins of English History. 
 
 Caesar," they said, " landed his army in a swamp 
 and fled before the long-sought Britons."' Too much, 
 it was thought, had been made of a march along the 
 high-road and the fording of a stockaded river: the 
 legions had been forced back to the coast by an army of 
 chariots and horsemen ; no princes were sent as hostages 
 and no tribute had ever been paid. 
 
 The invasion was of greater importance than the critics 
 were disposed to allow, though its effects were chiefly 
 seen in an increased commerce with the Continent. It 
 was the conquest of Gaul which most affected the nations 
 beyond the Chanoel. The influence of the empire was felt 
 beyond its formal boundaries, and the provincial fashions 
 found a crowd of imitators in the rustic kingdoms on the 
 Thames, Another result of the conquest was an increase 
 of the Gaulish settlements in Britain. Commius, the 
 Prince of Arras, took refuge from the Romans in the 
 island which he had helped to invade, and the "Atrebates" 
 were thenceforth established on the Upper Thames and 
 ruled the country between Silchester and the hill-fortress 
 at Sarum. The Beiges founded a settlement on the Solent 
 from which they spread westwards to the mouth of the 
 Severn, and built towns at Bath and Winchester and at 
 Ilchester in the marshes of the Parret. The Parisii left 
 their island in the Seine and settled in the fens of Holder- 
 ness and round the chalk-cliffs of Flamborough, and 
 dwelt in the straggling town of Petuaria "all round 
 the fair-havened bay." The graves on the Yorkshire 
 coast still yield the remains of their iron chariots and 
 
 1 " Oceanumque vocans incerti stagna profundi, 
 Territa quaesitis ostendit terga Britannis." 
 
 Lucan, Phars. ii. 571. 
 
Origins of English History. 305 
 
 horse-trappings, and their armour decorated with enamel 
 and the red Mediterranean coral.-^ The prosperity of the 
 native states was indicated by the rise of regular towns 
 in place of the older camps of refuge as well as by the 
 increase of the continental trade. An advance in metal- 
 lurgy was marked by the use of a silver coinage,^ by a 
 change from the bronze weapons to the steel sabres and 
 ponderous spears of Gaul,^ and by the export not only 
 of their surplus iron but of the precious ores which were 
 found and worked in the west ; and the ultimate conquest 
 was doubtless hastefted by the dream of winning a Land 
 of Gold and a rich reward of victory.* The returns from 
 
 1 Thurnam's British Barrows. Archceol. xliii. 474, 475. These discoveries 
 are made in the tumuli at Arras Hesslekew and Cowlam in the East Riding. 
 " At Grinjthorpe a skeleton was found with a spear-head and sword both 
 of iron, the latter in a curious sheath of bronze decorated with studs of 
 red coral." The bronze armlets are embellished with scarlet enamel like 
 those found at "Bibracte," the modern Beuvray. Pliny says that coral 
 had been used by the Gauls down to his time for ornamenting their 
 armour. Hist. Nat. xxxii. 11. That the art of enamelling was not con- 
 fined to the Continent is shown by a passage in the " Imagines " of 
 Philostratus, where the philosopher informs the Empress Julia Domna 
 that this beautiful work was made by the "islanders in the Outer Ocean." 
 Philost. Imag. i. 28. 
 
 2 For an account of the silver coins of the Iceni see Sir T. Brown's 
 Hydriotaphia, d 2. 
 
 * Pomp. Mela, iii. c. 6. Certain rude and unfinished blades found in 
 sheaves of 70 or 80, or in much greater numbers, in or near British 
 earthworks in the South-western Counties are believed to be British. 
 Thurnam, British Barrows, Archaol. xliii. 478, 486. 
 
 * Ante, p. 148; Tac. Agric. c. 12; Carew, Surv. Cornw. 7 ; De la 
 Beche, Geol. South-west. Counties, 218, 611; Philips, Anc. Metallurgy, 
 Arch. Journ. 1859; Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 220. For an account 
 of the British lead-mines, where most of the silver was found, see Pliny, 
 Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 49. The metal, he says, lay like a thick skin on the 
 surface of the ground. 
 
 X 
 
3o6 Origins of English History. 
 
 the imperial custom-houses showed as great an increase in 
 the agricultural exports, and the British chiefs grew rich 
 with the price of their cattle and hides and of the wheat 
 and barley from the Kentish fields. The sporting-dogs 
 formed a separate and valuable class of exports, including 
 rough terriers or spaniels which ran entirely by scent, 
 lurchers or greyhounds for hare-hunting, and those big 
 British hounds " strong enough to break the neck of a 
 bull," ugly and somewhat noisy till crossed with the 
 Thracian breed but nevertheless esteemed by the Roman 
 sportsmen to be as useful as any hounds in the world.^ 
 
 The discord of the British chieftains was the immediate 
 cause of the second invasion. The sons of Cymbeline 
 were at war with the house of Commius, to whose terri- 
 tory Kent and some bordering districts belonged. A 
 prince of that house sought refuge and vengeance at Rome, 
 and the courtiers of Claudius caught at the chance of 
 gratifying their master's vanity. An army of four legions 
 was landed on the southern coast, and Caractacus and his 
 brothers were driven far to the west and afterwards back 
 to some great river which may have been the Thames. 
 The capture of their great stronghold was reserved for the 
 Emperor's hand. The battle seems to have been arranged 
 
 1 The small dog is the " agassceus" of Oppian, i. 468, also called 
 " pefronius," Gratian. Cynegetica. Falisc. Cyneg. 206, and afterwards 
 " fietrunculus," as for instance in the Burgundian Laws. The greyhound 
 is the "■ jiertragiis" or "vertraka," the ''veltre" of our mediaeval records. 
 Blount, Tenures, 9, 35. " Et pictam maculi vertraham delige falsi," 
 Gratian. Falisc. Cyneg. 203. "The Celtic greyhound sweeps the level 
 lea," &c, Whitaker, Hist. Manch. i. 226. Compare Martial^ xiv. 200. 
 The British hound was not the mastiff, which is a late importation from 
 Central Asia; it seems to have rather resembled the medieval boar- 
 hound. See Claudian, "Magnaque tauroruni fracture colla Britannse," 
 Ad Stilichon. iii. 301 ; Gratian. Falisc. Cyneg. 178, 202. 
 
Origins of English History. 307 
 
 with Eastern pomp : and elephants/ clad in mail and 
 bearing turrets filled with slingers and bowmen, marched 
 for once in line with the Belgian pikemen and the 
 Batavians from the island in the Rhine.^ 
 
 Claudius returned from an easy victory to a triumph of 
 unexampled splendour. A ship " like a moving palace " 
 bore him homewards from Marseilles, and the Senate 
 decreed the gift of a naval crown to welcome the conqueror 
 of the ocean.^ His father Drusus Germanicus had sailed 
 past Friesland to vis^t the Baltic Straits and to search for 
 fresh " Pillars of Hercules " : " our Drusus," said the 
 Rornans, " was bold enough, but Ocean kept the secret of 
 Hercules and his own."* But now it was feigned that the 
 furthest seas had been brought within the circuit of the 
 Empire. " The last bars have fallen," sang the poets, 
 " and the earth is girdled by a Roman Ocean."^ " The 
 
 1 Dion Cass. Iv. 22, 23 j Orosius Ann. vii. 56. The story of Julius 
 Caesar's elephant (Polyaen. Strateg. viii. 23) is probably due to a confusion 
 of incidents in the two campaigns. 
 
 ^ The Batavians from the island formed by the Rhine and Maas took 
 a prominent part in the conquest of Britain. Tac. Hist. i. 59, iv. 12 j 
 Ann. xiv. 385 Agric. 18, 36. They were originally an offshoot from the 
 Chatti of the Black Forest, and were celebrated like their parent-tribe 
 for their courage and endurance in war " counting fortune but a chance 
 and valour the only certainty." Tac. Germ. 29, 30, 31 ; Hist. iv. 61, 64. 
 In A.D. 98 Tacitus wrote of them as follows : " Through some domestic 
 quarrel they crossed over to their present home, where they were to become 
 a portion of the Empire. They still enjoy that honour and the privileges 
 of their old alliance, for they are not debased by tribute nor ground down 
 by the tax-gatherer ; they are exempt from subsidies and benevolences 
 and are kept for the wars, put on one side to be used only in a fight like 
 weapons stored in an armoury." Tac. Germ. c. 29. 
 
 ' Pliny, Hist. Nat. iii. 20, xxxiii. 16; Sueton. Claud. 17. 
 
 * Tac. Germ. c. 24. 
 
 ^ "Et jam Romano cingimur Oceano." "Laus Claudii Csesaris." See 
 Burmann. Anthol. ii. 88. 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 Origins of English History. 
 
 world's end is no longer the end of the Empire, and 
 Oceanus turns himself back to look on the altars of 
 Claudius."^ " One look from Caesar has subdued the cliff- 
 girt isle, the land of the wintry pole, — 
 
 " ' Qua frigida semper 
 Praefulget stellis Arctos inocciduis.' "- 
 
 The record of the rejoicings has been preserved, and 
 inscriptions are extant to show the honours and decorations, 
 the collars bracelets and ornaments, which were lavished 
 on all who had gained distinction in the war. First in the 
 triumph came the images of the gods and the figures of 
 the Emperor's ancestors, and then the booty of the war, 
 the crowns sent by the provinces, and gifts from all parts 
 of the world. Claudius passed in his general's dress of 
 purple with ivory sceptre and oak-leaf crown. Messalina's 
 carriage followed; and then came the officers distinguished 
 in the field marching on foot and in plain robes, except 
 one who had been decorated before and so was entitled to 
 ride a horse with jewelled trappings and to wear a tunic 
 embroidered with golden palms. On reaching the Capitol 
 the Emperor left his car in accordance with the old routine, 
 and mounted the steps praying and kneeling with the 
 help of his sons-in-law who supported him on either side.^ 
 
 Another day was given to games in the Circus, and the 
 factions of the Blues and Greens were promised as many 
 
 1 Burmann. Anthol. ii. 84. The temple of Claudius was built at 
 " Camulodunum." The natives regarded it as the crown of their slavery, 
 and complained that the country was exhausted in providing cattle for 
 the sacrifices. It was destroyed in Boadicea's revolt, and its site has never 
 been discovered. Tac. Ann. xiv. 29; Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 34. 
 
 ^ Burmann. Anthol. ii. 91. 
 
 3 Dion Cass. Ix. 23 ; Sueton. Claud. 17. 
 
Origins of English History. 309 
 
 chariot-races as could be run between morning and night.^ 
 But the number was diminished to ten by the time taken 
 up in beast-fights and other shows which were more 
 appropriate to the amphitheatre. Bears were hunted and 
 killed, perhaps in allusion to the war still raging in the 
 northern forests. Gladiators were matched in single com- 
 bat between the races ; and as a crowning show the 
 famous " Pyrrhica " was danced by boys of the best families 
 in Asia, who had been summoned to take part in the 
 rejoicings. At the sound of a trumpet they appeared in 
 splendid uniforms, and counterfeited in the war-dance all 
 the movements used in the field, advancing and retreating, 
 and breaking rank and wheeling into line again, now 
 seeming to bend away from an enemy's blows and now to 
 hurl the spear or draw the bow.'' 
 
 Afterwards came the brutal sports which seemed to the 
 Romans to be the chief reward of victory. "It is the 
 
 1 As many as twenty-four races were run in one day by Caligula's 
 orders in a.d. 37, each race taking about half-an-hour. The course was 
 seven times round the hippodrome. The Circus, in the reign of Claudius, 
 was constructed to hold about 150,000 persons; but it was very much 
 enlarged in later reigns. Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxviii. 24, loi ; Pausanias 
 V. 12. On the whole subject of the games see Friedlander's Manners of 
 the Romans, Book vi. (Vol. ii. of Vogel's French translation). 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. Ix. 30. For descriptions of the " Pyrrhica," see Plato, 
 Leg. vii. 18 j Claudian, Sext. Cons. Honor. 621; Burm. Anthol. 134. 
 " Puelli puellaeque virenti florentes setatula, forma conspicui, veste nitidi, 
 incessu gestuosi, Grsecanicam saltaturi Pyrrhicam dispositis ordinationibus 
 decoros ambitus inerrabant, nunc in orbem rotatuni flexuosi nunc in 
 obliquam seriem connexi, et in quadratum patorem cuneati et in catervae 
 discidium separati." Apul. Metamorph. x. 29. "Ut est ille in pyrrhical 
 versicolorus discursus quum amicti cocco alii, alii et luto et ostro et 
 purpura creti, alii aliique cohserentes concursant." Fronto. Epist. ad Cses. 
 i. 4- Compare the account of the " Trojamentum " or " Ludus Trojae." 
 Virg. .^n. V. 545, 602, and Journ. Philol. ix. loi. 
 
3IO Origins of English History. 
 
 greatest pleasure in life," Cicero himself had said, "to see 
 a brave enemy led off to torture and death." The Field 
 of Mars, on the other side of the river, was now chosen as 
 the scene of a fresh entertainment. At a place where the 
 park was surrounded by water on three sides a fortress 
 was built in imitation of the walls and stockades of Camu- 
 lodunum : and the straw-thatched palaces and streets of 
 wattled huts were defended stormed and sacked by armies 
 of British captives reserved to die in a theatrical war. Three 
 years afterwards in a.d. 47, when Plautius gained his 
 triumph for the conquest of Southern Britain, the massacre 
 was renewed in a somewhat different form. The prisoners 
 were enrolled among the heavy-armed gladiators who fought 
 as "Gauls" and "Samnites" against the "Thracians" 
 armed with the target and crooked dagger, and the 
 " retiarii " with nets and harpoons ready to entangle 
 their adversaries as the fisherman catches the tunny-fish. 
 Thousands of Britons are said to have perished in these 
 combats and in the chariot-fights in which they were com- 
 pelled to exhibit their native methods of warfare.^ 
 
 As the conquest advanced other uses were found for 
 the captives in the mines and public works or in military 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. Ix. 30. The costume of the retiarius is best known by the 
 mosaic of Cupids fighting in the Roman villa at Bignor in Sussex. Archaol. 
 xviii. 203. See also Dyer's Pompeii, 227. Friedlander quotes the song 
 of the retiarius: " Non te peto, piscem peto, quid me fugi' Galle?"j 
 Manners of the Romans (Vogel's transl. ii. 274). The Roman sentiment 
 on the subject is illustrated by the exulting words of Tacitus on the 
 destruction of the Bructeri on the Rhine. " The gods grudged not even 
 to let us see the spectacle : over 60,000 men fell on the field, not under 
 the Roman sword and spear but in a still more stately fashion dying to 
 make a show before our delighted eyes." Tac. Germ. c. 33 ; see 
 also Statins. " Ridet Mars pater et cruenta Virtus." Silv, i. 6, 
 
Origins of English History. ' 311 
 
 service abroad. As early as a.d. 69 a force of 8,000 
 Britons was enrolled in the army of Vitellius, and in later 
 times we find their levies scattered in all parts of the 
 world, in the forts on the Pyrenees and the Balkans, in 
 the Household at Constantinople, and along the distant 
 frontiers of the African and Armenian deserts.^ 
 
 In the year a.d. 50, six years after the capture of 
 Camulodunum, the southern parts of Britain were falling 
 into the condition of a Roman province. Four legions 
 had been left under Plautius to consolidate and extend the 
 conquest. The troops under his immediate command 
 were engaged in the midland districts, while Vespasian 
 and Titus fought their way in the south to the Mendip 
 Hills and the Severn. The future Emperors over-ran the 
 territories of the "Regni" and the " Belgae"; they defeated 
 the armies of " two mighty nations," and took a score of 
 camps by storm ; and the broken tribes and captive kings 
 were regarded afterwards as having been the signs and first- 
 fruits of the fortune of the Flavian dynasty." Meantime 
 
 1 Tac. Agric. 15, Hist. i. 59. The head-quarters of the 2nd 6th and 
 20th Legions are shown by Ptolemy to have been at Caerleon York and 
 Chester; but in other respects the " Notitia Imperii " or Official Calendar 
 of the Empire, which was compiled about the end of the fourth century, 
 is almost the only authority for the stations of the British regiments. It 
 seems, however, that it was the custom to keep the legions and the 
 auxiliaries attached to them in the same head-quarters for many genera- 
 tions. The "Notitia" mentions British regiments quartered in Gaul, 
 Spain, lUyria, Egypt, and Armenia, and others enrolled among the home 
 forces or palatine guards. Though it was against the policy of the State 
 to allow the natives of any province to serve at home, inscriptions have 
 been found at Matlock and at places in Yorkshire and Cumberland 
 which indicate the presence of a British contingent. Hiibner, Corp. Lat. 
 Inscr. vii. 50, 227. 
 
 ^ Sueton. Vesp. 4 ; Tac. Agric. 13. 
 
312 Origins of English History. 
 
 Plautius had been replaced by Ostorius Scapula, the new 
 general in command, and it was determined to secure what 
 had been gained already before undertaking a new struggle 
 against Caractacus and the nation of the Silures.^ The 
 whole frontier was in confusion, the midland tribes having 
 invaded the territories of the allies " because they never ex- 
 pected that the new general would take the field in winter." 
 Some of the allies themselves began to show symptoms of 
 wavering, and the "Iceni" shortly afterwards broke out into 
 open war. Ostorius seized the opportunity of establishing a 
 regular government ; the invasion was repelled with the 
 first troops at hand; and the Icenian army was crushed 
 without waiting for the arrival of the legions. A line of 
 forts, connected by a military road, was drawn across the 
 island from the Severn to the eastern fens : and a colony 
 of discharged soldiers was settled at Camulodunum, where 
 a pleasant open town was rising on the site of the ruined 
 fortress. The " Iceni " were permitted to retain a doubtful 
 freedom under a king whose private wealth was a sufficient 
 guarantee for peace, and several territories in the South 
 were transferred to another friendly chieftain.^ 
 
 1 Tacitus ascribes the death of Ostorius to his anxieties in the war. 
 " The Silures drew the other nations to revolt .... In this posture ot 
 affairs Ostorius dies, being quite spent with fatigue and trouble. The 
 enemy rejoiced at his death as a general no way contemptible, and the 
 rather because though he did not fall in battle he expired under the 
 burthen of that war." Ann. xii. 39 (Camden). 
 
 2 " Some of the states (civitates) were given to King Cogidumnus, who 
 lived down to our own day," said Tacitus, "as a most faithful ally, so 
 that the Romans according to their custom might find in kings them- 
 selves fresh means of establishing their mastery." Tac. Agric. 14; Ann. 
 xii. 31. This territory had belonged to certain tribes of the "Regni." 
 Its new capital was " Noviomagus," about ten miles south of Roman 
 London. It was connected with " the town of the Regni," of which 
 
Origins of English History. 3 1 3 
 
 The wantonness of the Roman tyranny appears by the 
 complaints attributed to the provincials and the record of 
 those evil doings which led to Boadicea's revolt. The 
 legal dues indeed were severe but by no means intoler- 
 able. The conscription was necessary for repairing the 
 drain upon the other provinces, though the Britons com- 
 plained that their sons were torn away "as if they might 
 die for every country but their own." The tribute, the 
 tithe of corn and the obligation of feeding the Court and 
 the army were all endurable, when the burden was equally 
 distributed ; but such a thing was never known to happen 
 till Agricola came to the government and "restored her 
 good name to Peace." ^ Before this time the Britons were 
 treated as slaves and prisoners of war : the colonists thrust 
 them from their lands : the tithe-farmers combined to buy 
 up the stock of corn which the chieftains were forced to 
 purchase back at a ruinous price to fulfil their duty to the 
 government. The illicit contrivances for gain were more 
 intolerable than the tribute itself^ The people groaned 
 under a double tyranny ; each state had formerly been 
 governed by a single king ; " but now," they said, " we are 
 under the Legate and the Procurator ; the one preys on 
 
 the site is now found in Chichester, by the military road called 
 the Stone Street which crossed the Banstead Downs. A celebrated 
 inscription was found at Chichester in the last century relating to a 
 temple of Neptune and Minerva, built under the authority of " Tiberius 
 Claudius Cogidubnus, King and Lieutenant of the Emperor in Britain." 
 It is difficult to conceive any legal authority for these titles, but they 
 may refer to some privilege granted to the first king of the line or to one 
 of his immediate descendants. For the true reading of this inscription 
 see Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 18. 
 
 1 Tac. Agric. 20; Ann. xiv. 31. Agricola took command of the pro- 
 vince in A.D. 79. 
 
 ^ Tac. Agric. 19 (Church). 
 
314 Origins of English History, 
 
 our blood and the other on our lands ; the officers of the 
 one and the slaves of the other combine extortion and 
 insult ; nothing is safe from their avarice and nothing from 
 their lust." 
 
 Then followed the Icenian mutiny. " Prasutagus 
 famous for his great treasures had made Caesar and his 
 daughters joint heirs, thinking by this respect to save his 
 kingdom and family from insult — which happened quite 
 otherwise ; for his kingdom was made a prey by the 
 captains and his house pillaged by the slaves. And as if 
 the whole was now become lawful booty, the chiefs of the 
 Iceni were deprived of their paternal estates, and those of 
 the blood-royal were treated as the meanest slaves."^ The 
 story of the actual revolt is too familiar to need repetition, 
 Paullinus was recalled from Mona by the news that 
 the Ninth Legion was annihilated. The new colony had 
 been destroyed, and the temple sacked after a two days' 
 siege : the nations of Eastern and Central Britain moved 
 in a vast horde to sweep the helpless province. The 
 troops were dispersed in forts and block-houses, and the 
 barbarians were exhausting the refinements of cruelty on 
 all who fell into their hands, as though endeavouring (said 
 the angry Romans) to avenge in advance the terrible 
 punishments which awaited them. Paullinus acted with 
 the spirit and judgment which became such a famous 
 soldier. Marching across the island by the new military 
 road, he reached London with the Fourteenth Legion and a 
 few men of the Twentieth and such Gauls and Germans as 
 he could get together from stations which he had relieved 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xiv. 31 (Camden). The revolt began in a.d. 61, when 
 Suetonius Paullinus had been two years in command. 
 
Origins of English History, 3 1 5 
 
 upon the route. "He could not presently resolve whether 
 to make that place the seat of war or not, but determined 
 at last to sacrifice this one town to the safety of the rest ; 
 and not relenting at the sighs and tears of the inhabitants, 
 who entreated his aid and protection, he gave orders to 
 march, receiving such as followed him into his army ; those 
 who by weakness of sex or age were stayed behind, or 
 tempted by their affection for the place to remain there, 
 were destroyed by the enemy." London was sacked as 
 soon as its defenders retreated, and before they got far 
 they learned that Verulam was destroyed by another wing 
 of the mass which was closing upon them. It was believed 
 that over 70,000 people had been massacred in the three 
 captured towns,^ 
 
 The fate of the province was at stake, and PaulUnus 
 determined to risk a decisive battle as soon as he could 
 gain an advantage of position. Finding that the main 
 force of the enemy was encamped in a plain skirted by 
 Steep and thickly-wooded hills, he forced his way through 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. xiv. 33 (Camden). London Verulam and Camulodunum 
 were all open towns, though founded on the sites of Celtic fortresses. 
 They were all fortified in later times and their walls long remained among 
 the most conspicuous of the monuments left by the Romans. The walls 
 of Colchester are still perfect in some places: when measured in 1746 
 they were found to contain an area of 108 acres. Archaol. (Winchester, 
 1849) Porch. Cast. 16. The Roman walls of London are believed to 
 have been built by Constantino the Great. For an account of their 
 appearance after the Great Fire see Hearne's Appendix to Leland. The 
 fortress of Verulam remained standing until its materials and "fine 
 masonrie work some Porphyrie some Alabaster," were required for 
 building St. Alban's Abbey. Leland's Itin. v. introd. xviii. " The walls, the 
 massive tower, and in fact the whole of the church were built out of the 
 ruins of Verulamium ; even the newels of the staircases are constructed 
 with Roman tiles." Archmol. (Winch. 1849) Porch. Cast. 17. 
 
3 1 6 Origins of English History. 
 
 the forest, and emerged at the mouth of a ravine where 
 he formed his Hne of battle. The native camps lay round 
 the narrow opening, each nation by itself according to the 
 Celtic fashion, with long lines of waggons stretching as far 
 as the eye could see. The Roman forces were skilfully 
 disposed so as to guard against the barbarian tactics ; for 
 while their enemy was fully engaged at the front the 
 Britons pushed their wings forward under cover so as 
 to intercept his rear.^ In this case the manoeuvre was 
 impossible, for the Fourteenth Legion was drawn like a 
 wall of steel from cliff to cliff, with the light troops thrown 
 forward on a curved front supported on the flanks by 
 cavalry. The Britons covered the plain with their horse- 
 men, riding up and down in their troops and squadrons 
 " in such numbers as never were elsewhere seen." They 
 seem to have delivered their assault in the old British 
 fashion, charging along the enemy's line with masses of 
 mounted men, while the infantry pushed up behind and 
 drove back the Roman skirmishers under a shower of 
 darts and stones. The legionaries are described as 
 standing bare-armed and poising their heavy javelins and 
 never moving a step until all their missiles had been 
 discharged with effect. Then suddenly wheeling into a 
 wedge-shaped figure they charged and cut the enemy's 
 line in two. As the heavy troops moved out guarded 
 with their bucklers, and forcing a way with their short 
 stabbing swords, the auxiliaries charged alongside hewing 
 
 ^ Compare the Battle of the Grampians : " Those of the Britons, who 
 having as yet taken no part in the engagement occupied the hill-tops, 
 and without fear for themselves sat idly disdaining the smallness of our 
 numbers, had begun gradually to descend and to hem in the rear of the 
 victorious army." Tac. Agric. 37 (Church); Annal. xiv. 35, 36. 
 
Origins of English History. 3 1 7 
 
 down the enemy with their sabres, and striking at the face 
 with the spikes of their targets ; and the cavalry deployed 
 into line with spears in rest and rode down the only 
 force that still remained unbroken. The greatest slaughter 
 was at the waggons, where the crowd of fugitives was 
 entangled and the bodies of men women and horses were 
 piled together in indiscriminate heaps. ^ 
 
 This battle practically decided the fate of Britain. Large 
 reinforcements were forwarded from the provinces on the 
 Rhine ; and the mutinous and suspected tribes alike were 
 ravaged with fire and sword. The punishment was so 
 sharp and long-continued that Paullinus was at last accused 
 of personal feeling: " his policy," it was said, "was arrogant; 
 and he showed the cruelty of one who was avenging a 
 private wrong." The matter came in time to Nero's ears, 
 and one of the imperial cham.berlains was despatched to 
 arbitrate between the governor and the party of mercy, 
 and if possible to bring the rebels to terms. Italy and 
 Gaul were burdened with the vast array of troops and 
 courtiers. Polycletus the enfranchised slave, a name 
 hated and feared by all the Roman world, passed over in 
 royal pomp to Britain to the terror of the general and his 
 armies and the amazement of the free barbarians.^ It was 
 fortunate for them that Nero never heard of their con- 
 temptuous reception of his favourite. Paullinus was quietly 
 removed, and the province remained at peace until the 
 
 ' " The victoi'y,'* says Tacitus, " was very noble, and the glory of it not 
 inferior to those of ancient times ; for by the report of some there were 
 slain little less than fourscore thousand Britons, whereas the Romans lost 
 but about four hundred killed and had not many niora wounded." 
 Annal. xiv. 37 (Camden). 
 
 ' Tac. Ann. 39; Hist. ii. 95. 
 
31^ Origins of English History. 
 
 accession of Vespasian. Even then we hear of no great 
 combinations among the tribes ; the states of the Brigantians 
 were divided in Cartismandua's quarrel, and the Silures 
 were left to fight alone in their final contest with Frontinus.^ 
 The province was finally consolidated by the valour and 
 prudence of Agricola, who had learned to like the people 
 and to prefer their native wit to the laboured smartness of 
 the Gauls. He determined to root out " the causes of 
 war" by reforming the abuses of the government and by 
 persuading the natives to leave their rude ways of living, 
 to build " temples and courts and fine bouses," to speak 
 Latin, and to wear the Roman dress. The hostile tribes 
 were alarmed by sudden campaigns, and then bought over 
 by the offer of a generous peace.^ His first year of office 
 was taken up by the expedition against the Ordovices and 
 the conquest of the Isle of Mona. In his second campaign 
 he was engaged with the tribes of the western coast 
 between the Dee and the Solway Frith ; we are told that 
 he always selected the place of encampment himself and 
 marched with his soldiers in their explorations of the 
 estuaries and forests. Many of the nations in those parts 
 submitted to give hostages and to allow permanent forts 
 to be erected within their territories ; " and it was observed 
 
 1 Cerealis attacked the revolted Brigantians in a.d. 69. " There wete 
 many battles, some by no means bloodless, and his conquests, or at least 
 his wars, covered a great part of the territories belonging to the Brigantes. 
 Indeed he would have thrown into the shade the activity and renown of 
 any other successor 5 but Julius Frontinus, a great man so fjr as greatness 
 Was then possible, proved equal to the burden and subdued by his arms 
 the powerful and warlike nation Of the Silures." Tac. Agric. 17. 
 
 2 Before he was appointed to the chief command Agricola had served 
 in Britain under Vettius Bolanus and Cerealis. His final victory over the 
 Caledonians was in the year a.d. 84. 
 
Origins of English History. 31^ 
 
 by the best masters of war that no captain ever chose 
 places to better advantage, for no castle of his raising was 
 ever taken by force, or surrendered upon terms, or quitted 
 as incapable of defence." ^ 
 
 The next campaign was directed against "new nations" 
 and tribes as yet untouched in the long Brigantian wars. 
 But their hasty levies were easily thrust aside, and their 
 lands were ravaged as far as the mouth of a northern river 
 called " Taus" or " Tanaus" which is usually identified 
 with the Tay.^ A fourth summer was spent in securing 
 what had been gained, and no better boundary could be 
 desired than the line of the Forth and Clyde. " Two arms 
 of two opposite seas," said Tacitus, "shoot a great way 
 into the country, and are parted only by the strip of land 
 which was covered by the Roman forts ; and so we were 
 masters of all upon this side, and the enemy was as it 
 were pent up within the shores of another island." ^ Thus 
 at last the province of Britain was established ; for neither 
 the defeat of Galgacus in Caledonia, which closed the 
 fifty years' war, nor the occasional campaigns required for 
 the chastisement of the Highland tribes, had any perma- 
 nent effect in extending the selected boundary. 
 
 Thirty-five years after Agricola's return to Rome the 
 Emperor Hadrian* was summoned to the defence of the 
 
 ^ Tac. Agric. 22 (Camden). 
 
 ' Mr. Skene traces his route through Stirlingshire and Perthshire td 
 the Frith of Tay. Celtic Scotland, i. 45. The reading "Tanaus," which 
 is adopted by Wex from the MSS. in the Vatican, makes the whole 
 question of the advance to the Tay uncertain. 
 
 ' Tac. Agric. c. 23. 
 
 * Spartian. Vita Hadrian, c. 12. Hadrian arrived in the year a.d. 120: 
 the publication of Ptolemy's Geography took place about the same time, 
 too soon for any notice of the " Wall " to appear in its tables or maps. 
 
326 Origins of English History. 
 
 frontier, and the epigram tells us how he " roamed among 
 the Britons, and shivered in the Scythian cold." 
 
 The beginning of his reign was troubled by border-wars, 
 and in Britain as elsewhere he found that the natives had 
 broken the first line of defence and were threatening the 
 heart of the province. The Ninth Legion had suffered so 
 severely that it was either broken up altogether or was 
 united with the Sixth, which came over with Hadrian 
 and was established as a permanent garrison at " Ebura- 
 cum," the site of the modern city of York. ^ 
 
 Of the four legions which Claudius had posted in the 
 island only two now remained. The " Twentieth Valens 
 Victrix" was permanently stationed at " Deva" or Chester, 
 where all the north-western roads converged.^ The 
 " Second Augusta " was chiefly employed in the West, 
 with its head-quarters fixed at Caerleon-upon-Usk. Its 
 labours built the splendid City of Legions, the " towered 
 Camelot " of romance, of which the ruins, as they stood in 
 
 1 York seems to have grown out of a Roman camp, and to have taken 
 the place of " Isurium" now Aldborough, as the capital of the Brigantian 
 district. Wellbeloved, Eburacum, 38, 155 ; Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr, 
 vii. 61. Isurium is called " Isu-Brigantum " in the Antonine Itinerary, as 
 if it had long retained the position of the native capital. An inscription 
 of A.D. 108 shows that some Roman buildings were erected at York 
 under Trajan, whose fondness for such mural records earned him the name 
 of "Parietaria" or "Wall-flower." Kenrich. Arch. Essays, 184. 
 
 ^ There is no actual record of this legion after the death of Carausius 
 in A.D. 294. The Sixth and the Second were in this country when the 
 " Notitia Imperii " was compiled, the one legion being then posted at 
 Richborough and the other in its old quarters at York. Hiibner, Corp. 
 Lat. Inscr. vii. 5. The sites of the soldiers' graves camps and quarters, 
 Can be traced by means of the inscriptions on tiles and other pottery left 
 en their routes. The soldiers were constantly engaged in brickniaking, 
 " and an examination and comparison of the tiles shows the distribution 
 of the military forces.'' Birch, Ancient Pottery, 487. 
 
Origins of English History. 321 
 
 the twelfth century, are described in a vivid passage of 
 Giraldus. " Caerleon," he said, " was excellently built by 
 the Romans with their walls of brick ; and there are still 
 to be seen many traces of its former greatness : huge 
 palaces aping the Roman majesty with their roofs of 
 antique gold : a giant tower and noble baths, ruined 
 temples and theatres, of which the well-built walls are 
 standing to this day : and within and without the city the 
 traveller finds underground works canals and winding 
 passages and hypocausts contrived with wonderful skill to 
 throw the heat from little hidden flues within the walls." ^ 
 
 Each legion may have numbered at first about 7,000 
 regulars, with at least as many auxiliaries, some trained like 
 the heavy-armed legionaries and others fighting according 
 to their own methods, and even in some cases under the 
 command of their native chiefs. ^ But it must be remem- 
 bered that the numbers were diminished under the later 
 
 ^ Girald. Cambr. Itin. Cambr. i. c. 10. His words "coctilibus muris" 
 (which he also applies \.o Muridunum, the Roman Caermarthen, ibid. c. 5) 
 would imply, contrary to the fact, that the city walls were of brick ; it is a 
 classical phrase misquoted, and made to apply to masonry with inter- 
 mediate courses of building-tiles. The facings of stone may still be seen 
 on some of the remaining towers. Archaol. 1846 (Winch.), Porch. Castle, 
 20; and see Lee's "Antiquities found at Caerleon''; and Leland, Itin. 
 ix. loi. Of " Caer-went," or Venta Silurum, in the same neighbourhood. 
 Leland says that in his time the places where the four gates stood were 
 still to be seen, " and most part of the wall yet standith but alto minched 
 and tome. In the towne yet appear pavementes of the olde streete, and 
 in digging they found the foundations of great brykes, tesselata pavimenta, 
 numismata argentea, simul et cerea." Itin. v. 5. 
 
 ' Tac. Ann. iv. 5. Of the Batavi the historian says : " Mox aucti per 
 Britanniam gloriS, transmissis illuc cohortibus quas vetere instituto nobi- 
 lissimi popularium regebant." Hist. iv. 12. See also the "perplexed 
 abridgement " of Vegetius " De Re Militari," iii. c. i, and the summary 
 of authorities in the first chapter of Gibbon's History. 
 
 Y 
 
322 Origins of English History. 
 
 Emperors, when an almost absolute reliance was placed on 
 the German mercenaries. Large forces of barbarians 
 were from time to time sent over to assist the legions in 
 Britain. Thus when Marcus Aurelius had defeated the 
 Moravian tribes, he compelled them to send a great part of 
 their army to serve on the Caledonian frontier ; and in the 
 same reign a contingent of 5,000 Sarmatians was drafted 
 from the Lower Danube to the stations between Chester 
 and Carlisle ; ^ and there are records relating to German 
 soldiers from districts now included in Luxemburg, which 
 show that in some cases whole tribes at once were attached 
 to one or other of the auxiliary regiments in Britain.^ 
 
 The soldiers were pioneers and colonists. A Roman 
 camp was " a city in arms," and most of the British towns 
 grew out of the stationary quarters of the soldiery. The 
 ramparts and pathways developed into walls and streets, 
 the square of the tribunal into the market-place and every 
 
 ^ Dion Cass. i. 7 1. Capes, Age of the Antonines, 95. Many Lanca- 
 shire inscriptions remain to show that these Sarmatians were permanently 
 quartered in that neighbourhood. Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 60; 
 Camden's Britannia (Gibson), 974. 
 
 * The " Pagus Vellaus " and the " Pagus Condrustis " served in this way 
 with the Tungrian cohorts in Eskdale, where they have left inscriptions 
 in honour of their native goddesses " Ricagambeda " " Virudesthis " and 
 " Harimella." Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 188. They were posted 
 round Birrens, the " Blatum Bulgium " of the Antonine Itinerary, at the 
 " three Roman stations with Carlisle for mother Netherbie Middlebie 
 and Owerbie, in Eskdale." Carlyle, Remin. i. 166. The notable tabular 
 hill which Carlyle described " has a glorious Roman camp on the south 
 flank of it, the best preserved in Britain except one, velvet sward covering 
 the whole, but trenches, &c., not altered otherwise." The country-people 
 call it the " Birrens," a name which almost invariably implies the existence 
 of Roman ruins. Compare a similar use of the word " Burrals.'' Camden's 
 Britannia (Gibson), 990. See as to " Burrens" or Burwen Castle at Elslack 
 in Craven, Whitaker's Craven (Morant), 114. 
 
Origins of English History. 323 
 
 gateway was the beginning of a suburb where straggling 
 rows of shops, temples, rose-gardens, and cemeteries were 
 sheltered from all danger by the presence of a permanent 
 garrison. In course of time the important positions were 
 surrounded with lofty walls protected by turrets set 
 apart at the distance of a bowshot and built of such solid 
 strength as to resist the shock of a battering-ram. ^ In the 
 centre of the town stood a group of public buildings, con- 
 taining the court-house baths and barracks, and it seems 
 likely that every important place had a theatre or a circus 
 for races and shows. The humble beginnings of our cities 
 are seen in the ancient sketch of a visit to Central Britain, 
 in which a poet pictured the arrival of the son of a former 
 governor, and imagined a white-haired old man pointing 
 out the changes of the province. " Here your father," he 
 says, " sat in judgment, and on that bank he stood and 
 addressed his troops. Those watch-towers and distant 
 forts are his, and these walls were built and entrenched by 
 him. This trophy of arms he offered to the gods of war, 
 with the inscription that you still may see : that cuirass he 
 donned at the call to arms : this corslet he tore from the 
 body of a British king." ^ 
 
 1 The general character of the Roman walling is described in Harts- 
 home's Essay Porchester Castle. Archceol. 1846 (Winchester). " It 
 consisted of a certain number of courses of hewn stone or ashlaring, sepa- 
 rated at intervals by double-bonding courses of Roman tile, the interior 
 part of the wall being filled up with rubble, as in the Mint Wall at Lincoln, 
 and the ruins of Silchester near Reading. See the same Essay for a 
 detailed account of the Roman walls at Wroxeter and Colchester, the 
 Jewry wall at Leicester, the Dover " Pharos," and the remains of the 
 fortress at Richborough. For everything relating to Roman York the 
 reader should consult Wellbeloved's " Eburacum." 
 
 ^ Statius, Silv. v. 2, 142. The poet is addressing the son of Vettius 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 Origins of English History. 
 
 The military genius of Hadrian is attested by the won- 
 derful " Picts' Wall," of which the ruins still extend for 
 miles between Tynemouth and the estuary of the Solway.' 
 The merit of the work has been claimed for Severus, for 
 the generals who in the fifth century brought temporary 
 help to Britain, and even for the native princes whom their 
 masters had abandoned to the enemy. But after a long 
 debate the opinion has now prevailed that the whole 
 system of defence bears the impress of a single mind, and 
 that the wall and its parallel earthworks, its camps roads 
 and stations, were all designed and constructed by Hadrian 
 alone. 
 
 The oldest evidence on the subject is contained in the 
 Lives of Hadrian and Severus by Spartianus, who states 
 in each case that the Emperor built a wall between the two 
 oceans. It is probable that he referred in the latter case 
 
 Bolanus, who governed Britain during the civil wars which preceded the 
 reign of Vespasian. Tac. Agric. c. 16. 
 
 ^ The greater part of the wall was destroyed in the last century. 
 " When Marshal Wade was summoned from Newcastle to the defence of 
 Carlisle against the Pretender's forces, he was obliged to turn back at 
 Hexham for want of a road practicable for artillery, and only reached the 
 western side of the island by a circuitous route and after a month's delay. 
 After the rebellion was quelled it was determined to make a good road 
 
 direct from Newcastle to Carlisle Marshal Wade overthrew what 
 
 then remained of the Roman wall for thirty miles out of Newcastle, to 
 construct an agger of his own with its massive materials. The method 
 he adopted .... may be clearly seen at the present day. In dry 
 weather, and particularly after wind, we may trace at intervals in the 
 centre of this road the facing-stones of the wall in situ, lying in lines about 
 nine feet apart, just where they rose above the foundations ; while in many 
 places the rough ashlars of its upper courses, thrown loosely down to the 
 right and left, still crop up to the surface, not yet ground to dust by the 
 wear and tear of more than a hundred years' traffic." "The Roman 
 Wall." Quarterly Review (i860), No. 213, p. 122. 
 
Origins of English History. 325 
 
 to some repairs made by the orders of Severus on the 
 barrier between the Forth and Clyde; but several later 
 historians took the writer to refer to the lower rampart, 
 which all the archaeological evidence would lead us to 
 attribute to Hadrian. These historians were copied by 
 the British chroniclers, and it is plain from Bede's account 
 that in his time it was unknown whether the "Wall of 
 Severus " ran along the upper or the lower line. The 
 venerable historian saw the difficulty of identifying the 
 fortifications existing in his time with the earthworks and 
 stockades which were said to have been constructed by 
 Severus ; that Emperor, according to his biographer, had 
 just returned from the "vallum" when he died at the 
 head-quarters in York ; and a " vallum," said Bede, " is 
 made of turf cut regularly out of the earth and built high 
 above ground like a wall, with the ditch before it out of 
 which the turf has been dug and strong stakes of wood all 
 along the brink ; Severus therefore drew a great ditch 
 and built a strong earthen wall, fortified with several 
 towers, from sea to sea." This description would have been 
 nearly correct if it had been applied to the " Wall of Anto- 
 ninus," or the rampart between the Forth and Clyde ; but 
 having to account for the existence of the gigantic ruins 
 between Carlisle and Newcastle he adopted a theory which 
 has now been completely abandoned that when the Roman 
 armies were withdrawn, a stone wall was raised by the 
 Britons with the assistance of the legionary soldiers 
 " along the line of the cities which had been contrived here 
 and there for fear of the enemy." This description he 
 took from Gildas, adding that the new fortification was on 
 the course that had formerly been followed by Severus ; 
 " and this wall," he said, " so much talked of and visible to 
 
326 Origins of English History. 
 
 this day, and built at the public and private expense 
 •by the joint labours of the Romans and Britons, was 
 eight feet broad and twelve feet high, running in a direct 
 line from east to west, as is plain at this day to any that 
 shall trace it." ^ 
 
 For the works which Hadrian had thus designed no 
 better site could be chosen. " The tributaries of the Tyne 
 and Eden," to quote a well-known description,''* " rising near 
 the centre fall into deep, trough-like valleys the northern 
 banks of which rise to a considerable elevation in almost 
 continuous ridges ; but in the centre itself the land has 
 been raised by some primaeval convulsion, and presents a 
 stupendous barrier of basaltic cliffs to the north, broken 
 only by abrupt fissures at intervals." Along the cliffs, 
 and clinging to their edge, ran a wall of stone about twenty 
 
 ' For the general history of the Roman walls, see Bruce's various works 
 upon the subject and Maclauchlan's surveys and memoirs. Hiibner, Corp, 
 Lat. Inscr. vii. 99, 106. See also Spartian. Vita Hadriani, c. 11; Vita 
 Severi, c. 18; Gildas, Hist. 18; Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 5, 12. 
 
 2 Quart Rev. (i860). No. 213, p. 123. "The wall had great numbers 
 of turrets or little castles, a mile one from another, now called ' castle-steads,' 
 and on the inside a sort of little fortified towns, which they call to this day 
 'chesters,' the foundations whereof in some places appear in a square 
 form. These had turrets between them wherein the soldiers were always 
 in readiness." " The remains of a wall are all along so very visible that 
 one may follow the track ; and in the wastes I myself have seen pieces of 
 it for a long way together standing entire, except the battlements only 
 which are thrown down." Camden, Brit. (Gibson), 1048, 1050. Some 
 of the mile-castles were standing in 1708 ; " one observes where the ridge 
 has been, and also the trench all before it on the north, as also some of 
 their little towers or mile-castles on the south side." Ibid. 105 1. In 
 Horsley's time there were still three remaining (Brit. Rom. 120), but they 
 are now all destroyed. A description, of the year 1572, gives the measure 
 of the wall at that time, " the bredth iii yardis, the hyght remainith in 
 sum places yet vii yardis." See Bruce, Roman Wall, 53. 
 
Origins of English History. 327 
 
 feet high and over eight feet thick guarded where the 
 ground permitted by a fosse on its northern side. In this 
 were set 320 watch-towers, about a quarter of a mile apart, 
 with a " mile-castle " between every fourth and fifth tower. 
 To the south of the wall, sometimes quite touching its 
 inner military road and sometimes as far as half a mile 
 away, ran a triple series of ramparts strengthened by 
 another fosse, and below them again another military road 
 of which the ruins still in many parts remain on the line of 
 the " Stanegate" between Newcastle and Carlisle. 
 
 Twenty-three permanent stations are shown by the 
 Imperial Calendars to have lain along the line of the wall, 
 with garrisons drawn from as many different countries, so 
 that no two adjoining camps should be held by soldiers 
 from the same part of the world. The list shows a motley 
 array of Germans and Gauls, of Spaniards Moors and 
 Thracians, spearmen from Friesland and cavalry from 
 lUyria, Basques of the Pyrenees and Sarmatians from the 
 lowlands of the Danube ; and the correctness of the official 
 record is conclusively shown by the discovery of altars and 
 mortuary inscriptions set up in not a few of the stations by 
 men of the same foreign battalions as appear by the 
 " Notitia " to have been quartered there. These camps or 
 forts lay for the most part between the wall and the 
 triple earthworks, a few being set at some distance to the 
 north and south to form a line of supports and to guard 
 the military roads which led from the inland fortresses to 
 the camps on the Forth and Clyde. " These stations were 
 crowded with streets and buildings and adorned with 
 baths and temples," and towns of considerable size grew 
 up in time under the protection of the garrisons. There 
 are ruins so vast and complete still scattered on these 
 
J 
 
 28 Origins of English History. 
 
 desolate hills that they have been styled without too 
 much exaggeration the "Tadmor" and the " Pompeii" of 
 Britain. 
 
 " It is hardly credible," said an old traveller, " what a 
 number of august remains of the Roman grandeur is to be 
 seen here to this day : in every place where one casts his 
 eye there is some curious antiquity to be seen, either the 
 marks of streets and temples in ruins, or inscriptions 
 broken pillars statues and other pieces of sculpture, all 
 scattered on the ground."^ 
 
 A brief invasion in the reign of Antoninus Pius dis- 
 turbed the repose of the world. The free Brigantians of 
 the hills took vengeance on the protected clans ; but their 
 assault was repelled and sharply punished by a general 
 who had already proved his capacity in a difficult campaign 
 against the Moors.^ To ensure against such dangers in 
 the future a new line of earthworks was constructed on 
 Agricola's frontier : and the whole garrison was summoned 
 to the building of the Wall of which the ruins remain 
 in the " Grahame's Dyke " on the isthmus between Forth 
 and Clyde.^ 
 
 1 Gordon, Itin. Septent. 76; Hodgson, Hist. Northumb. 185. Compare 
 another account of " the carcass of an ancient city " near Windermere. 
 Camden, Brit. (Gibson), 986. " The vast remains of the Roman station 
 and town (at Housesteads) are truly wonderful : a great number of 
 inscriptions and sculptures have been found, and many yet remain at this 
 place. The town or outbuildings have stood on a gentle declivity south 
 and south-east of the station, where there are now streets or somewhat that 
 looks like terraces." Horsley, Britannia Romana, 148. 
 
 2 Lollius Urbicus had earned the title of " Africanus " by driving the 
 Moorish marauders back " into the solitudes of Atlas.'' Pausanias, viii. 43. 
 See Gibbon's account of the defensive wars of Antoninus in the opening 
 chapter of his History. 
 
 " For a description of the Grahame's Dyke, see Camden's Britannia 
 
Origins of English History. 329 
 
 Some little may be learned about the war from the 
 sculptured tablets erected by the industrious soldiery. 
 Here, for instance, a group of altars has preserved to our 
 own times the praises of "Victoria Victrix" of Hercules 
 who shared the toil and Epona who guided the horsemen. 
 At one point an Italian troop set up a chapel and a statue 
 to Mercury, at another the Gauls carved inscriptions to 
 " Mars-Camulus" and the Germans to their gods of victory. 
 The tablets display the Caledonian warriors and the figures 
 of crouching captives : the trooper in one medallion rides 
 down the defenceless savages, and in another Peace 
 returns and flute-players lead the soldiers towards the 
 altar and the victims ready for the thank-offering. One 
 may read on these stones the army's thanks to " Britannia" 
 to the Genius of the Land and the spirits of the woods 
 and hills. The Roman soldiers were content to pray to 
 
 (Gibson), 1286, 1287. It consisted of the works enumerated in the 
 following list ; "a. A ditch of twelve feet wide before the wall towards 
 the enemy's country, b. A wall of squared and cut stone two feet broad, 
 probably higher than the wall, to cover the defenders and to keep the earth of 
 the wall from falling into the ditch, c. The wall itself, often feet thickness, 
 but how high is not known, d. A paved way close at the foot of the 
 wall five feet broad, e. Watch-towers within call of one another where 
 sentinels kept watch day and night. /. A wall of squared stone going 
 through the breadth of the wall just against the towers." A " court of 
 guard " is also described with its ramparts and outer walls of cut stone ; 
 and besides these "great and royal forts strongly entrenched, though 
 within the wall, able to receive a whole army together." The wall is first 
 mentioned by Capitolinus. Vita Pii, c. 5. It seems to have contained ten 
 principal stations and was about twenty-seven English miles in length. 
 Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 191, 207. Carausius, according to the 
 legend in Nennius, repaired this wall " and built upon the bank of the 
 Carron a round house of polished stone.'' Hist. Nenn. c. 19. This was 
 a prehistoric tomb, which has commonly been called "Arthur's Oven." 
 Camden, Britannia (Gibson), 222. 
 
330 Origins of English History. 
 
 "Sancta Britannia" and "Brigantia" with her spear and 
 turreted crown, just as they deified their standards the 
 Emperor's majesty and even their own good luck: "nos 
 te, nos facimus Fortuna deam": and this kind of 
 " Fetichism " extended so far that there was hardly a 
 person place or thing of which the essential part might 
 not be mentally detached and feared or adored as a god.^ 
 
 After the peaceful age of the Antonines the debateable 
 land about the Walls became the scene of a perpetual war- 
 fare, which raged or smouldered as the barbarians burst 
 across the line or were chased into the recesses of the 
 mountains. There are few records of a conflict which 
 only became important when the strength of the Empire 
 was failing : but we can distinguish some occasions on 
 which the fortune of Rome was restored. 
 
 The expedition of Severus made it certain that the 
 Highland tribes could never be finally subdued. The old 
 Emperor was holding his court at Rome, when letters were 
 received from York announcing that the army had been 
 driven back upon the fortresses and that the barbarians 
 were ravaging the land. Severus seems to have been 
 weary of the splendour and corruption by which his 
 despotism was maintained. " I have been all things," he 
 
 1 " Genium dicebant antiqui naturalem deum unius cujusque loci vel 
 rei aut hominis." Servius ad Virgil. Georg. i. 302 ; Herodian. iv. 147. 
 Compare Seneca, Epist. 41, and the controversy between Prudentius and 
 Symmachus, " Ut animse nascuntur, ita populis natales genii dividuntur." 
 Symmachus, Epist. 61 ; Prudentius, In Symmach. ii. 71. As to the 
 statues of Brigantia and Britannia, see Wellbeloved, "Eburacum," 12, 28, 
 92. For the inscriptions found near the Wall of Antoninus, see Hiibner, 
 Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 191 ; and for representations of some of the 
 sculptures mentioned in the text, see Mitchell's " Past in the Present," 
 24s, 246. 
 
 i i i i 
 
Origins of English History. 331 
 
 said, "and nothing avails me." He determined to lead 
 the campaign himself, and in the summer of a.d. 208 the 
 court was transferred to York and an army massed upon 
 the frontier. The restoration of the province was followed 
 by a further advance which ended in a costly failure. 
 The plan of invasion was unsuited to the nature of the 
 country. The estuaries were bridged and roads were 
 driven through the fens, but still as the troops pushed 
 their way the enemy retreated to more distant places of 
 refuge : and before a precarious peace could be arranged 
 it was estimated that fifty thousand men had perished in 
 the never-ending ambuscades and skirmishes or had died 
 of cold and disease. Before two years had passed the war 
 broke out again and Severus vainly threatened to extirpate 
 every tribe in the hills. His death is said to have been 
 hastened by the omens of approaching ruin and the trifling 
 story is useful as illustrating his temperament and the 
 manners of his time. When he went into the street at 
 York to make an offering to some healing god, he was led 
 to the " House of Bellona " by the mistake of a rustic 
 soothsayer : black victims stood in readiness for a gloomy 
 sacrifice and were permitted by ill fortune to follow the 
 Emperor to the palace. A negro soldier had met him at 
 a posting-house near Hadrian's Wall and spoken words 
 relating to death and enthronement in heaven : " Thou 
 hast been all things," he had cried, as he presented a 
 funereal wreath, " Thou hast conquered all things, now 
 therefore be the God of Victory ! "^ 
 
 Severus died and was deified ; and his sons Caracalla 
 and Geta admitted the Caledonians to easy terms of 
 
 ' Spartian. Vita Severi, c. 19, 22. 
 
332 Origins of English History. 
 
 peace. The province remained secure till Britain obtained 
 a short-lived independence, " by carelessness or by some 
 stroke of Fate" according to the Roman story, but in truth 
 by the courage and wisdom of an obscure Batavian adven- 
 turer. A new danger had arisen from the pirate fleets 
 of the Franks, who infested the British Seas and had 
 even found their way to the coasts of Spain and Africa. 
 Carausius the Menapian, the commander of the imperial 
 navy, was suspected of encouraging the pirates to enrich 
 himself with a share of their booty : and his only chance of 
 life was a successful rebellion in Britain.^ Here he pro- 
 claimed himself Emperor in a.d. 288, and ruled the island 
 peacefully until in the seventh year of his reign he was 
 murdered by his minister Allectus. The scanty garrison 
 was reinforced by volunteers from Gaul and a large force 
 of Franks who served as legionaries in the new army and 
 as sailors on the ships of war. The usurpation was con- 
 doned, though the insult could never be forgiven ; and the 
 Menapian was accepted as a partner in the Empire by 
 Diocletian and Maximian, whose origin was as humble as 
 his own though they assumed to rule the world by the 
 wisdom of Jupiter and in the strength of Hercules. 
 
 The Franks were fast arriving at complete dominion in 
 Britain when Constantius broke their power by a decisive 
 battle in which Allectus himself was killed. The Roman 
 
 1 The story of Carausius appears in the Ossianic poems in a strangely 
 altered form. " Caros, king of ships," spreads the wings of his pride in 
 vain. " Ryno came to the mighty Caros ; he struck his flaming spear. 
 Come to the battle of Oscar, thou that sittest on the rolling of the 
 waves ! " Another dim tradition of the Roman wars is found in the same 
 poems in the passage where Comala waits for Fingal, who is fighting with 
 " Caracul" (Caracalla), one of the "kings of the world." For the Welsh 
 legend, see Geoffrey of Monmouth's History, v. 2, 3. 
 
Origins of English History. ^2)^ 
 
 fleet had successfully blockaded Boulogne, the outpost and 
 stronghold of the insular power, and the friends of Allectus 
 were weakened by an attack on their settlements near the 
 Rhine. An army of invasion was landed under cover of 
 a fog at a point west of the Isle of Wight, where the 
 British galleys were stationed. It is difficult to extract the 
 truth from the rhapsodies of the courtly chronicler : but 
 we may believe that Allectus advanced too rashly and 
 with too implicit a confidence in his German followers. 
 It was said that hardly a Roman fell, while all the hill- 
 sides were covered with the bodies of the Franks, who 
 might be recognised by their tight clothes and broad belts 
 and by their fashion of shaving the face and of wearing 
 their reddened hair in a mass pushed forward on the fore- 
 head.^ The imperial forces at once pushed on to London, 
 where a remnant of the Franks was defeated. " The 
 City," in the words of its historian, " seemeth not to have 
 been walled in a.d. 296, because when Allectus the Tyrant 
 was slaine in the field the Franks easily entered London 
 and had sacked the same, had not God of his great favour 
 at the very instant brought along the River of Thames 
 certain bands of Romane souldiers who slew those Franks 
 in every street of the City."^ 
 
 1 Eumenius, Paneg. Constant. 15, 16, 17. Compare the description of 
 the Franks in the letters and poems of Sidonius Apollinaris. " Ipse 
 medius incessit, flammeus cocco, rutilus auro, lacteus serico : turn cultui 
 tanto com^ rubore cute concolor." Epist. iv. 7. 
 
 " Rutili quibus arce cerebri 
 Ad frontem coma tracta jacet, nudataque cefvix 
 Setarum per damna riitet, tum lumine glauco 
 Albet aquosa acies, ac vultibus undique rasis 
 Pro barbi. tenues perarantur pectine cristse." 
 
 Carm. vii. 238, 242: 
 ^ Stow's Survey of London (16 19) 6. 
 
334 Origins of English History. 
 
 In Diocletian's new scheme of government the world 
 was to be governed by two Emperors, administering the 
 Eastern and the Italian provinces, while the frontiers were 
 guarded by two associated " Caesars," the one governing 
 on the Danube and the other in the united regions of 
 Spain Gaul and Britain, 
 
 The dominion of the West was justly assigned to Con- 
 stantius, first as "Caesar" and then as "Augustus" after 
 the retirement of Diocletian. Constantius resided at York 
 and is said to have been successful in a war with the Picts 
 and Scots : but he is chiefly remembered as father of 
 Constantine the Great, and as husband of that pious 
 Helena whose legend takes so many shapes in the 
 fabulous chronicles of Wales. The child of a Dacian inn- 
 keeper has become an island-princess, " daughter of Coil 
 of Colchester" as learned divines have maintained, " Saint 
 Helen" of the Yorkshire wells, and " Helen of the Mighty 
 Host" who made the military roads "between casde and 
 castle " in Britain.^ 
 
 1 Usher Camden and Stillingfleet endeavoured in their zeal for the 
 British Church to support the ridiculous fiction that Helena was the 
 daughter of " King Coil." The legend may be found in Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth's History, v. c. 6. Her father was supposed to have revolted 
 against " King Asclepiodotus," a personage constructed by the bards out 
 of the story of the real Asclepiodotus, the general who defeated Allectus 
 and his army of Franks. "Mr. Carte" (says Gibbon) "transports the 
 kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father of Helen, from Essex to the Wall 
 of Antoninus." Hist. Deal, and Fall, c. 14. Her name was preserved in 
 West Yorkshire by her ford chapel and well near Tadcaster, and two 
 sacred springs at Eshton and Fernhill in Craven. "St. Helen's Well 
 near Tadcaster is close to the right of the Riggate one branch of the 
 great Roman road to York. The water is soft and very clear : it is much 
 esteemed as a remedy for weak eyes, and the adjoining bushes are still hung 
 with votive offerings of ribbons," &c. Whitaker's Hist. Craven (Morant), 
 239. The Welsh legends have also transported her into another age, and 
 
Origins of English History. 335 
 
 Constantius died in the year 306, soon after the close of 
 the Caledonian war/ and Constantine the Great was at 
 once chosen by the soldiers to succeed him in the sovereignty 
 of the West, though the dignity was not legally confirmed 
 until his marriage in the following year. We are told 
 that his election was chiefly due to the friendly zeal of a 
 German king who had brought his army to Britain to 
 assist in the northern campaign.* 
 
 made her the wife of Maximus the Usurper who was crowned in a.d. 
 383. She is represented in^this phase as the daughter of " King Eudav" 
 of Caernarvon, another imaginary personage. She now became " Helen 
 Luyddawc," or " Helen of the Mighty Host," and gave her name to the 
 "Sam Helen" or Roman road in North Wales. "The men of Britain 
 would not have made these great roads for any save her alone." Guest's 
 Mabinogion, 449, 456. 
 
 1 Constantius died at York and was probably buried there ; Eumenius, 
 the Panegyrist of Constantine, affirmed that he was nominated to the 
 Empire by his father. " Thou didst enter that sacred palace not as a 
 candidate but as already chosen, and the household gods at once saw 
 in thee the lawful successor of thy father." Paneg. Vet. vii. c. 4. Some 
 take this for the Palace at Treves. Wyttenbach, Rom. Antiqu. Treves, 
 S3 ; Wellbeloved, Eburacum, 62. According to the fable of Nennius 
 Constantius died at Caernarvon. " His sepulchre, as appears by the 
 inscription on his tomb, is still seen near the city named Caer-Segont, 
 Upon the pavement of that city he sowed three seeds of gold silver and 
 brass, that no poor person might ever be found in it." Hist. Nenn. 25. 
 For this piece of folk-lore, compare the first Saga in the Heimskringla. 
 "Seri RdlfrKraki guUinu d. Fyrisvollu." Ynglinga-Tal, c. 33. "There 
 is a long account in the Skioldung Saga about Rolf Krake coming and 
 sowing gold on the Fyrisvold." Laing, Sea Kings, i. 245. As to the 
 tomb, Nennius probably referred to the real inscription on the " Ogam- 
 stone '' of some later King of North Wales, such as that of " Catamanus, 
 Rex sapientisimus opinatisimus omnium^' found in Anglesea, or that rude 
 epitaph of a provincial Carausius found near Caernarvon, " Carausius 
 hie jacit in hoc congeries lapidum." Camden's Britannia. (Gibson), 811 ; 
 Rh^s, Lect. Welsh Philol. 364, 369. 
 
 ' This chieftain was called " Crocus," a name which probably meant 
 " the Crow " j it may be compared to that of " Rolf Krake." " Cunctis 
 
336 Origins of English History. 
 
 The scheme of government which Diocletian had de- 
 signed was in some respects amended by Constantine. 
 Britain formed part of a vast pro-consulate extending from 
 Mount. Atlas to the Caledonian deserts and governed by 
 the Gallic Prefect through a "Vicar" or deputy at York. 
 The island was divided into five new provinces without 
 regard for the ancient boundaries.^ To each was assigned 
 a governor experienced in the law who dealt with taxation 
 and finance. The army was under the general jurisdiction 
 of the two Masters of the Cavalry and Infantry who 
 directed the forces of the Empire in the West. But so far 
 as this country was concerned it was under the orders of 
 the " Count of Britain," assisted by two important though 
 
 qui aderant annitentibus sed prKcipufe Croco Alamannorum rege, auxilii 
 gratia Constantium comitato, imperium capit." Victor. Jun. c. 41. 
 " This" sa} s Gibbon " is perhaps the first instance of a barbarian king who 
 assisted the Roman arms with an independent body of his own subjects. 
 The practice grew familiar, and at last became fatal." Valentinian in the 
 same way engaged the services of "King Fraomar." Ammian. Marcell. 
 xxix. 4. 
 
 1 The names of the provinces appear in the " Notitia." They were 
 distinguished as "Britannia Prima" and "Secunda," "Flavia Caesariensis," 
 " Maxima Caesariensis " and " Valentia." The last was between the Walls 
 of Hadrian and Antoninus ; the situation of the rest is unknown. The 
 conventional figures of the MS. of the " Notitia " are probably taken from 
 the original designs ; but they merely represent insular tracts with the 
 fortresses arranged on them in patterns which do not correspond with 
 their true situations. PanciroUus, Comment. 159, 161, i6z, 176, 
 " Britannia Prima " was probably the south-eastern province, and 
 " Maxima " the district between the Wash or the Humber and Hadrian's 
 Wall. Ibid. 158. The identification in the forged chronicle of " Richard 
 of Cirencester " should be completely disregarded. It seems that the old 
 tribal names remained in use and were revived when the country became 
 independent. See the list of the British cities by the Ravenna Geographer, 
 and such inscriptions as " Corbalengi jacit Ordous" ^n^ " Dobuni Yzhn." 
 Rhys, Lect. Welsh Philol. 203, 379, 400. 
 
Origins of English History. 337 
 
 subordinate officers. The " Duke of Britain " commanded 
 in the North, while the " Count of the Saxon Shore" held 
 the government of " the maritime tract " and provided for 
 the defence of the fortresses which lined the South-Eastern 
 coast. ^ 
 
 The point of chief importance with regard to this system 
 of government is to explain the intricate scheme of roads 
 and fortresses by which these generals were enabled to 
 secure the free movement of troops from coast to coast 
 or towards any danger upon the frontiers. In this expla- 
 nation we are helped by the "Notitia" for the period 
 between the reign of Constantine and the retreat of the 
 Roman armies, and for the preceding period by the 
 " Itinerary of Antoninus," which shows the lines of com- 
 munication between all the cities in the Empire.^ 
 
 With the assistance of these records we are able to 
 trace the principal military routes which connected the 
 northern frontiers with the stations in the South and West, 
 and with the districts on the Saxon Shore. But we must 
 first consider whether any help can be gained from the 
 supposed identification of these main roads with the four 
 national highways so famous in the mediaeval records, 
 which were for centuries placed under the "King's Peace" 
 
 ^ There was another " Saxon Shore " on the opposite coast, with its 
 head-quarters at Boulogne. For a description of the forts on the " Littus 
 Saxonicum per Britannias" see Pancirollus (ad Notitiam), Comment. 161. 
 
 * The " Antoninus " whose name gave its title to the record was 
 Caracalla, the successor of Severus. Several commentators, however, 
 assign the date of the Itinerary to the age of Constantine the Great. The 
 difficulties in using this document arise from the paucity and corruptness 
 of the MSS., and in particular from the errors in the mileage which 
 appear in the earliest copy and which can hardly be amended by modern 
 research or conjecture. 
 
338 Origins of English History. 
 
 and guarded by special laws from injury.^ "It is the 
 general voice " said Gale, " of all our historians, that four 
 great roads or streets ran from several points across this 
 island. But writing long after they were made, and in 
 different times, they have left their accounts of them so 
 obscure and uncertain, both as to the courses they held 
 and the names they were known by, that it is no wonder 
 if we, who come so many ages after them, are still In the 
 dark and so much at a loss to trace any one of these streets 
 from the beginning to the end of It ; and Indeed I now 
 conclude It is impossible to do it without great interrup- 
 tions, time and other accidents destroying every day more 
 and more of their mouldering remains."^ 
 
 The names of these royal highways were the Watling 
 Street, Fosse-Way, Ermin Street, and Ikenild Street. 
 When the course of the last-named road was forgotten it 
 was confused with another line called the Ryknild Way 
 
 1 These were the " Quatuor Chimini " of the Norman Laws. Palgrave, 
 Commonw. 284; Thorpe, Anc. Laws, 192 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 182. 
 
 2 Gale, Essay towards the recovery of the courses of the Roman Ways; 
 Hearne's Leland, v. 116. The chief difficulties have arisen from trusting 
 to stories taken from the Welsh chronicles. According to the fables of 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth " King Belinus " paved a causeway of stone and 
 mortar running from the Sea of Cornwall to the shores of Caithness, and 
 another across the breadth of his kingdom from St. David's to the Port of 
 Southampton, "and other two he made obliquely through the island for a 
 passage to the rest of the cities." Geoff. Monm. iii. c. 5. According to 
 this scheme, which was adopted by the monkish chroniclers, the Fosse- 
 Way passed from Totnes to Caithness, the Ermin Street from St. David's 
 to Southampton, the Ikenild Street (confused with the Ryknild Way) 
 from St. David's to Tynemouth, and Watling' Street from Dover through 
 Chester to Cardigan. The first step towards accuracy in the matter is 
 gained when these legends are cast aside. The chief authorities for the 
 false description are Henry of Huntingdon, Higden's ' Polychronicon,' and 
 Drayton in his ' Polyolbion.' 
 
Origins of English History. 339 
 
 which followed an old Roman road from Gloucester to 
 Doncaster. There is no doubt that these names were 
 connected with the Teutonic mythology, though the glory 
 of the hero " Irmin" and the craft of the "Waetlings" is 
 forgotten.^ Nor can we doubt, upon a consideration of the 
 antiquarian evidence, that each of these streets represented 
 a combination of those portions of the Roman roads which 
 the English adopted and kept in repair as communications 
 between their principal cities/ The Watling Street repre- 
 sents the old zigzag route from Kent to Chester and York 
 and northwards in two branches to Carlisle and the neigh- 
 bourhood of Newcastle.^ The Fosse-Way ran diagonally 
 
 1 Flor. Wore. Chron. a.d. 1013 ; Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 330, citing 
 the Complaint of Scotland, 90 ; and Chaucer's " House of tame," ii. 427, 
 
 " Lo there ! quod he, cast up thine eye, 
 Se yonder, lo ! the Galaxie, 
 The whiche men clepe the Milky Way, 
 For it is white, and some parfay 
 Y-callen it han Watlinge-strete." 
 
 2 The old name of the Watling Street is still found in Dover and 
 London : it forms the boundary between Warwickshire and Leicester- 
 shire ; it was the line of division chosen in Alfred's Treaty with Guthrum, 
 the Danes keeping all the country north of " Wathlinga-strete " ; the 
 monastic records show that the Priory of Lilleshall in Shropshire was 
 situate "profe altam viam vocatam Watling-Street." Gale's Essay, Hearne's 
 Leland," Itin. vi. 129; Dugdale, Monast. Anglic, ii. 145, 147, 942. The 
 road between Ilkley and York is called by the same name. Phillip's 
 Essa)', Anhmol. Journ. No. 39. From York the Watling Street runs due 
 north to the Wall (MacLauchlan's Roman Wall; Hiibner, Corp.^Lat. 
 Inscr. vii. 213). A passage in Leland's Itinerary shows that the same 
 name was given to the great eastern branch which led from Catterick to 
 Carlisle. "The way on Watlyngstrete from Borow Bridge to Carlil. 
 Watlyngestrete lyethe about a myle of from Gillinge and 3 m. from Riche- 
 mount. From Borow Bridge to Caterike .... Mayden Castle diked 
 is hard on the est syde of Wathelynge Strete, 5 miles a this side Brough." 
 Hearne's Leland, viii. 25. Not far from Wroxeter near the Wrekin the 
 
 z 2 
 
340 Origins of English History. 
 
 through Bath to Lincoln. The Erniin Street led direct 
 from London to Lincoln with a branch to Doncaster and 
 York ; and the obscure Ikenild Street curved inland from 
 Norwich to Dunstable and was carried eventually to the 
 coast at Southampton. 
 
 But the course laid down for these great streets has but 
 an incidental connection with the scheme of defences which 
 the Romans had invented for the province. The routes 
 between their military stations were not based upon the 
 same ideas which led the English to see in the Fosse-Way 
 a road " between Totnes and Caithness." 
 
 " From where rich Cornwall points to the Iberian seas 
 Till colder Cathnesse tells the scattered Orcades." i 
 
 The Roman plan was based on the requirements of the 
 provincial government and on the need for constant com- 
 munication between the Kentish ports and the outlying 
 fortresses on the frontiers. We may therefore leave the 
 task of tracing the mediaeval highways and confine our 
 attention to the roads which actually defended the Roman 
 province. 
 
 Street passes a place called "Wattlesborough" which seems to preserve 
 the name of " Waetla," the father of the " Wsetlings." Gale's Essay, 129. 
 ' Drayton, Polyolb. xvi. 247. The name of Fosse-Way, according to 
 some accounts, was given to a road from Exeter to Lincoln, thence by 
 Doncaster to York and so northwards, thus encroaching both on Watling 
 Street and the western branch of the Ermin Street. This exaggeration is 
 derived from the Welsh fables before mentioned. The Fosse can in 
 reality be traced from " Stratton-in-the-Fosseway " near Bath to Ciren- 
 cester, to a " Stratton-in-the-Vorse " near Leamington, and a Stretton- 
 super-Fosse" in Warwickshire and so passing near Leicester.it proceeds 
 to Lincoln. See the charters of the reign of Henry III. permitting altera- 
 tions to be made in the royal street at Newark " super Chiminum Fossae." 
 Gale's Essay, 124. The Fosse cut the Watling Street at a place called 
 " High Cross " in Leicestershire, the site of the Roman " VenonEe." 
 
Origins of English History. 341 
 
 First then we find three great " meridional lines," which 
 passed from the Upper Wall to the principal cities in 
 the south. One of these led through Carlisle by the head 
 of Windermere and down the coast towards Chester, 
 Another came due south to York and " Danum " or Don- 
 caster ; its branch towards Carlisle leading from Catterick 
 a litde north of York across the gap upon Stainmoor.^ 
 The third led from " Segedunum," or " Walls-end," on the 
 Tyne through Cleveland to the Humber and thence to the 
 colony at Lincoln,^ 
 
 These were all connected by transverse routes passing 
 east and west some through York to the coasts on either 
 side, some from " Mancunium " or Manchester^ to York 
 and Chester, or across the dales to Aldborough, or by the 
 devious " Doctor-gate " to the woodland country round 
 Sheffield.'' 
 
 1 " Luguballium,'' the modern city of Carlisle, was a station of great 
 importance. When St. Cuthbert visited the city the Mayor led his 
 guest to see the old Roman walls and the "fountain of wonderful 
 workmanship." Vita Sti. Cuthberti, 37 ; Bede's Life of Cuthbert, 26. 
 A little Temple of Mars long remained standing near the city wall. 
 Will. Malmesb. Chron. Pontif. iii. introd. Camden's Britannia (Gibson), 
 1025, Leland describes its remains in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 "Pavimentes of streates, old arches of dores, coyne, stones squared, 
 paynted pottes, money hid yn pottes so hold and muldid that when yt 
 was strongly towched yt went almost to mowlder." Itin. viii. 57. 
 
 ^ This road afterwards formed part of the Ermin Street. See Gale's 
 Essay, Hearne's Leland, vi. 125. 
 
 ^ For a description of this station and the roads leading from it, see 
 Whitaker's History, and Mr. Watkins' " Roman Manchester." Hist. Soc. 
 Lane. 3rd Series, vii. 12, 32. 
 
 * The description of this road will be found in Phillip's Essay on the 
 Relations of Archaeology, &c. Archceol. Journ. No. 39. The mines and 
 hot-baths in Derbyshire were connected by several tracks with the principal 
 roads on either side, 
 
342 Origins of English History, 
 
 The trunk-lines and crossways were continued so as to 
 form connections with all the high roads in the south and 
 west. At Chester for instance was a junction of lines to 
 North Wales, to London, to Caerleon and to the iron 
 mines in the Forest of Dean. From the station at Don- 
 caster a road ran down to the mouth of the Severn.^ The 
 great Lincoln road, or " Ermin Street," threw branches 
 across the Fens^ towards Norwich, and round by Col- 
 chester, and from the " Durobrivian " potteries to the 
 station of the Thracian cavalry at Cirencester.^ 
 
 The district of the Saxon Shore was intersected in the 
 same way by roads leading from the coast to London and 
 connected with the great trunk-roads which traversed the 
 inland provinces. 
 
 A line of forts ran in a curve along the coast-road from 
 " Branodunum," or Brancaster, on the Wash* to a camp at 
 
 1 This is the road afterwards called " R^neld Street"; it ran parallel 
 to the Fosse-Way at a distance of about 60 miles to the northward. The 
 descriptions in old deeds show its course near Birmingham and in Stafford- 
 shire (Drayton, Polyolb. 247, 256, and Selden's notes; Dugdale, Mon, 
 Ang. i. 942. Glale's Essay, 139), and another point in its course is marked 
 at Thorpe Salvin, formerly Rikenild-Thorpe, in Yorkshire. (See Hunter, 
 South Yorkshire, i. 309, and the Kirby's Quest. Surtees Soc. edit. p. 3.) 
 
 ' It passed a station in the Fens called " Camboricum,'' which seems 
 to be Granchester near Cambridge. Bede describes the finding of a coffin 
 for St. Ethelreda at a little deserted town, " civitatulam quamdam desola- 
 tam," which the English called " Granta-cestir " and which was probably 
 on the road in question. Bede, Hist. Eccl. iv. 10. 
 
 ^ For the Roman antiquities at Cirencester, see Camden, Brit. (Gibson), 
 284; Leland, Itin. v. 65; Lyson's "Romans in Gloucestershire"; 
 Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 29. For an account of the Northampton- 
 shire potteries, extending for about 20 miles on the gravel bank of the 
 Nen, where the blue or gray " Castor-ware " was made, see Birch, 
 Ancient Pottery 528. 
 
 '' According to the Notitia, " Branodunum " was the station of a troop 
 
Origins of English History. 343 
 
 Caistor, near Norwich and round to the miHtary settle- 
 ment at Colchester ; strong fortresses guarded the channel 
 of Thanet at Reculver and Richborough, and there were 
 other posts at Dover and Lymne and at various places 
 requiring defence as far west as the Southampton Water. 
 
 The extremities of this curve were joined by an inland 
 road which was afterwards known as the Ikenild Way.^ 
 Its course may be traced, with frequent intervals, from the 
 boundary of Norfolk and Suffolk to Newmarket and to a 
 junction with the Ermin Street at Dunstable, the site of 
 a town called " ForiAn Dianae. " We meet it again in 
 Oxfordshire, where it leads across the Thames to the 
 junction of the Roman roads at Silchester,once the great city 
 of the " Atrebates " and now marked only by the fragments 
 of a mouldering wall. From this point the road passed 
 southwards to Winchester, and thence by one branch to 
 the Southampton Water and by another to Sarum and the 
 Western districts. 
 
 of Dalmatian cavalry under the command of the Count of the Saxon 
 Shore. The coast-road seems to have led to Cromer, where a line led to 
 the camp near " Venta Icenorum," the modern Norwich. Caistor, near 
 Norwich, is supposed to have been the site of the camp. There were 
 stations on both shores of the great estuary, which then extended to Venta : 
 and one of these must have been the station " Ad Taum " marked in the 
 Peutingerian Map. From Brancaster a Roman road, now called the 
 Pedlars' Way, passed southwards to Camulodunum, and remains of 
 another road are found between Cromer and Norwich, leading in the 
 direction of " Burgh Castle, (once " Garianonum ") near Yarmouth. 
 
 1 For the course of the Ikenild Way, see Gale's Essay, pp. 141, 148. 
 " In Buckinghamshire," he says, " I cannot find it anywhere apparent to 
 the eye, except between Prince's Risborow and Kemble-in-the-Street 
 where it is still called " Icknell-way." Mr. Taylor cites a deed, temp. 
 Henry III., relating to property at Newmarket, "quod se extendit super 
 Ykenild-weie." Archaol. (Norwich, 1847), 22. There are certain records 
 of the perambulations of the Hampshire forests which throw some light on 
 
3 1-4 Origins of English History. 
 
 A reference to the Antonine Itinerary will show how 
 these roads were used to connect the frontiers with the 
 southern ports the outlying fortresses and the central 
 seats of government. ,The Itinerary contains fifteen 
 routes of which seven coincide for the whole or the 
 greater part of their course with the various branches of 
 the Watling Street ; three more diverge from that " lusty 
 straggling street" towards Caernarvon, to Carlisle, and 
 downwards to Caerleon and South Wales ; four lead from 
 the junction at Silchester to London, to the south coast, to 
 Caerleon by an upper and a lower route, and the remaining 
 road connects London with Colchester and passes upwards 
 along the circumference of the Saxon Shore.^ 
 
 the matter, and support Drayton's statement that the road led from the 
 Chiltern Hills to the Solent. Tower Misc. Rec, 113. Peramb. Forest, 27 
 and 29 Edw. I. South. The Survey of Buckholt Forest (Apr. 1,28 Edw. I.), 
 contains passages relating to the road in question. " Begin at the Dene- 
 way .... and so alwaies by the divisions of the Counties of Southamp- 
 ton and Wilts to th'Ikenilde Street, and thence by the same to La PuUe;" 
 and "from Pyrpe-mere to th'Ikenilde and so by the same road to 
 Holewaye." 
 
 1 The direction of the routes is as follows : — i. From the frontier due 
 south along the Watling Street to York and on to the eastern coast 
 2. From Netherby and Carlisle across Stainmoor to York, across to Man- 
 chester and Chester, down to Wroxeter-on-Severn and so to London and 
 the Kentish coast, never leaving the Watling Street. 3 and 4. Branches 
 to Dover and Lymne. 5. From London to Colchester, and across the 
 Fens into the Ermin Street, taking after York the western branch of 
 the Watling Street as far as Carlisle. 6. London to Lincoln, by the 
 Watling Street and Fosse- Way, turning at High Cross. 7. Chichester to 
 London, avoiding the forest and passing round by the Ikenild Way as far 
 as Silchester. 8. York to London, as in No. 6. 9. From "Venta Ice- 
 norum " round the coast to Colchester and London. 10. From " Medio- 
 lanum," a station north of Wroxeter, by Manchester and the west coast, 
 and past the head of Windermere to Carlisle. 1 1. From Caernarvon to 
 Chester. 12. From "Muridunum," or Caermarthen, to Caerleon (Isca 
 
Origins of English History. 345 
 
 Several of these routes are illustrated by the fragment 
 
 of the " Peutingerian Table" (Plate VII.), the only copy 
 
 remaining of any part of the official road-chart for Britain. 
 
 " Tables " of this kind were not maps in the proper sense 
 
 of the term, but were rather diagrams drawn purposely out 
 
 of proportion, on which the public roads were projected in 
 
 a panoramic view. The latitude and longitude and the 
 
 positions of rivers and mountains were disregarded so far 
 
 as they might interfere with the display of the provinces, 
 
 the outlines being flattened out to suit the shape of a roll 
 
 of parchment ; but the distances between the stations were 
 
 inserted in numerals, so that an extract from the record 
 
 might be used as a supplement to the table of mileage in 
 
 the road-book. The copy now remaining derives its name 
 
 from Conrad Feutinger of Augsburg in whose library it 
 
 was found on his death in 1547. It is supposed to have 
 
 been brought to Europe from a monastery in the Latin 
 
 kingdom of Jerusalem, and to have been a copy taken by 
 
 some thirteenth-century scribe from an original assigned to 
 
 the beginning of the fourth century or the end of the 
 
 third. The greater part of the diagram relating to Britain 
 
 has been destroyed, having unfortunately been inscribed 
 
 on the last or outside sheet of the roll, the part most likely 
 
 to suffer by time and accident. But the remaining frag- 
 
 Silurum), and thence by Abergavenny (Gobannio) to Wroxeter on the 
 Watling Street. 13. From Caerleon by Bath to Silchester ; this is some- 
 times by mistake called " Ermin Street." 14. From Caerleon, by Ciren- 
 cester to the same junction; and 15. From Silchester (by the Ikenild 
 Way) to Winchester, and westwards to Sarum Dorchester and Exeter. 
 The occurrence of the names "Moridunum" and "Isca" on this route, 
 and of similar names in the twelfth route, has led to a clerical error in the 
 MSS., the line being made to run from Silchester to Exeter, and then on 
 from Caerraarthen, in that route. 
 
346 Origins of English History. 
 
 ment includes the greater part of the Saxon Shore from 
 the station " Ad Taum," a few miles from Norwich, to the 
 harbour at Lymne on the coast of Kent. The course of 
 the Watling- Street is shown with three lines leading from 
 the three naval stations to Canterbury and thence to 
 " Durolevum " (an uncertain site) and thence to Rochester 
 and a station on the Medway, and so in the direction of 
 London.^ 
 
 Another road is marked running from London along 
 the north coast of Kent, the Thames being crossed at 
 a point due south of " Caesaromagus," or Chelmsford, 
 and the route continued to Colchester, and northwards 
 round the "Saxon Shore" to the immediate vicinity of 
 Norwich.^ 
 
 A memorandum in the left-hand margin of the fragment 
 marks the distance between " Moridunum " and the Dam- 
 nonian " I sea," and shows a main road passing from the 
 latter station towards Cornwall.^ 
 
 1 Compare the second route in the Antonine Itinerary from " Novio- 
 magus " to Richborough. " Rotibis " in the Peutingerian Table will be 
 found to correspond to " Durobrivis," now Rochester, and is probably 
 meant for the same word. 
 
 2 Compare the ninth route in the Antonine Itinerary. The "Sino- 
 magus " of the Table is identified with " Sitomagus,'' which seems to be 
 Dunwich. The names in the Table are ill-spelt but they correspond in 
 the main with the stations on the Antonine route. It will be observed 
 that in the Peutingerian map a road leads off from " Ad Ansam " to the 
 coast, which is not mentioned in the Itinerary. 
 
 s " Ridumo " appears to be meant for " Moridunum," which was about 
 15 miles from Exeter, according to the Itinerary. But the scribe 
 seems to have reversed their relative situations. The only evidence of 
 the existence of a Roman road through Cornwall, besides this entry, is 
 the discovery made in 1853 of a milestone in the wall of the church of 
 St. Hilary near St. Ives which was inscribed with the titles of Con- 
 stantine II. Hubner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 13, 207. 
 
Origins of English History, 347 
 
 The completion of this system of defence and the estab- 
 lishment of the Diocletian constitution cost the British 
 provinces as much in freedom and importance as they 
 seemed to gain in security. The country suffered in many 
 different ways. It had come to be a mere department 
 under the Court at Treves, one of several Atlantic regions 
 which were regarded as having the same political interests 
 and a common stock of resources. The defences of Britain 
 were sacrificed to some sudden call for soldiers in Spain 
 or on the Alpine passes, and the shrunken legions left 
 behind could barely inan the fortresses upon the frontier. 
 The provinces which might have stood safely by their 
 own resources were becoming involved in a general bank- 
 ruptcy. The troops were ill-paid and were plundered by 
 their commanders, the labourers had sunk into serfdom, 
 and the property of the rich was so heavily charged by 
 the State that the owners would have gladly escaped 
 by resigning their apparent wealth. The burdens of 
 taxation were constantly multiplied by the complexity 
 of the system of government and the increase of depart- 
 ments and offices. The visit of the imperial tax- 
 gatherers was compared to the horrors of a successful 
 assault in war. A writer of that time describes the 
 scene in a provincial town where every head of cattle in 
 the neighbourhood had been numbered and marked for 
 a tax. All the population of the district was assembled, 
 and the place was crowded with the landowners bringing in 
 their labourers and slaves. " One heard nothing but the 
 sounds of flogging and all kinds of torture ; the son was 
 forced to inform against his father, the wife against her 
 husband ; failing everything else the men were compelled 
 to give evidence against themselves, and were taxed 
 
348 Origins of English History. 
 
 according to the confessions which they made to escape 
 from torment." ^ 
 
 These evils pressed upon the world from the age of 
 Constantine until the Empire was finally dismembered 
 and the general ruin completed of which they were a 
 principal cause. The history of Britain during this period, 
 so far as it can properly be said to have had a history at 
 all, is concerned with the establishment of the Christian 
 Church by which the general misery was alleviated, with 
 several attempts at separating the three Atlantic countries 
 from the crumbling Empire of the West, and finally with 
 the growth of the barbarian kingdoms by which those 
 countries were overwhelmed in turn. 
 
 Christianity was not recognised as the religion of the 
 State until the proclamation in a.d. 324, by which Con- 
 stantine exhorted his subjects to follow their Emperor's 
 example in abandoning the errors of paganism ; but it had 
 been tolerated, with few intermissions, from the time 
 when Hadrian had found a kindly excuse for the Christians 
 by classing them with the worshippers of his favourite 
 Serapis. ^ The persecution of Diocletian had hardly 
 
 1 Lactantius, De Mort. Persecut. 23. 
 
 2 " Illi qui Serapim coluiit Christiani sunt ; et devoti sunt Serapi qui se 
 Christi episcopos dicunt.'' Vopiscus, Ad Saturnin. c. 8. For the nature of 
 the worship of Serapis, see Tac. Hist. iv. 83 ; Macrob. Saturnal. i. 20 ; 
 Apuleius, Metamorph. xi. 27, 28. For an account of the " Serapeum " at 
 York and British inscriptions in honour of the god, see Wellbeloved, 
 " Eburacum," 75, 77, 78, and Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 64, 74. His 
 worship is said to have been taken from Pontus to Egypt, where he 
 usurped the honours of Osiris. He was regarded as the " Deus Pantheus," 
 the spirit of the universe manifested in countless forms, and was identified, 
 as the convenience of worshippers required, with several of the older gods, 
 such as Jupiter Apollo and ^sculapius. The Egyptian Isis, the goddess 
 of nature, was usually worshipped with Serapis in the same temple. 
 
Origins of English History, ■54d) 
 
 extended to this country, where the Caesar Constantius 
 had protected the Christians though he could not prevent 
 the destruction of their sacred buildings.^ 
 
 The old Latin religion had long ceased to satisfy the 
 minds of educated men, though its visible emblems were 
 respected until the destruction of the temples under 
 Theodosius at the end of the fourth century. The high 
 places were reserved for the Greater Gods in whose hands 
 was the keeping of cities : the merchants' god still guarded 
 the market-place and the parade was adorned with its 
 Victory and its shrine for the standards and eagles; beyond 
 the walls were the homes of more awful gods and more 
 disturbing influences, the temples of Bellona and the furies 
 of war, the chapel of Venus and the field of Mars.^ But 
 the altars and images were used indifferently by worshippers 
 under many creeds ; the titles of Jupiter covered gods as 
 far apart as " Tanarus " the German thunder-god and 
 Osiris " the nocturnal sun " who ruled in the world of the 
 dead. Diana's name was given as well to the Syrian 
 Astarte as to the Moon-goddess worshipped at Carthage 
 and the Huntress to whom the farmers prayed that the 
 beasts might be scared from their flocks. Apollo repre- 
 sented all bright and healing influences, and under the 
 name of Mars the soldiers from every province could 
 recognise their local war-god.^ 
 
 1 Lactantius, De Mort. Persecut. 15, 16. The legends of St. Alban and 
 the other British martyrs must be regarded as highly-coloured and exag^ 
 gerated versions of the persecution, if the account of Lactantius is to be 
 believed. See Gildas, Hist. 10, 11; Bede, Hist. Eccles. i. c. 7 j Con- 
 stant. Vita Germani, i. 25; Haddan, "Councils," i. 5. 
 
 2 Vitruvius, Architect, i. c. 7. 
 
 ' For a list of Roman temples of which the remains have been found 
 in this country, see Hiibner, Corp. Lat. Inscr. vii. 332. Many of the 
 
350 Origins of English History. 
 
 Many of the outward forms, and even some of the 
 doctrines of Christianity, were imitated by the pantheistic 
 religions which spread from Egypt and the East and over-, 
 laid the old rites with the worship of a World-goddess 
 with a thousand names, of the Sun-god Osiris, or of 
 Mithras "the unconquered lord of ages" who was revered 
 as the illuminator of all darkness and as the mediator and 
 the friend of man. " Isis and Serapis had altars even in 
 the ends of the world." ^ We learn from sculptured tablets 
 and from inscriptions and symbols on tombs, that Mithraism 
 
 epithets used in the British inscriptions are of unknown origin, but they 
 appear in general to refer to the native country of the worshipper. 
 Jupiter " Dolichemus," whose title appears in so many inscriptions, was a 
 god from Heliopolis in Syria, and his attributes appear to have had some 
 connection with iron-mining. An altar inscribed to " Jupiter Tanarus," 
 found at Chester in a.d. 1653, is supposed to have been intended for 
 Thor or Thunar : the date of its erection is fixed by the mention of the 
 Consuls of A.D. 154. Among Gaulish epithets for Mars we find such 
 names as "Camulus" "Rigisamus" "Toutates"; the meaning of such 
 titles as " Braciaca " " Cocidius " and " Belatucadrus " is not known, 
 though they must be assumed to refer to other local deities identified by 
 their attributes with Mars. 
 
 1 Renan, Hibb. Lect. 1880, p. 34. The religion of Isis, though de- 
 formed by archaic " mysteries," was gradually developed into an elevated 
 form of nature-worship. The goddess was at one time regarded as the 
 spirit of the ether through which the sun proceeds, and so by a natural 
 transition she became the companion of Osiris the hidden and nocturnal 
 sun, and reigned like Proserpina in the world of the dead. After the 
 second century she united in herself the attributes of all the goddesses 
 and became the representative of Nature. See the hymns preserved by 
 Apuleius : " Te super! colunt, observant inferi, tu rotas orbem, luminas 
 solem, regis mundum, calcas Tartarum : tibi respondent sidera, redeunt 
 tempora, gaudent numina, serviunt elementa : tuo nutu spirant flamina, 
 nutriunt nubila, gerniinant semina, crescunt gramina," &c. Apul. 
 Metamorph. xi. 5, 30. As to the worship of Osiris " summorum maxirous 
 et maximorum regnator " see the same work, xi. 30, and the Dialogue of 
 Hermes Trismegistus by the same author. Apul. Asclep. 41. 
 
Origins of English. History. 351 
 
 at one time prevailed extensively in this country : and its 
 influence was doubtless strengthened by the artifice of its 
 professors in iniitating the Christian sacraments and 
 festivals. We have no record of its final overthrow, and 
 some have supposed that the faith in " Median Mithras " 
 survived into comparatively modern times in heretical and 
 semi-pagan forms of Gnosticism ; but, be this as it may, 
 we must assume that its authority was destroyed or con- 
 fined to the country districts when the pagan worships 
 were finally forbidden by law.^ After the year 386 we 
 find records of an established Christian Church in Britain 
 " holding the Catholic faith and keeping up an intercourse 
 with Rome and Palestine."^ 
 
 1 For an account of the spread of Mithraism in Britain and the inscrip- 
 tions to 'Sol Socius' Sol Invictus Mithras, and the like, and of the 
 Mithraic " caves " and sculptures found near Hadrian's Wall, see Well- 
 beloved, " Eburacum," 79, 81, and more than twenty inscriptions recorded 
 by Hiibner, vol. vii. With respect to the general character of the 
 religion, its connection with Magism and the worship of the Syrian Venus 
 on the one side, and with the pure doctrines of the Zend-Avesta on the 
 other, see Herod, i. 131J De Hammer's "Mithriaca," 9, 31, 40, 83, 92; 
 Lenormant, Chald. Magic, 195, 234, 336 ; Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 1260. 
 For its imitation of the festival of Christmas in the Mithraic " Dies 
 Natalis," of baptism and penance and many Christian ceremonies, see 
 Justin Mart. Apol. i. 66, Dial. 70, 78; Origen contra Celsum, vi. 22. 
 St. Jerome describes the destruction of a cave of Mithras at Rome in 
 the year 378, with the symbols used in initiation. Opera, i. 15. See 
 Macrob. Saturn, i. 19; Statius, Theb. i. 720; Claudian. Laud. Stilich. i. 63. 
 
 ^ Haddan, "Councils," i. 10. "The statements respecting British 
 Christians at Rome or in Britain, and respecting apostles or apostolic 
 men preaching in Britain in the first century, rest upon guess, mistake or 
 fable." Ibid. i. 22. The evidence for British Christianity in the second 
 century, including the Letter of Pope Eleutherius and the well-known 
 story of King Lucius, is also pronounced to be unhistorical. Ibid. p. 25. 
 Mello a British Christian was Bishop of Rouen between the years 256 
 and 314, and in the latter year bishops from York London and Caerleon 
 
55 2 Origins of English History. 
 
 As early as the middle of the fourth century the British 
 provinces were already persistently attacked by sea and 
 land. The Picts and Scots, and the warlike nation of the 
 "Attacotti" from whom the Empire was accustomed to 
 recruit its choicest soldiers,^ the fleets of Irish pirates in 
 the north, the Franks and Saxons on the southern shores; 
 combined together whenever a chance presented itself to 
 burn and devastate the country, to cut off an outlying 
 garrison, to carry off women and children like cattle 
 captured in a foray ^ and to offer the bodies of Roman 
 citizens as sacrifices to their bloodthirsty gods. Along the 
 north-western coast and on the line of the Lower Wall we 
 
 were present at the Council of Aries. In the year 325 the British Church 
 assented to the conclusions of the Council of Nicsea. Ibid. p. 7. 
 
 1 The " Notitia Imperii " mentions several regiments of Attacotti 
 serving for the most part in Gaul and Spain. Two of their regiments 
 were enrolled among the " Honorians," the most distinguished troops in 
 the Imperial armies. Though their country is not certainly known, it 
 seems probable that they inhabited the wilder parts of Galloway. Mr. 
 Skene argues that they must have been provincials who had revolted 
 about the period of the great campaign of Theodosius, a.d. 364. " They 
 only joined the invading tribes after the latter had been for four years in 
 possession of the territory between the Walls : and no sooner was it again 
 wrested from the invaders by Theodosius than we find them enlisted in 
 the Roman army." Celtic Scotl. i. 102. Orosius speaking of the time 
 of Stilicho, about a.d. 400, calls them " barbari qui quondam in fcedus 
 recepti atque in militiam adlecti Honoriaci vocantur." Oros. vil 40. 
 
 ^ Compare the descriptions of the Pictish invasion under David King 
 of Scotland in a.d. 1138. " In the work of destruction no rank or age 
 and neither sex was spared ; children were butchered before the faces 
 of their parents, husbands in sight of their wives and wives in sight of 
 their husbands. Noble women and girls were carried away with the 
 other plunder, bound by ropes and thongs and goaded along with the 
 points of spears and lances. The barbarous Picts dragged away their 
 captives without mercy into their own country . . . either retaining 
 them as slaves or selling them like cattle to the other savages." Eic, 
 Hagustald. (Hexham Chron.) 318; Whitaker's Craven (Morant), 13, i4. 
 
Origins of English History. 353 
 
 still find traces of these marauding frays in the marks of 
 burning and the layers of ashes, sometimes two or three 
 deep, as if the stations had several times been sacked and 
 had been built again as soon as the enemy was forced to 
 retire. We are told that the Saxons were especially to be 
 dreaded for their sudden and well-calculated assaults. 
 They swept the coast like creatures of the storm, choosing 
 the worst weather and the most dangerous shores as in- 
 viting them to the easiest attack. Their ships when dis- 
 persed by the Roman galleys were re-assembled at some 
 point left undefended, and they began to plunder again ; 
 and they were taught by their fierce superstitions to secure 
 a safe return by immolating every tenth captive in honour 
 of the gods of the sea.^ 
 
 In the year 368 the Court at Treves was startled by the 
 news that the " Duke of Britain " had perished in a frontier 
 ambuscade, and that the Count Nectaridus had been 
 defeated and slain in a battle on the " Saxon Shore."' 
 The Picts and Attacotti and the Scots from the Irish sea- 
 board had broken through the Walls and were devastating 
 the Northern Provinces f the coasts nearest to Gaul were 
 attacked by the Franks and their neighbours the Saxons, 
 who were ravaging the South with fire and sword.* 
 
 1 " Mos est remeaturis decimum quemque captorum per sequales et 
 cruciarias poenas, plus ob hoc tristi quam superstitioso ritu, necare." 
 Sidon. ApoUin. viil. 3. 
 
 ^ Ammian. Marcell. xxvii. 8 ; xxviii. 3. 
 
 ' The Picts were at this time divided into two nations called the 
 " Vecturiones " and the " Dicaledonag." For a discussion on the meaning 
 of these names, see Skene, Celt. Scot. i. 129. 
 
 ' "Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et Saxones iisdem confines, quo 
 quisque erumpere potuit terra vel mari, praedis acerbis incendiisque et 
 captivorum funeribus hominum violabant." Ammian. Marcell. xxvii. 9. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 Origins of English History. 
 
 Theodosius, the best general of the Empire, was sent 
 across to Richborough with two picked legions and a great 
 force of German auxiliaries. On approaching London, 
 "the old town then known as the Augustan City," he 
 divided his army to attack the scattered troops of marauders 
 who were covering the country and driving off their 
 prisoners and stolen cattle to the coast. The spoil was 
 •successfully recovered, and the general entered London in 
 triumph. Here he awaited reinforcements, finding by the 
 reports of spies and deserters that he had before him the 
 forces of " a crowd of savage nations," and being anxious 
 to gain time for recalling the soldiers who had deserted to 
 the enemy or had dispersed in search of food. At last, by 
 threats and persuasions, by stratagems and unforeseen 
 attacks, he not only recovered the lost army and dispersed 
 the confused masses of the enemy, but even succeeded in 
 regaining all the frontier districts and in restoring the 
 whole machinery of government.^ 
 
 A few years afterwards occurred the revolt of Maximus, 
 a Spaniard who had served under Theodosius and had 
 afterwards gained the affection of the turbulent soldiery in 
 Britain. The Emperor Gratian had exhibited a scandalous 
 preference for the dress and customs of the Alani, his 
 barbarian allies ; and it was feared or alleged that there 
 was a danger of their occupying the Western Provinces. 
 Maximus was proclaimed Emperor in Britain in a.d. 383, 
 and proceeded to justify the soldiers' choice by a splendid 
 and successful campaign against the Picts and Scots. In 
 the course of the next year he raised a large army of 
 Britons and Gauls to supplement his regular forces, and 
 
 ' Zosimus, iv. 35 ; Sozomen. vii. 13. 
 
Origins of English History. 355 
 
 passing over to the mouths of the Rhine, he succeeded in 
 establishing himself at Treves, and was eventually acknow- 
 ledged as Emperor of the West. The career of Maximus 
 seems to have deeply impressed the Britons, whose later 
 poets were never tired of telling how he married a lady of 
 the island, how St. Ursula and her virgins followed his 
 victorious army to the Rhine, and how when he was slain 
 " at the foaming waters of the Save " his soldiers settled in 
 Gaul and founded a Lesser Britain across the sea, " from 
 the tarn on the Mont Saint Bernard (then the Mountain 
 of Jupiter) to Cantguic in Picardy and as far to the west 
 as ' Cruc-occident,' the great tumulus upon the shore of 
 Armorica."^ 
 
 The Britons of a later age found consolation in thinking 
 that the defeat of Maximus in Pannonia, and the loss of 
 the army which he had led from their shores, were the 
 proximate causes of the English Conquest.^ It is probable 
 enough that the drain of the continental Avar was a cause 
 of weakness to the province and an inducement to the 
 barbarians on the frontiers to renew their attempts at 
 conquest. There seems to be no sufficient evidence for 
 believing that the Irish had established themselves in 
 settlements along the coast of Wales, or were driven away 
 
 1 Zosimus, iv. 35 j Nennius, Hist. Brit. 23 ; Gildas, Hist. 13 ; Bede, 
 Hist. Eccl. i. 12. The Welsh Chroniclers traced the pedigrees of the 
 princes of Gwent and Powis, of Cumbria and Strathclyde, from Constantine, 
 son of Maximus by " Helen of the Mighty Hosts." See the Mabinogion 
 for the " Dream of Macsen Wledig," and Book V. of Geoffrey of Monmouth 
 for one version of the legend of St. Ursula. 
 
 ' Hi sunt Britones Armorici et nunquam reversi sunt ad proprium 
 solum usque in hodiernum diem. Propter hoc Britannia occupata est ab 
 extraneis gentibus, et cives ejus expulsi sunt, usque dum Dominus auxilium 
 dederit illis." Nennius, Hist. Brit. 23 ; compare Gildas, Hist. 14. 
 
 2 A 2 
 
556 Origins of English History. 
 
 by that " King Cunedda " whom the Welsh regard as the 
 head of so many of their princely pedigrees.^ But it is 
 clear that at least on two occasions at the end of the fourth 
 century, fixed with reasonable certainty in the years 396 
 and 400, the coasts were again attacked by the Saxons, 
 and the country between the Walls was occupied by the 
 northern invaders until their power was broken by the 
 sword of Stilicho. " Me too," cries Britannia in the 
 famous poem, "me dying at my neighbours' hands, did 
 Stilicho defend, when the Scot moved all I erne to arras, 
 and Ocean whitened under the invaders' oars."" 
 
 The independence of Britain was a consequence of the 
 invasion of Northern Gaul by the Vandals. The commu- 
 nications with the body of the Empire were cut off by a 
 horde of these rude warriors associated with Suevi from the 
 German forests and Alani from the shores of the Euxine. 
 The army determined to choose their own leader: and in 
 the year 407, after two abortive elections, they raised a 
 private soldier named Constantine to the throne of the 
 Western Empire. His success in recovering Gaul and 
 Spain compelled the feeble Court of Ravenna to confirm 
 the usurper's title : but a period of anarchy followed which 
 
 1 Nennius, Hist. Brit. 8 ; compare the passage in the appended Gene- 
 alogies : " Cunedag cum filiis suis . . . venerat prius de sinistral! 
 parte, id est de regione quae vocatur Manau Guotodin 146 annis ante- 
 quam Mailcun regnabat, et Scotos cum ingentissima clade expulerunt ab 
 istis regionibus,'' &c. For a discussion of the subject see the " Vestiges 
 of the Gael in Gwynedd," by Dr. Basil Jones, Bishop of St. David's. 
 
 2 Claudian, Tert. Cons. Hon. 55, of. Prim. Cons. Stilichon. ii. 250 and 
 De Bell. Getic. 416. See the account by Gildas of the Irish " Curraghs," 
 " emergunt certatim de curicis," and of the Picts and Scots, "moribus 
 ex parte dissidentes, sed una eademque sanguinis fundendi aviditate 
 Concordes." Gildas, Hist. 19. 
 
Origins of English History. 357 
 
 brought new dangers upon Britain and caused its final sepa- 
 ration from the Roman power. Gerontius, at first the friend 
 and afterwards the destroyer of Constantine, recalled the 
 barbarian hosts which had retreated beyond the Rhine, and 
 invited them to cross the Channel and to join in attacking 
 the defenceless government of Britain.' 
 
 The " Cities of Britain," assuming in the stress of 
 danger the powers of independent communities, succeeded 
 in raising an army and repelling the German invasion. 
 But having earned their safety for themselves they now 
 refused to return to tteir old subjection, if any obedience 
 could indeed be claimed by the defeated usurper or 
 by an Emperor reigning in exile. The Roman officials 
 were ejected and native forms of government established. 
 "Honorius was content to cede what he was unable to 
 defend and to confirm measures which he was impotent to 
 repeal."' The final dismissal of the province took place in 
 A.D. 410, when the Emperor sent letters to the Cities bid- 
 ding them provide in future for their own defence : "and 
 so having given gifts to the army out of the treasures sent 
 by Heraclian, and having gained to himself the good-will 
 of the soldiers there and in all parts of the world, Honorius 
 dwelt at ease."* 
 
 1 Zosimus, vi. 5. 
 
 2 Herbert, "Britannia," 27. The authorities for this period are 
 Zosimus, vi. 4, 5, 6, 10 ; the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, written 
 about A.D. 455, and those passages of Olympiodorus which are preserved 
 in the collections of Photius. 
 
 ' Zosimus, vi. 10. 
 
358 Origins of English History. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 
 
 Troubles of the independent Britons — Fresh invasions of Picts and Scots— The Saxon 
 Pirates — The Halleluia Victory — The appeal to Aetius — Beginnings of the English 
 Conquest — Character of the authorities — Early Welsh poems — Nennius — Romances 
 of Arthur — The history of Gildas — Its dramatic nature — Its imitation of the Vulgate 
 — The story of Vortigem — His war with the mercenaries — The victory of,Ambro- 
 sius — The Mcms Badonicus — English accounts of the Conquest — The Anglo-Saxon 
 Chronicle — Influence of ancient ballads — Description of the invasion — The three 
 kindreds — Their continental home — Relative positions of Saxons Angles and Jutes 
 — Theories as to other invading tribes — The Frisians — Argument from local 
 names — The Conquest of Kent — Welsh traditions — Horsa's Tomb — Legends of 
 Hengist — The Conquest of Sussex — Destruction of Anderida — Fate of the Roman 
 towns — Rise of the House of Cerdic — Conquest of Wessex — Victories of Cerdic 
 and Cynric — The fate of Ceaulin — Genealogies of the Kings — The Conquest of 
 Northumbria — Reign of Ida — Welsh traditions — Reign of .<Elle — Of Edwin— Of 
 ^thelfrith — General description of the conquest — Ancient poems— The sea-kings 
 described by Sidonius — Their ships and crews — The lord and his companions- 
 Gradual degradation of the peasantry — Life in free townships — Co-operative hus- 
 bandry — Community of ownership —Village customs — Heathen survivals — Festivals 
 —Sacrifices — Character of English paganism — The gradual conversion of the English 
 kingdoms. 
 
 A FEW years proved the vanity of the success which 
 the Britons had gained and extinguished their 
 hopes or dreams of freedom. No fire of patriotism 
 replaced the discipline which had saved the Province from 
 destruction. The Cities were unfit to endure the burden 
 of government, and their territories were soon seized by 
 the upstart kings or by pretenders affecting to continue an 
 imperial authority. Famine and pestilence followed 
 naturally on a civil war which had lapsed into a general 
 brigandage ; a fresh horde of Picts swarmed in between 
 the Walls, and new fleets from Ireland were ravaging the 
 Cumbrian shore.-' 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 12; Gildas, Hist. 20. 
 
Origins of English History. 359 
 
 The worst danger lay in the raids of the German 
 corsairs. The sea-kings sailed with a few ships from the 
 " Saxon Islands" by the Elbe, to He off a port or run into 
 an unguarded estuary, ready to fall in with any larger 
 enterprise to land a pirate-crew and to earn a share of the 
 plunder. Such were the deeds of which the fame remains 
 in songs of Beowulf and the wandering Hengist, of the 
 cruisers on the " flint-gray flood " and treasure gained by 
 axe and sword "over the gannet's bath and over the 
 whale's home." 
 
 One victory of the Christians is recorded in the. Life of 
 St. Germanus, who visited this country in the year 429 in 
 company with St. Lupus of Troyes. The incidents of the 
 mission were distorted into the romance of " Nennius," 
 where the miracles of the Saint are interwoven with the 
 treacheries of Hengist and the crimes or follies of King 
 Vortigern ; but allusions to the " Halleluia Victory" are 
 found in the best contemporary literature, as in Pope 
 Gregory's Commentaries, in the letters of Sidonius to St. 
 Lupus, and in the biography of Germanus compiled by 
 the learned priest of Lyons.^ 
 
 The very celebrity of the event is a proof of the general 
 ill-fortune of the Britons. The two bishops had been sent 
 
 ^ Prosper Aquit. Chron. anno 429; Constantius, Vita Germani. 28; 
 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 17; Usher, Primord. 3335 Rees, Welsh Saints, 122 ; 
 Haddan, Councils, i. 17, 20. Pope Gregory alludes to the battle in his 
 Commentary on Job : " Ecce ! lingua Britanniae . . . ccepit Alleluia 
 sonare": a passage which Bede by an anachronism refers to Augustine's 
 mission, Hist. Eccl. ii. i. Sidonius appears to refer to the same battle in 
 a letter to St. Lupus : " Dux veterane et peritissime tubicen ad Christum 
 a peccatis receptui canere." Sidon. Apoll. Epist. vi. i. For the 
 correspondence of Sidonius with Constantius of Lyons, see the same 
 collection, Epist. i. i, and vii. 18. 
 
360 Origins of English History. 
 
 to Verulam to confute the heretics who accused "their 
 Maker or their making or their fate" and sought too great 
 a licence of Free Will. During the spring of the year 
 following, the missionaries resumed their enterprise and 
 visited the Valley of the Dee. The country was infested 
 by Picts and Saxons, and it was feared that they might 
 storm the camp where the British forces were concentrated. 
 The bishops of Gaul were chosen for their political capa- 
 cities : Germanus was accustomed to war and was easily 
 persuaded to help his converts against the heathen. The 
 Easter Sunday was spent in baptising an army of peni- 
 tents ; the orthodox soldiers were posted in an ambuscade, 
 and the pagans fled panic-stricken at the triple " Halleluia" 
 which suddenly echoed among the hills. 
 
 An annalist of doubtful authority has reported, under 
 the year 441, that Britain "after many troubles and mis- 
 fortunes was brought under the dominion of the Saxons" ■} 
 but we can hardly date the commencement of the Con- 
 quest before the appeal to the Patrician Aetius or the 
 second visit of Germanus. The bishop returned in a.d. 
 447, and his biography contains not a word of any such 
 revolution or sudden triumph of paganism. The date of 
 the letters of appeal is fixed by the form of their address : 
 " The groans of the Britons to Aetius for the third time 
 Consul. The savages drive us to the sea and the sea 
 casts us back upon the savages : so arise two kinds of 
 death, and we are either drowned or slaughtered." The 
 Third Consulate of Aetius fell in a.d. 446, a year memo- 
 rable in the West as the beginning of a profound calm 
 
 1 Prosper Tiro makes this statement, under the head of the loth year 
 of Theodosius, in his continuation of the Chronicle of Prosper of 
 Aquitaine. 
 
Origins of English. History. 361 
 
 which preceded the onslaught of Attila. The complaint 
 of Britain has left no trace in the poems which celebrated 
 the year of repose ; and our Chronicles are at any rate 
 wrong when they attribute its rejection to the stress of a 
 war with the Huns.^ It is possible, indeed, that the 
 appeal was never made, and that the whole story repre- 
 sents nothing but a rumour current in the days of Gildas 
 among the British exiles in Armorica. 
 
 Of the Conquest itself no accurate narrative remains. 
 The version which is usually received is based in part on 
 the statements in the histories of Gildas and Nennius 
 and in part upon Chronicles which seem to owe much to 
 lost heroic poems in which the exploits of the English 
 chieftains were commemorated. 
 
 The Welsh poems throw little light on the matter. The 
 bards were for the most part content to trace the dim out- 
 lines of disaster, and to indicate by an allusion the issue of 
 a fatal battle or the end of some celebrated warrior. The 
 poems of the sixth century, at any rate in the form in 
 which they have descended to our times, are too vague 
 and obscure to be useful for the purposes of history.^ 
 Here and there one may recognise an episode of the 
 ravages of " the Flame-bearer" or a picture of Ida or 
 " Ulf at the ford." We must admire, without localising 
 the incidents, the elegies on " the cold Hall of Cyndylan," 
 on the graves which " the rain bedews and the thicket 
 
 1 Gildas, Hist. 20 j Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 13. See the poem by Mero- 
 baudes on the Third Consulate of Aetius, Carm. v. 5, 8, and Sidon. 
 ApoU, Carm. i. 192. 
 
 ^ On the whole subject of these poems, see Skene's "Four Ancient 
 Books of Wales," from which the translations in the text are adapted, and 
 compare Aneurin's " Gododin," in Ab Ithel's edition, and the criticisms 
 in Nash's " Taliesin " and Stephens's " Literature of the Cymry." 
 
362 Origins of English History. 
 
 covers," on the red and dappled chargers of the brave 
 Geraint. Aneurin's epic itself is wanting in all precision 
 of detail. It is the history of a long war of races com- 
 pressed under the similitude of a battle into a few days of 
 ruin, like the last fight in the Voluspa, "an axe-age a 
 sword-age and shields shall be cloven, a storm-age a wolf- 
 age ere the World sinks." 
 
 The British historians were hardly more explicit. The 
 collection of Welsh and Anglian legends which passes 
 under the name of Nennius contains a few important 
 facts about Northumbria mixed up in confusion with gene- 
 alogies and miracles and fragments of romance. Here 
 too we get the list of the twelve battles of Arthur, with 
 their Welsh names " which were many hundred years ago 
 unknown": "but who Arthur was," to use Milton's words, 
 "and whether any such reigned in Britain hath been 
 doubted heretofore and may again with good reason : for 
 the Monk of Malmesbury, and others whose credit hath 
 swayed most with the learned sort, we may well perceive to 
 have known no more of this Arthur nor of his doings than 
 we now living, and what they had to say transcribed out 
 of Nennius, a very trivial writer, ... or out of a British 
 book, the same which he of Monmouth set forth, utterly 
 unknown to the world till more than six hundred years 
 after the days of Arthur."^ We shall therefore say but 
 little of the doings of the Blameless King who " thrust the 
 
 1 The whole account of Arthur in the Third Book of Milton's History 
 should be compared with the traditions in "Nennius" and the modern 
 interpretations collected by Mr. Skene in the "Four Ancient Books of 
 Wales." "Hie est Arthur de quo Britonum nugs hodieque delirant; 
 dignus plane quem non fallaces somniarent fabulse, sed veraces praedica- 
 rent historise." Will. Malmesb. Gesta. i. 8. 
 
Origins of English History. 363 
 
 heathen from the Roman Wall, and shook him through 
 the North." His existence is admitted, though the scene 
 of his doubtful exploits is variously laid at Caerleon, in the 
 Vale of Somerset, in the Lowlands of Scotland and in the 
 Cumbrian Hills ; it seems to be true that he engaged in a 
 war with the Princes of the Angles in Northumbria ; but 
 his glory is due to the Breton romances, which were 
 amplified in Wales and afterwards adopted at the Court 
 of the Plantagenets as the foundation of the epic of 
 chivalry. 
 
 Gildas is a more 'important witness. Writing in the 
 middle of the sixth century he may be taken as represent- 
 ing the opinions of men who might themselves have taken 
 part in the war. But he himself made no pretence to 
 anything like historical accuracy. "If there were any 
 records of my country," he said, " they were burned in the 
 fires of the conquest or carried away on the ships of the 
 exiles, so that I can only follow the dark and fragmentary 
 tale that was told me beyond the sea." No lamentation 
 was ever keener in note, or more obscure in its story, than 
 the book in which he recounted "the victory and the 
 crimes of Britain, the coming of a last enemy more dread- 
 ful than the first, the destruction of the Cities and the 
 fortunes of the remnant that escaped." ^ 
 
 The purport of his work becomes plainer as we perceive 
 that it is intended for a dramatic description of an episode 
 in the history of Cumbria. It is the story of " the Victory 
 
 ^ Gildas, Hist. 4. The passages following in the text are taken from 
 the five concluding chapters of his History. His account should be 
 compared with Bede's version of the story. Hist. Eccl. i. 15, and with 
 those contained in the Chronicle of Ethelwerd and the History of Henry 
 of Huntingdon. 
 
364 Origins of English History. 
 
 of Ambrosius," told in the language of the prophet who 
 saw "the burden of Egypt"; for another Egypt seemed to 
 have been lost by the men who should have been " the 
 stay of her tribes." 
 
 The drama begins in the year 450 when the Emperor 
 Marcian reigned in the East and Valentinian the Third in 
 the West; " The time was approaching when the iniquity 
 of Britain should be fulfilled" : the rumour flew among the 
 people that their old invaders were preparing a final 
 assault : a pestilence brooded over the land and left 
 more dead than the living could bury ; and the complaint 
 is swollen by invectives against the stubbornness of 
 " Pharaoh " and the brutishness of the " Princes of Zoan." 
 We are brought to the chamber of Vortigern and his 
 nobles, debating what means of escape might be found. 
 " Then the eyes of the proud king and of all his coun- 
 cillors were darkened, and this help or this death-blow 
 they devised, to let into our island the foes of God and 
 man, the fierce Saxons whose name is accursed, as it were 
 a wolf into the sheep-cotes, to beat off the nations of the 
 North." 
 
 The men came over from "Old Anglia" with three 
 "keels," or ships of war, loaded with arms and stores. 
 Their first success was followed by the engagement of a 
 larger force of mercenaries ; but a quarrel soon arose 
 about their pay, which grew into a general mutiny. Their 
 allowance, says Gildas, was found for a long time, and so 
 "the dog's mouth was stopped," as he cites the native 
 proverb : " but afterwards they picked a quarrel, and 
 threatened to plunder the island unless a greater liberality 
 were shown." The historian denounces them in a mystical 
 and fervid strain : they are "young lions" wasting the land 
 
Origins of English History. 365 
 
 and whelps from the lair of the "German Lioness": and 
 their settlement in Northumbria is described, in the words 
 of the Prophet, as the wild-vine that " brought forth 
 branches and shot forth sprigs," the root of bitterness and 
 the plant of iniquity. 
 
 The enemy is next likened to a consuming fire as he 
 burst from his new home in the East and ravaged the 
 island as far as the Western Sea : and the Chronicler 
 describes with a horrible minuteness the sack of some 
 Cumbrian city and the destruction of the faithful found 
 therein, "And some of the miserable remnant were 
 caught in the hills and slaughtered, and others were worn 
 out with hunger and yielded to a lifelong slavery. Some 
 passed across the sea, with lamentations instead of the 
 sailor's song, chanting as the wind filled their sails, ' Lord ! 
 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat and 
 hast scattered us among the heathen': but others trusted 
 their lives to the clefts of the mountains, to the forests and 
 the rocks of the sea, and so abode in their country though 
 sore afraid." ^ 
 
 But after some time, when the Angles had returned 
 to their settlements, "a remnant of the Britons was 
 strengthened under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelius 
 ' the courteous and faithful, the brave and true,' the last 
 of the Romans left alive in the shock of the storm." 
 His kindred, who had worn the imperial purple, had 
 
 ' The principal migrations to Brittany took place in the years 500 and 
 513. In the first of these years St. Samson of Dol is said to have been 
 driven from his bishopric in York. Many curious documents relating to 
 the Britons of the migration will be found in the Breton Chartularies of 
 the Abbeys of Redon and Llandevennec in the National Library in Paris. 
 Full extracts will be found in the Appendices to the Histories of Brittany 
 by Halldguen and Du Courson. 
 
366 Origins of English History. 
 
 perished in the fray ; " and now," says Gildas, " his off- 
 spring at this day, degenerate as they are from those 
 ancestral virtues, still gather strength and provoke their 
 conquerors to arms, and by the favour of heaven they 
 have gained a victory in answer to their prayers."^ "So 
 after the coming of Ambrosius," he continues, "sometimes 
 our citizens and sometimes the enemy prevailed until the 
 year of the Siege of Mount Badon, the last and not the 
 least of our blows against those brigands ; and this is now 
 the beginning of the 44th year, and one month already 
 gone, since the year of the Siege, in which too I myself was 
 born ; yet not even at this day are our cities inhabited 
 again, but they lie deserted and overthrown ; for though 
 foreign wars have ceased, our civil wars go on. The 
 remembrance of that utter destruction and that salvation 
 beyond all hope remained in the minds of those who 
 had seen these marvellous things ; and so the kings and 
 the churchmen and men of every station were each 
 obedient to the rules that befitted their degree ; but when 
 they were all dead, and a generation came which knew not 
 the tempest but only the fair weather that now prevails, all 
 laws of Truth and Justice were so shattered and up-torn 
 that not a trace or even a remembrance remains of them in 
 all those ranks of men, excepting a few, a very few com- 
 pared with that great multitude which day by day is 
 rushing headlong into Hell." 
 
 The battle of Mount Badon appears to have secured a 
 long respite for the Cumbrian Britons. We learn from the 
 
 ^ Aurelius Conan, the King of Powisland who is attacked so violently 
 in the "Epistle" of Gildas, appears to have been one of the descendants 
 of Ambrosius. Another was Pascent, who reigned in Builth and Guerth- 
 rynion, according to the tradition preserved in Nennius, Hist. Brit. 48. 
 
Origins of English History. 367 
 
 " Welsh Annals " that it was fought in the year 516, or 
 four years later by some accounts : here, we are told, " fell 
 Colgrim and Radulf the leaders of the Angles," and some 
 of the poems name "Ossa with the knife" as another of 
 the opponents of King Arthur. The battle stands twelfth 
 and last in the series of Arthur's victories, and the fables 
 in "Nennius" show how early it formed the subject of 
 romance : the Son of Uther fights at the head of all the 
 British kings, "though many were nobler than he," and 
 storms the Mount in person : " and in that day fell nine 
 hundred and sixty men by one charge of Arthur, and no 
 man laid them low save he alone, and he was the victor in 
 all the wars." ^ 
 
 In repeating the story from the English side we shall 
 follow as far as possible the actual words of the Chronicles, 
 seeking only to distinguish the fragments of ballads and 
 romances on which the history was based from the addi- 
 tions by which those time-worn records were woven into 
 an easy narrative. We know how the history of the 
 Prankish kings was compiled from " barbarous and most 
 ancient songs" and that the Germans of an earlier age 
 had nothing but such verses to help them in remembering 
 the past. It was a minstrel's task to blend the exploits of 
 
 1 Nennius, Hist. Brit. 56. The account given by Henry of Huntingdon 
 appears to have been taken from some version of Nennius which has now 
 been lost; the words for "shield" and "shoulder," which are similar in 
 Welsh, have been confused in his account of one of the earlier battles 
 where Arthur was said to have borne the image of the Virgin. Hist. 
 Angl. ii. 18. The "Mons Badonicus" was at one time taken for the hill 
 above Bath, owing to an error of an early scribe : Dr. Guest, in his Essay 
 on the Early English Settlements, favoured the theory that the battle was 
 fought at Badbury Rings in Dorsetshire, Archceol. (Salisbury, 1849) 62, 63. 
 Mr. Skene, with more probability, selects as its site the Bouden Hill not 
 far from Linlithgow, Four Ancient Books of Wales, 57, 58. 
 
368 Origins of English History. 
 
 the warriors with the legends of the gods, as the harper 
 mingled Beowulf's praises with the dragon -fight of 
 Sigmund the Wanderer, or as Thiodolf sang the " Yngling- 
 tale " for the kings who reigned in Upsala and traced their 
 propitious descent from the beings who brought wealth 
 and sunshine. " Thus with their lays," said Widsith, 
 "over many lands the glee-men rove, and ever in the 
 South or the North find they one, learned in song and 
 free in his gifts, longing before the nobles his greatness to 
 raise and his lordship to show." ^ 
 
 We are shown how the Britons bethought themselves of 
 the pirates who held the coasts between the Rhine and 
 the Danish Islands, how they sent for assistance to the 
 Lords of the Angles "and saw not that they were pre- 
 paring for themselves a perpetual slavery," and how a 
 great multitude came from Germany and drove the Britons 
 from their lands with a mighty slaughter, and ever re- 
 mained masters of the field, " so that Britain became 
 England because it took the name of its conquerors."^ 
 The entries in the Chronicle confirm the truth of the com- 
 plaints of Gildas. " Now came the English to this land, 
 called by Vortigern to help in overcoming his foes : they 
 sailed here with three warships : their leaders were 
 Hengist and Horsa : and first they slew or drove away 
 the foe and then they turned against the king and against 
 
 1 " Traveller's Song," 269, 281. See Tac. Germ. 2 ; Beowulf, 871, 875. 
 Eginhard in the 9th century describes the old Frankish songs, " barbara 
 et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella cane- 
 bantur." Vita Karoli, c. 29. Compare the poems in the Anglo-Saxon 
 Chronicle, and the use of songs and " tags of Saxon verse " by Henry of 
 Huntingdon, and William of Malmesbury's ballads worn down by time, 
 "cantilenis per successionem temporum detritis,'' Gesta, ii. 138. 
 
 ^ Ethel werd, Chron. i. i. 
 
Origins of English History. 369 
 
 the Britons, and destroyed them with fire and the edge of 
 the sword." The first engagement was at Stamford, if we 
 may trust the old tradition : " The Picts fought with darts 
 and spears and the Saxons with broad-swords and axes, 
 but the Picts could not bear that burden and sought for 
 safety in flight, and the Saxons took the victory and the 
 triumph and spoil of the battle." ^ 
 
 The invaders belonged to three closely -connected 
 nations of the Low-Dutch stock. Their territories, it is 
 clear, are now included in the modern Schleswig-Holstein 
 and a district in Southern Jutland; but it is extremely 
 difficult to ascertain the precise places which they occupied 
 about the time of their migration. 
 
 The Saxons, who founded the kingdoms to which their 
 name was given and several states in the western parts of 
 Mercia, seem to have come from the marsh-lands beyond 
 the Elbe. They were the peoples whom Ptolemy placed 
 on the neck of the adjoining peninsula and in "three 
 islands" which have been identified with parts of the 
 North-Friesland Coast. The Ravenna Geographer was 
 quite accurate in saying that their country "touched upon 
 Denmark."^ But it must also be remembered that the 
 Saxons were always pushing westwards along the coast 
 into the territories of the Chauci and the Frisians, occupy- 
 ing the various districts which were successively abandoned 
 by the Franks, so that the "Old Saxony" which Bede 
 
 ' Henr. Hunt. ii. i. Bede uses the expression " sumpsere victoriam," 
 a paraphrase of the vernacular idiom showing that he copied from some 
 Anglian original. Hist. Eccl. i. 15 ; Guest, Early Engl. Sett. 47. 
 
 ^ Ravennas, iv. 17 ; Bede, Hist. Eccl. v. 11. The modern names of the 
 districts identified with the " Saxon Islands " are Nordstrand, Harde, and 
 Eiderstedt. Lappenberg, Hist. Engl. i. c. 5. 
 
 2 B 
 
3 70 Origins of English History. 
 
 described as the home of his forefathers extended across 
 the country of the Bructeri to the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the Rhine. 
 
 The Jutes came from the peninsula which bears their 
 name, where they held the country as far south as the 
 Sley, a river that runs into the sea not far from Schleswig. 
 In England they occupied the regions which were united 
 in the Kingdom of Kent, a separate kingdom established 
 in the Isle of Wight, and a tract called the "country of 
 the Meon-waras," now the Hundreds of East and West 
 Meon in Hampshire, on each side of the Hamble River to 
 the east of the Southampton Water.^ 
 
 "Old Anglia" is usually identified with a small district 
 " about as large as Middlesex," bounded on one side by 
 the road from Schleswig to Flensborg and on other sides 
 by the river and an arm of the sea. This is the " Nook" 
 or "Angulus" which in Bede's time lay waste as a march- 
 land between the Jutes and the Saxons, but was occupied 
 soon afterwards by the Danes from the neighbouring 
 islands. That this region was once held by the Angles 
 is certain from many ancient testimonies. "Old Anglia," 
 said the Chronicler Ethelwerd, "is situated between the 
 Saxons and Jutes, and has in it a capital town which 
 in Saxon is called Sleswic and in Danish Haithaby." 
 Another description is found in the extracts from "Othere's 
 Voyage" which King Alfred inserted into his edition of 
 Orosius. The merchant Othere, who dwelt " northmost 
 of all the Northmen," told the King that he had been on 
 a voyage southward from " Skiringshael" which is now 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 15, iv. 13, 16. Florence of Worcester in the 
 Appendix to his Chronicle describes the New Forest as lying "in the 
 Province of the Jutes." 
 
Origins of English History. 371 
 
 called the Bay of Christiania. For three days they sailed 
 with Denmark on the right hand and an open sea to star- 
 board : then for two days afterwards they had Zealand 
 and other islands to the starboard, and before they reached 
 Haithaby there were numbers of islands on both sides ; 
 "and in that country," added King Alfred, "the English 
 dwelt before they came to England."^ 
 
 We are not obliged to suppose that the Angles were 
 confined to the small district round Schleswig : there is an 
 Island of Anglen and another district on the mainland of 
 the same name now inhabited by a Frisian population. 
 There are other indications showing that the Angles were 
 at one time settled on the Elbe, about the northern parts 
 of Hanover. Both Tacitus and Ptolemy placed them in 
 this neighbourhood "fenced in by the river and the forest" 
 and always in proximity to the " Sueves," a nation of the 
 High-German stock with whom the Angles were often 
 associated. But Tacitus gives them also a share in the 
 ownership of the Holy Island situate in the Outer Ocean, 
 where Nairthus the Earth-goddess was worshipped in a 
 sacred forest. Her ritual is only appropriate to one of the 
 larger islands. She was borne in her shrine on a waggon 
 drawn by a yoke of kine. " The days," said Tacitus, " are 
 merry and the places gay where the goddess comes as a 
 guest : no man will go to war or seize a weapon, and 
 every sword is locked away ; then and then only are 
 peace and quiet enjoyed, until the priest restores to her 
 temple the goddess weary of her converse with mankind : 
 then the car and its draperies, and the goddess herself, if 
 
 1 See King Alfred's Orosius, c. 20, and " The voyage of Othere out of 
 his Countrey of Halgoland," in Hakluyt's Collection. The description in 
 Ethelwerd's Chronicle dates from about the end of the loth century. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
372 Origins of English History. 
 
 one cared to believe it, are purified in a lonely lake, and 
 the slaves who do the work are straightway drowned in 
 its waters."^ 
 
 The "Traveller's Song," though of no historical authority, 
 may be regarded as a collection of ancient traditions : it 
 contains a legend of Offa, the mythical ancestor of the 
 Mercian kings, which implies a belief that the Angles had 
 gained a western outlet for their fleets before they under- 
 took their migration. The glee-man is enumerating the 
 tribes about the mouth of the Eider, which he calls "the 
 monsters' gate" from some forgotten story of the sea, 
 " Offa in boyhood won the greatest of kingdoms, and none 
 of such age ever gained in battle a greater dominion with 
 his single sword : his marches he widened towards the 
 Myrgings by Fifel-dor : and there in the land as Offa had 
 won it thenceforth continued the Angles and Sueves."^ 
 
 An old historian has told us that " many and frequent 
 were the expeditions from Germany, and many were the 
 lords who strove against each other in the regions of East 
 Anglia and Mercia : and thereby arose unnumbered wars, 
 but the names of the chieftains remain unknown by reason 
 of their very multitude." ^ It has been thought that some 
 of these invading bands may have belonged to races 
 unconnected with the three great kindreds to whom the 
 conquest is generally assigned. A share in the enterprise 
 is claimed for every nation between the Rhine and the 
 
 1 Tac. Germ. 40. His " Anglii " are described as belonging to the 
 Semnones, the chief of the Suevic nations. They are called "Angili- 
 Suevi " by Ptolemy. 
 
 2 Traveller's Song, 84, 98. " Fifel-dor " means the gate of monsters. 
 The word "Eider" itself is said to be contracted from "Egi-dor," the 
 gate of dread. 
 
 ^ Henr. Hunt. Hist. ii. 17. 
 
Origins of English History. 373 
 
 Vistula, for the Franks and Lombards, the Frisians and 
 Danes, the Wends from Rugen and the Heruli of the 
 Eastern forests. " Tot tantique petunt simul giganies." 
 To this cause it has even been proposed to ascribe the 
 weakness of the later Angles " when, fleeing before the 
 invading Northmen, the sons yielded the dominion of the 
 land which their valiant forefathers had conquered." ^ 
 There is nothing unreasonable in supposing that isolated 
 bands of adventurers from many countries may have 
 occupied portions of our coast, and may even have founded 
 communities independent for a time of the Anglian or 
 Saxon states in their neighbourhood. There is reason, 
 for example, to believe that there were villages of the 
 Frisians in Holderness and settlements of the same people 
 in the southern parts of Scotland ; and one would have 
 expected to find traces of far more extensive colonies, 
 considering the closeness of the kinship between Saxon 
 and Frisian, their similar language, and their almost iden- 
 tical laws and customs.^ But there is in fact no evidence 
 to which weight can be attached that any considerable 
 numbers of Frisians were ever established in this country^ 
 and it will be found that the claims of this kind which the 
 Frisian writers have put forward are founded either on 
 vague allusions by English missionaries to their kinship 
 with the Continental Germans, or on a passage in the fan- 
 tastic description of the " Island of Brittia" by Procopius.' 
 
 1 Lappenberg, Hist. Engl. i. c. 6. 
 
 - See Skene's "Early Frisian Settlements," Proc. Soc. Antiqu. iv. 169; 
 Lappenberg, Hist. Engl. i. c. 6. A comparison of the " Asega-buch" with 
 the Kentish Laws of Ethelbert and his successors will show that the customs 
 of the two nations in the 7 th century must have been nearly identical. 
 
 ' Bede, Hist. Eccl. v. 9. Compare the Life of Suibert cited by 
 Lappenberg : " Egbertus sitiens salutem Frisonum et Saxonum eo quod 
 
374 Origins of English History. 
 
 The recurrence of local names based on similar patro- 
 nymic forms in many parts of England and in most of the 
 northern countries has been often regarded as a proof 
 that our villages were in fact the colonies or the offshoots 
 of a multitude of tribes. Such a name as "Swaffham," 
 for instance, is taken to imply the presence of Sueves, 
 " Thorrington " that of Thuringians, and " Wendling " of 
 the Wends. But the wideness and ease of the theory are 
 warnings of the danger of accepting it, for it has been 
 used with equal facility to prove the real existence in 
 England of all the personages who figure in the German 
 mythology or are paraded in the " Traveller's Song." 
 The gods of the North are degraded into petty chieftains, 
 the conquerors of a manor or a farm ; Beowulf is found at 
 Bowlby and the all-ruling "Gedt" at Gatton, the Wise 
 Weland works in a real smithy and Hilda the cold war- 
 goddess lies buried in a tomb at Hilda's-Lowe. It is 
 simpler to suppose that these local names are derived from 
 those of families named either after a living founder, as 
 the "^scings" from Eric the Ash, or after some god or 
 
 Angli ab eis propagati sunt, &c." When the whole passage from Procopius 
 is examined it will be found to have little historical importance. He 
 distinguishes "Brittia" from Britannia, as we have already seen, ante 
 84, 85, and proceeds to the following effect. " Brittia is inhabited by 
 three very populous nations, each governed by its king : these are the 
 Angili, the Frisones, and the Brittones who take their name from the 
 island : and so great is the fecundity of these nations that vast numbers 
 migrate from them every year and go with their wives and children to the 
 Franks, who settle them in the desert parts of the country : and it is said 
 that the Franks lay claim to the island itself on this account ; and indeed, 
 not long since, when the King of the Franks sent ambassadors to the 
 Emperor Justinian at Byzantium, he sent some of the Angili with them, 
 pretending that this island v/as a part of his own dominions." Procop. 
 Bell. Get. iv, c. 20. 
 
Origins of English History. 375 
 
 hero from the common mythological stock. The names 
 of the tribal form seem in reality to denote the settlements 
 of the nobles : but we need not suppose that all who traced 
 their descent to the same divine being were kinsmen of 
 the same blood or offshoots from the same community, 
 any more than we are bound to assign a common origin to 
 all the kings who called themselves Children of Woden, or 
 of those more shadowy forms from whom Woden, as they 
 thought, was descended. 
 
 We can trace the influence of such myths in the story 
 of the Conquest of Kent, to which we shall now proceed. 
 The pedigrees of Hengist and Eric must have been 
 preserved in such ballads as are mentioned in Beowulf's 
 Lay, when " the harp was touched and the tale was told 
 of Hengist the Child of the Jutes," how he pined in 
 Friesland through the winter till King Finn gave to him 
 " Hunldfing, a war-flame and best of axes," and how the 
 king and his castle were destroyed by fire and the edge of 
 the sword.^ The glee-man sang the victories of Hengist 
 and his son, and of their forefathers back to " Witta who 
 ruled the Sueves " and Woden the bestower of valour and 
 wisdom, and beyond him to Freyr the Summer-god and 
 Finn to whom the Frisians prayed, to Gedt the father of 
 the Goths, and to Beowulf and " Scyld" who defended the 
 Danes, to the swift Hermoder and to " Scef " the first of 
 the mystical line, whose lonely voyage was in Christian 
 times confused with the story of the Deluge. " This 
 Scef," says the Chronicler, " came in his bark to Scania, 
 a little lad clad all in mail, unknown to the people of that 
 land : and they guarded him as their own and afterwards 
 
 1 Beowulf, 1083, 1096, 1127. 
 
376 Origins of English History. 
 
 chose him for king : and it was from him that our 
 Ethelwulf traced his pedigree." ^ 
 
 We shall now return to the entries in the Chronicles, 
 beginning with the year 449, in which the Conquest of Kent 
 according to their reckoning commenced. The leaders, 
 having landed at " Ypwine's-Fleet," at first gave aid to the 
 British king : "but after six years they fought with him at 
 a place called ' ^gil's-Threp,' and there Horsa was slain, 
 and Hengist and his son ' Ash ' took the kingdom ; and 
 after two years they fought against the Britons at a place 
 called ' Crecgan-Ford ' and there slew four thousand men ; 
 and the Britons then forsook Kent-land and in mighty 
 terror fled to London-Burgh." ^ The last battle is de- 
 
 1 For the complete pedigrees, in which the name ofWoden appears 
 half-way down, see the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the years 547, 560, 855, 
 the genealogies appended to " Nennius" and to the Chronicle of Florence 
 of Worcester, and in Asser's Life of Alfred : see the subject discussed 
 in Kemble's Saxons in England, i. c. 7. The names of "Frjthuwulf, 
 Frealaf, and Frithuwald" are taken to be synonymes of Frea, the Scandi- 
 navian Freyr, the god who gave peace and fertility. Grimm, Deutsch. 
 Mythol. 193. " Beowa" or " Beowulf" was a deity with similar attributes, 
 "Heremod" answers to "the swift Hermoder " of the Norse mythology. 
 " Geat " seems to be the same as " Gapt " who is placed by Jornandes at 
 the head of the Gothic genealogies. 
 
 2 A. S. Chron. ann. 449, 455, 457; Ethelwerd, Chron. i. i. The ex- 
 pression used in the Chronicles "feng to rice" implies that the chieftains 
 " took to being kings " or " took to the king-ship." The entry appears to 
 refer to the foundation of the two Kingdoms of East and West Kent, of 
 which the limits corresponded with the sees of Canterbury and Rochester. 
 Eric the Ash was the head of the family of "Ashings": "Oeric cogno- 
 mento Oisc a quo reges Cantuariorum solent Oiscingas cognominare." 
 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 5. The surname is said to have meant " the warrior" 
 or "the spear": but in the Frisian legends it appears as"Hoeisch," 
 meaning " soft " or " mild." " Orich cognomento Hoeisch quod Frisonico 
 idiomate proprie sonat mitis et lenis." Kemp. Orig. Fris. ii. 22 ; Hamcon. 
 Frisia, 33. 
 
Origins of English History. 377 
 
 scribed by Henry of Huntingdon in language which seems 
 to have been taken from some heroic poem of which the 
 original no longer exists. "When the Britons went into 
 the war-play they could not bear up against the unwonted 
 numbers of the Saxons, for more of them had lately come 
 over, and these were chosen men, and they horribly gashed 
 the bodies of the Britons with axes and broadswords."^ 
 "And about eight years afterwards Hengist and 'Ash' 
 fought against the Welsh near Wipped's-FIeet : and there 
 they slew twelve princes : and one of their own thanes was 
 slain, whose name was Wipped. And after eight years 
 were fulfilled, Hengist and 'Ash' fought again with the 
 Welsh and took unnumbered spoil : and the Welsh fled 
 from the English as from fire. And after fifteen years 
 ' Ash ' came to the kingdom, and for twenty-four years he 
 was king of the Kentish men."^ 
 
 The outlines of a British account of the war were pre- 
 served in the story of Prince Vortimer. "In those days," 
 so the legend of Nennius runs," " Vortimer fought fiercely 
 with Hengist and Horsa and drove them out as far as 
 Thanet : and there three times he shut them in, and terri- 
 fied and smote and slew. But they sent messengers to 
 Germany to call for ships and soldiers, and afterwards 
 they fought with our kings, and sometimes they prevailed 
 and enlarged their bounds, and sometimes they were 
 beaten and driven away. And Vortimer four times waged 
 on them fierce wars : the first as was told above, and the 
 second at the stream of Derwent, and the third at a 
 ferry which the Saxons call Epis-Ford, where Horsa and 
 Catigern fell. The fourth war he waged in the plain by 
 
 ^ Henr. Hunt. ii. 4. 2 a. S. Chron. ann, 465, 473. 
 
 ' Nennius, Hist. Brit. 43, 44. 
 
378 Origins of English History. 
 
 the Written Stone on the shore of the Gaulish Sea, and 
 there he gained a victory, and the barbarians were beaten, 
 and they turned and fled and went Hke women into their 
 ships." 
 
 The commentators have sought in vain to harmonise 
 these conflicting legends. Ebbsfleet in Thanet is usually 
 identified with the landing-place, and the sites of the two 
 principal battles are placed at Aylesford and Crayford on 
 the Medway. But the matter abounds in difiiculties, and 
 it is probable that too much stress has been laid on a 
 slight resemblance of names and on the statement of 
 Bede's informant that a monument marked with Horsa's 
 name was in that day standing "in the eastern parts of 
 Kent." 1 
 
 We may suppose that Horsa's name was inscribed on 
 some pillar or " standing-stone " in those Runic signs 
 which had long since been imitated or borrowed from the 
 Roman alphabet.^ But if there were such a memorial, its 
 
 1 " Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et 
 Horsa; e quibus Horsa, postea occisus in bello a Brittonibus, hactenus in 
 orientalibus Cantise partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne." 
 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 15. 
 
 2 " Runic monuments may be said to have been found in all countries 
 inhabited by nations of Teutonic descent, but the oldest of those monu- 
 ments cannot be regarded as dating before 200 a.d." The Runes 
 themselves are mostly the capitals of the Roman alphabet " borrowed from 
 the Romans during the Empire not long after the date of Julius Caesar." 
 Rhys, Lectures, 321. The others were formed by modifying those which 
 had been first adopted. Professor Rhys has traced the connection 
 between the " Ogam " alphabet used in the funeral inscriptions in many 
 parts of Ireland Scotland and Wales and occasionally in Devon and Corn- 
 wall, and an alphabet of the same kind which seems to have been used by 
 the Germans before they adopted the Runic characters. Ibid. 312, 346. 
 The order of the letters in the "Ogam" alphabet is shown to have 
 a Phoenician origin, and it is suggested in the same lectures that the 
 
Origins of English History. 379 
 
 locality seems to have been unknown as early as the time 
 of King Alfred, the passage in which it was described by 
 Bede having been omitted from the English version of his 
 history. Its site was fixed at Horsted near Aylesford, 
 after many conjectures by the antiquaries, chiefly it would 
 seem because the great cromlech in that neighbourhood 
 had already been assigned to Prince Catigern. The ruins 
 of another Stone-Age tumulus were found at a little dis- 
 tance to the southward, consisting of "stones partly 
 upright with a large one lying across them " : and it was 
 supposed that the chieftain might have been carried up 
 from the battle-field two miles away to lie near his enemy's 
 tomb. When certain antiquaries visited the place in 1763, 
 the villagers showed them a heap of flints in the wood, 
 which had all the appearance of being refuse stones 
 thrown up by a farmer, and this has since that time been 
 accepted as the site of the ancient monument. One point 
 being fixed, it became easy to identify the rest : and hence 
 the apparent certainty with which localities have been 
 
 knowledge of the oral value though not of the form of the letters may 
 have come to the Germans by the trading-routes between the Euxine or 
 Mediterranean and the Baltic. The " Ogam " inscriptions now remaining 
 date mostly from the 5th and 6th centuries. They have been interpreted 
 by the help of bilingual specimens in Wales where they were often sup- 
 plemented by a Latin version or intermixed with Latin words. They 
 consist of sentences engraved on the edges or faces of pillars • and 
 monoliths. An edge or angle of the stone forms a base-line on which the 
 cuts are made. The consonants are represented by groups of straight or 
 oblique lines crossing or resting on the base-lines, and the vowels by cuts 
 or notches. The " Ogam " characters, like the later Runes, were used for 
 purposes of sorcery. See the full account of the origin and nature of this 
 mode of writing in the Lectures above-cited and copies of the inscriptions 
 in Brash's "Ogam Inscribed Monuments." See also Keysler, Antiqu. 
 Septentr. 38, 39, and the Essay on the " Ogam and Scythian Letters " by 
 Dr. Graves, Bishop of Limerick. 
 
380 Origins of English History. 
 
 settled for almost all the events in the legend of Hengist 
 and Horsa.^ 
 
 It is still, however, a subject of debate if these cham- 
 pions existed at all, and we are permitted to doubt whether 
 "Dan Hengist" landed in Lindsey and fought to the 
 death with Ambrosius, or if "Duke Horsus" fell at 
 Aylesford beneath a giant's blow, " Xs^afr^svof jVTroo-ovacov." 
 We are told that the evidence for their actual existence is 
 " at least as strong as the suspicion of their mythical 
 character."^ But it is urged on the other hand that the 
 names of " Horse and Mare " are on the face of them 
 symbolical, and should be taken as referring to some 
 banner of the host, some crest or emblem of the tribe, or 
 perhaps to some reverence for the sacred white horses 
 which the Germans supposed to be " aware of the designs 
 of heaven."^ Kemble thought that we could hardly do 
 otherwise than deify the chieftains, seeing beneath the 
 myth " Woden in the form of a horse " or some such god- 
 like or "half-godlike form."* There seems however to be 
 no valid reason why a popular captain should not be called 
 "the Horse," since we read of others who were nick- 
 named after the Crow, the Wolf, and the Boar •} nor is 
 it easy to see how the cult of the pure white horses or a 
 belief in the omens obtained from their movements could 
 ever be transmuted into the story of Hengist the Jute. 
 
 1 Ante, p. 131. Camden, Brit. 251; Lambarde, Perambul. Kent, 409; 
 Philipot, Vill. Cantian. 48; Hasted, Hist. Kent, ii. 177 : Archcsol. ii. 107. 
 
 3 Freeman, Norm. Conquest, i. 10. 
 
 8 Tac. Germ. 10. 
 
 * Kemble, "Saxons in England," i. 19. 
 
 ^ The sons of the mythical Wonred were named "Wolf" and "Boar." 
 Beow. 2964, 2965. Other examples may be found in Mr. Kemble's 
 Essay on the "Anglo-Saxon Nicknames," Archaol. (Winchester, 1845). 
 
Origins of English History. 381 
 
 But there is a stronger objection to the Chronicler's 
 statements in the fact that Hengist is the hero of such 
 numerous and such divergent traditions. The crafty and 
 valiant prince, an Odysseus of the Northern Seas, has left 
 a legend on every coast between Jutland and the Cornish 
 Promontory.^ All the old stories are fastened on his 
 name, of one who bought as much land as an ox-hide 
 would cover and thereby gained a kingdom, of three 
 hundred chieftains in Kent or Thuringia slain with knives 
 concealed at a banquet, and of a princess, as in the legend 
 of Nennius, exchaflged for three provinces by the king and 
 his fur-clad councillors. Hengist seems to be ubiquitous 
 and fills all kinds of characters. In one story he serves as 
 a legionary in the army of Valentinian the Third : in 
 another he comes as "the wickedest of pagans" to ravage 
 the coasts of Gaul. In the fragmentary poem which is 
 known as "the Fight at Finnesburg" Hengist leads a 
 band of Jutish pirates to burn the palace of the Frisian 
 king : " the hall blazes in the moon-light, the spear clangs 
 and shield answers to shaft"; but in the legends of the 
 Frieslanders themselves he is claimed as the father of 
 their kings and as the builder of their strongholds on the 
 Rhine.' 
 
 1 Numerous examples will be found in the Codex Diplomaticus. Com- 
 pare the names of Hengistbury Head, Hengstdown in Cornwall, Hinxworth, 
 and Henstridge (" Hengestes-ricg ") on the Stour. Kemble, Cod. Diplom. 
 374) 4SS. i°02; " Hengest-helle," Hasted, Hist. Kent iii. 171. Com- 
 pare also Edwy's donation of twenty " boor-lands " to the monastery of 
 Abingdon ; " aliquam terrae portionem, id est secundum estimationem 
 20 cassatorum tribus in locis, illic ubi vulgariter prolatum est est Hengestes 
 ige" &c. These " cassates " or " householders' lands " are called " biir- 
 land" in the schedule of boundaries. Cod. Diplom. 12 16; Leo. Rect. 
 Sing. Person. 6. 
 
 ' Beowulf, 227, 1083, 1096, 1 127. For the "Fight at Finnesburg," 
 
3^2 Origins of English History. 
 
 The Chroniclers next record the beginning of the con- 
 quest of Sussex, a kingdom at first renowned for the 
 daring exploits of its founders, though its later history is so 
 obscure that nothing is heard about it between the capture 
 of the Roman towns and the conversion of the South- 
 Saxons in the year 68 1. The little country " shut in among 
 the rocks and forests " was unable in the age of Bede to 
 find support for more than seven thousand households, and 
 the historian drew a lamentable picture of the poverty and 
 rudeness of the people. When St. Wilfrid first preached 
 at Selsey they did not even know how to catch sea-fish, 
 though they had nets for eels, and were so wild and 
 untaught as to have retained the custom of making " the 
 journey to Woden": for we are told that when pressed 
 by famine forty or fifty men together would join hands and 
 leap over the cliffs into the sea.^ 
 
 see the editions of Beowulf by Thorpe, p. 227, by Kemble, i. 239, and by 
 Arnold, p. 204, and Grein. Biblioth. i. 341. John of Wallingford calls 
 Hengist " omnium paganorum sceleratissimus," and mentions his attacks 
 on the Gaulish coast. Gale, XV Script. 533. The Ravenna Geographer 
 calls him " Anschis," Ravenn. v. 3 1 : but this was a Prankish name ; 
 Duke Anschis was brother of St. Clou and father of Pepin the Short. 
 Will. Malmesb. Gesta, i. 68. The Frisian legends treat Hengist as the 
 founder of Leyden and the builder of a temple of "Warns" or Woden at 
 Doccum. Hamcon. Frisia, 33; Suffrid. Antiqu. Pris. ii. 11 j Kemp. Hist. 
 Pris. ii. 21, 22. 
 
 1 Ante p. 91 ; Bede, Hist. Eccl. iv. 13. The peninsula of Selsey was 
 the first point occupied by the South-Saxons. A. S. Chron. anno 4TJ ; 
 Kemble, Cod. Diplom. 992. The peninsula when given to Wilfrid was 
 considered to contain enough land for eighty-seven families. The grant 
 included the inhabitants as well as their lands, and the bishop's first act 
 was to baptize and enfranchise the two hundred and fifty serfs. He found 
 five or six Irish monks established between the forest and the sea at 
 Bosham ; and this monastery and the newer foundation at Selsey were 
 afterwards united in the Bishopric of Chichester. Lappenberg quotes the 
 
Origins of English History. 3 S3 
 
 The charters relating to the See of Chichester show 
 that Sussex was divided into several petty kingdoms, 
 before it sank into the position of a duchy under the 
 Mercian kings.^ The Chroniclers however confine them- 
 selves to the wars of the first invasion. " In the year 477 
 came /Elle with his three sons to Cymen's-Ore, and there 
 they slew many Welsh, and some they drove into the 
 forest called Andred's-Lea : and when eight years had 
 passed they fought again at a place called Markrede's- 
 Burn." After six years more they encamped against 
 Anderida, a fortre'ss which had been erected for the 
 defence of the " Saxon Shore," and destroyed it so utterly 
 that "not one single Briton there was left alive." ^ 
 
 life of St. Wilfrid by .^dde for a description of the condition of the 
 country : " provincia gentilis qu» prse rupium multitudine at silvarum 
 densitate aliis provinciis inexpugnabilis exstitit." Hist. Engl. i. c. 7. 
 
 1 The following grants are printed by Kemble. Nothelm, King of the 
 South-Saxons, with the assent of Wattus, an under-king or " sub-regulus," 
 gives 38 " householders' lands " to the Princess Nothgith in a.d. 692. Cod. 
 Diplom. 995. King Nunna grants to the monks of Selsey the lands of four 
 holdings in one place and of four households in another : " in Herotbnum 
 4 manentes et Braclassham-stede 4 cassatos,'' ibid. 999. Nunna with the 
 assent of Wattus gives 20 hides or " tributaries' lands " to the Bishop, ibid. 
 1000. The kings Nunna and Osmund grant " ahquantulam terram, id est 
 quatuor tributarios" to Berhfrid who had given himself and all his 
 possessions to the Bishop; and his release is added, ibid. looi. Osmund 
 gives twelve hides of arable with certain woodlands and appurtenances : 
 "id est 12 tributarios terrae quae appellatur Ferring cum totis ad eam perti- 
 nentibus campis silvis pratis fluminibus fontanis et silvatica Coponora et 
 Tidesham." ibid. 108. The same King with his several " Dukes " gives 
 15 hides to St. Peter's Church, " aliquantulam terram in loco qui dicitur 
 Hanefeld 15 manentium," ibid. 1009: and eighteen hides, "decern et 
 octo manentes" at Wystrings, ibid. loio. In the year 780 a grant to the 
 Church is made by " Oslac Duke of the South-Saxons," and is confirmed 
 by Olfa King of Mercia. 
 
 ^ A. S. Chron. am. 477, 485, 491. The three sons of .^lle were 
 
3^4 Origins of English History. 
 
 The sack of Anderida is a sign of the blind ferocity 
 which distinguished the first invasions. A few ruins near 
 Pevensey were long shown to travellers as all that re- 
 mained of the "noble city."'' Many of the towns and 
 castles were doubtless burned and uprooted by the rough 
 tribes who made their homes in the forest, for the new 
 comers hated the life of cities and dwelt like their fore- 
 fathers in hamlets scattered along the banks of a stream or 
 in the glades of a favourite wood.*^ Some of the towns 
 which were spared at first fell afterwards in the civil wars, 
 and many more were left in contemptuous neglect to 
 crumble in the wind and the rain. But the English kings 
 as time went on learned to hold their courts in the 
 fortresses, to choose an ancient city for a metropolis, to 
 grant a Roman town to a favourite retainer, or to set up 
 their own farmsteads on the ruins of the desolated palaces.^ 
 
 called Cymen, Wlencing, and Cissa. The name of the last is preserved 
 in that of " Cissanceastir " or Chichester, formerly the City of the 
 Regni. 
 
 1 " Ita urbem destruxerunt quod nunquam postea reaedificata est ; locus 
 tantum quasi nobilissims urbis transeuntibus ostenditur desolatus." Henr, 
 Hunt. ii. 10. 
 
 ^ Tac. Germ. c. 165 Ammian. Marcell. xvi. 2, 12. 
 
 8 See Bede's notices of the metropolitan cities : of Canterbury, Hist. 
 Eccl. i. 25, 26, 33 : of London, ibid. i. 29, ii. 3 : of York, ibid. i. 29, 
 ii. 14, 20 : of Winchester, ibid. iii. 7, v. 18 : of royal "villee" established in 
 Roman towns, at " Derventio," ibid. ii. 9 : at " Cataracta " or Catterick, 
 ibid. ii. 14, iii. 14: at " Campodunum," /fo'^. ii. 14: at the station "Ad 
 Murum," ibid. iii. 22 : and his account of Dunwich and Lincoln, ibid. ii. 
 15, 16: of Othona or " Ythan-caestir," ibid. iii. 22: and of "Calcaria," 
 ibid. iv. 23. Among the towns given to soldiers were " Cnobhere's-burg,'' 
 the Roman station at Burgh Castle, in which a monastery was afterwards 
 established, ibid, iii. 19. The Roman station at Reculver was also given 
 to a monastery, ibid. v. 8. See the list of towns in Kemble's " Saxons in 
 England," ii. 550. Compare Bede's account of the foundation of the 
 
Origins of English History, 385 
 
 The people as they became more civilized began to 
 regard these remnants of the past with feelings of wonder 
 and regret. Their poets lamented the destruction of " the 
 joyous halls," of the ruined towers and bare walls coated 
 with frost. " The old time has fled and is lost under 
 night's dark veil." The elegy called "The Ruin" tells 
 how such a castle fell, as the towers of Anderida had 
 fallen, and how the earth was shaken as the furnaces of 
 the baths exploded in flame and steam. "Wondrous the 
 wall-stone that Weird hath broken . . . the roof-tree riven, 
 the gray gates dfespoiled. Often that wall withstood 
 RcCghar and Readfih, chieftain after chieftain rising in 
 storm. Bright was the burgh-place and many the princely 
 halls, and high was the roof of gold . . . And the court is 
 dreary, and the crowned roof lies low in the shadow of 
 the purple arch. Princes of old time joyous and gold- 
 bright and splendidly- decked, proud and with wine elate, 
 in war-gear shone. They looked on their treasures, on 
 silver and gems and on stones of price, and on this bright 
 burgh of their broad realm. The stone court stands, the 
 hot stream hath whelmed it, there where the bath was hot 
 on the breast."^ 
 
 See of Rochester: "Justum . . . ordinavit in civitate Dorubrevi quam 
 gens Anglorum a primario quondam illius, qui dicebatur Hrof, Hrofes- 
 caestre cognominat." Hist. Eccl. ii. 3. The derivation is omitted in the 
 English version, and other forms of the word indicate that "Hrof" was an 
 imaginary person. See Ethelbert's charter of April 28th, a.d. 604, in 
 which he grants lands, "in Hrofi-brevi" near the " Southgate-street " and 
 the "Broadgate." Kemble, Cod. Diplom. i. 
 
 1 The extracts are translated from the poems in the Exeter Book 
 ascribed to "Cynewulf." Thorpe, Cod. Exon. 292, 476, 478. The 
 characteristic alliteration has been preserved as far as was practicable 
 tor the personification of "Weird" or Destiny, see Kemble, Saxons in 
 
 2 C 
 
386 Origins of English History. 
 
 We now pass to the rise of the House of Cerdic and the 
 foundation of the little states of the "Gevissai" which in 
 course of time were united in the West-Saxon kingdom. 
 The country appears to have been occupied by indepen- 
 dent bands of settlers who governed themselves at first 
 according to the democratic forms to which they had been 
 accustomed at home. The Continental Saxons in the time 
 of Bede were still governed by a great number of chief- 
 tains, each managing the affairs of a province or district 
 and having authority over the reeves or head-men of the 
 villages : when a war broke out one of the number was 
 chosen by lot to lead the national forces, but on the return 
 of peace they all became equal again.'' The system 
 resembled in many respects the institutions described by 
 Tacitus : for even in the states which were ruled by kings 
 the chieftains arranged the smaller matters of government, 
 and had the task of carrying out what the people decided 
 in their national assemblies, and we are told that some of 
 the chieftains were elected at the same assemblies to 
 administer justice in the country-districts and villages, each 
 -having with him a hundred assessors or "companions" to 
 give advice and to add authority to his decisions.^ The 
 
 England, i. 400 : " it shall befall us as Weird decideth, the lord of every 
 man." The Fates are the "weird sisters." Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 377. 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. v. 10. The "Old Saxons" here described were 
 established in the neighbourhood of the Rhine. Their customs were not 
 in all respects similar to those of their English kindred. Will. Malmesb. 
 Gesta. i. 80. 
 
 3 Tac. Germ. 11, 13. The district or "pagus" administered by the 
 chieftain may be regarded as the original " shire," which as the kingdoms in- 
 creased in size became the subdivision of a larger Shire, and in course of time 
 acquired the Prankish name of " Centena " or Hundred. The county-court 
 on this view represents the national assernbly of an extinct Kingdom, and 
 the hundred-court the assembly of one of its original districts. 
 
Origins of English History. 387 
 
 English of the Southern Settlements soon adopted a 
 fashion, which the Franks had introduced as soon as they 
 had occupied the country round Tongres and Cambray, 
 and chose kings from their noblest families to rule the 
 states and shires.^ 
 
 A later age attributed the whole credit of the West- 
 Saxon conquests to the great princes in whose family the 
 supremacy was finally established ; and we may assume in 
 fact that the kings of the smaller districts would be 
 subordinate to the military head of the nation in all that 
 concerned the repulse of an invasion or the levying of 
 external war. The Chroniclers show us the coming of 
 two chieftains from the Elbe, Cerdic and his son Cynric, 
 born of the line of Balder the Fair, the brightest of the 
 offspring of Woden.^ We are told in one account that 
 
 1 "Tradunt . . . (Francos) primum quidem littora Rheni amnis in- 
 coluisse: dehinc transacto Rheno Thoringiam transmeisse ibique juxta 
 pagos vel civitates reges crinitos super se creavisse de primt et, ut dicitur, 
 nobiliori suoruni familia." Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, ii. 9. The English 
 nobles and free-men were all " long-haired," and the kings were distin- 
 guished by a circlet of gold worn round the head. Kemble,- Saxons in 
 England, i. 155. Three under-kings concur in a grant by the King of 
 Surrey. Cod. Diplom. 987. There were apparently seven kings in Kent 
 at the same time, ibid. 151. We are told that Edwin "went against the 
 West-Saxons and there slew five kings." A. S. Chron. anno 626. Compare 
 Bede's account of the succession of the Kings of Wessex: "acceperunt 
 subreguli regnum gentis et divisum inter se tenuerunt annis circiter decern." 
 Hist. Eccl. iv. 12. 
 
 ^ With respect to this claim of divine descent we may use the saying of 
 William of Malraesbury. " Possem hoc loco istius (Idse) et alibi aliorum 
 lineam seriatim intexere, nisi quod ipsa vocabula barbarum quiddam 
 stridentia minus quam vellem delectationis lecturis infunderent. Illud 
 tantum non immerito notandum, quod cum Wodenio fuerint tres filii, 
 Weldegius, Withlegius, Beldegius: de primo reges Cantuaritarum ; de 
 secundo, Merciorum; de tertio, West-Saxonum et Northanhimbrorum, 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 Origins of English History. 
 
 they fought on the day of their landing against a large 
 force which had been assembled in expectation of their 
 coming, the Saxons standing firm in front of the ships on 
 the beach, and the Britons exhausting themselves in vain 
 attempts to break the pirates' line.^ We are shown the 
 spot where they disembarked, by a headland at the mouth 
 of a stream that falls into Southampton Bay,^ and can 
 trace their advance along the coast, the places where they 
 fought in the forest and by the ford on the Avon, and their 
 overthrow of the King in whom some have recognised the 
 majestic figure of Ambrosius. " Now came two Aldormen 
 
 praeter duos . . . originem traxerint." Gesta, i. 44. And again of Hen- 
 gist and Horsa he says : " erant abnepotes illius antiquissirai Woden, de 
 quo omnium penfe barbararum gentium regium genus lineam trahit," ibid. 
 i. 5. " Bseldeg " is the Balder of the Scandinavian mythology. Grimm, 
 Deutsch. Mythol. 202. For places in England named after this god, as 
 Baldersby, Balderston, and the like, see Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 
 363, and Ethelred's grant of land near " Balder's-Lea " in Wiltshire, Cod. 
 Diplom. 1059. 
 
 1 " Insulani audacter in eos irruebant et sine persecutione revertebantur, 
 advenis quippe nunquam locum deserentibus : sic irruendo et redeundo 
 bellatum est, donee noctis tenebrae Htem diremerunt. Inventis igitur 
 Saxonibus asperis, Brittanni se retraxerunt et neutra ex parte habita est 
 victoria." Henr. Hunt. ii. 11. 
 
 ">■ " Cerdic's-Ore " is supposed to be a headland at the mouth of the 
 River Itchin. The compound "ore" in such words as Cymen's-Ore and 
 Cerdic's-Ore means " a slip of land between two waters," at the mouth of a 
 river or the outlet of a lake. Laing, Sea-kings of Norway, i. 119; Kemble, 
 Cod. Diplom. 88, 123, 346, 441, 597. Gaimar, Hist. Engl. 822, speaks 
 of Cerdic's-ore as a place known in his time : 
 
 " Cerdic od son navire 
 Arriva a Certesore 
 Un moncel ki pert uncore : 
 LcL arriva il e sonfiz 
 Engleis PappeUerent Chenriz ; 
 Hors e Henges fu lur ancestre 
 Sicom conte la Veraie Geste." 
 
Origins of English History. 389 
 
 to Britain Cerdic and his son Cynric with five ships, at a 
 place called Cerdic's-Ore, and on that same day they fought 
 against the Welsh : and after twelve years they slew a 
 British king whose name was Natanleod and with him five 
 thousand men : and after that the country was called 
 Natan-Lea as far as Cerdic's-Ford : and when eleven 
 years had passed, they took upon them the kingdom of the 
 West-Saxons, and in the same year they fought once more 
 with the Britons at the place called Cerdic's-Ford : and 
 ever since then the royal race of the West-Saxons has 
 reigned."^ "And on that day," says the historian, "a great 
 blow fell upon the dwellers in Albion, and greater yet had 
 it been but for the sun going down, and the name of 
 Cerdic was exalted, and the fame of his wars and of the 
 wars of his son Cynric was noised throughout the land."^ 
 
 We shall not linger over the monotonous tale of con- 
 quest and shall only cite one more description, taken as it 
 is supposed from some lost Chronicle of the Jutes, which 
 shows again how the exploits of the lesser chieftains were 
 used to augment the renown of Cerdic, as Arthur has 
 attracted to his name the exploits of a whole age of 
 chivalry or as Roland towers above his peers in the cycle 
 of Carolingian romance. We are told that in the year 514 
 " came West-Saxons with three ships to the place called 
 Cerdic's-Ore," where Stuf and Wihtgar, the chieftains of 
 the Jutes, fought with the Britons and put their army to 
 
 1 A. S. Chron. ann, 495, 508, 519. In the year 527 the two kings 
 fought another battle in " Cerdic's-Lea " which is thought to be Bernwood 
 Forest, and in 530 "they took the Isle ofWight and slew many men at 
 Wihtgar' s-Burg." The name of the British king is continued in those of 
 several places near the New Forest, as Netton and Netley. Compare the 
 form " Natan-grafum " or " Netgrove," Kemble, Cod. Diplom. 90. 
 
 ' Henr. Hunt. ii. 17. 
 
39C Origins of English History. 
 
 flight. " Now in the early dawn the Britons had drawn 
 up their forces in most perfect battle-array : and while they 
 moved slowly and cautiously on, some by the mountain 
 and some by the plain, lo ! the sun arose and smote with 
 his rays on their gilded shields so that the hills shone all 
 aroimd and the air gleamed : and the Saxons feared with 
 a great fear as they drew on to battle. But when the 
 shock of meeting came, the strength of the Britons was 
 broken, because God had contemned them : and the victory 
 of the Saxons became manifest and their chieftains took 
 the country far and wide, and through their deeds the 
 strength of Cerdic became terrible, and he passed through 
 all the land in his dreadful might."^ 
 
 The greatness of Wessex begins in the victories of 
 Ceawlin, the "wonder of the English" and the hated 
 destroyer of the Britons, renowned for his long predomi- 
 nance over all the English states and for the tragic disaster 
 in which his kingdom and his life were lost.^ 
 
 1 Henr. Hunt. ii. 14. Stuf and Wihtgar are called the nephews of 
 Cerdic, whose sister may have been married to a Jutish prince. It is 
 possible however that interpolations were made in the Chronicle to adapt 
 it to the history of the royal family of Wessex. The line of Stuf and 
 Wihtgar ruled in the Isle of Wight till the slaughter of the sons of King 
 Arvald in a.d. 686, when the islanders were converted to Christianity. 
 Bede, Hist. Eccl. iv. i6. Their family is mentioned in Asser's Life of 
 Alfred : " His mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac chief-butler to King 
 Ethelwulf : he was a ' Goth ' (Jute) by nation, descended from the ' Goths' 
 and Jutes, of the seed of Stuf and Wihtgar, two brothers who were dukes, 
 and who, having received possession of the Isle of Wight from Cerdic 
 their uncle and his son Cynric, slew the few British inhabitants whom 
 they could find in that island at a place called Whitgara-burgh (Caris- 
 brook) : for the other inhabitants of the island had either been slain or 
 had escaped into exile." Vita Alfred. 3. 
 
 2 " In the year 552," says the English Chronicle, " Cynric fought against 
 the Britons at a place called Searo-burh (Old Sarum) and put them to flight 
 
Ongins of English Hhtory. 391 
 
 He first appears as a leader of the armies of his father 
 Cynric at the Battle of " Barbury Hill," where the Britons 
 so nearly retrieved their fortunes by adopting the Roman 
 discipline. They formed, it is said, in nine lines, three in 
 the van and three for the supports, the rest being posted 
 in the rear : the archers and javelin-men were thrown out 
 in the front, and each flank was guarded by cavalry in 
 imitation of the tactics which had been used in the 
 Imperial legions. " But the Saxons formed all in one line 
 together, and charged boldly on and fought it out with 
 their swords amid the falling banners and breaking spears, 
 until the evening came on and the victory still remained 
 doubtful." 1 
 
 A success, gained by Cuthwulf the king's brother, gave 
 to the West-Saxons the command of the Upper Thames 
 and of the rich Vale of Aylesbury, so that their territories 
 covered all the districts now included in Buckinghamshire 
 and Oxfordshire.* A few years afterwards three British 
 kings were slain at the decisive battle of Deorham, and the 
 fortresses of Bath, Cirencester, and Gloucester fell into the 
 hands of the English.' It was to these exploits that 
 
 . . . and in the year 556 Cynric and Ceawlin fought against the Britons 
 at Beranburh (Barbury Hill) . . . and in the year 570 Ceawlin succeeded 
 to the kingdom of the West-Saxons." William of Malmesbury describes 
 Ceawlin as the ruin of his friends and of his foes : "Cujus spectatissimum 
 in proeliis robur annales ad invidiam efferunt, quippe qui fuerit Anglis 
 stupori, Britonibus odio, utrisque exitio.'' Gesta. i. 17. 
 
 ^ Henr. Hunt. ii. 23. 
 
 ' A. S. Chron. ann. 571. "Now Cutha {aliter 'Cuthwulf') fought 
 against the Britons at Bedford and took four towns.'' These places are 
 usually identified with Lenborough a hamlet near Buckingham, Aylesburyj 
 Bensington, and Ensham. Kemble, Saxons in Engl. ii. 295. Guest's 
 Early English Settlements, Archaol (Salisbury, 1849) T^- 
 
 ' A. S. Chron. ann. 577. "Now Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against 
 
392 Origins of English History. 
 
 Ceawlin owed that dignity of " Bretwalda," which ^lle 
 before him had gained by the destruction of Anderida : 
 and, whatever may have been the meaning of the title, it 
 is clear that it imported at least a leadership, if not an 
 imperial supremacy, over all the neighbouring territories.^ 
 It is supposed that Ceawlin or his lieutenants passed up 
 the Valley of the Severn soon after the Battle of Deorham, 
 and destroyed the great fortress of " Uriconium " which at 
 that time formed the capital of the kings of Powys. The 
 English, according to the elegy which is attributed to 
 Llywarch the Aged, marched from Pengwern near Shrews- 
 bury to the "lusty white town" by the Wrekin. The poet 
 mourns over the death of the King Cyndylan and the 
 gloom of his deserted halls. " The Eagle of Pengwern 
 with his gray and horny beak, loud is his scream and 
 hungry for flesh, loud is his clamour and hungry for the 
 
 the Britons, and they slew three kings, Commail and Condidan and 
 Farinmail at the place which is called Deorham, and took three cities 
 from them, Gloucester and Cirencester and Bath." " Deorham " is now 
 Derham in Gloucestershire. The descent of Farinmail King of Builth is 
 traced to Vortigern in " Nennius." Hist. Brit. 49. 
 
 1 Freeman, Norm. Conqu. i. 27. Opinions differ as to the meaning 
 of the word Bretwalda. Palgrave and Lappenberg take it as equivalent 
 to " ruler of Britain " : Kemble construes it " broad-ruling," and sees in it 
 a dignity without duty, hardly more than an " accidental predominance." 
 Saxons in England, ii. 18. The list of those who obtained this " ducatus" 
 includes Ethelbert of Kent, who broke the power of the petty kings as far 
 as the Humber, Redbald of East Anglia who obtained it by some means 
 even in the lifetime of Ethelbert, and the three great Northumbrian kings, 
 Edwin, Oswald and Oswy, whose supremacy however did not extend to 
 Kent. The Chronicle adds the name of Egbert of Wessex, in whose case 
 the name was probably used vaguely as an ornamental title of dignity. 
 Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 5. " Now Egbert subdued the kingdom of the 
 Mercians and all that was south of the Humber, and he was the eighth 
 king who was Brytermialda.^' A. S. Chron. ann. 827. 
 
Origins of English History. 393 
 
 flesh of Cyndylan ! " And he laments over the ruined 
 towers, the broken shields and blood upon the fallows, and 
 the churches burning beside the red clover fields.^ 
 
 Seven years after the Battle of Deorham, CeawHn and 
 his son Cutha fought again with the Welsh on the upper 
 waters of the Severn : " and Cutha there was slain : and 
 Ceawlin took many towns and unnumbered spoil, and 
 wrathful he returned to his own."^ It is to this time that 
 we may attribute the founding of the little kingdoms of 
 which the boundaries were long preserved in those of the 
 Bishoprics of Hereford and Worcester.' The West- 
 Saxons had extended their conquests far beyond the line 
 of the Thames and the Somersetshire Avon to which they 
 were afterwards restricted, and within a generation after 
 Ceawlin's death these northern territories had passed to 
 the Kings of Mercia.* 
 
 1 Llywarch's Elegy is preserved in the "Red Book of Hergest." It 
 was translated by Dr. Guest, Archmol. Cambr. ix. 142, and is printed at 
 ■length in- Skene's "Four Ancient Books of Wales," i. 448, 451, ii. 445. 
 Several legends of Ceawlin's wars with the Welsh are preserved in the 
 " Book of Llandaff," including an account of a defeat on the Wye by a 
 king called from his hermitage to drive away the invaders with his 
 "resistless glance." Lib. Lland. 133, 134. 
 
 *■ A. S. Chron. anno 584. The battle was fought at " Fethan-lea," 
 which is thought to be Frethern in the Valley of the Severn. 
 
 ' The Kingdoms of the " Hwiccas " corresponded in extent with the 
 old Diocese of Worcester, and the state of the "Hecanas" with the 
 Bishopric of Hereford. Even in the small territory of the Hwiccas there 
 were several kings at the same time. Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 150. 
 
 * Mr. Freeman considers that the "cession of the country of the 
 Hwiccas and Ceawlin's other conquests north of the Avon " was made in 
 the year 628, and cites the Chronicle for that year : " Now Cynegils and 
 Cwichelm fought with Penda at Cirencester and made an agreement 
 there." Wessex was freed from the dominion of Mercia by the victory of 
 Cuthred over Ethelbald at Burford in the year 752. Dr. Plot gave the 
 
394 Origins of English History. 
 
 The reign of Ceawlin was closed by defeat and disaster. 
 A coalition was formed against him between the Welsh 
 enemy and his own discontented subjects : and it is 
 thought that the plot was instigated by Ethelbert of Kent, 
 who had once been defeated by Ceawlin and was now to 
 succeed to his supremacy.^ The forces of the King of 
 Wessex were driven across the Wiltshire Downs, and we 
 are told that " there was a great slaughter on the Woden' s- 
 Hill, and Ceawlin was driven into exile, and in the next 
 year he died." ^ 
 
 At the end of the 6th century Wessex had been restored 
 
 following account of a local custom by which this battle was supposed to 
 have been commemorated. "Cuthred met and overthrew him there, 
 winning his banner, whereon was depicted a golden dragon ; in memory 
 of which victory the custom of making adragon yearly and carrying it up 
 and down the town in great jollity on Midsummer Eve, to which they 
 added the picture of a giant, was in all likelihood first instituted." Nat. 
 Hist. Oxford. 348. The custom is much more likely to have had a 
 heathen origin and to have been connected with the worship of Freyr or 
 Balder. . 
 
 1 Will. Malmesb. Gesta, i. 17. See the authorities cited by Lappenberg, 
 Hist. Engl. i. c. 7. The Kentish king was defeated by the West-Saxons 
 in the first year of his reign. "In this year Ceawlin and his brother 
 Cutha fought against Ethelbert and drove him into Kent : and slew two 
 Aldormen, Oslaf and Cnebba, at Wibban-dfln" (Wimbledon). A. S. Chron. 
 anno 568. 
 
 2 A. S. Chron. ann. 592, 593. The place of the battle is uncertain. 
 The Chronicle calls it " Woddesbeorg," Florence of Worcester "Wodnes- 
 beorh id est Mons Wodeni," and William of Malmesbury places it at 
 "Wodnesdic," now called the Wansdyke. It was probably fought at 
 Wanborough in Wiltshire. Woden, having been early identified with 
 Mercury, was worshipped "by the road-sides and high hills": see the 
 instances collected by Kemble, Saxons in Engl. i. c. 12, and the Con- 
 tinental examples in Grimm's Deutsch. Mythol. c. 7. Compare Hasted's 
 description of the Tumulus at Woodnesborough near Sandwich, where the 
 neighbouring hamlet of " Cold Friday " retains a trace of the name of the 
 goddess who was "Woden's wife." Hist. Kent, iv. 230. 
 
Origins of English History. 395 
 
 in dignity and importance by Ceolwulf, another prince of 
 Cerdic's line, who began to reign in the year of Augustine's 
 mission, and who fought and strove continually " against 
 Angles and Welsh and against the Picts and Scots. "^ 
 
 The power of Ethelbert was predominant in the East 
 as far as the borders of Northumbria. The states of the 
 East-Saxons acknowledged the supremacy of his nephew 
 Saeberht : but he enjoyed no real independence, in spite of 
 his dignity as the descendant of "Saxnoth'" and as the 
 nominal master of London.'^ The two East-Anglian 
 " Folks" were governed by Redwald the Uffing, a prince 
 at that time subordinate like the rest to King Ethelbert, 
 
 1 A. S. Chron. anno 597. Ceolwulf died in 611, and was succeeded by 
 Cynegils, in whose reign Wessex was converted to Christianity by the 
 labours of Birinus. The Bishop was sent to the parts "beyond the 
 English " where no preacher had ever gone before ; " sed Brittaniam 
 perveniens ac Gevissorum gentem ingrediens, cum omnes ibidem paganis- 
 simos inveniret, utilius esse ratus est ibi potius verbum prsedicare." Bede, 
 Hist. Eccl. iii. 7. 
 
 ^ See Bede's account of the conversion of Essex by Mellitus : " pro- 
 vincise Orientalium Saxonum quorum metropolis Lundonia civitas est 
 .... in qui videlicet gente Saberct, nepos CEdilbercti ex sorore Ricula, 
 regnabat quamvis sub potestate positus ejusdem CEdilbercti." Hist. Eccl. 
 ii. 3. According to some accounts Ercenwine or CEscwine was the first 
 to acquire the supreme power over all the East-Saxon communities. 
 William of Malmesbury considered that Sledda, father of S^berht, who 
 died in 597, was the first who could be said to have reigned: "Primus 
 apud eos regnavit Sledda, a Wodenio decimus." Gesta, i. 98. His 
 fabled genealogy is traced in the Appendix to the Chronicle of Florence 
 of Worcester. Saxnoth was a god of the Continental Saxons and was one 
 of the three deities mentioned in the " Renunciation " which was imposed 
 on them after their defeat by the Franks. He is usually identified with 
 " Tiw," to whom Tuesday or " Dies Martis " was appropriated. Grimm, 
 Deutsch. Mythol. 184. For names of places derived from him, see 
 Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 351 ; Cod. Diplom. iii. introd. Compare 
 the name " Tiowulfinga-caestir," Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii, i6. 
 
396 Origins of English History. 
 
 but destined within a few years to succeed to his wide 
 prerogative.^ The great Kingdom of Mercia was not yet 
 constituted; in its place stood a number of independent 
 states of which little more than the names has been 
 preserved. There were " North-Gyrvians" round Peter- 
 borough, and " South-Gyrvians " in the Cambridgeshire 
 Fens.^ The kings of the " Lindisfaras " ruled the region of 
 Lindsey near Lincoln and claimed a descent from " Winta" 
 another of the sons of Woden. The North-Mercians, who 
 became in time the masters of all the rest, were at this 
 time holding the March-lands against the Welshmen of 
 Loidis and Elmet ;^ and there w^ere Angles besides of 
 the West and South, and Middle- Anglians whose country 
 was conterminous with the ancient Diocese of Leicester, 
 and " Peak-settlers " and " Chiltern-settlers " and many 
 other tribes whose positions can no longer be identified.* 
 
 1 The settlement of East Anglia is said to have begun in the year 526, 
 but there was no "head-king" before 571 when the dynasty of the Uffings 
 was founded by Offa the grandfather of Redwald. William of Malmes- 
 bury treats Redwald as the first who could be called a king : " Primus 
 idemque maximus apud Orientales Anglos rex fuit Redwaldus, a Wodenio 
 ut scribunt decimum genu nactus : omnes quippe australes Anglorum at 
 Saxonum provinciae citrk Humbram fluvium cum suis regibus ejus nutum 
 spectabant.'' Gesta, i. 97. 
 
 ^ Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 83, 84. These districts were a border- 
 land belonging in part to the East Anglians and in part to the Gyrvians. 
 Great numbers of Britons seem to have taken refuge in the " wild fens," if 
 we may rely on the monastic complaints of the continual incursions of 
 "Welsh thieves." Vita Guthlac. Acta Sanct., April, ii. 43; History of 
 Ramsay, 444 ; Palgrave, Engl. Comm. i. 462. The genealogy of the Kings 
 of Lindsey is preserved in the Appendix to the Chronicle of Florence of 
 Worcester. 
 
 ^ Elmet was an independent British state near Leeds, which was long 
 dependent on the Kingdom of Westmere or Westmoreland ; its last king 
 was expelled by Edwin of Northumbria. Nennius, Hist. Brit. 63. 
 
 * Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 80, 84 ; Freeman, Norm. Conqu. i. 25, 
 
Origins of English History. 397 
 
 The foundation of Mercia was the work of the valiant 
 Penda, the last champion of paganism and the destroyer of 
 so many of the Christian kings. " Like a wolf in the 
 sheep-fold," it was said, "he arose and raged against 
 them." He perished in the year 655 at the Battle of 
 Winwidfield, " and with him thirty royal leaders fell and 
 some of them were kings " : " and in Winwid's stream," 
 according to the ancient__song, "the death of Anna was 
 avenged, and the deaths of Sigbert and Egrice, and the 
 deaths of St. Oswald and Edwin the Fair."^ 
 
 Somewhat more is known of the early history of North- 
 umbria. The pedigree of King Edwin shows how his 
 ancestor " Saemil son of Sigefugel " first divided Bernicia 
 from Deira.^ Both countries were governed by judges, 
 presiding over ten associated districts, until Ida set up a 
 kingdom in Bernicia, and built himself a royal city at 
 Bamborough " which at first was enclosed by a hedge and 
 
 37. Compare also the list called "Numerus Hidaruvi " under "Hida " 
 in Spelman's Glossary, and Gale, i. 748. 
 
 1 There were kings of the North-Mercians before Penda : but he was 
 the first ruler of the united Midland Kingdom. Henr. Hunt. Hist. Angl. 
 ii. 27; Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 14. "Penda quidam a Wodenio decimus, 
 stirpe inclytus, bellis industrius, idemque fanaticus at impius, apud 
 Mercios regis nomen prsesumpsit . . . Quid enim non auderet qui lumina 
 Britannias Edwinum et Oswaldum reges Northanhimbrorum, Sigebertum 
 Egricum Annam reges Orientalium Anglorum, in quibus generis claritas 
 et vitas sanctitas conquadrabant, temeritate nefarii exstinxit?" Will. 
 Malmesb. Gesta, i. 74. Compare Henry of Huntingdon: "insurrexit 
 igitur exercitui perituro regis Annse, insurrexit et infrenduit, ' Ut lupus ad 
 
 caulas Sic super attonitos fertur Rex Penda propinquos.' Devorati 
 
 sunt igitur Anna rex et exercitus ejus ore gladii in momento." Hist. Angl. 
 ii. 33. Penda came to the throne in the year 626, and was killed at the 
 battle on the Are or "Winwed" near Leeds in the year 655. 
 
 ' See the "genealogies" appended to the history of Nennius. Hist. 
 Brit. 56, 57, 62. 
 
398 Origins of English History. 
 
 afterwards by a wall."^ In those days, we are told, a 
 prince called Dutigirn fought bravely against the nation of 
 the Angles, and Aneurin and Taliesin and Llywarch the 
 Aged became famous for their bardic poems. The elegies 
 ascribed to their names, of which the substance remains 
 though the form and language have been modernised, 
 contain allusions to many incidents in the wars of the 
 Britons with the Bernicians. We are shown Theodoric 
 "the Flame-bearer," one of Ida's sons, advancing with four 
 hosts to fight with the Princes of Annandale : the " Death- 
 song of Owain" bewails the death at the Flame-bearer's 
 hands of "the chieftain of the glittering West"; and the 
 minstrel boasts over the white-haired Saxons, and sings 
 the praises of Urbgen, chief of the thirteen kings who 
 commanded the armies of the North.^ 
 
 Another kingdom was founded in Deira by ^lle the 
 father of Edwin : but on his death the whole of North- 
 umbria was seized by ^thelfrith the Cruel. " Of him," 
 writes Bede, "it might be said that like Benjamin he 
 should ravin as a wolf, and that in the morning he should 
 devour the prey and at night divide the spoil ; for never in 
 the time of the Tribunes and never in the time of the 
 Kings did any one by conquering or driving out the 
 Britons bring more of their lands under tribute or make 
 them empty for the habitation of the Angles." * In the 
 
 1 A. S. Chron. anno 547. For Ida's pedigree see the same passages, and 
 Will. Malmesb. Gesta, i. 44. There was a king of Bamborough as late as 
 the reign of Athelstane. A. S. Chron. anno 926. 
 
 ^ Skene, Four Anc. Books, 348, 350, 366. 
 
 8 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 34; Nennius, Hist. Brit. 63. .(Ethelfrith, sur- 
 named by the Welsh "Flesaurs" or "the Destroyer," was son of 
 ^thelric, one of the sons of Ida, who in 588 had succeeded in his old age 
 to the inheritance which ^lle had usurped. Will. Malmesb. Gesta, i, 46. 
 
Origins of English History. 399 
 
 year 606 he led an army to the Dee and slew " unnum- 
 bered Britons" and desolated the City of Legions : "and 
 so," it was said, "was fulfilled the word of Augustine, that 
 if the Welsh will not be at peace with us they shall perish 
 at the hands of the Saxons." ^ 
 
 If we try to picture to ourselves the immediate effect of 
 the Conquest and to know how the people lived before 
 their conversion from paganism, we shall find that more is 
 to be learned from the traditions preserved in old poems 
 and Sagas, in charters and records of ancient custom, than 
 from any bead-roll oPthe chiefs and kings whose wars are 
 entered in the Chronicles. The annalist summed up the 
 bare result of the struggle, and was content to note that 
 Port, when he landed at Portsmouth, " slew a noble young 
 prince of the Britons," or that Wihtgar, when his wars 
 were ended, was buried in Wihtg^r's-Burg.^ But in the 
 Song of Beowulf or in the poems of the " Exeter Book," 
 we find the image of an actual conflict. There is the fleet 
 of long war-galleys, swan-necked or dragon-prowed, sailing 
 towards the headlands and " shining cliffs " of Britain : 
 the Warden of the Shore stands with his rustic guard to 
 prevent the landing of the corsairs.^ As the ships are 
 beached the shields are lifted from the gunwale, and the 
 raven-flag is raised that betokens the presence of the war- 
 god; the pirates charge on with their "brown shining 
 swords" and long rough-handled spears, "and over the 
 
 ^ A. S. Chron. anno 606. This was the occasion of the massacre of 
 the monks of Bangor : " there were also slain there two hundred priests 
 who came thither that they might pray for the army of the Welsh." Bede, 
 Hist. Eccl. ii. 2. 
 
 ' A. S. Chron. ann. 501, 530. 
 
 ' Beowulf, 219, 229, 231. 
 
400 Origins of English History. 
 
 face the likeness of a boar, of divers colours, hardened in 
 the fire, to keep the life in safety."' They were ready to 
 ransack a province and to return with their ships filled 
 with " goods from the homesteads of the land-kings," and 
 were equally prepared, if the chance came in their way, to 
 hold the land for themselves, and to send for their families 
 to join them in a new home across the sea. 
 
 Sidonius saw such crews on his visit to King Euric at 
 Bordeaux, and his letters contain bright descriptions of 
 the Saxons, with their faces daubed with blue paint and 
 their hair pushed back to the crown to make the forehead 
 seem larger.^ The masters of the sea appeared shy and 
 awkward among the hosts of courtiers who were devouring 
 the wealth of Aquitania; but when they were once on 
 their clumsy galleys all was turbulence and freedom again. 
 " One would think," said the Bishop, " that each oar's-man 
 was the Arch-pirate himself, for they are all ordering and 
 obeying and teaching and learning at once.'' Their ships 
 were like the half-decked craft which were used by the 
 later Vikings, in which the rowers sat on either side of a 
 long gangway, the best of the fighting-men being posted 
 in the forecastle or round the chieftains on the quarter- 
 deck. In a description of a sea-fight in the North we 
 read how the King steered till the action began, and then 
 sat on deck in his scarlet cloak : and when the swords 
 became notched and blunted " he went down into the fore- 
 
 1 Beowulf, 303, 305, 1229. Compare the account of the customs of the 
 " ^styi " : " they wore the images of wild boars as the sign of their belief 
 in the Mother of the Gods ; and this, as they thought, without the aid of 
 sword or shield, would give safety to the servants of the Goddess, even in 
 the midst of their foes." — Tac. Germ. 45. 
 
 ' Sidon. Apoll. Epist. viii. 3, 13. 
 
Origins of English History. 401 
 
 hold and opened the chests under the throne and took out 
 many sharp swords and handed them to his men." ^ The 
 scene recalls the descriptions of Beowulf and his Thanes, 
 and the simplicity of that ancient time when the chieftain 
 on the ale-bench dealt round to each " companion " a sword 
 or "the blood-stained and conquering spear."^ Historians 
 and poets alike have celebrated the closeness of the tie 
 between the captain of the " free company " and the 
 retainers who in return for their food and equipment 
 were bound to guard him and to fight for his renown, 
 A poem preserved "in the "Exeter Book" describes the 
 misery of an exile who had lost his lord. " When sorrow 
 and sleep," said the Wanderer, " the lonely one bind, his 
 lord in thought he embraces and kisses and on his knee 
 lays his hands and head, as when of old his gifts he 
 enjoyed ; then wakes the friendless one, and sees before 
 him the fallow sea-paths, the ocean-fowl bathing and 
 sprinkling their wings, frost and snow falling mingled with 
 hail, and then all the heavier are the wounds of his heart, 
 and sore after dreaming is sorrow renewed."^ We are 
 shown in the " Germania " the beginnings of the institution 
 which was destined in its later development to change the 
 whole fabric of society. It stood for ratik and power 
 among the nations described by Tacitus to be surrounded 
 by a troop of young men, " their leader's glory in peace 
 and his safeguard in war." The commander of such a 
 band was honoured at home and abroad, and enriched with 
 public gifts, " armlets and raiment and rings." Even the 
 
 ' See the description of the great sea-fight in King Olafs Saga. Heims- 
 kringla, vi. cc. 114, 119; Laing, Sea-kings of Norway, i. 139, 475, 480. 
 ' Tac. Germ. 14; Beow. 2633, 2709. 
 ' Thorpe, Cod. Exon. 286. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 Origins of English History. 
 
 youngf nobles, the " eorls " who might claim to be kinsmen 
 and ministers of the gods, were content to serve under a 
 successful soldier, to live by his bounty, and to take such 
 rank as his favour allowed. " When it came to war, it 
 was shameful for the leader to be excelled in courage or 
 for the followers not to equal their captain in daring. It 
 was a lifelong infamy to quit the field where he fell ; and 
 it was the first and holiest of their duties to guard and 
 protect him and to add their own brave deeds to the 
 credit of his renown."' 
 
 On the conquest of a new territory, a rare event before 
 the disruption of the Western Empire, the leader would 
 naturally reward his followers with gifts of land, if only 
 for the mamtenance of the cattle and slaves that formed 
 their share of the booty. But a conquest would seldom 
 be so complete that all fears of future resistance and all 
 hopes of future plunder were at an end, and while the 
 military relationship subsisted the follower could only hold 
 his estate on the condition of fulfilling his service. On 
 the tenant's death the land must in most cases have re- 
 verted to the lord with the horse and armour and the rest 
 of the warlike equipment which his bounty had provided. 
 The tenant of such a precarious estate could confer no 
 better title on his own dependents ; and thus would arise 
 a class of half-free retainers with nothing that could pro- 
 perly be called their own. The English Thanes or "nobles 
 by service," who in course of time took the place of the 
 " nobles by blood," appear at first as the followers of a 
 successful chieftain to whom land had been allotted as a 
 reward for service. As the chiefs increased in dignity, the 
 
 1 Tac. Germ. 13, 14; Beow. 1195, 1196, 1218. 
 
Origins of English History. 403 
 
 position of their " companions " was altered for the worse. 
 They stood to their lords in the relation of servants bound 
 not only to fight when required, but to ride on errands and 
 to act as butlers and grooms. But in relation to their own 
 tenants they were lords themselves, exacting service and 
 labour and exercising jurisdiction in their turn, so that 
 their estates from the first resembled nothing so much as 
 manors of the mediaeval kind. When the kings learned 
 to imitate the majesty of the Empire, it was natural that 
 their officers and chamberlains should be exalted in a pro- 
 portionate degree ; the power of the prince was multiplied 
 by the gifts which he lavished upon his followers ; and 
 freedom at last disappeared when all lands were holden of 
 some superior power, and every man was bound to have 
 some lord to whom he owed obedience and from whom 
 he might claim protection.' 
 
 The whole country passed in time under the power of 
 the King, the Church, and the Thanes ; and, as the juris- 
 diction of the lords was gradually converted into owner- 
 ship of the lands in their districts, the descendants of the 
 free men fell under onerous rents and services, and in 
 many cases became serfs and bondsmen. Where the tenure 
 was easiest they had to work on their lord's estate or to 
 pay rents of food and other provisions as the usage of the 
 district required : and where it was worst they could call 
 nothing their own, but were taxed high and low as the 
 lord pleased "to redeem their flesh and blood."^ 
 
 • Kemble, "Saxons in England," i. 178, 183; Freeman, Nornx. 
 Conqu. i. 95. 
 
 ' Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 322 ; Cod. Diplom. 461, 1077. See 
 abo the " Rectitudines singularum personarum," in the editions by Thorpe 
 and Leo. For a description of most of the agricultural services, see 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 Origins of English History. 
 
 The degradation of the peasantry began so soon and 
 spread so far that It is difficult to realise the life in the free 
 townships into which the original settlements were divided. 
 We know that the villagers, and even the inhabitants of 
 larger districts, were regarded as groups of kinsmen : and 
 the theory of a blood-relationship may account for such 
 customs as that a change of house should be followed by 
 a feast for the neighbours, or that the next householders 
 should have a preferential claim to the purchase of a 
 vacant copyhold.' The same belief was connected with 
 
 Somner's Treatise on Gavelkind, c. i. The following examples will illus- 
 trate what has been said as to bondage-tenure. In the Pleas of the 
 Curia Regis, Trin. 18 Edw. I. cor. reg. r. 12, this entry occurs: " T. R. 
 is the villein of one Folliott, wherefore the latter can tax him de alio et de 
 basso, and he must pay a fine of merchetum for his flesh and blood " ; the 
 same fine was paid at Aulton in Hampshire by every villein on the 
 marriage of his daughter or the sale of his horse. 14 Joh. r. i, 85. 
 At Fiskerton, in Notts, the custom was for natives and cottagers to 
 plough &c., " and if any ale-wife brewed ale to sell she must pay a fine : 
 if any native or cottager sold a male youngling after it was weaned he 
 paid four-pence to the lord as a fine, or if he killed a swine above a year 
 old he paid a penny ; every she-native that married psfid for the redemption 
 of her blood 5s. 46. to the lord." When any customary tenant at Bury 
 in Salop died, " the Bishop was to have his best beast, all his swine, bees, 
 whole bacon, a young cock, a whole piece of cloth, a brass pan, a runlet 
 of ale, if full, and if he married his daughter out of the fee he was to 
 give three shillings." Hazlitt, Tenures of Land, 45, 123. 
 
 1 This custom is mentioned in the case of Rowles v. Mason, Brownl. i, 
 132 ; ii. 85, 192. " Alaw," says Professor Nasse, " existed in the German 
 villages, by which the villagers had a preference over strangers in the 
 purchase of land, a law which existed in some German towns up to our 
 own times, and has only been abolished by legislation.'' Nasse, "Village 
 Communities," Contemp. Rev. May, 1872, p. 745. The tribal origin of 
 the village societies is indicated by Bede's use of the word " msgth " or 
 " kindred " to signify a province or region, and by the patronymic forms 
 of place-names. " The gelondan, or those who occupied the same land, 
 were taken to be connected by blood. In MS. glossaries we find gelondan 
 
Origins of English History. 405 
 
 the primitive communism by which all the lands in the 
 township were treated as one farm, to be managed by a 
 co-operative husbandry. It is probable that at first there 
 was no individual property except in the actual houses 
 and the little plots enclosed for yards and gardens, though 
 there were enough " hides of land " held as a common 
 stock to support the members of the several households.^ 
 Our common-field system points to a time when all the 
 arable land was held in undivided shares or divided 
 periodically by lot. The ancient English agriculture was 
 nearly identical with that which prevailed in Germany : 
 "the rotation of crops, the times of sowing and lying 
 fallow, the system of manuring and many other agri- 
 cultural customs were the same." Now in several parts 
 of Germany, and especially in the district round Treves, 
 the peasants held all their land in common, excepting the 
 houses and a few private estates ; all the rest of the land 
 was divided by lot, the drawings for the arable having 
 originally been held once in three years but afterwards at 
 
 rendered by fratrueles," Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 89. Compare 
 the use of "maeg-burg" for a village belonging to kinsmen, Beow. 2887. 
 1 The question as to the dimensions of the " hide " has been a fruitful 
 subject of controversy. It was that measure of land which was considered 
 to be sufficient for the support of one family, and its extent varied in 
 every district according to the local custom and according to the quality 
 of the soil. Bede (Hist. Eccl. i. 15.) estimated the contents of the Isle 
 of Thanet at 600 hides, which were afterwards found to contain nearly 
 70 Kentish ploughlands, each containing 210 acres according to the 
 measure used in Thanet. In this instance the " hide " is shown to have 
 contained less than 25 acres. In a poorer district it would contain much 
 more. There was a later use of the word which made it equivalent to a 
 " ploughland," or as much arable as a team of oxen could plough in a year : 
 in this case the " hide " represents quantities varying according to the 
 district from 100 acres to 210 acres. 
 
4o6 Origins of English History. 
 
 longer intervals. It is true that there is hardly any docu- 
 mentary evidence to show that the arable in England was 
 ever divided in this way. But the pasUires, and notably 
 the lot-meadows and dole-moors, were treated as common 
 property : a primitive usage determined the division of 
 the common-fields into strips and blocks, the rotation of 
 the crops, the erection and removal of fences, and the use 
 of the land after harvest by the cattle of the whole com- 
 munity ; we see that the same usages prevailed in the 
 German districts where the ownership was certainly col- 
 lective ; and we are thus led to believe that the English 
 farmers were at first joint-owners of all the arable land as 
 well as of the pastures and waste-grounds in the township.' 
 There are many popular customs of which the origin 
 must be attributed to a time when the villagers were united 
 by the sentiment of partnership and the tradition of a 
 common descent. The pitching and removal of the fences, 
 the admission of a new commoner to the customary privi- 
 
 1 It is said that the Inclosure Commissioners have met with instances 
 of arable which was distributed by lot. See Mr. Blamire's evidence in 
 the report of the Commons Inclosure Committee, 1844. In the Manor of 
 Hackney the arable land appears to have been described as " Terra 
 lottabilis." See on the whole subject, Nasse's Agricultural Community of 
 the Middle Ages, and his Essay already quoted, Contemp. Rev. May, 1872. 
 Compare Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 85, where speaking of the English town- 
 ship, as it appears in historical times, he concludes that " it is in every 
 case either a body of free land-owners who have advanced beyond the 
 stage of land-community, or the body of tenants of a lord who regulates 
 them or allows them to regulate themselves on principles derived from 
 the same source." Sir Henry Maine has pointed out how " the ancient 
 type of ownership long served as the model for tenancy, and the common 
 holdings, dying out as property, survived as occupations." See also his 
 Early History of Institutions, 76, 77, and Mr. Morier's description of the 
 German communities in the " Reports on the tenure of land in different 
 countries,'' pubhshed by the Government in 1869. 
 
Origins of English History. 407 
 
 lege, the drawing for portions in the lot-meadows and 
 dole-moors, were so many occasions for gathering at a 
 rustic feast." It was not unusual for pieces of the common 
 to be let to raise funds for a general ale-drinking ; and in 
 one well-known case the village-council had the disposal 
 of thirteen "home-closes" of meadow, called after the 
 names of such officials as the smith and the constable and 
 the mole-catcher, the price of the grass being paid in some 
 cases to the designated officers and being applied in others 
 to public uses, as to mend bridges and gates, or " to make 
 ale for the merry-meeting of the inhabitants."^ 
 
 Some of the ceremonies were evidently survivals from 
 heathen times, altered in some cases to adapt them to the 
 seasons of the Church and in others bearing more openly 
 the marks of their original paganism. Of the first kind 
 are the May-games and Whitsun-ales, the bringing in of 
 the boar's-head at the Yule-feast, and the singing and 
 drinking at the holy well.' In the latter class we may 
 place the customs of whipping the fruit-trees in Spring, 
 of eating the " Easter-hare," of leaping and clashing swords 
 in the " giants' dance " and calling on the names of Woden 
 
 1 Compare the accounts in Hazlitt's " Tenures of Lands " of the shep- 
 herds' feasts at Hutton-Conyers, the "neighbourhood-feast" at Ripon, and 
 the ceremonies for making " a free-man of the common " at Alnwick, under 
 the names of those places respectively. 
 
 ^ The customs of the township of Cote and Aston are described in the 
 Anhaologia, vol. xxxv. 471, and xxxvii. 383, by Dr. Giles in. his History 
 of Bampton and by Professor Williams in his published lectures, " Rights 
 of Common," Lect. 7. 
 
 ' For the connection of the boar's-head ceremony with the worship of 
 Frea or Freyr, see Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 45 ; Kemble, Sax. i. 357. 
 For descriptions of the Whitsun-feasts at Kidlington and Ratby, and the 
 " Cotsale " on the Cotswold Hills, see Hazlitt's Tenures of Land under 
 the names of the places. 
 
4o8 Origins of English History. 
 
 and Freia.^ To these examples we may add the customs 
 connected with the " Epiphany-fires." In some parts of 
 Gloucestershire twelve of these bonfires were lighted in a 
 row, and round one which was larger than the rest the 
 farm-servants drank and shouted. In Herefordshire the 
 " wassailers " made up twelve small fires and another of a 
 much greater size round which the company passed ; after 
 supper they adjourned to the wain-house where the master 
 pledged the first ox with a customary toast ; " the company 
 followed his example with all the other oxen, addressing 
 each by its name," and a cake in the shape of a ring 
 was placed with many ceremonies on the horns of the 
 principal ox."^ 
 
 1 For the custom of beating the trees for luck, see Hasted's description 
 of " youUng the trees " in Kent, and an account of a similar usagfe at 
 Warlingham in Suffolk, Hazlitt, Tenures, 355. The custom of catching 
 hares at Easter for providing a public meal is best known in Pomerania : 
 English instances are found at Coleshill in Warwickshire and at Hallerton 
 in Leicestershire, ibid. 78, 141. At the latter place the profits of land 
 called Harecrop Leys were applied to providing a meal which was thrown 
 on the ground at the " Hare-pie Bank." These customs were probably con- 
 nected with the worship of the Anglian goddess " Eostre " whose festivals 
 are mentioned by Bede ; " antiqui Anglorum populi, gens mea . . . apud 
 eos aprilis Esturmonath, quondam a dei illorum quae Eostra vocabatur et 
 cui in illo festa celebrantur, nomen habuit." De Temp. Rat. c. 13. 
 March was called " Rhed-monat " from " Hrede," another Anghan goddess, 
 ibid. Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 267, 740, 920. "In some parts of 
 Northern England, in Yorkshire and especially in Hallamshire, popular 
 customs show remnants of the worship of Fricga (Freia). In the neigh- 
 bourhood of Dent at certain seasons of the year, especially in autumn, the 
 country-folk hold a procession and perform old dances, which they call 
 the Giants' Dance: they call the leading giant "Woden" and his wife 
 " Frigga," the principal action of the play consisting in two swords being 
 swung and clashed together about the neck of a boy " &c. ibid. 280, and 
 Stallybrass' Transl. 304. 
 
 2 Gent. Mag. Feb. 1791 ; Hazlitt, Tenures, 131, 156. Similar customs 
 
Origins of English History. 409 
 
 It is probable that many other remnants of paganism 
 might be found in the history of customary rents and 
 services for land, especially in the case of ancient charities 
 where the profits of particular fields are devoted to making 
 cakes impressed with figures of an unknown origin ;^ and 
 we may compare with the flower-rents, in which Grimm 
 saw a heathen practice continued into Christian times, our 
 English instances of ancient rents in the shape of white 
 bulls, white hares, the goose driven round the fire, and a 
 red rose for all services or a chaplet of roses on the Feast 
 of St. John.^ 
 
 are found in Montenegro ; and a wheel-shaped cake called a kolatch 13 
 used in all the Christmas festivities : in certain villages they fix the cake 
 above the threshing-floor; "next they go to the stall where the oxen are 
 sleeping and the husbandman fixes the kolatch on the horn of the ' eldest 
 ox'; if he now throws it off, it is of good omen to the household and the 
 oxen especially will be strong and lusty." Evans, "Christmas and 
 Ancestor-worship in the Black Mountain." Macmill. Mag. Jan. 1881, 233. 
 Similar offerings are made to the " chief goat," and to the fowls and fruit- 
 trees, ibid. 228, 229. 
 
 1 Compare the Twickenham custom described by Lysons, Envir. 
 London, iv. 603, and the distribution at Biddenden in Kent of cakes 
 impressed with the grotesque figures of " the Biddenden Maids." See on 
 the subject of the baked figures, " simulacra de consparsa farina," the 
 Jndiculus Super stitionum, sec. 26, and Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 56. 
 " Nomen placentis in superiore SaxoniS, Fladen, Oster-fladen, quas festis 
 diebus matresfamilias conficiunt.'' Keysler, Antiqu. Septentr. 337. Com- 
 pare his account of the Yule-cakes, ibid. 159, and Bede's description of 
 February as " Soknonath, id est mensis placentarum quas in eo diis suis 
 offerunt." De Temp. Rat. c. 12. 
 
 ' Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 52. For the payment of a white bull, see 
 Hazlitt's Tenures, under the names of Bury St. Edmunds, Lodebrook, 
 and Marlborough, and for the rent of two white hares at Sheffield to be 
 paid on St. John's Day, ibid. 276, and Gent. Mag. xxxiv. 329. For the 
 instance of the goose, see Plot, Hist. Staff. 423. For the rent of the red 
 rose, which was generally payable on the same feast-day, see Hazlitt's 
 Tenures, 21, 57, 125, 295, 323; Rot Pari. i. 100^, x'^U, 179, 4Sia 
 
4IO Origins of English History. 
 
 The sources of information as to the character of the 
 English paganism are of extremely various kinds, com- 
 prising such matters as the ancient forms for the confession 
 of penitents, the laws and canons against heathen practices, 
 traditionary spells and incantations, and legends connected 
 with the Runic letters and the plants used in medicine.^ 
 Other examples are found in the names of places described 
 in the ancient charters, and especially in those of the land- 
 marks by which the townships were originally defined.^ 
 A familiar instance occurs in the names of the days of 
 the week, which probably date from a time long preceding 
 the conquest of England.^ Others can be traced in the 
 divisions of the ancient calendar. There were three great 
 occasions, at the two solstices and at the end of the 
 harvest, when the national sacrifices were offered and the 
 
 1 See the authorities collected in Keysler's " Antiquitates Septentri- 
 onales," in Grimm's " Deutsche Mythologie," and Kemble's " Saxons in 
 England," i. c. 1 2, with its appendix, and compare Cockayne's " Leech- 
 doms of Early England," published under the authority of the Master of 
 the Rolls. 
 
 2 " They furnish," says Kemble, "the most conclusive evidence that the 
 mythology current in Germany and Scandinavia was also current here." 
 Cod. Diplom. iii. introd. 13. Compare such names as those of "Thunres- 
 lea" in the Jutish districts in Hampshire, Cod. Diplom. 1038, 7122: 
 " Berhtaitwyl " or the well of the water-goddess Bertha, ibid. 311; 
 " Hnices-thorn," referring to the Neckar or water-goblin, ibid. 268 : and 
 " Hildes^htew," the tomb near Wayland Smith's Cave on the Ikenild 
 Street, ibid. 621, 1006, 1091, 1148, 1172. 
 
 3 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. in, 114. The chief difficulties about the 
 interpretation of the names of the week-days lie in the confusion between 
 " Fricge " and " Freia," who may have been the same among the Germans, 
 though they appear as separate deities in the Scandinavian mythology, 
 and in the doubt whether the Germans had any god who answered to 
 Saturn, ibid. 227, 276; Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 372. Compare 
 Schedius, De Dis Germ. 493. 
 
Origins of English History. 4 1 1 
 
 public assemblies held.^ The name of Yule, derived from 
 the turning of the sun in its annual course, was given to 
 the two months which preceded and followed the winter 
 solstice; but the year began on "mothers' night," now 
 Christmas Eve, when the women took part in a nocturnal 
 watch.^ We cannot tell what were their " vain practices," 
 which were afterwards suppressed by the Church : but we 
 learn that in the second week of the feast the people 
 dressed themselves in skins and masks to imitate various 
 animals.^ The next great festival was held in September, 
 or " holy month," when thanks were given for the harvest 
 and offerings made to secure a prosperous winter. Lastly, 
 in November was the "month of sacrifice," when the 
 temple-yards were filled with crowds of noisy worshippers, 
 drinking and dancing before the gods, while the cattle 
 were slaughtered on the altar-stones.* 
 
 The history of the conversion is full of incidents which 
 illustrate the character of the English paganism. We are 
 told of Ethelbert's care to meet the missionaries under 
 the open sky, for fear of the magical influence which they 
 
 1 Grimm, Rechts-Alterth. 245, 745, 821, 825, Deutsch. Mythol. 38. 
 
 * Bede, De Temp. Rat. c. 12. "Ipsam noctem nunc nobis sacro- 
 sanctam tunc gentili vocabulo ' Mo edre Necht,' id est Matrum Noctem 
 appellabant ob causam, ut suspicamur, ceremoniarum quas in eS, pervigiles 
 agebant." 
 
 ' Kemble cites the chapter in the " Penitential of Theodore" devoted to 
 the description of the heathen practices. " Qui grana arserit ubi mortuus 
 est homo &c. Siquis pro sanitate filioli per foramen terr^ exierit, illudque 
 spinis post se concludit &c. Siquis in Kal. Januar. in cervulo vel vitula 
 vadit, id est in ferarum habitus se communicant, et vestiuntur pellibus 
 pecudum et assumunt capita bestiarum : qui vero taliter in ferinas species 
 se transformant .... quia hoc dsemoniacum est." Saxons in England, i. 
 52S> 528. 
 
 * Bede, De Temp. Rat. c. 12 ; Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 32, 34, 35. 
 
4 1 2 Origins of English History. 
 
 might gain by crossing his threshold ; of the king bowing 
 before his idol in a road-side shrine near Canterbury, and 
 taking part with his nobles in the offering of the sacrifices, 
 and of Augustine in his journey to the West breaking 
 to pieces the image of a god which was adored by the 
 villagers.^ The local traditions preserve the remembrance 
 of the Woden- Hill within sight of the missionaries' landing- 
 place, and of a temple on the site where Westminster 
 Abbey stands, once " a place of dread " on the march-land 
 where several kingdoms joined, but dedicated to the ser- 
 vice of St. Peter by the wealthy " King of London," at 
 the request of his protector Ethelbert.^ Bede records 
 the power of the priests, and the rules by which they 
 were restrained from active service in war.^ His friend 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 25 ; Thorn's Chronicle, Dec. Script. 1760. 
 " Cerne Abbey was built by Austin, the English apostle, when he had 
 dash'd to pieces the idol of the pagan Saxons called Heil, and had 
 delivered them from their superstitious ignorance.'' Camden, Brit. 56 ; 
 Will. Malmesb. Gesta Pontificum, 142. 
 
 2 Woodnesborough stands on a high water-shed near Richborough. 
 Compare Kemble's account of Wanborough on the Hog's-back ; Saxons 
 in England, i. 344. The legends as to the foundation of Westminster 
 Abbey are very conflicting. The story that Ssebert of Essex was the 
 under-king of London • appears in a charter of King Edgar, of which the 
 authenticity was doubted by Kemble. " Imprimis ecclesiam B. Petri quae 
 sita est in loco terribili qui ab incolis Thorneye nuncupatur, ab occidente 
 scilicet urbis Londoni», quae olim, i.e. a.d. 604, B. ^thelberti hortatu, 
 primi Anglorum regis Christiani destructo prius ibidem abhominationis 
 templo regum paganorum, a Sabertho prsedivite quodam sub-regulo 
 Londonise, nepote videlicet ipsius egis constructa est. " — Cod. Diplom, 555 ; 
 Eadgar, 969; MSS. Cotton. Titus, A. viii. 4; Stow, Surv. Lond. 850; 
 Dugd. Monast. i. 265, 291 ; Stanley, Mem. Westm. Abb. 10. 
 
 8 " Mellitum vero Lundonienses episcopum recipere noluerunt, idolatris 
 magis pontificibus servire gaudentes." Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 6. "Non 
 licuerat pontificem sacrorum vgl ^rpia ferre vel prjeter in equa equitare," 
 ibid, ii, 15. 
 
Origins of English History. 4 1 3 
 
 Aldulf was a personal witness to the Samaritan indifference 
 of King Redwald, whose temple contained a Christian 
 altar beside the blood-stained stone on which the cattle 
 were offered to Woden/ The Northumbrian Annals 
 supplied the historian with his picture of the destruction 
 of idols at Godmundham. " The place is still shown," he 
 says, " not far from York towards the East, beyond the 
 River Derwent, where the king's chief-priest polluted and 
 destroyed the altars which he himself had blessed." Edwin 
 had assembled his Witan, as was usual in such cases, to 
 deliberate on the proposed change of religion. The high- 
 priest speaks throughout as one of the royal officers, and 
 complains that others have received more favours and 
 dignities, though no one had ever applied himself more 
 carefully to the service of the ungrateful gods. " It is for 
 you, oh king ! to look into this new doctrine ; but I confess 
 my own firm belief that there is nothing good or useful in 
 the religion which we have hitherto held. If our gods 
 were good for anything they would have helped me, who 
 have always done my best to serve them." And so, 
 girding himself with a sword and taking a lance in his 
 hand, he mounted the king's war-horse ; and first he pro- 
 faned the temple by casting the lance against its wall, and 
 
 ' "Atque in eodem fano et altare haberet ad sacrificium Christi et 
 arulam ad victimas dasmoniorum." Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 15. Tlie actual 
 procedure at a sacrifice is only known from the Norse authorities. 
 Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 48. The King or some noble acting as his 
 deputy presided ; " all kinds of cattle as well as horses were slaughtered, 
 and the blood was called hlaut ; ' /i/aui-sta.ves ' were made, like sprinkling- 
 brushes, with which the whole of the altars and the temple-walls both 
 outside and inside were sprinkled over, and the people also were sprinkled 
 with the blood ; but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those who 
 were present." Heimskringla, Hakon's Saga, c. 16 ; Eyrbyggia Saga, 10; 
 Laing, Sea-Kings of Norway, i. 329. 
 
414 Origins of English History. 
 
 then proceeded with his companions to destroy and burn 
 the altars and the idols' shrines, and all the hedges and 
 palisades with which the sanctuary had been surrounded.^ 
 
 Another story of the heathen times is told in the Life of 
 St. Wilfrid. The Bishop was crossing from the French 
 coast to Sandwich, when his little vessel was caught in a 
 storm and cast upon the shore of Sussex. The king of 
 the district hurried down with his soldiers to claim the 
 spoil and wreck. In the battle that ensued the chief- 
 priest of the pagans took his stand on a high mound, 
 cursing the strangers and striving to bind their arms by 
 his spells. But one of the Bishop's companions took a 
 stone and slung it "and smote this Goliath in the forehead," 
 so that the magician fell dead upon the sand as he raved 
 his curses at the Christians ; and after a time the tide 
 came in and lifted the boat again, and so they escaped 
 the danger.^ But Wilfrid returned, as we have seen, to 
 accomplish the conversion of his enemy ; and the pagans 
 of both sexes, some of their own accord and others com- 
 pelled by the king, abandoned their idols and confessed 
 and were baptized."^ 
 
 During the greater part of the century which followed 
 the coming of Augustine, the people of each kingdom 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 13 ; Grimm, Deutsch. Mythol. 72. Compare 
 Gudbrand's speech, when his image of Thor was destroyed : "We have 
 lost a good deal on our god, but as he will not help us we will believe in 
 the God in whom you trust." Heimskringla, St. Olaf's Saga, c. 119 ; and 
 compare cc. 212, 228. A parallel to the high-priest's reasoning may be 
 found in the history of the conversion of Sweden. Vita Anschar. c. 27. 
 
 ^ " Quern .... sicut Goliatus in arenosis locis mors incerta prsevenit." 
 ^dde, Vita Wilfrid, Dec. Script. 57. 
 
 3 ^dde, Vita Wilfrid, Dec. Script. 72. The King and Queen had 
 been previously baptized, the one in Mercia and the other at her home in 
 Hwiccia. Bede, Hist. Ecc. iv. 12. 
 
Origins of English History. 4 1 5 
 
 relapsed into paganism as often as their careless rulers 
 allowed them a greater liberty, or a pestilence or a defeat 
 in battle recalled the power of the ancient gods. Even in 
 Kent the heathen temples were not formally abolished 
 until the year 640, and it is recorded that five years before 
 that time not a single church or outward sign of Chris- 
 tianity had been set up in the whole kingdom of Bernicia.^ 
 It seemed as if paganism had only changed its name, 
 while the wooden temples were used as churches, and the 
 rustics still built their booths round the holy sites, and 
 brought their oxen <o be killed for a dedication-feast, as 
 once without much outward difference the sacrifices had 
 been offered to the idols. When the prospect seemed 
 darkest a new conversion was effected by the zeal of the 
 Irish missionaries. But they in their turn had to yield 
 to the stronger claims of Rome ; the men who had finally 
 prevailed against heathenism were overthrown in the 
 Synod of Whitby ; and England, at last united under the 
 rule of one spiritual obedience, was ready to take the lead 
 in the conversion of the neighbouring barbarians, and to 
 assert her claim to an important place among the civilised 
 nations of the West. 
 
 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 30 ; ii. 5, 15 ; iii. 3 ; iv. 27 ; Epist. ad Ecgbert, 5. 
 Gregorius, "Ad Mellitum," Epist. xi. 76. For the defeat of the Irish 
 monks at Whitby in a.d. 664, see Bede, Hist. Eccl. iii. 25. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENTS AS TO THE GEOGRAPHY 
 OF NORTHERN AND WESTERN EUROPE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Short passages relating to the 
 
 8. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 
 Voyage of Pytheas. 
 
 9- 
 
 Solinus. 
 
 2. 
 
 The Aristotelian Writings. 
 
 lO. 
 
 Dionysius Periegetes. 
 
 3- 
 
 Julius Csesar. 
 
 II. 
 
 Marcian of Heraclea. 
 
 4- 
 
 Diodorus Siculus. 
 
 12. 
 
 Rufus Festus Avienus. 
 
 5- 
 
 Strabo. 
 
 13- 
 
 The Ravenna Geographer 
 
 6. 
 
 Pomponius Mela. 
 
 14. 
 
 Dicuil the Monk. 
 
 7- 
 
 Pliny the Elder. 
 
 15. 
 
 Gassendi. 
 
 2 E 
 
4 1 8 Origins of English History. 
 
 I. SHORT PASSAGES RELATING TO THE 
 VOYAGE OF PYTHEAS. 
 
 a. COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES. (Montfaucon. Coll. Pat. ii. 149.) 
 
 IluWeac 6 Mao-o-aXtwrijc iv Toiq inpi 'Qkeovou oiirwc 0»}(rtv wq on 
 ■irapaytvofiiv<<f) avTt^ Iv rotg ^opuoraroK; tottolq iSsiKvvov oi avioOi 
 papfiapoi Trjv i^Aiou Koirrjv, bjQ iKU Twv vvktwv ati yivofxivwv vap 
 
 aVTOlQ. 
 
 b. Plutarch. De placitis Philosophorum. 
 
 yivcaOai, Ty Se pitiixrci Tag apTrdiTiSuQ. 
 
 c. Cleomedes. Cycl. Theor., Lib. i. c. 7. 
 
 Xiipi rfiv ©ouAjjv KaXovfitvrtv vfjaov, iv y ysyovivat (j)at7i UvBia 
 Tov MaaaaXtwrriv (J)La6(to(1>ov, oXov tov Oipivov virtp yriQ slvai \6yOQ, 
 avTOv KOI apKTtKOv slvai. Ylapa rovroig, oirOTav iv KapKlvi^ 6 ^Aio? 
 y, jUfjviaia yivirai t) r)pipa, ti ys Koi rd fxipri Travra tov KapKivov 
 aci!J>avii lort Trap' ai/roic* tl 8e prj, e^' octov tv toIq ati^aviaiv ahrov u 
 
 TjAlOf IdTl. 
 
 d. HiPPARCHUS. Arat. Phzenom., Lib. i. c. 5. 
 
 Eiri Tou TToAoK oioE tie a(TTrjp KHTai, aWa kevoc eoti tottoc (^ 
 irapaKiTvTai rpeig aaripig, jue0' wv to arifitlov to Kora rov ttoXov 
 TSTpaywvov tyyiaTa (T)(fipa Tnpii-)(tL' KaQawip koi IIvflEae 0i](7iv 6 
 MacriroXtaJrije' 
 
 ^. Scholiast. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 761. 
 
 'Ev T^ Atirapcj. Koi ^rpoyyvXy {twv AloXov 8e vriawv avTai) Sokei 
 6 "H^afOToc 8(or(0(j3£iv. 81' o Kat -rrvpoQ jSpojuov aKOvtaOai koi ^X"" 
 (T<jtoSp6v. to Se ■TraXaiov iXiysTO, tov JSouXojuevov apyov aiSr]pov 
 awocpipiiv, KOI ETTi r)7v aujofoi/ iXt/ovra XajujSavEiv rj ^l(j>OQ, rj Etrt aXXo 
 
Appendix. 4 1 9 
 
 x\%{kt KaraaKivairai, KaTafSaXovTa fiiaOov. ravra (j)r)(n YlvOia^ iv yrig 
 rrtpuiSt^, Xiywv Kai rrjv OaXaaaav eilii Ztiv.^ 
 
 f. Geminus. Elem. Astron. v. 22. 
 
 $i)(Ti ■yoDf tv Totc TTEpi TOX) QiKiavov TTiTrpajfiaTiVfiivoig aiiTfj) 
 oTi XSiiKVVOv rifuv oi (3dp(iapoi ottov 6 r^Xiog KOifiarai. 2i;vEj3aiv£ 
 yap irepl rovrovg Tovg rowovg rriv fxlv vvktu iravTiXwg fitKpav yi- 
 viaOai wpuiv oIq juev J3' oig Se y' ware jxera rrjv Svaiv fiiKpov SiaXdp.- 
 fiarog ytvofiivov hravaTiWuv tiidlwe tov ijXiov. 
 
 g. Ptolemy. Almagest. 2. 
 
 '0 TrapaXXrjXoe airi^u tov icrjjjUEpivou fioipwv ?y' koi ypai^irai 
 cm QovXriQ rijc vfiaov TrpwTog c i(TTiv ovtoq twv mpKTKibjv .... 
 KUi lartv \vTav9a 6 filv Ospivhg rpOTriKog oei ijtavspoQ. 
 
 h. Stephan. Byzantin. De Urbibus. 
 
 QoT^wvEc" t%vog irapa rt^ Svtik(^ 'Qkeovij) ovq Koceaivovg 'AprE- 
 fiiowpog (j)ri<Ti' IlvOiaq 'QtrTtaiouf. 
 
 I. Nwv yojO Sfj Xvypri te koi aXysiv^ KaKorjjrt 
 E^Ojuai, J7V vrityotcTiv 'lipvicrtv daaov 'iKWfiat. 
 El yap firj fi isp^cnv iwiyvaixipuvTsg aKpyaiv 
 KoXttov t<T(t> yalr\Q te koi arpvysToio daXdrrrrrfg 
 I5e<t9', a/x iriXayog kev 'ArXai/rJKOv Iktoq "KUfxai. 
 
 Orpheus. Argon. 11 70 
 
 J. Olav (pipit nov koi ^rpafiwv rov YIvBiav, 
 ©ouXjjv Siaypafovra, t)jv vijctov XsyEtv, 
 r^v oEjoa daXa<T(7av ov ire(pVKlvat, 
 EotKEvat 0£ wXevfiovi daXa(T(Th^, 
 OiroXa StcTfiii^ Tuv oXwv vnripy/jiivoj), 
 Mjjr ovv TTopsvTt^, fifiTt irXwTt^ rriv ^vaiv. 
 
 Tzetzes. 
 
 These five extracts are given in the order in which they occur in " Pytheae 
 Massiliensis Fragmenta," by A. Arvedson : Upsala, 1824. The second is from 
 one of the minor essays falsely attributed to Plutarch. 
 
420 Oingins of English History. 
 
 NOTE.l 
 
 Omnium primus veterum scriptorum Pytheas Thulen nominat, 
 quem etiam solum, quicumque dein hujus mentionem fecerint, 
 auctorem secuti fuisse, videntur. AntonIUM Diogenem, qui 
 haud ita multo post AlexandruM Magnum vixit, quique 
 incredibilia de Thule composuit, quorum ideam Bibliotheca sua 
 servavit Photius (Rothom. 1653, p. 355 sq.), ex Pythe^ 
 narrationibus suarum quoque hausisse fabularum materiem, omni 
 procul dubio est. Quam terram per Thulen innuerit Pytheas, 
 diu multumque inter eruditos disceptatum. Omnia, quae de 
 Thule sive Pytheas sive alii tradiderunt, pro figmentis habuit 
 Strabo. Thulen sub Arctico circulo nostro sitam fuisse Plinius 
 autumavit. Sic propemodum Mela et SOLINUS. Tacitus autem, 
 Thylen, quam adhuc nix et hiems abdiderat, a classe Romana, Bri- 
 tanniam circumvecta, conspectam tradens, et Claudianus, Picto- 
 rum in Britannico bello caesorum sanguine eam incaluisse canens, 
 vix aliam quam Schettlandicarum insularum quandam notasse 
 existimandi sunt. Thulen eadem etiam latitudine sitam accepit 
 Ptolem^eus et Stephanus Byzant. Procopius vero Scandina- 
 viam sine dubio respexit. Henricus Huntingdoniensis, qui secuIo 
 duodecimo vixit, Thulen extremam esse Orcadarum insularum 
 asseruit. Ex quo vero Islandia saeculo nono a Normannis fuit de- 
 tecta, eadem, cum remotissimam versus septemtrionem illam statue- 
 rent, jam Thules nomine a plerisque prsdicari coepit, reliquis 
 forsan praeeunte Adamo Breinensi, quem dein secuti fuerunt Saxo 
 Grammat., PoNTANUs, Hendreich, Bougainville, Mannert, 
 Zeune etc. Alii recentiorum, ut D'Anville et ForsTER Schett- 
 landicarum insularum aliquam pro Thule habuerunt, alii vero, ut 
 Dalin, Lagerbring, Murray, Schoning, Adelung Scandi- 
 navise borealis partem. Unus omnium, quantum scimus, Malte 
 Brun, Jutiam Thules nomine a Pythea fuisse indicatam opinatus 
 est. Loca ipsa adeas ap. Strab. p. 109, 163 ; Plin. Hist. Nat., 
 L. 4, c. 10; Melam, L. 3, c. 6; SOLIN. Polyhist. c. 22; Tac. 
 Agric, c. 10 ; Claudian., de quart. Cons. HONORli, v. 32 ; Ptolem. 
 tab. ad Geogr. ; Steph. Bys. voc. GovAjj ; Procop. Hist Goth., 
 
 ' Mr. Arvedson's tract is so rare, and so valuable for its compressed learn- 
 ing, that it will be as well for the reader's profit to quote his encyclopEedie note 
 on Thule in its entirety. 
 
Appendix. 42 1 
 
 p. 260 ; Henr. Huntingdoniensis, Histor. L. i. p. 297, Frkf. 1601 ; 
 PONTAN., Rerum Dank. Hist., p. 745 ; Adam. Bremensis, de Situ 
 Danice ; Saxo Gramm., Hist. Dan. in praef. ; Hendreich Massil., 
 sect. 2, in Gronov. Thesaur. p. 2973 ; BOUGAINV. in Mimoires de 
 I'Acad. des Inscriptions, T. 19, p. 146; d'Anville, ib. T. 37, 
 p. 436; Mannert, Geogr. d. Griecken und R'dmer, i. p. 83; 
 Zeune, Erdansichten, Berl. 1820, p. 40 ; FoRSTER, Gesch. der 
 Entdeckungen und Schiffahrten im Nor den, Frkf. 1784, p. 33; 
 Y)K\X^, Svea Rikes Hist. i. p. 58; Lagerbring, Svea Rikes Hist., 
 I. p. 31 ; Murray, in Nov. Commtt. Goett. T. 6; Schoning, in 
 Allgem. Nordische Gesch. von Schlozer, Halle 1771, p. 18. De 
 Thule insuper consulas: Arngrim. Jon., Comment, de Islandia ; 
 Pr^tOR. Orb. Goth;, TORF^I Hist Norveg. ; RuDBECK. Atl., 
 T. I. p. 511 sq. ; Camd. Britann. T. 2. p. 1482; Gatterer, 
 Univers. Gesch.; CarlstroM, Diss, de Thule, Holmise, 1673; 
 Grupen, Orig. Germ., i. p. 326; Voss, Uber Thule in Bredow's 
 Untersuch. Uber alte Gesch., p. 122-129; Brehmer, Entdeckungen 
 im Alterthum, 2te Abth. Weimar, 1822, p. 357 cet. — Trj? TrsTrriyviac 
 BakaTTtiQ. Plin. ait Lib. iv. c. 16 : A Thule unius diei navigatione 
 mare concretum, a nonnullis Cranium, appellatum, et in c. 13, Sep- 
 tentrionalis Oceanus ; Amalchium eum Hecat^uS appellat, a Paro- 
 pamiso amne, qua Scythiam alluit, quod nomen ejus gentis lingua 
 significat congelatum. Philemon narrat Morimarusam a Cim- 
 bris vocari, hoc est mortuum mare, usque ad promontorium Rubeas : 
 ultra deinde Cranium. — Tacit, de Moribus Germ. c. 45 : Trans 
 Svionas, aliud mare pigrum, ac prope immotum. Ap. DiONYS. 
 Perieg; v. 32, 33 legitur: 
 
 riovrov juty KoKtovai TreirriyoTa ri, Kpoviov re 
 "AXXot S' av Koi viKpbv l<^r)}ii(iav, itvtK a<pavpov 
 'HtXi'ou. 
 
 Ap. Orph. Argonaut, v. 1079, 1080. 
 
 'EjUTTElTE S' 'Q,KtaV(^, KpOVlOV S' £7r(KtKXjJ(7KOU(Tt 
 
 Ilovrov 'TTTEp/BojOETjy /xipOTTec, NtKjOi'/v TE OaXacTiTav. 
 
 Quos retulimus scriptores, omnes omnia hsc nomina ex Pythea 
 Massil. mutuati sunt, qui ipse sine dubio a Celticis vel Gecicis 
 incolis ilia audita excepit. Morimarusa a mor mare, et mario 
 
42 2 Origins of English History. 
 
 mortuus est, compositum habetur, quod Plinius ideo recte expli- 
 cavit per mare mortuum. Muir-croinn Hibernice significat mare 
 congelatum. — Cf. SCHoNiNG, 1. c. p. 73; SCHLdZER, p. 114; 
 FORSTER, p. 34; ARVEDSON, p. 21. 
 
 II. ARISTOTLE (and writers using his name). 
 
 To 8' £?w orrjX&iv f3pa\ea julv Sia tov ttjjXov airvoa S' karlv uig Iv 
 Ko/Xfj> Trig OaXacrcTrie ouo-ijc- — Meteor, ii. 
 
 The following extracts, relating to the natural history of 
 Western and Northern Europe, were wrongly ascribed to Aristotle. 
 They are extracted from the Book of Wonderful Stories (De Miris 
 Auscultationibus). 
 
 'Ev Se 'SiKvOaig toIq KoXovixivoiQ FeXcovoTc (pacri dripiov jiviaOai, 
 (Twaviov fiev v7r6|o(3oX^, o ovOjiia^Erai rapavSog. Aijtrai Be tovto 
 fieTafidWiiv Tag \p6ag twv Tpi\wv koS' 6v av Koi tottov y. Eivai 
 Si Sia T£ TOVTO SvadripaTov, KOt Bia Trjv juerajSoXjjv. Kai -yap BivSpsai 
 Koi Towoig, Koi oXwg Iv dig av p, toiovtov T-g XP'^f yiviaQai. Bav/xa- 
 (TLWTaTov ci., TO Trjv Tpl^a fiETajiaXknv to. yap XoiTra, tov ^iitTa, olov 
 o T£ xafiatXiwv KOI 6 woXvirovg' to Si fiiytOog wuavii [5ovg. Tou 
 Se irpoaunrov tov tvttov ofioiov E;^Et i\a<p([>. — 'Ev Ty daXaaairi rp e?(j» 
 HjookXeiwv (ttijXwv, faalv virb Kap-)(riSoviwv vjjcrov ivptOrivai iprifiriv, 
 £)(ov(Tav CXjjv te TravroSoTDjVj koI woTa/jLoiig nXwToig, Kai roig Xoitro'ic 
 Kapwotg OavfxatTTriv, airixovTav Se ttXuovwv rifiepwv iv y iTrifiiayo- 
 fiivwv tCov liapxriSoviuv irXsovaKig, Sta Trjv EuSatjuoviav, kvluv yt fa]v 
 Koi oiKoivTwv, Tovg wpoiaThiTag twv KapxnSoviwv airdiracrBai Oavart^ 
 Zvf^ioiiv Toiig tig avTriv irkivaofiivovg, koi rove ivoiKOvvTag iravTag a(jia- 
 vlaai, "iva firi dtayyeWdxii, fiijSl TrXfiOog t7V(TTpa<piv sir^ avTwv etti rfiv 
 vrj(TOv Kvpiag tv\i}, Ka\ rrjv tujv Ka/o^jjSovftDv iliSaifioviav aipiXriTai. — 
 Ek Tijg 'iToXiag (paalv emg Trig KekTiKrig Kai KsXroXiyijitiv koi 'Ij3t)jOwv 
 f tvot Tiva oSov 'HjooKXEiav koXoujuIvijv. Ai' ^g lav te "EXXjjv, eov te 
 iyxd)pi6g Tig iroptiiriTai, Ttipiiadai vwo twv irapoiKovvTWv, oirug jUjjSev 
 aSiKridy. Trjv yap ^jjjutav tKTivetv koO' ovg yivriTai to oSikjjjuo. — Touf 
 TTpwTovg TWV $oiviKwv ETTI TajOTij(T(Tov jrXEWcravroc XiyiTai ToaovTOV 
 apyvpiov avTifopTiaaaOai, eXoiov koi oXXov vavTiKov pvirov uaaya- 
 yovTag, Smtts priKSTi eXHv BvvafrOai fii'iTt ettiSeSoct^oi tov apyvpov, 
 oXX' avayKaaOfivai ottottXeovtoc ek t<I)v tottwv to. te oXXa wdvra ap- 
 
Appendix. 423 
 
 •yupa oTe t^jOwvTO, KaTa<TKtva<7a<T0ai, Koi Srj koI Tag ayKvpag Tracrac- 
 — Aiyovai tovq 'PolviKag, tovq KaroiKovvTag to. FaStipa KaXovfiEva, 
 i^to irXlovroe HpaKktiiov crrriXiov cnrriXi(li)Ty avifit^ r}fiipag TiTrapag, 
 irapvrfiviavai eig rivag roirovg lpr\fiovg, Opvov koi tpVKOvg wXripug' 
 ovg, oTav fiiv afiTTWTig y, [firj] fiaTrTiZeaOat' orav St nXr^fifivpa, kutu- 
 KXvI^iadai' £0' S)v ivpiaKiaQai virep^aWov Bvvvotv Trkrtdog, Kai TOig 
 fityidtai KOI Toig ira^Kriv amtiTOv, orav hroKziXwaiv ovg Tapi^ivovrtg 
 Koii ffvvTiOivTcg clg ayyda, SiaKoixiZovaiv elg Kapxn^ova. "Qv Kapxn- 
 Soviot fiovov oil troiovvTai tjjv i^aywyriv, aWa Sia Tr/v aptrriv fiv 
 (■Xpvai Kara tjjv fBpwtnv airoi KaravaXtaKOvaiv. 
 
 III. C. JULIUS C^SAR. 
 
 De Bell. Gall. iv. 20. Exigua parte sestatis reliqua, Caesar, etsi in 
 his locis, quod omnis Gallia ad septemtriones vergit, maturae sunt 
 hiemes, tamen in Britanniam proficisci contendit, quod omnibus fere 
 Gallicis bellis hostibus nostris inde subministrata auxilia intelli- 
 gebat : et, si tenipus anni ad bellum gerendum deficeret, tamen 
 magno sibi usui fore arbitrabatur, si mode insulam adisset, genus 
 hominum perspexisset, loca, portus, aditus cognovisset : quae 
 omnia fere Gallis erant incognita. Neque enim temere praeter 
 mercatores illo adit quisquam, neque iis ipsis quidquam, praeter 
 cram maritimam atque eas regiones, quae sunt contra Gallias, 
 notum est. Itaque, evocatis ad se undique mercatoribus, neque 
 quanta esset insulae magnitude, neque quae aut quantae nationes 
 incolerent, neque quern usum belli haberent, aut quibus institutis 
 uterentur, neque qui essent ad majorum navium multitudinem 
 idonei portus, reperire poterat. 
 
 V. 12. Britanniae pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in 
 insula ipsa memoria proditum dicurit ; maritima pars ab iis, qui 
 praedae ac belli inferendi caussa ex Belgis transierant ; qui omnes 
 fere iis nominibus civitatum adpellantur, quibus orti ex civitatibus 
 eo pervenerunt et bello illato ibi remanserunt atque agros colere 
 cceperunt. Hominum est infinita multitudo creberrimaque aedi- 
 ' ficia, fere Gallicis consimilia: pecorum magnus numerus. Utuntur 
 aut aere, aut taleis ferreis, ad certum pondus examinatis, pro 
 nummo. Nascitur ibi plumbum album in mediterraneis regio- 
 nibus, in maritimis ferrum ; sed ejus exigua est copia : aere utuntur 
 
424 Origins of English History. 
 
 importato. Materia cuj usque generis ut in Gallia est praeter 
 fagum atque abietem. Leporem et gallinam et anserem gustare 
 fas non putant ; hsec tamen alunt animi voluptatisque caussa. 
 Loca sunt temperatiora, quam in Gallia, remissioribus frigoribus. 
 
 13. Insula natura triquetra, cujus unum latus est contra 
 Galliam. Hujus lateris alter angulus, qui est ad Cantium, quo fere 
 omnes ex Gallia naves adpelluntur, ad orientem solem ; inferior 
 ad meridiem spectat. Hoc latus tenet circiter millia passuum.D. 
 Alterum vergit ad Hispaniam atque occidentem solem, qua ex 
 parte est Hibernia, dimidio minor, ut aestimatur, quam Britannia ; 
 sed pari spatio transmissus atque ex Gallia est in Britanniam. 
 In hoc medio cursu est insula, quae adpellatur Mona ; complures 
 praeterea minores objectse insulse existimantur : de quibus insulis 
 nonnulli scripserunt, dies continues XXX sub bruma esse noctem. 
 Nos nihil de eo percunctationibus reperiebamus, nisi certis ex 
 aqua mensuris breviores esse, quam in continente, noctes vide- 
 bamus. Hujus est longitudo lateris, ut fert illorum opinio, DCC. 
 millium. Tertium est contra septemtriones, cui parti nulla est 
 objecta terra; sed ejus angulus lateris maxime ad Germaniam 
 spectat: huic miUia passuum DCCC. in longitudinem esse, existi- 
 matur. Ita omnis insula est in circuitu vicies centum millium 
 passuum. 
 
 14. Ex his omnibus longe sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium 
 incolunt, quae regio est maritima omnis, neque multum a Gallica 
 differunt consuetudine. Interiores plerique frumenta non serunt, 
 sed lacte et carne vivunt pellibusque sunt vestiti. Omnes vero se 
 Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod csruleum efficit colorem : atque hoc 
 horridiore sunt in pugna adspectu : capilloque sunt promisso atque 
 omni parte corporis rasa, praeter caput et labrum superlus. 
 Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime 
 fratres cum fratribus parentesque cum liberis; sed, si qui sunt ex his 
 nati, eorum habentur liberi, quo primum virgo quaeque deducta est. 
 
 21. Germani multum ab hac consuetudine differunt: nam 
 neque Druides habent, qui rebus divinis prsesint, neque sacrificiis 
 student. Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt et 
 quorum aperte opibus juvantur, Solem et Vulcanum et Lunam : 
 reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt. Vita omnis in venationibus 
 atque in studiis rei militaris consistit : ab parvulis labori ac 
 duritise student. 
 
Appendix. 425 
 
 24. Ac fuit antea tempus, quum Germanos Galli virtute 
 superarent, ultro bella inferrent, propter hominum multitudinem 
 agrique inopiam trans Rhenum colonias mitterent. Itaque ea, 
 quae fertilissima sunt, Germanise loca circum Hercyniam silvam 
 (quam Eratostheni et quibusdam Graecis fama notam esse video, 
 quam illi Orcyniam adpellant), Volcae Tectosages occupaverunt 
 atque ibi consederunt 
 
 25. Hujus Hercyniae silvse, quae supra demonstrata est, lati- 
 tude novem dierum iter expedite patet; non enim aliter finiri 
 potest, neque mensuras itinerum noverunt. Oritur ab Helvetiorum 
 et Nemetum et Rauracorum finibus, rectaque fluminis Danubii 
 regione pertinet ad fines Dacorum et Anartium : hinc se flectit 
 sinistrorsus, diversis ab^umine regionibus, multarumque gentium 
 fines propter magnitudinem adtingit ; neque quisquam est hujus 
 Germaniae qui se aut adisse ad initium ejus silvae dicat, quum 
 dierum iter LX processerit, aut quo ex loco oriatur acceperit. 
 Multa in ea genera ferarum nasci constat, quae reliquis in locis 
 visa non sint : ex quibus quae maxime dififerant ab ceteris et 
 memoriae prodenda videantur, hsec sunt. 
 
 a6. Est bos cervi figura, cujus a media fronte inter aures 
 unum cornu exsistit, excelsius magisque directum his, quae nobis 
 nota sunt, cornibus. Ab ejus summo, sicut palmae, rami late 
 diffunduntur. Eadem est feminae marisque natura, eadem forma 
 magnitudoque cornuum. 
 
 27. Sunt item quae adpellantur alces. Harum est con- 
 similis capreis figura et varietas pellium ; sed magnitudine pauUo 
 antecedunt mutilaeque sunt cornibus et crura sine nodis articu- 
 lisque habent; neque quietis caussa procumbunt, neque, si quo 
 adflictae casu conciderint, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His 
 sunt arbores pro cubilibus : ad eas se adplicant, atque ita, paullum 
 modo reclinatae, quietem capiunt : quarum ex vestigiis quum est 
 animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consuerint, omnes eo 
 loco aut ab radicibus subruunt, aut accidunt arbores tantum, ut 
 summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Hue quum se con- 
 suetudine reclinaverint, infirmas arbores pondere adfligunt atque 
 una ipsae concidunt. 
 
 28. Tertium est genus eorum, qui uri adpellantur. Hi sunt 
 magnitudine paullo infra elephantos ; specie et colore et figura 
 tauri. Magna vis eorum et magna velocitas : neque homini, 
 
 2 F 
 
426 Origins of English History. 
 
 neque ferae, quam conspexerint, parcunt. Hos studiose foveis 
 captos interficiunt. Hoc se labore durant homines adolescentes 
 atque hoc genere venationis exercent ; et, qui plurimos ex his 
 interfecerunt, relatis in publicum cornibus, quse sint testimonio, 
 magnam ferunt laudem. Sed adsuescere ad homines et mansue- 
 fieri ne parvuli quidem excepti possunt. AmpHtudo cornuum et 
 figura et species multum a nostrorum boum cornibus differt. Hsec 
 studiose conquisita ab labris argento circumcludunt atque in 
 ampHssimis epulis pro poculis utuntur. 
 
 CcBsar's Letters. — Fragment relating to Britain. 
 
 Quam (Britanniani) Csesar, ille auctor vestri nominis, quum 
 Romanorum primus intrasset, alium se orbem terrarum scripsit 
 repperisse.tantffi magnitudinis arbitratus, ut non circumfusa Oceano, 
 sed complexa ipsum Oceanum videretur. — Ex Eumenii Paneg. 
 Constanta Cces., cap. 1 1. 
 
 IV DIODORUS SICULUS. 
 
 ii. c. 47. H/isTc 6 tTra to. irpog apKTOvg KCKXifiiva julpr/ rije ^Aalag 
 i]%i<l)iTaixiv avaypa(prig, oiiK uvoIkuov ilvai vofitZofiev to. tte/ji tuv 'Tirep- 
 f3op£(i)v fivOoXoyovfisva SieXOeiv. Twv yap rag TraXaiag fjivdaXoylag 
 avaysypacpoTwv EKoraToe Kai rivtg 'irtpoi (j>a(nv, ev roig avrnrepav rije 
 KsXriKrig roTTOig jneTo. tov 'Q,Keavov aval vrjtrov ovK eXarro) rije SdcsXiae. 
 Tavrriv virapy^uv fiiv Kara rag apKTOvg, KarotKuaOai 8e vtto tuiv ovo- 
 fiaZofxivwv 'Trrcpfiopiujv, otto rov iroppwripw KeicrOai rifig ^opdov 
 TTVoJjc" ovaav S' avrfiv svysiov rs koX irafitjtopov, 'in 8I eiiKpacrlrj. Bia(j)i- 
 pov(Tav, SiTTOvg kut arog SKipipeiv KapTTovg. MvOoXoyovcri S' iv aur^ 
 rrjv Arjrw ■ye-yoi'ei'ar Sio koX tov 'ATToXXot fxdXiura tQv aXX(i)v Oiiitv 
 nap' avTo7g TifxaaBar k.t.X. 
 
 V. 21. KarodctTv Se i^airi Tr)v ^piTTaviKriv avT6)^6ova yivr] koi tov 
 iraXatov piov Tcdg aywyalg SiaTripovvTa. apfiaai fiiv yap Kara tovq 
 TToXifiovg ^QvTUL, KaOairsp 01 TraXatoi twv 'EXXjjvoiv rj/otufc Ef ''<(' 
 TpwiKtp 7roXE|U(i) K£-)(priadai TrapaSidovTai, icat Tag o'lKricTCtg tvTiXiig 
 't)(ov(yiv, EK TWV KaXafxwv rj E,{iX(i)v Kara ro TrXsiaTOv <TvyKiipivag' Tr\v 
 Ti (jvvuyu}yr\v twv oitlkwv Kapvwv woiovvTai Tovg araj^yg qvtovq 
 airorepvovTeg koI OrfcravpiZovreg tig rag KaTayuovg olKriatig' ek oe 
 
Appendix. 427 
 
 rowTti>v Toii? TraXaiove tsTayyi; Kad' rifjepav riXXeiv, koI Kartpyai^ofiivovg 
 Iy£IV rj|V Tpo(j>riv roig Se ijOeaiv cnrXovs sivai koi ttoXv Kt^wpiafiivovQ 
 T^f Ttjiv vvv avdpwTTwv d-/\ivoiaQ Kot TTOvriptag. rag re Statrag 
 twVtXHC e'x'"' Kai Trig ek rou irXoiirou jtvva)fi.ivt}g rpvtjtrjg iroXii 
 SiaXXaTTOvToe- tJvat 8^ Koi TroXuavfljOoiTrov rjjv vfi(TOv, Koi tt\v to\j 
 aipog txiiv diadtaiv iravTeXivg KaTeipvyfx(vt)v, ilig av vtt avTrjv rrfv 
 apKTr)v KHfiivr)V. j3a<Ti\tig ts koi Suvaorac iroXXoiig e^eiVj Kat tTjOOc 
 aXX^Xoue Kara ro irXslarov Etpjji'tKwc 8(aiCET(T0at. 
 
 22. 'AXXa irep). fiiv twv Kar aiirjjv vofilfjLwv Kat twi^ aXXwii iStaj/xaToiv 
 TO Kara fiipog dvaypaipofiev, orav Itti T77V Kaiirapoc ysvofiivtiv urpa- 
 retav ilg ^perraviav Tzapayevridwuev, vvv Si nipX tov Kar' avrf)V 
 (jtvo/xtvov KaaaiTipov oii^ifxev. rjje yap ^peTTaviKtjg Kara to dxponripiov 
 TO KoXoviievov BeXipiov el KaroiKovvrsg ^iXo^evol te Sia^ipovrwg uai, 
 Koi 8ia Tr\v twv ^ivwv Ifnropwv iirifii^iav l^r\p.t.pii))xivoL Tag dywyag. 
 ovTOi TOV Kaaa'iTtpov KaTaaKzvdZ,ov<Ti (piXoTiyyojg epya^opivoi Trjv 
 (^ipovaav avTOv yrjv. aiirrj Se irtrpiliSrifi ovaa, Sia^vdg s^^ei ytwSiig, iv 
 ale TOV iropov KaTepyaZofisvoi koi Tri^avTeg KaOaipovcnv. diroTVTTOvvTeg 
 S' EiC daTpaydXbJv pvOfioiig KOiJ.iZov(7iv sig Tiva vijaov TrpoKup.ivr\v fiev 
 Trig BpiTTaviKrig, ovofia^ofiivriv Se "iKrtv Kara yap Tag dfnrwTcig 
 dva^ripaivofiivov tov fiSTa^v tottov, rate apd^atg slg raurijv KOfilZovcri 
 oaipiXri TOV KaaaiTipov. "iSiov Se tl avfx^aivii irspl Tag irXrialov vriaovg 
 Tag fiiTa^v Ksifievag Trig te Evpwnrig Kal rrjg BjOErraviKijc- Kara pev 
 yap Tag trXrififivpiBag tov peTa^ii iropov wXripovpivov vriaoi (paivovTai, 
 Kara ce Tag afnrwTEig diroppsovarig Trig OaXaTTtig, koi ttoXvv tottov 
 ava^ripaivovarig dtwpovvTai xtppovriaoi. iVTtvdiv S' oi 'ipTTopoi irapd 
 TWV ky)(b)ptiov U)vovvTai Kai SiuKO/xiZovaiv slg tjjv FaXaTiav to Ss 
 teXeutoTov tte^^ Sia Trig TaXuTiag wopevdivTsg ripipag wg TptaKOVTa 
 KaTayovaiv etti toIv iirirwv to (jtopTia Trpbg Triv £k/3oX?)v row PoSavou 
 
 TTOTajUoD. 
 
 23' Hipl juev ovv tov KaTTiTspov To7g priQilaiv apKsadriaofieada, 
 TTtpX ci Tou KaXoujUEVOv i^XsKTpou VVV Sii^ipiv. Trig ^Kvdtag Trig vnip 
 Trjv TaXaTiav KaT avTiKpv vijcrdc ettj TTEXaYtct koto tov 'QKEavov 17 
 irpoaayopevopivri BaaiXsia. elg touttiv 6 kXuSojv tKjSaXXEi SaipiXeg to 
 KoXoujuEvov ^Xekt^ov, oiiSa^oD Se Trig olKOvpivrig (paivopevov. inp\ Se 
 TOUTOu TToXXol Tolv TTaXafoiv aviypaipav fxvQovg TtavriXwg cnriaTOv- 
 nivovg icai Sm rwv arroTEXEd/xartuv eXey^^^ojuevouc- 
 
428 Origins of English History. 
 
 V. 'SiT'S.h^O.—Geographica. 
 
 A. iv. 2 (C. 63). 'E^^c Se to wXdroQ Tjjc oikowjuIvijc a(poplZb)v ^ijo-li) 
 (6 'EjoaTO(r9evj)c).a7ro /x£V Mtpoije etti tou 8j' alrrjc fiBarifijdptvov fiexpt 
 AXs^avSpdac slvai fxvpiovg, evS'evSe eic tov EXAJ)(77rovrov rrspl oKTUKia- 
 \i\(ovg iKUTOv, iiT iig Bopvcr^ivri TTEvroKto-^^iXioue, eit' etti tov 
 ki'kXov tov Sta QovXrjQ (rjv ^j}(Ti IluS'lae otto juev t^^ BpErraiiiKije t^ 
 rifiepiov rrXovv aTri)^uv irpoe dpKTov, iyyiig S' elvai rij? irtirriyviaQ 
 S'aAarTjjf) aAXove we jxvpiovg )(iXiovQ TTsvTaKOcrtovg, k.t-\ 
 
 3- Ta fiev ovv aXXo otaarjjuara OEOoo'S'ai avrt^' wfioKoyriTai yap 
 iKaKJuc" TO o OTTO Tou BojoiKT&Evouc ETTt TOV Sio, QovXtfg kukXov r/f av 
 oo/jj voDv E^^ojv ; o TE yap ItrTopiiv ttjv GouXijv Ou^Eae avijjo ^pivB'ia- 
 TQTog i^iiTacTTai, Kal 01 Trjv BpETTavticJjv [kqi] 'lEpvijv iSovTEC ouSlv 
 TTEpi TJjc ©ovXjje X£70i;o-(v, oXXoc vJjiTOvc XiyovTEQ fiiKpoQ irepl rj)l' 
 BjoErraKiKjjv aiiTri re 17 BjOETraviKiy to firiKog 'iawg irdiiQ iaTi ry KeXt(k»j 
 TrapiKTiTafiivn], twv irevTaKKT^iXlwv aTuBiiiiv oii fxeiZojv Kot ToTf axpoiQ 
 ToTe avTiKeificvoig ai^opiZofxivrj. avTlKUTai yap aXXijXoie to. ts ei^a 
 aKpa ToiQ itjjioiQ Ka\ Ta kalripia Toig sairiptoig, kuI to. yi ii^a lyyvg 
 aXXjjXoJV E(7Ti fJiixpiQ iiroipiwg, to te KavTiov koi a'l tov 'Privov tK^oXal. 
 6 0£ vXeiovoov rj Si(Tfjivptwv to fitJKog aTTO^aivii Trig vriaov, Kot to 
 KavTiov rifiipiov Tiviiiv ttXoSv cnri-)(iiv Trig KeXtik^c ^itri* Kal Ta vtp\ 
 Tovg QidTifiiovg Se Kal to. nipav tov 'Fi)vov to, fii'Xjpi Skw^wv Travra 
 KaTiiptvdTai twv tottwv. ocfTig ovv TnpX twv yvwpiZopiiviav Toirwv 
 ToaavTa lifjsvfTTai, (T)(oXy y' av ttejoi twv ayvoovfiivwv irapa vaaiv 
 aXri^evsiv SuvaiTO. 
 
 Tov OE oia TOV Bopva^avovg TrapaXXriXov tov avTov Eivai t(^ Sio 
 Ttjg BptTTaviKrjg iiKaZovaiv "linrap)(6g te koi aXXot ek tov tov avTov 
 flvat Kal tov Sta BvZavTiov ti^ Sm MaucaXlag- ov yap Xoyov 
 EipjjKE [IluS'tae] ToO £V Ma(T(TaXi<i. ■yvaj/iiovoe Trpof Tjjv (jKiav, tov 
 avTov Kal IwTTapxog kuto. tov opwvvfiov Kaipov tvpiiv iv to^ Bv^avrli^ 
 (priaiv 
 
 .... AeTv Se £74 irpotT^uvaL TO EKTog 'KpaKXdwv (tttiXwv KvpTwpia 
 Trig EvpwTrrig, avTiKiifxivov piv Tolg "l(5ripcn wpowsTTTWKog Se irpog Trjv 
 kairipav, oiiK eXottov ara^iwv TpKrx'Xiwv, Kal to. aKpwTr\pia ra Tt 
 aXXa Kal to twv 'Qi(jTipiwv, o KaXtiTai Kafdatov, koi Tag koto roSro 
 vrirrovg, wv rjjv icrxuTriv Ov^icrapriv ^Jjo-i DvS'E'ae airix^iv rinepuv 
 Tpiwv ttXovv. TavTa S' sIttwv to TtXEUTaia ouSev irpog to prJKog avvTil- 
 vovTa trpoai^riKi to. irspl twv aKpwTripiwv koi twv 'Qcrrjyuiajv Kat rijfi 
 
Appendix. 429 
 
 Ou^i(ra//r)C km. Sjv <p-r\ai vfitrtov TaxiTa yap iravra irpoadpKTia tort koi 
 KeXtikoj ovk 'IjdripiKa, fiaXXov Si Tlv^eov irKaafiaTa. 
 
 B. i. 18 (C. 7S)- '^r]a\ St b''\inrap\og koto rov Bopvo'Slvij Kol ttJv 
 KeXtikjjv ev SXaif raT? ^epivaiQ vv^l TrapavydZstrSrai to 0tue roO 
 ijX/oi) ircptiardfjievov awb ttjq Sicrawg sttI rriv dvaroXfiv, raig Se X^'-l^^' 
 pivaic rpoTratc [to] irXficrTov fieTEwpiZ£(r^ai tov tjXiov fir) Trri^siQ 
 
 ivvia, K.T.X ovTog 8I IIuSe^ TrioTtilwv Kara ra dpKTtKWTipa 
 
 Trie BjOtTTaviKJjc rjjv 0(Kr)(Ttv Tavrriv ri^ijo-i. 
 
 B. iv. I (C. 104)- IIoXujSioc Ss Triv EiipwTTTjv )((i)poypa(j>wv roiig 
 fiiv ap\a'iovg idv ^tjo-t, roue S' EKtfvoue EXf-y^^ovrae i^iraZsiv AiKai- 
 ap)^ov n Kol 'EjOaTOo-^EVT) rov rfXEuroTov irpaypaTivadpivov Trap). 
 yiu)ypa(j>(ag, koI Ylv^iav, v(j)' ov wapuKpovcr^rivai ttoXXov^, oXjjv fj.lv 
 rfiv BpETTaviKrjv £/xj3a8^ ETrsX&Etv (paaKOVTog, Trjv St wtplfteTpov 
 irXiiovwv T) TiTTapwv pvpidSwv ottoSovtoq rijc vjjtrouj npoaiaToprj- 
 aavTog SI Kal ra TnpX ttjc OouXrje koi tiov tottwv tKHvwv, sv oTp ovts 
 yri Kay avrriv virfip-)(^tv in ovte S'aXarro oiJr' arip, dXXa (TvyKpi/id ti 
 £K TOVTWV irXiVfiovt ^aXuTT'iCj) ioiKOQ, (V (f) (j>r](n Triv yriv Kal tt/v 
 ^aXuTTav alwpua^ai koI tu avfitravra, Kot tovtov wq av Stafiov iivai 
 Tuv oXfcjv, jurjrE iroptvrov pfjTS ttXwtov vtrapyovTa' to psv ovv ti^ 
 vXiVfiovi eoiKog avTog stiipaKivai, ToXXa Se Xe^eiv e^ aKorjg. Tavra fiiv 
 TO Tou Hv^iov, Kal Storj STravsX^wv Iv^ivSs iraaav iniX^oi Ti)v iraptxt- 
 Kiav'iTiv rije EirpwTrric otto Vaidpii)v idig TavatSog. 
 
 2 $»)al S' oSv 6 IloXujSfoe aTTtoTov koi avTO tovto, nutg iSiwTy 
 av^puiro^ Kal wivriTi to TouaCra cta(TTrifiaTa TrXwTa kuI iropevTa 
 yivoiTO ; tov S' 'EpaTOo-S'Evi) StaTrOjOr/aravra u \pri iriaTivnv TOVToig, 
 ofiwg TTipl T£ Trig BpETTaviKije TTSTTiaTevKivai KOI TtiJv KUTU VdSttpa Kal 
 Triv Ij3r|piav iroXii Be <pr\(ii (iiXTiov rtj) MsiTC7r}vi(^ iricsTtvuv 77 toutij). 
 6 fiivToiye tig p'lav ■)(ij)pav ttjv Ylay\diav Xiyei wXtiKxai, b Se Kai p-ixpi- 
 rwv ToD Kocrjuou TTEjoaTwv KaToiTTTEDKE'vat T17V TTpoadpKTiov Trig ^vpi^Trrig 
 vaaav, rjv ouS' av ti^ 'F,ppy TTKTTtvuai Tig XiyovTt. ' EpaToaSrivr) Se 
 rov jUEv Eu/)ju£pov Btpyaiov KaXttv, IluSii(} Se iTKTTtvtiv, Kat Tavra 
 firioi AlKatdpxov TriaTtixravTog. 
 
 B. V. 8 (C. 1 14). 'O fi V ovv MaarraXiojTrig Uvbiag ra tte/oi QovXriv 
 Trjv poptiOTarriv rwv BjOETraviStuv vcrTara Xiyet, Trap' dig 6 avTog mTi 
 Tif apKTiKi^ 6 ^tpivhg TpoTTiKog KVKXog' TTupa Se twv aXXwv ovciv 
 iCTTOjOw, oiy oTi QovXri vriaog eo-ti Tig ovt tl to. fJitXP'- Seu/jo oiKTjori/ia 
 tanv, oirov 6 ^tpivog rpoTTiKog dpKTiKog yivtTOi, vofiiZio Se iroXii Etvaj 
 voTiWTfpov TOUTO TO Tfjg otKOU/xlv»jc TTipag TO TTpondpKTiov 01 yap vvv 
 laropovvTtg irtpaiTtpw Tr/g 'Itpvrig ouSev t\ov<Ti Xeysiv, rj irpog apKTOv 
 
430 Origins of English History. 
 
 TTpoKtiTai rije BpiTTaviKrjg wXriaiov, aypiwv rsAeoog av^pwTrwv koI 
 KOKwe oiKovvTiov Siix 'ipv^oQ, wctt' svTav^u vofiiZ,()} TO wipag eivai ^sriov. 
 Tov Si TrapaXXfjXov tov Sid BvZavTiov Std MaacraX'iai; wwg lovTog, wg 
 <j>t](Ttv"lTnrapxoQ Triurtixjag Uv^iq. (^jjo-i yap Iv BvZavTl(f)Tov avrov 
 ilvai Xoyov tov yvwfiovoQ wpoQ Trjv aKiav, ov ilirtv 6 IlvSlmg iv 
 Ma(T(7aXiq), tov St Bid BopvaSlivovQ avb tovtov SdxovTOQ irspl Tpia- 
 )((Xiouc KOI OKTaKocriovQ, ilr) av Ik tov SiaaTiifiarog tov airo MacraaXiaQ 
 iTrl Trjv BpsTTaviKTJv ivTav^a ttov iriTTTwv 6 Sid tov BopvaSlivovQ 
 kvkXo^. iravTa)(Ov Se wapaKpovoficvog roiic av^piliirovg 6 tiv^iag 
 KavTavStd ttov cie\ptv(TTai' to piv yap rriv airo (TTrjXuv ypapfxrjv iwl 
 TovQ irspl TOV TTup^pov KOI ^A^Tjvac KOI 'PoSov TOTTOvg IttI TOV aVTUU 
 TrapaXXriXov KHcr^ai wpoX6yr)Tai Trapd TtoXXwv. 
 
 B.V. 43(0.136). Toi) yap r/Xiov ko^:' 6Xr}v Triv tov Kocrpov Tnpi<iTpo<^r\v 
 VTtlp yriQ (pipoptvov, SijAov oti koi ri aicia kukX^) Tnpievt^SfriaiTai ttejOI 
 TOV yvivpova- ko^' o 017 /cat TnpKJKiovg avTovg IkoAectev (6 "iTnrojo^oe), 
 ovolv ovTag wpog Trfv yitoypa(j)iav ov yap iaTiv oiKriuipa Tavra to. 
 pipr) Sia ■ipv-)(og, tixnrcp iv Tolg irpog Tlv^iav X6yoi<; uprjKaptv. 
 
 r. ii. 1 1 (C. 148). Kat ^EpaTO<T^£vr]C Se T^v (Trivt)(ri Ty KaXirp 
 TajOrr)(7(7i8a KaXetcrS'ai ^t](Ti Kat 'E/)v3'£(ai/ vrjaov ivSalpova. irpog ov 
 ^ApTEpiowpog avTtXiywv koi TavTa ipsvSwg XiyE(T^at <pr\<nv vn avTov 
 Ka^aTrep Kai to airo Vaciipwv etti to hpov aKpurripiov SidnTitpa airixiiv 
 lipcpiov irivTe ttXovv, ov ttXciovijjv ovtuiv ^ x'^'*^^ "f"' iTTTaKOcriwv 
 (TTaSlwv, Kal TO Tag apTTOJTSig pixpi Sevpo Tnparova^ai clvtI tov kwkX([) 
 ■mpX iraaav ttiv olKOvpivriv (rvu(5aiv£iv, Ka\ to tu irpoaapKriKa pipr\ 
 Tr]g 'Ifdripiag iinrapoSwTepa tivai wpog Trjv K£Xr(Kr;v ^ Kara tov ^Q,Ktavov 
 TrXiovai, koi oaa Sr\ aXXa eijojjke Ylv^iq TritJTtvaag. 
 
 A. ii. I (C. IQO)' O Si Aiyrip ptTa^ii YIiktovo^v te koi Najuvfrwv 
 EKpaXXEf TrpoTspov Si KopjiiXiuv inrrip'Xiv iptropiov etti tovti^ ti^ 
 iroTapi^, wsp) ijg EipjjKt IloXvfBiog, pvriirSrtig tuv vtto Ilv^tov pvSfoXoyri- 
 ^ivTwv, oTi MaaaaXtwTuv piv tCiv avppi^dvTtnv "^Knriwvi ovSug H\t 
 Xeyetv ovSiv pvripr]g a^tov spwTri^tlg viro tov Skittioivoc inpi Tr\g 
 BpsTTaviKTig, ovSi twv ek Nap(iii)vog oitSi riov ek Kopl3iXwvog, a'ivip 
 ^(70v apifjTai TToXeig twv TavTr/, Hv^iag 8' i^appjjai Toaavra 
 ipivaad^ai. 
 
 A. iv. I (C. 194). Msra Se to. Xex^ivTa t^vt) to. Xonra BiXyfov 
 E(7T(v i^vri TU)v TrapwKiuviTibv, Siv OiiivsToi piv tlcriv oi vavpa)(fi(ravrte 
 Trpog KaKjapa- iTOipot yap ^aav kwXveiv tov tig tyiv BptTTaviKfjV 
 ttXovv XpwpivoL T(^ tpTTOplif). ■ . . '0(T(<T/iiot 8' slalv, ovg ['Qo-Jrijuiouc 
 ovoudZu Uv^iag, ett/ Tivog irpoTrtTTTwicvlac iKaviog aKpag tig tov 'Qkeouov 
 
Appendix. 431 
 
 oiKOUVTEfj oiiK hn ■toaovTOv Se e^' otrov IkeTvoc ^Jjct koi oI TrttrrEUffavrte 
 
 A. V. 5 (C. 201). IlEpl 8e rjjc ©ovArje En juaXAov acra^jjc 17 laTopia 
 Sm Tov EKTOTTKTjuov Ta{)Tr\v Jap tCjv ovofjiaZo/iivwv apKTiKWTaTriv 
 n^iaaiv. a S' (IpriKS Uv^iag iripi te Tavrriq koi tCiv aXXwv twi' 
 rauT^ TOTTiui' on jUev TrsTrXnffraj, tpavipov ek TtJv yvwpi^Ofiivwv 
 ■)(ii)pii»v KaTe\pivaTai yap avriov to. TrXiitTTa, wawip Kal wponpov 
 iipifTai, uxTTE S^Xoe iuriv hfjivapivo^ juaXXov irtpX riiiv EKrfro- 
 inafiivwv. irpoQ pivroi to. oiipavia Kal rrfv fia^ripaTiKriv Siswpiav 
 iKoviiiQ So^Ei Kexpfjcr^ai toIq irpayfiaai . . . to7q t^ KaTs^uy/xivy 
 ^liivT} irXriaiaZoval to twv icapTrwv ttvai twv rifiipwv koi 2(t»wv rtiiv psv 
 a(j>opiav vavTeXfi twv 81 airavtv, Kiy\ptj^ oe icai aypioiQ Xa-)(avoi(; koli 
 Kapiroiq KOI piZaiQ Tpi^BmSlaf Trap' dig 8J a'lTog koi p.O\.i ylyviTai, koi 
 
 TO WOfia EITeC^EV e't^EJV TOV Se aiTOV, ETTEfSjJ TOljg r\\ioVQ OVK i-)(pv<n 
 
 KaSapoue, £V o'lKoic jUEyaXoie kotttovcti, (TvjKOfiKT^evTCJV Sevpo twv aTa- 
 Miuiv ctl yap aXwg a.\pin(TTOi yivovTaiSiaTo avfikiov kuItovq 6pf5povQ' 
 
 Z. ii, 4 (C. 294). Twv Se Tsppavwv, wg tlrrov, oi plv vpocFapKTtoi 
 wapoiKOiKTi T(^ 'QiKiavt^, K.r.X. 
 
 Touf 8J aKpifietg opovQ ouk £)(opev (ppa^Eiv dia 8e Trjv ayvoiav tUv 
 TOTTWV TOVTwv ol TO. PtTTota opij Kul TOi)? XiTspfdopsiovg pvS/OTTOtoTlVTSg 
 Ad-you ri^lwvTat, Koi a Tlv^mg 6 MaarTaXiwTriQ KaTE\psv(7aT0 TUVTa 
 Trig irapwKsavtTtdog, TrpoayfipaTi \pwfj.svog ry irepl Ta ovpavia Kot to. 
 pa^tjfiaTiKU itTToplq. 
 
 VI. POMPONIUS MELA. 
 
 De Situ Orbis, iii. 6. \_InsulcB\ in Celticis aliquot sunt quas, quia 
 plumbo abundant, uno omnes nomine Cassiteridas appellant. Sena 
 in Britannico mari, Osismicis adverse littoribus, Gallici numinis 
 oraculo insignis est : cujus antistites, perpetua virginitate sanctse, 
 numero novem esse traduntur: Gallkenas vocant, putantque in- 
 geniis singularibus praeditas ; maria ac ventos concitare carmini- 
 bus ; seque in quae velint animalia vertere ; sanare, quae apud alios 
 insanabilia sunt ; scire ventura et praedicare : sed non nisi deditas 
 navigantibus, et in id tantum ut se consulerent profectis. 
 
 Triginta sunt Orcades angustis inter se ductae spatiis : septem 
 Haemodae, contra Germaniam vectae. In illo sinu quern Codanum 
 diximus, sex ; ex iis Scandinavia, quam adhuc Teutoni tenent, ut 
 
432 Origins of English History. 
 
 foecunditate alias, ita magnitudine antestat. Quae Sarmatis adversa 
 sunt, ob alternos accessus recessusque pelagi, et quod spatia quts 
 distant, modo operiuntur undis modo nuda sunt, alias insulae 
 videntur, alias una et continens terra. In his esse Oseonas qui ovis 
 avium palustrium et avenis tantum alantur : esse equinis pedibus 
 Hippopodas, et Panotos, quibus magnae aures, et ad ambiendum 
 corpus omne patulae, nudis alioquin pro veste sunt, prseterquam 
 quod fabulis traditur, auctores etiam, quos sequl non pigeat 
 invenio. Thule Belcarum litori opposita est, Graiis et nostris 
 celebrata carminibus. In ea, quod ibi sol longe occasurus exsurgit, 
 breves utique noctes sunt : sed per hiemem, sicut aliubi, obscuras ; 
 aestate lucidae, quod per id tempus jam se altius evehens, quan- 
 quam ipse non cernatur, vicino tamen splendore proxima illustrat ; 
 per solstitium vero nullae, quod turn jam manifestior non fulgore 
 modo, sed sui quoque partem maximam ostentat. 
 
 VII. C. PLINIUS SECUNDUS. 
 
 Hist. Nat. ii. yj. Sic fit, ut vario lucis incremento, in Meroe 
 longissimus dies XII horas aequinoctiales, et octo partes unius 
 horae colligat : Alexandrise vero XIV horas : in Italia quindecim : 
 in Britannia XVII ; ubi aestate lucidae noctes, baud dubie repro- 
 mittunt id quod cogit ratio credi ; solstitii diebus accedente Sole 
 propius verticem mundi, angusto lucis ambitu, subjecta terrae con- 
 tinuos dies habere senis mensibus ; noctesque e diverse ad brumam 
 remoto. Quod fieri in insula Thule Pytheas Massiliensis scripsit, 
 sex dierum navigatione in septemtrionem a Britannia distante. 
 
 ii. 99. Omnes autem aestus in Oceano majora integunt spatia 
 inundantque, quam in reliquo mari . . . Octogenis cubitis supra 
 Britanniam intumescere aestus Pytheas Massiliensis auctor est. 
 
 iv. 27. Exeundum deinde est, ut extera Europae dicantur, 
 transgressisque Riphaeos montes, litus Oceani septemtrionalis in 
 laeva, donee perveniatur Gades, legendum. Insulae complures sine 
 nominibus eo situ traduntur. Ex quibus ante Scythiam, quae 
 appellatur Raunonia, unam abesse diei cursu, in quam veris tem- 
 pore fluctibus electrum ejiciatur, Tim^us prodidit. Reliqua litora 
 incerta signata fama. Septemtrionalis Oceanus : Amalchiura eum 
 Hecataeus appellat, a Paropamiso amne, qua Scythiam alluit, 
 
Appendix. 
 
 quod nomen ejus gentis lingua significat congelatum. Philei 
 Morimarusam a Cimbris vocari, hoc est, mortuum mare, us 
 ad promontorium Rubeas : ultra deinde Cronium. Xenop 
 Lampsacenus, a litore Scytharum tridui navigatione, insulam 
 immensae magnitudinis, Baltiam, tradit. Eandem Pytheas I 
 liam nominat. 
 
 iv. 30. Ex adverse hujus situs Britannia insula, clara Gr; 
 nostrisque monumentis, inter septemtrionem et occidentem ja 
 Germanise, Galliae, Hispaniae, multo maximis Europae part 
 magno intervallo adversa. Albion ipsi nomen fuit, cum Britar 
 vocarentur omnes : de quibus mox paulo dicemus. Haec a 
 a Gessoriaco Morinorum gentis litore, proximo trajectu quin( 
 ginta M., circuitu vero Qfitere tricies octies centena viginti quir 
 M. Pytheas et Isidorus tradunt. 
 
 Sunt autem XL Orcades, modicis inter se discreta; sp; 
 Septem Acmodae, et XXX H^budes : et inter Hibernian 
 Britanniam, Mona, Monapia, Ricina, Vectis, Limnus, Anc 
 Infra vero Siambis, et Axantos. Et ab adverse in Germani 
 mare sparsae Glessariae, quas Electridas Graeci recentiores app 
 vere, quod ibi electrum nasceretur. Ultima omnium, quae me 
 rantur, Thule : in qua solstitio nullas esse noctes indicavii 
 Cancri signum Sole transeunte, nuUosque contra per brumam 1 
 Hoc quidam senis mensibus continuis fieri arbitrantur. Tim 
 historicus a Britannia introrsus sex dierum navigatione ab 
 dicit insulam Mictim, in qua candidum plumbum proveniat. 
 earn Britannos vitilibus navigiis corio circumsutis navigare. i 
 qui et alias prodant, Scandiam, Dumnam, Bergos : maximarr 
 omnium Nerigon, ex qua in Thulen navigetur. A Thule u 
 diei navigatione mare concretum, a nonnullis Cronium appella 
 xxxvii. II. Sotacus credidit in Britannia petris effli 
 quas Electridas vocat. Pytheas Guttonibus Germanise genti, ac 
 a;stuarium Oceani, Mentonomon nomine, spatio stadiorum 
 millium : ab hoc diei navigatione insulam abesse Abalum : 
 vere fluctibus advehi, et esse concreti maris purgamentum ; 
 colas pro ligno ad ignem uti eo, proximisque Teutonis veru 
 Huic et Timaeus credidit, sed insulam Basiliam vocavit. 
 
 2 G 
 
434 Origins of English History. 
 
 VIII. TACITUS. 
 
 Germania, c. 44. Trans Lygios Gotones regnantur, paullo jam 
 adductius quam ceterae Germanorum gentes, nondum tamen supra 
 libertatem. Protinus deinde ab Oceano Rugii et Lemovii ; omni- 
 umque harum gentium insigne rotunda scuta, breves gladii et erga 
 reges obsequium. Suionum hinc civitates, sitae in Oceanum, 
 prseter viros armaque classibus valent. . . . 
 
 c. 45. Trans Suionas aliud mare pigrum ac prope inmotum, quo 
 cingi cludique terrarum orbem hinc fides, quod extremus cadentis 
 jam solis fulgor in ortum edurat adeo clarus, ut sidera hebetet; 
 sonum insuper emergentis audiri, formasque equorum et radios 
 capitis adspici persuasio adicit. Illuc usque, et fama vera, tantum 
 natura. Ergo jam dextro Suebici maris litore .^stiorum gentes 
 adluuntur, quibus ritus habitusque Suevorum, lingua Britannicse 
 propior. Matrem deum venerantur. Insigne superstitionis formas 
 aprorum gestant. Id pro armis omnique tutela securum deae 
 cultorem etiam inter hostes praestat. Rarus ferri, frequens fustium 
 usus. Frumenta ceterosque fructus patientius quam pro solita 
 Germanorum inertia laborant. Sed et mare scrutantur, ac soli 
 omnium succinum, quod ipsi glesum vocant, inter vada atque in 
 ipso litore legunt. 
 
 Agric. c. 10. Formam totius Britanniae Livius veterum, Fabius 
 Rusticus recentium eloquentissimi auctores oblongae scutulae vel 
 bipenni adsimulavere. Et est ea facies citra Caledoniam, unde et 
 in universum fama. Est transgressis inmensum et enorme spatium 
 procurrentium extremo jam litore terrarum velut in cuneum ten- 
 uatur. Hanc oram novissimi maris tunc primum Romana 
 classis circumvecta insulam esse Britanniam adfirmavit, ac simul 
 incognitas ad id tempus insulas, quas Orcadas vocant, invenit 
 domuitque. Dispecta est et Thule, quia hactenus jussum; et 
 hiems adpetebat. Sed mare pigrum et grave remigantibus per- 
 hibent ne ventis quidem proinde attolli, credo quod rariores 
 terrae montesque, causa ac materia tempestatum, et profunda 
 moles continui maris tardius impellitur. Naturam Oceani atque 
 aestus neque quaerere hujus operis est, ac multi rettulere : unum 
 addiderim, nusquam latius dominari mare, multum fluminum 
 hue atque illuc ferre, nee litore tenus adcrescere aut resorberi, sed 
 
Appendix. 435 
 
 influere penltus atque ambire, et jugis etiam ac montlbus inseri 
 velut in suo. 
 
 c. II. Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerit, in- 
 digenae an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. . . . 
 Dierum spatia ultra nostri orbis mensuram ; nox clara et 
 extrema Britanniae parte brevis, ut finem atque initium lucis 
 exiguo discrimine internoscas. Quod si nubes non officiant, aspici 
 per noctem solis fulgorem, nee occidere et exsurgere sed transire 
 adfirmant. 
 
 IX. SOLINUS. 
 
 Polyhist, 22. Saltus Hercynius aveis gignit, quarum penn« 
 per obscurum emicant et interlucent, quamvis densa nox obtegat 
 et denset tenebras. Unde homines loci illius plerumque noc- 
 turnes excursus sic destinant, ut illis utantur ad praesidium 
 itineris dirigendi prsejactisque per opaca callium rationem viae 
 moderentur indicio plumarum refulgentium. In hoc tractu sane 
 et in omni septentrionali plage bisontes frequentissimi, qui boves 
 feris similes setosi, colla jubis horrida. Ultra tauros pernicitate 
 
 vigentes, capti assuescere manu nequeunt. Sunt et uri, 
 
 (quibus) taurina cornua in tantum modum protenduntur, ut dempta 
 ob insignem capacitatem inter regias mensas potuum gerula fiant. 
 Sunt et alces, mulis comparandae, adeo propenso labro superiore, 
 
 ut nisi recedens in posteriora vestigia pasci non queant De 
 
 Germanicis insulis Scandinavia maxima est. 
 
 c. 24. Multse et alias circum Britanniam insulse e quibus 
 Thyle ultima, in qua aestivo solstitio sole de cancri sidere faciente 
 transitum nox paene nulla : brumali solstitio dies adeo conductus, 
 ut ortus junctus sit occasui. A Caledoniae promontorio Thylen 
 petentibus bidui navigatione perfecta excipiunt Hebudes insulae, 
 quinque numero, quarum incolae nesciunt fruges, piscibus tantum 
 et lacte vivunt. Rex unus est universis: nam quotquot sunt 
 omnes angusta interluvie dividuntur. Rex nihil suum habet, 
 omnia universorum : ad aequitatem certis legibus stringitur : ac ne 
 avaritia dlvertat a vero, discit paupertate justitiam utpote cui 
 nihil sit rei familiaris : verum alitur e publico. Nulla illi datur 
 femina propria, sed per vicissitudines, in quamcumque commotus 
 
 2 G 2 
 
436 Origins of English History. 
 
 sit, usurariam sumit. Unde ei nee votum, nee spes conceditur 
 liberorum. Seeundam a continenti stationem Orcades praebent : 
 sed Orcades ah Hebudibus porro sunt septem dierum, toti- 
 demque noctium eursu, numero tres. Vacant homine : non 
 habent silvas, tantum junceis herbis inhorrescunt. Cetera earum 
 nudae arenae. Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque quinque dierum, ac 
 noctium navigatio est. Sed Thyle larga et diutina pomona 
 copiosa est. Qui illic habitant, principio veris inter pecudes 
 pabulis vivunt, dein lacte. In hiemem compercunt arborum 
 fructus. Utuntur feminis vulgo, certum matrimonium nulli. 
 Ultra Thylen pigrum et concretum mare. Circuitus Britanniae 
 4875 millia passuum sunt. In quo spatio magna et multa flumina, 
 fontes calidi opiparo exculti apparatu ad usus mortalium : quibus 
 fontibus praesul est Minervae numen, in cujus aede perpetui ignes 
 nunquam canescunt in favillas, sed ubi ignis tabuit, vertit in 
 globos saxeos. 
 
 X. DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES. 
 
 Orb. Descr. 286. Q^KZavov Kkyxirai '^v\poQ pooQ, EvOa Bpiravol 
 AtvKa TS <pv\a vifiovrai apuitaviwv Vspfiavwv, 
 'EpKVviov Spvfioio Trapa6pw<TK0VT£g opojKOvg. 
 
 Kiidi 81 KeXtoJv TTatSig, v^rifxivoi alydpoKri, 
 AaKpv" afiiXyovTai xpvaavyeng riXiKTpoto. 
 
 561. Avrap VTT ctKpriv 
 
 'Ipfiv, rjv eviirovai Kaprjv ifisv ¥.vpii)Trtir]g, 
 N}j(TOve 'EdTTspiSag, rodi Kaaavripoio jevidXri, 
 'A0VEtoi vaiovaiv ayavwv TraiStg 'Ipijpwv. 
 "AXXat S' 'QiKsavoto napal fiopewriSag ciKTug 
 Ai(7<Tal vijaoi eacri BparaviSeg, avTla 'Pjjvou' 
 KtiOi yap vaTariifv airsptvysTai tie,- uXa Slvriv 
 Taojv Toi fisyedog nepioixnov, ouSt rig aXXij 
 N?)(TO«c i'^ TraaT^ai BpiTaviaiv iao<papit^ii. 
 "Ay^i Bi vj)(7iSa)v srspog nopog, 'ivOa yvvaiKtg 
 'AvSjO({)v avTiTTspridev dyavwv 'Ajuviraojv 
 'OpvvfiEvai TsXiovtTi Kara vojuov hpa BoK^tj), 
 "SiTiipafiivai Kiaaoio jUtXaju^uXXoto Kopv/i^oig, 
 'Evvuxtar irarayrig 8e \iyv9poog opvvTai fixn. 
 
Appendix. 437 
 
 IIoXXjji; Ss irpOTipuas Ta/iwv oSov 'Okeovoio, 
 N^o-ov Kiv OovXtfV ivspyii vrfi Tnpriaaig' 
 "Evfla filv, riiXioio /SejSjjkotoc Ic ^toXov apKTUiv, 
 "HfiaS' o/iov Kul vvKTOc dti^avig tKicl^iiToi ttDjo. 
 
 XI. MARCIAN HERACLEOTA. 
 
 Epit. Peripl. Menip. I. 63. 01 yap 8^ SoKoSvree rauro jueto 
 Xrfywv cSriTaKEvat, Ttjuoo-fllvije 6 'PoStoc t^Ttv, apxtKf^tpvTjTrie roil 
 iivrlpov IlToXtjuaiou ytyovojg, icai juar' IkcTvov 'Eparoo-flevtie^ ov Bijro 
 EKoXcffav o( ToO Mouo-tfou TrpoffrdvTEC, Tr/ioe Se rovroig IlvBiag t$ 6 
 MaaaaXiuirrig, k. t. X. 
 
 « 
 
 XII. RUFUS FESTUS AVIENUS, 
 
 Ora Maritima. vv. 85-135. 
 
 Hie Gaddir urbs est, dicta Tartessus prius : 
 Hie sunt eolumnae pertinaeis Herculis, 
 Abila atque Calpe ; haee laeva dieti eespitis, 
 (Libyae propinqua est Abila) duro perstrepunt 
 Septentrione, sed loco certse tenent. 
 Et prominentis hie jugi surgit caput, 
 (CEstrymnin istud dixit aevum antiquius) 
 Molesque celsa saxei fastigii 
 Tota in tepentem maxime vergit Notum. 
 Sub hujus autem prominentis vertiee 
 Sinus dehiscit ineolis CEstrymnicus, 
 In quo insulae sese exserunt CEstrymnides, 
 Laxe jaeentes, et metallo divites 
 
 Stanni atque plumbi 
 
 Ast hinc duobus in Saeram, sic insulam 
 Dixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est, 
 Hsec inter undas multa cespitem jacet, 
 Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit. 
 Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet. 
 Tartessiisque in terminos CEstrymnidam 
 Negotiandi mos erat ; Carthaginis 
 Etiam coloni, et vulgus, inter Herculis 
 
438 Origins of English History: 
 
 Agitans columnas, hsec adibant aequora : 
 Quae Himilco Pcenus mensibus vix quatuor, 
 Ut ipse semet re probasse rettulit 
 Enavigantem, posse transmitti adserit, 
 Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem, 
 Sic segnis humor aequoris pigri stupet. 
 Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites 
 Exstare fucum, et saepe virgulti vice 
 Retinere puppim ; dicit hie nihilominus 
 Non in profundum terga demitti maris, 
 Parvoque aquarum vix supertexi solum : 
 Obire semper hue et hue ponti feras 
 Navigia lenta et languide repentia 
 Internatare belluas. . . . 
 
 Porro in oceiduam plagam 
 Ab his eolumnis gurgitem esse interminum, 
 Late patere pelagus, extendi salum, 
 Himilco tradit. Nullus haec adiit freta, 
 NuUus carinas aequor illud intulit, 
 Desint quod alto flabra propellentia, 
 Nullusque puppim spiritus coeli juvet : 
 Dehinc quod aethram quodam amictu vestiat 
 Caligo, semper nebula condat gurgitem, 
 Et crassiore nubilum perstet die. 
 Oceanus iste est, orbis effusi procul 
 Circumlatrator, iste pontus maximus. 
 
 Longo explicatur gurges hujus ambitu, 
 Produciturque latere prolixe vago. 
 Plerumque porro tenue tenditur salum, 
 Ut vix arenas subjaeentes occulat. 
 Exsuperat autem gurgitem fueus frequens 
 Atque impeditur aestus hie uligine. 
 Vis belluarum pelagus omne internatat 
 Multusque terror ex. feris habitat freta. 
 Hsec olim Himilco Poenus Oceano super 
 Spectasse semet et probasse rettulit : 
 Haec nos, ab imis Punicorum annalibu.s 
 Prolata longo tempore, edidimus tibi. 
 
Appendix. 439 
 
 XIII. THE RAVENNA GEOGRAPHER. 
 
 Geogr. i. 3. Duodecima ut hora die! Britonum est patria, cujus 
 post terga infra Oceanum, ubi longius est, duorum dierum cum 
 suis noctibus prospere navigantibus iter, magna insula Britannia 
 rejacet : quam Graecorum philosophi quasi micosmin appellant. 
 Et trans ipsam Britanniam trecentis milliariis spatiis ubi longius 
 Scotorum insula invenitur quae et Hibernia conscribitur. Nam 
 jam ultra illam, ut ad occidentalem dicamus plagam, nullo modo 
 ab hominibus terra invenitur. 
 
 XIV. DICUIL. 
 
 • 
 
 De mensuri Orbis. c. 29. \Ante. p. 67.J Thile ultima in qu& . . 
 nox nulla .... In medio illius minimi temporis medium noctis 
 fit in medio orbis terrae ; et idcirco mentientes falluntur qui 
 circum earn concretum fore mare scripserunt, et qui a vernali 
 sequinoctio usque ad autumnale continuum diem sine nocte atque 
 ab autumnali versa vice usque ad vernale sequinoctium assiduam 
 quidem noctem, dum illi navigantes in naturali tempore magni 
 frigoris earn intrabant ac manentes in ipsd dies noctesque semper 
 praeter solstitii tempus alternatim habebant: sed, navigatione 
 minus diei ex illi ad boream congelatum mare invenerunt." 
 
 XV. GASSENDI. 
 
 Op. V. 327., Vita Peireskii. 5. Exoptaverat Wendelinus maxi- 
 mam live solstitialem Solis altitudinem observari Massiliae : ut 
 Diatribam suam de Solis obliquitate posset . . . expendere ex nos- 
 tra ob^ervatione, comparata cum ei quam sub Alexandri Magni 
 
 tempera Pytheas Massiliensis peregit Dicere sufficiat . . . 
 
 fuisse ex nostri observatione gnomonem ad umbram ei propor- 
 tione quam habent 120 ad 42I ; qui fuit juxta ilium " e& proportione 
 quam habent 120 ad 4i|." 
 
 Op. iv. S30. Proport. Gnomon. Epist. ad Wendelinum 2. "Ad 
 Pytheam redeo, cuius propterea fidei nihil detrahitur, tametsi idem 
 potuit cum illis proceribus Ptolemaeo, Hipparcho, Eratosthene, 
 peccatum peccare. Venit ille potius mihi commendandus et amore 
 patriae et civitatis gratii, quas ut Euthymenem in Austrum sic 
 
440 Origins of English History. 
 
 ipsum in Boream emisit, per Atlanticum : recitaturos quid in 
 terris usque ultimis viseretur. Nee refert quod, ut Seneca inen- 
 titum Euthymenem scribit, sic Strabo, Polybium sequutus, plurima 
 mendacia Pytheae adscribit : Quippe et Philosophus, ex Cleomede 
 fuit; ac veri proinde studiosus ; et quod ad caelestes quidem 
 observationes attinet, id videtur sufficere, quod fuerit Matheseos ac 
 ipsius adeo Astronomiae valde peritus. Peritiorem certe vel ipso 
 Eudoxo ab Hipparcho accipimus, cum Eudoxum quidem repre- 
 hendit dicentem esse quandam stellam in eodem semper loco 
 consistentem, quae quidem Polus mundi fit et Massillensem 
 Pytheam commendat dicentem " i7i Polo nullam esse stellam sed 
 vacuum esse locum cui tres stellce adjaceant, quibuscum ipsum Pali 
 punctum quadrangulmn circiter figuram efficiat" : ut illud prae- 
 teream, quod ipsi propterea fidem adhibuit, Eratosthene imitatus, 
 dum ex ejusdem laboribus Geographiam locupletaverit. Nempe 
 et descripsit terrae ambitum, opus Scholiastis celebratum, et 
 memoratos Gemino de Oceano scripsit commentarios. Quin 
 Strabo quoque ipse tacere non potest illius peritiam Tnpi to ovpavia 
 Koi jua0>)/uariKa ; causatur solum voluisse ilium eruditionis suas 
 prffitextu conciliare fabulis fidem. Et vide tamen, ut experientia 
 nos jam edocuerit ilia revera contingere in plagis Borealibus . . . 
 quae Strabo voluitPythean descripsisse solum irphg fiiv toi rd ovpavia 
 KoX rrjv fiaOrffiaTiK-qv Oswpiav : ejusmodi Sunt, " fructum mitiorum 
 nihil, atiimaliumque mansuetorum parum. ibi nasci, miliis et aliis 
 oleribus, fructibus et radicibus vesci homines "; Quod fabulae locum 
 potissimum dedit, ipsa est Thules historia, quam hodie etiam 
 plerique volunt non esse dictam Islandiam, sed Insulam quandam 
 ex Orcadibus, adhaerentes Ptolemaeo, qui eam statuit quatuor 
 gradibus citra Circulum Polarem. Sane vero, si nihil Terrarum 
 sub eo circulo detectum jam foret, posset Pytheas haberi 
 mendax referens " se ej pervenisse, ubi cestivus Tropicus gereret 
 vicem Arctici, hoc est m-aximi circulorum semper apparentium" : 
 et quia jam etiam navigando pervenitur in Islandiam, ubi 
 Tropicus pro Arctico est ; quidni habeamus Pytheae fidem et hanc 
 Thulen esse credamus, quam sic nominatam primus prodidit? 
 Quam ceteri certe supponunt aut fingunt situm non habet hujus- 
 modi ; et Cleomedes melius quam Strabo Thulen reliquit, ubi 
 Pytheas collocasse memorabatur. Et ne dubitare quis possit de 
 Pytheae sagacitate ac solertiH, quasi loca citeriora habere potuerit 
 
Appendix. 44 1 
 
 pro eo in quo dies maximus 24 foret horarum, verba sunt illius 
 apud Geminum, " Monstrabant nobis barbari ubi Sol cubaret &c." 
 Qu£E refero, ut innuam quemadmodum Pytheas eo paulatim per- 
 venerit ubi nulla tandem nox foret in aestivo solstitio : ac simul 
 insinuem, quam grata esse debeat illius memoria qui primus 
 mortalium tam longe processit. At fabulam sapit " neque terram 
 ibi porro esse, neque mare, neque aerem, sed quidpiam ex Us con- 
 cretum, pulmonis marini simile &€." Sed nota potius hominis 
 fidem, si quidem dixit solum Pytheas " se pulmonis formam 
 vidisse, referre autem cetera quasi auditu solo recepta." Addit 
 Strabo dixisse "solum ibi Tropicum pro Arctico esse," quod su- 
 perest autem non commemorasse, neque an insula sit Thule, 
 neque utrum habitationes eo usque pertingant, et alia similia ; 
 
 quse, si voluisset imponere, baud dubie profecto scripsisset 
 
 alia quoque sunt quae improbat Strabo, ut abesse Thulen a Bri- 
 tannid sex dierum navigatione (quod Plinius quoque ex PytheS, 
 habet), Cantium Britannice a Celticd aliquot, et Sacrum Promon- 
 torium a Gadibus quinque sed nimirum videtur Pytheas con- 
 scripsisse totius suae navigationis diarium, commemorasseque 
 quantum temporis inter superandum locorum intervalla consump- 
 sisset .... Quomodo proinde non Pytheas diario, sed Hip- 
 parchus ductA a se consecutione deceptus est, cum Pytheae fidem 
 dicitur secutus, asserendo maximam diem in australiore Brit- 
 tannid esse 19 horarum, ac simili modo Eratosthenes in assignandis 
 Britannicis affinibus. Vocat praeterea ille figmenta, quae Pytheas 
 rettulit de Ostidamniis, Calbio, Uxisamid, aliisque locis : et, quasi 
 nunquam possit ipsi non esse ob Thulen infensus, hominem 
 appellat mendacissimum, quod qui viderint Hiberniam non ejus- 
 modi insulae sed aliarum solum parvarum circa Britanniam memi- 
 
 nerint At quonam modo id excusetur, quod ait Pytheas 
 
 " se peragrasse quidquid est Europce regionum ad Oceanum ex 
 Gadibus ipsis ad Tanain usque." ^ Sane, quod potuerit Hispaniae 
 Gallias ac Germaniae oras perlustrare ac fortassis quoque Danid 
 superatd penetrare longe ad Balthicum Sinum, qui fuit olim 
 Sarmaticus Hyperboreusque creditus Oceanus, creditus complecti 
 Scandiae Insulas, quas nunc esse Noruegiae Sueciaeque continenteis 
 constat: nemo inficias ierit. Quod existimaverit autem se "ad 
 Tanain usque " pervenisse, Deum immortalem ! quam id videtur 
 pro caligine eorum temporum esse excusatione dignum ! 
 
442 Origins of English History. 
 
 APPENDIX 11. 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF GREEK AND LATIN WRITERS 
 TO WHICH REFERENCES HAVE BEEN MADE. 
 
 ^LiAN (2nd century a.d.) wrote a " History of Animals." 
 AcATHODiEMON of Alexandria (4th century a.d.), a geographer who is 
 
 believed to have compiled the earliest maps based upon the Ptolemaic 
 
 tables. 
 Ammianus, Marcellinus (4th century a.d.), a Greek of Antioch, who 
 
 wrote a Latin History of the Roman emperors, continuing Suetonius. 
 Amometus (3rd century b.c), one of the Greek writers of imaginary 
 
 travels. 
 Antiphanes, or the " Man of Berga," a Thracian writer proverbial for the 
 
 publication of incredible stories. 
 Apuleius (2nd century a.d.) was himself a priest of Osiris, and wrote, 
 
 besides his famous " Golden Ass," various religious and philosophical 
 
 tracts. 
 Aristotle (384-322 b.c). The " De Mundo," "Mirabilia," and several 
 
 other books included in the Corpus Aristotelicum, were written or 
 
 added to by later Peripatetics. 
 Artemidorus of Ephesus (circa 100 b.c.) travelled in Spain and Gaul, 
 
 and wrote a geography, abridged by Marcian of Heraclea. 
 Athen^us (flor. circa 220 A.D.). His " Dripno-Sophistae " contains 
 
 fragments of 800 writers, many of whom are otherwise unknown. 
 AusoNius, D. Magnus (born about 320 a.d., and lived till the end of the 
 
 century), was the tutor of the Emperor Gratian. 
 AviENUs, RuFus Festus (circa 350-400 a.d.), translated Aratus and 
 
 Dionysius, and wrote a poem describing the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean. He is important as having preserved some fragments of the 
 
 Carthaginian tablets. 
 CiBSAR, C. Julius (103-44 b.c). 
 
Appendix. 443 
 
 Cassiodorus, Aurelius, "the Senator" (6th century a.d.) was the 
 
 minister of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Left twelve books of " Episto- 
 
 larum Variarum." 
 Cicero, M. Tullius (106-43 ^.c). 
 Claudianus, Cl. (4th century a.d.). His panegyrical poems were written 
 
 chiefly in honour of Stilicho and the Emperor Honorius. 
 Clement of Alexandria (fior. circa 206 a.d.). His semi-theological 
 
 treatises are the chief authority for the pagan mysteries. 
 Cleomedes (3rd century a.d.) wrote on the circular theory of the 
 
 heavenly bodies. 
 Clitarchus (4th century B.C.) accompanied the expedition of Alexander 
 
 to Asia, and wrote a rhetorical account of it, now lost. 
 Constantius, Lugdunensis (circa 450 a.d.), wrote the "Life of St. 
 
 Germanus," and corresponded with Sidonius ApoUinaris. 
 CoSMAS Indicopleustes (6th century a.d.). An Egyptian merchant, who 
 
 travelled in Abyssinia, Persia and Ceylon, and knew something of China. 
 
 He afterwards became a monk, and wrote against the theory of the 
 
 rotundity of the earth. 
 Demosthenes the Athenian (384-322 B.C.). 
 Dic^archus, pupil of Aristotle (3rd century B.C.), geographer and 
 
 philosopher. 
 DicuiL (9th century a.d.), an Irish monk who wrote a work " De Mensura 
 
 Orbis." 
 DiODORUS SicuLUS (latter part of ist century a.d.) wrote a Bibliotheca 
 
 Historica in 40 books, of which 15 remain. 
 Diogenes, Antonius (3rd century b.c), one of the Greek novel-writers of 
 
 the post-Alexandrine age. 
 Dion Cassius the Historian (155-240 a.d.). 
 DioNYSius Periegetes (end of 2nd century a.d.) wrote a Description 
 
 of the Earth, translated by Festus Avienus, and by Priscian the Gram- 
 marian. 
 DioscoRiDES (latter part of the ist century a.d.), a Greek physician. 
 Ephorus the Historian (363-300, b.c.) described the Celts from the 
 
 reports of the early Greek travellers. 
 Eratosthenes (276-196 b.c), librarian at Alexandria, astronomer and 
 
 geographer, nicknamed " Beta." He was the first to measure the 
 
 obliquity of the ecliptic, and made an improved map of the earth. 
 EuHEMERUS of Messene, an author of the time of Alexander the Great. His 
 
 "Sacred History," in which the stories of the Greek mythology were 
 
 treated as narratives of actual fact, was translated into Latin by 
 
 Ennius. 
 
444 Origins of English History. 
 
 EuMENius (flor. 296-310 A.D.), an orator and author of the Panegyrics 
 to Constantius. 
 
 EusTATHius, Archbp. of Thessalonica (12th century a.d.), wrote com- 
 mentaries on Homer and Dionysius Periegetes. 
 
 EuTHYMENES, a Contemporary of Pytheas. Travelled (about 330 b.c) on 
 the African coast. 
 
 Florus, L. AnnjEus Julius (2nd century a.d.), wrote an epitome 
 of Roman history, which appeared soon after the publication of 
 Ptolemy's geography. 
 
 Fronto, M. Cornelius (consul in i6i a.d.), a famous orator under the 
 Antonines. 
 
 Geminus of Rhodes (ist century a.d.) wrote an " Introduction to 
 Astronomy." 
 
 Gratianus, Faliscus (beginning of the ist century a.d.), a writer on 
 hunting. 
 
 Hanno (date uncertain), one of the Shofetim of Carthage, commissioned 
 to explore the western coasts of Africa. His Periplus was recorded 
 on Punic and Greek tablets, of which part is still extant. 
 
 HecatjEUS of Miletus (circa 500 b.c), one of the fathers of Greek 
 history and geography. 
 
 Hecat/Eus of Abdera (circa 300 B.C.), author of the romance i/rep tUv 
 'Yircpfiopeimr. 
 
 Hermolaus the Grammarian (date unknown) epitomised the work of 
 Stephanus of Byzantium : not be confounded with Hermolaus Barbarus, 
 one of the isth century Platonists, quoted for natural history by Olaus 
 Magnus. 
 
 Herodian (170-240 A.D.). His history is the sole authority for the age 
 of Severus. 
 
 Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484-408 b.c). 
 
 HiMiLco (date uncertain), brother of Hanno, and commissioned at the 
 same time to explore the western coasts of Europe. He founded settle- 
 ments in Spahi. He is supposed to have been driven out into the 
 Mid-Atlantic, and to have returned by the Azores, His voyage was 
 recorded on tablets along with that of Hanno, and the legend of his 
 discoveries was preserved in the Mirabilia attributed to Aristotle, in 
 Pliny's Natural History, and in the poems of Avienus. (Cf. Coleridge's 
 " Ancient Mariner.") 
 
 Hipparchus (2nd century B.C.). The greatest astronomer of antiquity and 
 discoverer of the precession of the equinoxes. He commented on 
 Aratus, and attempted to determine latitudes and longitudes. 
 
 Homer (circa 1000 b.c). 
 
Appendix. 445 
 
 HORATIUS (QUINTUS HORATIUS FlACCUS) lived 65 B.C. to 8 B.C. 
 
 IsiDORUS Characenus. A geographer (of the ist century a.d.) quoted 
 
 by Pliny, as copying the measurements of Britain from Pytheas. 
 Isidore of Seville, Bp. of Seville (570-646 a.d.), wrote 20 books of 
 
 "Origines sive Etymologise." 
 "Itinerarium Antoninum." An official road-book of the Empire, 
 
 named after Antoninus Caracalla (who succeeded Severus in 210 a.d.), 
 
 but assigned by some commentators to the age of Constantine the 
 
 Great. 
 Jamblulus (3rd century B.C.) wrote the romance of "The Fortunate 
 
 Islands," translated in Purchas' Pilgrims. 
 Jerome, St. (Hieronymus) lived 331-420 a.d. 
 JoRNANDES, a Goth (who wrote about 552 a.d.), is important as preserving 
 
 portions of the lost histoiy of Cassiodorus. 
 Justin Martyr (born 103 a.d.). 
 Juvenal (D. Junius Juvenalis) was born 42 a.d. and wrote about the 
 
 end of the first century. 
 Lactantius, L. CiELius Firmianus (circ. 303 a.d.), a Christian apologist. 
 
 The account of the Diocletian persecution, known as " De Mortibus 
 
 Persecutorum," is frequently attributed to him. 
 Lampridius, ^lius (3rd century a.d.). 
 LivY (T. Livius Patavinus) lived 59 e.g. -17 a.d.. 
 LucAN (M. ANNiEUS LucANUs), a native of Cordova died in 65 a.d. at 
 
 the age of 26. 
 LuciAN (2nd century a.d.). The " Vera Historia " is a burlesque of the 
 
 older geographical romances. 
 Macrobius, Aurelius (5th century a.d.), grammarian and philosopher. 
 Magnus, Johannes (i6th century a.d.). Archbishop of LTpsala, wrote a 
 
 History of the Goths and Swedes. 
 Magnus, Olaus (i6th century a.d.), succeeded his brother Joannes as Arch- 
 bishop of Upsala. He wrote the History of the Northern Nations. 
 Manilius, M. (ist century a.d.). Author of a hexameter treatise on 
 
 Astronomy. 
 Marinus of Tyre (ist century a.d.). The predecessor of Ptolemy, whose 
 
 work was in great part based on his calculations. 
 Martiahs, M. Val. born at Bilbilis in Spain, circa a.d. 40, died circa 
 
 104 A.D. 
 Maximus of Tjnre (2nd century a.d.), a celebrated Platonist who wrote 
 
 under the Antonines. 
 Merobaudes the Prankish Poet (circa 450 a.d.). His chief extant poem 
 
 is the " Third Consulship of ^tius." 
 
446 Origins of English History. 
 
 MiNUCius Felix (flor. circa 210 a.d.), an African lawyer, who wrote a 
 
 defence of Christianity. 
 Nemesian (M.Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus) floruit circa 280 a.d. 
 
 He wrote eclogues, and a poem on hunting. 
 " NoTiTiA Imperii." An official list of the dignities and offices of the 
 
 Eastern and Western Empires about the time of their separation. The 
 
 best edition is by Pancirollus the Jurist, 1608 a.d. 
 Olympiodorus (flor. circ. 425 a.d.). Wrote a history of the Western 
 
 Empire from 407-425 a.d. 
 Oppian (circa 200 a.d.). The author of the " Cynegetica." An earlier 
 
 writer of the same name wrote on fishing. 
 Ovid (P. Ovidius Naso) lived 43-18 B.C. 
 Origen (died 254 a.d.). 
 
 Orosius, Paulus, the Historian (flor. circ. 417 a.d.). 
 Pausanias (circa 140 a.d.). Wrote the "Description of Greece." 
 Philemon. A writer quoted upon northern Geography by Pliny and 
 
 Ptolemy. He is supposed to be the same as the comic poet of that 
 
 name who wrote in the 2nd century b.c. 
 Philostratus of Ixmnos (end of 2nd century a.d.). Wrote the " Ima- 
 gines" and other works, for the Empress JuUa Domna. 
 Photius the Patriarch (gth century a.d.). Wrote the " Muriobiblon," 
 
 an epitome of 300 authors, many of whose works are only preserved in 
 
 this way. 
 Pindar (522-422 b.c). 
 Plato the Philosopher (429-347 b.c). 
 Pliny the Elder (C. Plinius Secundtjs) lived 23-79 a.d. His "Natural 
 
 History " was finished in the last year of his life. As a young man he 
 
 had served in Germany. 
 Plutarch (born 50 a.d.). Many of the philosophical and learned tracts 
 
 which pass under his name are of doubtful authorship. 
 PoLYiENUS (circa i8o a.d.). A writer on military tactics. 
 PoLYBius the Historian (born in Arcadia about 200 b.c, died 120 b.c.) 
 
 spent the years 166-150 at Rome, and travelled in Africa, Spain, and 
 
 Gaul. 
 PoMPONius Mela, a Spaniard (ist century a.d.). His book "DeSitu 
 
 Orbis " is a valuable compilation of the earlier traditions. It is arranged 
 
 for a traveller voyaging from Spain. 
 Porphyry (233-305 a.d. ). Wrote forty-one books on various philosophical 
 
 subjects. fl C_, 
 
 Posidonius the Stoic (ist century atd.). A philosopher, astronomer, 
 
 and geographer, with whom Cicero studied at Rhodes. He made one 
 
Appendix. 44 7 
 
 of the earliest measurements of the earth's circumference, and left a 
 description of his travels in Western Europe. 
 Procopius (6th century a.d.). Secretary to Belisarius, and wrote a descrip- 
 tive history of his wars. He is generally credited with being the 
 
 author of the secret history of the Court of Justinian. 
 Propertius the Elegiac Poet (born about 51 B.C.). 
 Prosper of Aquitaine continued the Chronicle of St Jerome to 445 
 
 A.D. His work was continued by Prosper Tyro. 
 Prudentius the Christian Poet (circa 390 a.d.) engaged in controversy 
 
 with Symmachus. 
 Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolem/EUs), the greatest ancient geographer. 
 
 Floruit 50-150 a.d. in Egypt. His great work was published about 
 
 120 a.d., but the earliest maps compiled from his tables date from 
 
 the 4th century. • 
 
 Pytheas of Massilia (circa 330 B.C.), the explorer, lived in the age of 
 
 Alexander the Great. He wrote his travels soon after the death of 
 
 Aristotle, and is supposed to have also written a Diary and a " Circuit 
 
 of the Earth." 
 "Ravennas," or "The Ravenna Geographer," an anonymous writer 
 
 who lived in the 7th century a.d. He is supposed to have had access 
 
 to the official Imperial maps of Britain, and mentions many towns not 
 
 otherwise known. 
 Saxo Grammaticus. Wrote his history of the North in the 12th 
 
 century a.d. 
 Scylax (probably circa 500 B.C.), an explorer sent out by Darius. His 
 
 Periplus describes the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. 
 Seneca, L. Ann^^us (circa 2-68 a.d.). 
 Servius, Honoratus Maurus, the Grammarian (5th century a.d.). The 
 
 best Virgilian commentator. 
 SiDONius Apollinaris, Bp. of Clermont (lived about 438-500 A.D.). 
 
 His poems and letters give a graphic picture of the life of Gaul about 
 
 the time of the fall of the Western Empire. 
 Silius Italicus (25-100 A.D.). Wrote an epic on the 2nd Punic War. 
 Solinus, C. Julius (floruit circa 80 a.d.). He wrote a collection of 
 
 geographical and historical notes, known as the Polyhistor. He was 
 
 nicknamed " Pliny's Ape." 
 SoTACUs. An early writer quoted by Pliny concerning amber in Britain. 
 SozoMEN, Hermias (5th century a.d.) Wrote an Ecclesiastical History 
 
 extending to 440 a.d. 
 Spartianus, .(Elius, the Historian (3rd century a.d.). 
 Statius, p. Papinius, the Poet (born 61 a.d.). 
 
448 Origins of English History. 
 
 Stephanus of Byzantium (circa 460-527 a.d.), the geographical lexico- 
 grapher and professor at Constantinople. 
 
 Strabo (bom in Cappadocia about 50 B.C.). His great work, the Geo- 
 graphica, was written when he was over 80 years old. 
 
 StTETONius (C. Suetonius Tranquillus) wrote, at the end of the ist 
 century, the Lives of the Caesars. He was born about 70 a.d. 
 
 SuLPicius, Severus (sth century a.d.), a native of Gaul, wrote an 
 ecclesiastical history of the world. 
 
 Symmachus, Q. Aurelius (consul in 391 a.d.), opposed the introduction 
 of Christianity. 
 
 Tacitus, C. Cornelius (55-135 a.d.), the son-in-law of Julius Agricola, 
 and friend of Pliny the Younger. 
 
 Tertullian, Q. Septimus Florus (circa 160-245 a.d.). 
 
 Thales of Miletus, the earliest Greek natural philosopher (sth cen- 
 tury B.C.). 
 
 TiM^us, the Historian of Sicily (floruit circa 350-320 B.C.). His quota- 
 tions from Pytheas are copied by Pliny. 
 
 Timagenes, an Alexandrian historian and rhetor (circa 85-5 B.C.), wrote 
 among other works a history of the Gauls, which Ammianus Mar- 
 cellinus used. 
 
 TzETZES, John, wrote (circa 11 76 a.d.) a lengthy epic called "Chiliades." 
 
 Valerius Flaccus, the poet (died 88 a.d.). 
 
 Valerius Maximus, the historian (circa 30 a.d.), wrote a collection of 
 Memorabilia, dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius. 
 
 Varro (116-27 B-C-), the most learned of Roman antiquaries. He is said 
 to have written 70 works, ranging from satires to treatises on agriculture. 
 
 Vegetius, Fl. (flor. circa 380 a.d.), the most celebrated of the military 
 writers, wrote under Valentinian II. 
 
 ViBius Sequester (date uncertain) wrote a book on rivers and streams. 
 He is one of the minor geographers published by Aldus in 1518. 
 
 Victor, S. Aurelius (flor. circa 369-400), prefect of Rome under Julian. 
 
 Virgil (P. Virgilius Maro 70-19 B.C.), began to write about 42 B.C. 
 
 Vitruvius (85-26 B.C.), the great authority on Roman architecture. 
 
 Vopiscus, Flavius (end of 3rd century a.d.). 
 
 Xenophon of Lampsacus, an early writer (post 300 b.c), whose com- 
 ments upon Pytheas and Timaeus are quoted by Pliny. 
 
 XiPHiLiNUS, John, of Trebizond (wrote circa 11 50 a.d.). He abridged 
 the history of Dion Cassius, bks. xxxv-lxxx. 
 
 ZosiMUS the Historian (circa 500 a.d.). 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abalus, Isle of, 65 
 
 ;Elle of Deira, 328 '\Q -^ 
 
 of Sussex, 383, 392 
 
 jEstyi(Ostiones),42,46-7, 49-51,62-5, 400 
 Aetius, 360, 361 
 
 Agricola, his policy, 222-3, 239,3:3,318-19 
 Alexander the Great, age of, 4, 11, 34, 82, 
 
 83, 88 
 Alee [ste Elk). 
 AUectus, 332, 333 
 All Souls, Feast of, 311, 314 
 Amber trade, 7, 13, 44, 46-7, 50, 62-7, 
 
 "47 
 Ambrosius, 364, 365, 380, 388 
 Amiens, customs of, 88, 195 
 Ancestors, worship of, 209-21 
 Anderida, 106, 107, 344, 383-5, 392 
 Aneuiin, 66, 229, 230, 288, 299, 362, 398 
 Angles, 48, 363, 36s, 368, 371. 374. 395. 
 
 398 
 Anglesea {Mma), 239, 240, 267, 269, 
 
 279, 289, 314, 318 
 Anglia, 364, 370, 371, 372, 395, 396 
 Animals, worship of, 183, 299-301 
 Aquitani, customs of, 153 
 Arctic Circle, 31, 33, 70, 71, 72, 74 
 Arracan, junior-right in, 186 
 Artabri, 9, lo, 18 
 Arthur and the Round Table, 248, 249, 
 
 278, 279, 288, 291, 362, 363, 367 
 Aryan customs, 160-2, 163, 166, 170, 175, 
 
 210, 211, 219 
 Asegi-Buch, 373 
 Asclepiodotus, 334 
 Assart-land, 192, 204 
 Athenian primogeniture, 209 
 Atlantis, 81 
 Atrtbates, 304 
 Attacotti, 352, 353 
 Aurochs, 4, 55, 59, 60 
 Aurora Borealis, 46, 74 
 
 Badon (Mons Badonicus), 366, 367 
 
 Barbury Hill, 391 
 
 Basilia, Isle of, 64 
 
 Basques, 138, 154, 155, 270 
 
 Batavi, 307, 321 
 
 Bafh,279, 281, 304, 391 
 
 Baths, Roman, 34, 222, 225, 321, 323, 341 
 
 Bears, 3, 4, 309 
 
 Beavers, 3, 4, 229 
 
 Bees, 227 
 
 Belenus (Belinus. Billing), 258, 259, 260, 
 
 262, 277, 287, 288, 338 
 Belerium, Land's End, 36 
 Belgae, 2, 163, 237, 266, 304, 307, 311 
 Beltain fires, 270, 277 
 Birrens, 322 
 Boadicea, her revolt, 284, 298, 308, 
 
 313-17 
 Boars, wild, 46, 107, 108, 120, 134, 149, 
 
 223, 229, 246, 298 
 Bolanus Vettius, 323, 324 
 Bond-land, 192, 193 
 Boomerang, weapons resembling, 1 1 7 
 Borough-English : — 
 
 meaning of term, 184, 185 
 
 origin of the custom, 185, 198-200 
 
 in Cornwall and Devon, 187-9 
 
 in Kent, 1 89-9 1 
 
 in Sussex, 189, igi-3 
 
 around London, 189, 193 
 
 in other counties, 188, 189, 194 
 
 prerogative of abolishing, 205, 206, 
 
 207 
 
 extension to females, 185-6, 191, 
 
 193-S 
 Borvo, worship of, 259 
 Bos longifrons, 59, 120, 134 
 
 primigenius, 8, 10, 58-60, 120, 121, 
 
 134, 223, 229 
 
 iirus {see Aurochs) 
 
 Brachy-cephalous skulls, 144, 145 
 
 2 H 
 
450 
 
 Origins of English History. 
 
 Brande-Erbe, 215 
 
 Brehon Law, 277 
 
 Bretwalda, 392 
 
 Brigantes, 233, 242, 318, 319, 328 
 
 conquest of, 243, 245, 246, 248 
 
 the goddess "Brigantia," 330 
 
 Britain, Roman conquest of {see Roman) 
 -' English conquest of (see English) 
 
 descriptions of, 28-30, 31-4, 225, 
 
 227, 228, 230, 323 
 
 agriculture in, 32, 33, 1 19-21, 149, 
 
 223, 224, 227, 241 
 
 Celtic place-names, 232, 234 
 
 chariots, use of, 48, 49, 246 
 
 Gauls in, 96, 104-23, 231, 232, 240, 
 
 241 
 
 ships, 236, 237, 238, 244 
 
 trade of, 66, 120, 227, 305-6 ; in 
 
 amber, 7, 66 ; in corn, 223, 306 ; in 
 furs, 235 ; in pearls, 225, 226 ; in slaves, 
 235; in tin, 7, 13, 18, 19, 28, 34-9, 226, 
 23S-7 
 
 tribes of the interior, 222, 243, 244 
 
 woad-painting, 241 
 
 Britannia Prima, Secunda, 336 
 Brittany, customs, 187, 188, 215, 297 
 
 crania in, 141, 145 
 
 language of, 97, 103 
 
 British exiles in, 141, 234, 361, 365 
 
 Druidism, 268, 269, 276 
 
 Brittia, legends of, 83, 86, 373, 374 
 Bronze-age tribes ; — 
 
 in Britain, 39, 143, 150, 216 
 
 civilization, 149-51 
 
 immigration, 143 
 
 physical characteristics, 144-6 
 
 round-barrows, 146-50 
 
 weapons, 39, 143, 146-50, 169, 171, 
 
 268, 305 
 
 their connection with Picts, 167-77; 
 
 with Northern Irish, 177-9 
 
 Bructeri, 310, 370 
 
 Bustard, 134, 238 
 
 Cadiz (Gaddir), 3, 16, 22, 23 
 Caerleon, 287, 311, 320-1, 342, 345, 351 
 Caermarthen, 321, 344, 345 
 Caernarvon, 335, 344 
 Caer-went (Venta Silurum), 232, 321, 322 
 
 Caesar, Julius, his description of Veneti, 
 27, 236, 237 ; of native boats, 236-8 ; 
 of Hercynian Wood, 48, 55-7, 60; of 
 Gaulish religion, 256, 257 ; of British 
 tribes, 106, 126, 240, 241 ; invasions of 
 Britain, 37, 38, 105-11, 303, 304, 307 
 
 Caistor, 232, 243 
 
 Calbion, 27 
 
 Caledonians, 137, 168-70, 252, 319, 322, 
 329. 330, 335 
 
 Cambodunum, 262, 315 
 
 Camboricum, 342 
 
 Camelot, 320 
 
 Camulodunum (Colchester), 109, 306-15, 
 343-6 
 
 Camulus, 262, 329 
 
 Cangi, 163, 164 
 
 Canterbury, 346, 376 
 
 Cantii, 106 
 
 Cantion, 28, 48 
 
 Capercailzie, 229, 230 
 
 Caractacus, 244, 245, 291, 306, 312, 344, 
 
 345 
 Carlisle, 324, 339, 341, 344 
 Carnoban, Commote of, 252 
 Carthage, ti-ade and religion of, 8-13, 20- 
 
 24. 349 
 Cartismandua, 243-5, 295, 3 '8 
 Cassii, no, III 
 
 Cassiterides, 9-13, 16, 18, 22-4, 37, 157 
 Cassivellaunus, no, in, 290 
 Castor-ware, 342 
 Catigem, 131, 379 
 Catuvellauni, 108, no 
 Caux, customs of, 208 
 Cave-houses, 2, 127, 229 
 Ceawlin, 390-4 
 Celts, migrations of, 61, 99, 100 
 
 in British Isles, 96, 99, 100 
 
 language of, 97-104 
 
 physical characteristics, 113, 158, 
 
 159. 283 
 
 Ceolwulf, 395 
 
 Cerdic, 386-9 
 
 Cerealis, campaigns of, 318 
 
 Ceridwen, 26, 253, 254 
 
 Chambered barrows, 129, 133, 143, 144 
 
 Chariots, use of, 118, 246 
 
 Chauci, 50-3, 368, 369 
 
Index. 
 
 451 
 
 Chmeros (sheldrake), 230 
 
 Chester, 311, 320, 322, 339, 342, 343, 
 
 350. 399 
 Christianity, establishment of, 348-51, 
 
 4«3-"5 
 
 Cimbri, 42, 50-2, 60, 61, 65, 252 
 
 Circus, games in, 3, 308-10 
 
 Claudius, invasion of Britain by, 107-11 
 
 Cogidumnus, 212, 213 
 
 Coins, ancient, 34, 36, 97, 107, 109, 112, 
 117, 262, 305 
 
 Commius, House of, 304, 306 
 
 Copper, 12, 125, 149, 225 
 
 Coracles, 20, 24, 25, 156, 237, 238, 356 
 
 Cordelia, 290, 291 
 
 Ctritam, 240, 242 
 
 Comavii, 237-9 
 
 Cornwall, 27, 28, 34-40, 95, 97, 98, 187- 
 9, 234-7, 263, 285, 338, 340, 346, 381 
 
 Coronation-rites, I7S~7 
 
 Cotman-land, 193 
 
 Count of Britain, 336 
 
 of the Saxon shore, 337, 343, 353 
 
 Cranes, 265, 298 
 
 Crecgan Ford, 376 
 
 Cromlechs, 128-34, '43i 14^. 172, 174, 
 242, 250, 3SS, 379 
 
 C4-chulain, 246, 247, 299, 300 
 
 Cunedda, King, 278, 356 
 
 Cunobelin (Cymbeline), 109, 306 
 
 Cursing-stones, cursing- wells, 181, 280, 
 292, 293 
 
 Customs manorial, 184, 187-91, 202-4, 
 271 
 
 at Acton, 193 ; Archinfield, 202-3 ; 
 
 Barnes, 193 ; Battersea, 193 ; Box- 
 grove, 193 ; Bray, 203 ; Cashiobury, 
 203 ; Castlerigg, 203 ; Cheltenham, 
 204; Chertsey, 204; Derby, 188, 189; 
 Derwentwater, 203 ; Down, 193 ; Ealing, 
 193 ; Edmonton, 193 ; Farnham, 204 ; 
 Framfield, 192, 204 ; Fulham, 193 ; 
 Gloucester, 188-9; Isleworth, 193; 
 Islington, 193 ; Irchinfield, 202, 203 ; 
 Kirkby-Lonsdale, 203 ; Leicester, 188, 
 207 ; Liswery, 189 ; Marden, 203 ; May- 
 field, 192; Middleton Cheney, 204; 
 Mortlake, 193; Nottingham, 184, 188, 
 189 ; Pencarne, 189 ; Pevensey, 193 ; 
 
 Pirbright, 204 ; Plumpton, Putney, 
 Richmond, Roehampton, Rotherfield, 
 193 ; St. Stephens, 203 ; Scrooby, 189 ; 
 Sheen, 193 ; Southwell, 184, 189 ; 
 Stafford, 188, 189; Stamford, 188, 189; 
 Stretford, 203 ; Taunton-Deane, 186, 
 189, 194 ; Tynemouth, 203, 204 ; Wad- 
 hurst, 192 ; Wandsworth, 193 ; Wear- 
 dale, 203 ; Wimbledon, 193 ; Worples- 
 don, 204 
 
 Cutha, 391, 393 
 
 Cyndylan, 361, 392, 393 
 
 Cymry, 99, 100, 252 
 
 Cynric, 387-9, 391 
 
 Damnonians, British, 233-8 
 
 Irish, 139, 156-7, 233, 234 
 
 Dardanian legends, 180 
 
 Dee, River, 238, 239, 242, 253, 318 
 
 Deorham, battle of, 391-3 
 
 Deva (Chester), 311, 320, 322, 339, 342, 
 
 343. 35°, 399 
 Devon, 187, 189 
 Dimetian Code, 186, 187 
 Diocletian's scheme of government, 334 
 
 amended by Constantine, 336, 337 
 
 Ditmarsh, 51, 62, 132, 172 
 
 Dobuni, 237 
 
 Dogs, British, 122, 134, 235, 271, 299, 300, 
 
 306 
 Dolicho-cephalous skulls, 141, 142, 145, 
 
 152-3, 158) 160 
 Dolmens (see Cromlechs) 
 Don, 288, 289 
 Druidism, 128, 156, 249, 250, 266-77 
 
 in Gaul, 268, 270, 276 ; in Britain, 
 
 267, 277 ; in Ireland, 156, 267, 268, 
 277 ; doctrines, 255-9, 268-70, 274, 275 ; 
 human sacrifices, 269-74 > metempsy- 
 chosis, 275; Silurian origin of, 261, 
 266, 267 
 
 Druidesses, 26, 276 
 Du Halde, P^re, 218 
 
 Earth, worship of, 25, 46, 371 
 
 East Anglia, no, 372, 395-7 
 
 Eburacum (York), 320, 323, 325, 330, 
 
 331. 33S. 339-42. 344, 348, 351. 365 
 Edwin the Fair, 396-8 
 
 2 II 2 
 
452 
 
 Origins of English History. 
 
 Eel-fishery, 23, 225, 382 
 Electrides Islands, 63 
 Elephants in Britain, 4, 307 
 Elk (Alee), 55, 57, 58, 167 
 Elixoia, legend of, 89 
 Ely, Isle of, i lo, 229 
 Embanking, no, 223, 228, 229, 235 
 Emperors (see under ' ' Roman. ") 
 Enamelling, art of, 305 
 English Conquest of Britain, 2, 41, 141, 
 142, 231, 362, 363-99 
 
 the Lamentation of Gildas, 363-7 
 
 Hengist and Horsa legends, 131, 
 
 367, 368. 375-81. 388 
 
 the first invasion, 364, 368 
 
 Anglian settlements, 365 
 
 siege of Mt. Badon, 366, 367 
 
 battle of Stamford, 369 
 
 effects of the Conquest, 141, 142, 
 
 399 
 
 Conquest of Kent, 376-8 ; of Sussex, 
 
 382-5 ; of East Anglia and Mercia, 372, 
 395-7 ; of Wessex, 386-95 ; of North- 
 umbria, 361-5, 395, 397, 398 
 
 Epidii, 163 
 
 Epis-ford, 377, 378 
 
 Epona,26s, 329 
 
 Eric the Ash, 374, 375-7 
 
 Estia Palus, 50 
 
 Esthonians, 162, 217, 263 
 
 Ethelbert, 392, 394, 395, 413 
 
 Etirun (Taran), worship of, 263, 413 
 
 Exeter, 225, 345, 346, 399 
 
 Fairy Land, 139, 155-7, 243, 249, 253, 
 
 264, 282, 283, 291 
 Farthing-land, 193 
 Fen-districts, no, 223, 229 
 Finn MacCumhal (Fingal), 254, 332 
 Finns, Ugro-Finns, 151, 160 
 
 divisions of, 126, 145, 216-19 
 
 customs of, 127, 186, 198, 216-19 
 
 identified with Bronze Age tribes, 
 
 126, 143-S, 149-50, 160, 167-79 
 Firbolgs, 138-40, 152, 156, 158 
 Fire-worship, 256, 270-1, 279-80, 286, 
 
 293-6 
 
 (See "Ancestors, worship of") 
 Fish, 170, 179, 246, 382 
 
 Forests : — 
 
 British, Anderida, 106, 107, 344, 
 
 382, 383; Andred's-Lea, 383 ; Andred's- 
 Wold, 107 ; Arden, 223, 224, 249 ; 
 Berroc, 229 ; Buckholt, 344 ; Cale- 
 donian, 170, 228, 229, 252, 336; Coet- 
 Mawr, 228 ; Dean, 224, 342 ; Denbigh, 
 224 ; Essex, Weald of, 108 ; Groveley, 
 223; Kent, Weald of, 107; Mendip, 
 271 ; Middlesex, 3, 108 ; New Forest, 
 234. 343. 344. 370. 388, 389 ; Riddes- 
 dale, 3; Selwood, 228, 229; Sherwood, 
 223, 224; Silva Magna, 228; Somerset, 
 228; Suffolk, woods of, no; Surrey, 
 Weald of, 107 ; Sussex, Weald of, 107 
 
 Continental, Ardennes, 264; Armo- 
 
 rican, 276; Bialowicza, 55 ; Black Forest, 
 54, 3°7 ; Broceliande, 234, 285 ; Esthc- 
 nian, 162; Hartz, 54; Hercynian (Ar- 
 cynia, Orcynia), 42, 54, 55, 58, 83; 
 Herulian, 373 ; Jammerholz, 92 ; Loire, 
 268, 269; of "Nairthus," 371; Oden- 
 wald, 197 
 
 Fortunate Islands, 34 
 Franc-almoigne, 215 
 Franks, 332-4, 367-9, 373, 382, 386, 387 
 Frisians, 51, 129, 196, 327, 373, 374, 375, 
 
 376, 381, 382 
 Funeral-ale, 212, 213 
 
 Gaddir, 3, 15, 16, 22, 23 
 
 Gaelic tribes, 2, 96, 99, 100, 231, 232, 
 
 239, 251, 285 
 Galatia, 98, 100 
 Galgacus, 319 
 Gangani, 163, 164 
 Gargantua, 129, 156, 256, 265 
 Gaulish nations : — 
 
 language, 97, 98, loi, 103, 109, 
 
 163, 233 ; appearance, n2-lS, 153, 
 159, 240 ; manners, 95, 111-23, 208, 
 256-8; religion, 122, 255-66, 279, 285, 
 286, 329, 350; Druidism, 259, 266-8; 
 human sacrifices, 269, 270, 274-6; first 
 settlements in Britain, 96, 104-23, 241, 
 255 ; later settlements, 231, 237, 304; 
 Gauls serving with legions, Tpl, 3'4i 
 322, 327, 329 
 
 Gavelkind, 189-93, 200, 205-7 
 
Index. 
 
 453 
 
 Genealogies :— 
 
 English, 37S, 376, 387, 388, 394, 
 
 39S> 397 
 
 Welsh, 278, 299, 355, 356 
 
 Germans : — 
 
 ancient accounts of, 42-54, 63, 82, 
 
 83. 95. '22. 123 
 customs, 53, 54, 83, 122, 123, 196-S, 
 
 200-2, 219-21, 367, 378, 382, 386, 405, 
 
 406 
 ■ religion, 129-31,211-16, 219-21,322, 
 
 329, 339. 340. 349> 350, 352, 371. 394. 
 
 407-15 
 auxiliaries, 314, 322, 327, 335, 336,354 
 
 (ife also under " English ") 
 Gerontius, 357 
 
 Giants, 128, 253, 265, 288, 394,*407, 408 
 Glass, 66, 115, 147, 236 
 Glessarise, 44, 63 
 Glessum, 46, 63 
 Gnostics, 351 
 
 Goths, 47, 210, 241, 375, 376, 400 
 Grahame's Dyke, 328-30 
 Greek trade, 7, 8, 12, 13 
 
 travel, 6, 7, 13, 15-75 
 
 romances, 5, 78-93, 373, 374 
 
 Grimsdyke, 111, 166 
 , Gruagach-stones, 213 
 Guttones (Gothones), 42, 45, 47, 55, 61-3 
 Gwydion, 252-4, 261, 288, 289 
 Gwynn ap Nudd, 249, 288, 291 
 
 Hares, superstitions about, 254, 297, 298, 
 
 407-9 
 Hanno, 21 
 Hebrides (Ebudse or Hsebudes), 33, 140, 
 
 '63. 293-5 
 Hengist and Horsa, legends of, 131, 367-8, 
 
 375. 378-81, 388 
 Herefordshire, customs in, 181, 182, 189, 
 
 202, 408 
 Hercynian Forest (see under "Forest") 
 Herali, 91, 373 
 Hide, 397, 405, 
 
 Hugh the Mighty, 250, 252, 275, 279 
 Human sacrifices, 129, 269, 270, 274-6, 
 
 352. 353 
 Hungary, law of, 186, 218 
 Hyperboreans, 5, 78, 88-92 
 
 Iberians, 10-12, 18-24, 28. 33. 37, 138, 
 
 153, 154, 267 
 Iceni, 109, no, 305, 308, 312, 317 
 Ictis (Mictis), 35-9 
 
 Ikenild Way [see under "Roman Roads") 
 Inscriptions :— 
 
 Bilingual, 336, 379 
 
 Bronze- Age, 172, 173 
 
 Carthaginian, 17, 21 
 
 Gaulish, 109, 162 
 
 Iberian, 98 
 
 Irish, 166 
 
 "Ogam," 102, 172, 173, 272, 335, 
 
 338, 378, 379 
 
 Roman, 264, 280, 290, 335 
 
 Roman, in Britain, 262, 263, 264, 
 
 311, 313, 320, 322, 326, 329, 330, 336, 
 
 339. 342, 343. 346. 348, 350, 381 
 
 Romano-British, 258, 336 
 
 Runic, 171, 378, 379, 410 
 
 Welsh, 166 
 
 Ireland : — 
 
 ancient descriptions of, 28, 33, 69, 
 
 73. 122, 155-60, 162, 175-9, 226-9, 
 245-7, 281, 282, 288, 293, 297-300 
 
 ancient legends of, 138-41, 283 
 
 ethnology of, 99, 100, 137-40, 
 
 155-9, 232-7 
 
 language of, 97-102, 163-5, 233, 
 
 234. 378 
 
 religion of, 17, 140, 156, 266-8, 
 
 271-4, 277-93, 298-300 
 
 manners and customs, 122, 136, 138, 
 
 162, 176-9, 200, 245-7, 271-4, 299 
 
 piratical expeditions, 352, 355, 356, 
 
 358 
 
 Irmin Street {see under " Roman Roads ") 
 
 Isis, 350 
 
 Isurium (Aldborough), 320, 341 
 
 " Itinerary of Antonine " 231, 337, 340-6 
 
 Itius Portus, 37, 38 
 
 Jade implements, 143, 237 
 
 Jet, ancient use of, 148 
 
 Junior-Right (Jiingsten-Recht, Juveign- 
 
 erie) : — 
 — — among the Ugrian peoples, 186, 216, 
 
 217, 218 
 among females, 185, 186, 191, 193-5 
 
454 
 
 Origins of English History. 
 
 Jun\oi-R\ght—con/inueii 
 
 in England {see ' ' Borough-English ") ; 
 
 in France and the I^ow Countries, 185, 
 187, 195, 20I ; in Friesland, 196 ; in 
 Germany, 196-8, 201, 216; in the Island 
 of Bomholm, 198 ; in Russia, 186, 198, 
 216 ; in Shetland, 186 ; in Hungary, 
 186, 218 ; in Arracan, 186 ; in China, 
 186, 218; in New Zealand, 186 
 
 in Celtic countries, 198, 200, 216 ; in 
 
 Brittany, 187, 188 ; in Cornwall, 187 ; in 
 Ireland, i85, 200; in Wales, 186, 187, 
 200 
 
 origin of the custom, 185, 198-200, 
 
 216-19 
 
 Jutes, 43, 61, 369-70, 375, 390, 410 
 
 Kent, 105-7, 131, 306, 370, 381, 405, 415 
 
 visit of Pytheas to, 31, 32, 48 
 
 Gaulish kingdoms in, 106, 107, 209, 
 
 266, 306 
 
 conquests of, 306, 375-81, 411 
 
 local law of, 188, 189-91, 204-7. 
 
 Kingdoms ; — 
 
 English in Britain, 376, 377, 383, 
 
 387. 392, 394. 396, 398. 403. 412- 
 
 conterminous with dioceses, 110, 376, 
 
 393. 396 
 
 Kit's Coty House, 130, 131, 146 
 
 Lake-dwellers, 136, 137, 297 
 
 Land's End, 36 
 
 Lir (Lludd, Lear), 288, 290, 291 
 
 Lloegria, 251, 252 
 
 London, 193, 314, 315, 333, 340, 342, 
 
 344. 346, 354.376, 412- 
 Long-Barrows, 129-34, 146 
 Lot-meadows, 172, 406, 407 
 Luguballium (Carlisle), 339, 341, 344 
 
 Madelstad, custom of, 195 
 Maine, Sir H. S. :— 
 
 on Brehon laws, 277 
 
 on primogeniture, 200, 210, 211 
 
 on village communities, 206 
 
 Maineti, 184, 187, 195, 197 
 Manannan Mac Lir, 288, 292 
 Mandrake, 219, 220, 221 
 
 Man, Isle of, 203, 209, 215, 292 
 
 Marriage customs, 86-8, 404 
 May-festivals, 256, 263, 407 
 Melkarth, pillars of (Melicertes), n, 16, 
 
 17 
 
 Merchetum, 87, 404 
 
 Metals and mining, 8-1 1, 95, 125, 126 
 132, 147-9. 151. 225, 235, 237, 260, 294, 
 305 ; bronze, 39, 81, 102, 116, 126, 143, 
 144, 168, 169, 171, 236, 246, 267, 305 ; 
 calamine, 12 ; copper, 125, 149, 225 ; 
 gold, 5, 8-11, 17, 147-9, 172, 235,246, 
 259. 268, 305, 335 ; iron, 8, 10, 12, 
 126, 127, 149, 169, 172, 225, 236, 305, 
 342; lead, 225, 305; quicksilver, 9; 
 silver, 8-11, 17, 126, 148, 172,225, 305, 
 335 ; tin, 8-13, 16, 18-20, 34-9, 81, 
 125, 157, 158, 235 ; zinc, 12, 112 
 
 Mistletoe, 168, 259, 261 
 
 Mithras, 350, 351 
 
 Mona, 239, 240, 269, 279, 289, 314, 318 
 
 Moridunum, 345, 346 ^/ 
 
 Morimorusa (Mare Pigrum), 42, 64, 72-4, 
 83 ^ 
 
 Murex, 226 
 
 Muridunum (Caermarthen), 321 
 
 Neolithic tribes in Britain, 128-37 
 
 their physical characteristics, 134, 
 
 137. 143 
 
 Nobility, by birth, 375, 387, 402 
 
 by service, 401-3 
 
 Normandy, primogeniture in, 207, 208 
 "Notitia Imperii," 311, 320, 327, 336, 
 
 337. 342. 352 
 Noviomagus, 312, 313 
 Nudd (Nuadha, Nodens), 140, 166, 288, 
 
 289 
 
 Odal-Law, 209, 215 
 
 Odin-ponds, 91 
 
 CEstrymnides, 17, 20, 22 
 
 "Ogam" inscriptions, 102, 172, 173,272, 
 
 335, 338. 378, 379 
 Ordovices, 161, 239, 336 
 Osiris, 348, 349 
 Ossian, 332 
 
 Ostiones, Ostimii (see ^styi) 
 Ostorius Scapula, 164, 312, 313 
 
Index. 
 
 455 
 
 PAGUS CONDRUSTtS, VeLLAUS, 322 
 
 Palsolithic Age, 2, 4, 125-7 
 
 Parisii, 163, 304 
 
 Paulljnus, 267, 314-17 
 
 Pearl-trade, 225, 226 
 
 Peutingerian Table, 343, 345, 346 
 
 Petuaria, 304 
 
 Phcenicians, 8, 12, 14-17, 21, 39 
 
 Picardy, customs of, 195 
 
 Picts, 159, 352-60, 395 ; customs of, 167- 
 71. I73i '74-7 ; invasions of, 252, 352- 
 6, 358, 360 ; language and names, 97, 
 98, 165; sculptures, 171, 173, 174; 
 their Druidism, 277 
 
 Picts' -houses, 135 
 
 "Picts' wall," 242, 324-8, 336 
 
 Plautius, 310-12 
 
 Ploughland, 405 
 
 Pomerania, 91, 92, 408 
 
 Pottery :- 
 
 British, 133, 147-9 
 
 Roman, 323, 341, 342 
 
 Prasutagus, 314 
 
 Pre-Celtic tribes in Britain, 124-51, 241, 
 
 242, 266, 267 
 
 theories as to, 151-82 
 
 Prkiput ("Principals"), 195, 202, 203, 
 
 204 
 Primogeniture : — 
 
 origin of, 200, 204-7, 209, 210, 221 
 
 in England, 202, 208 
 
 in France and the Low Countries, 
 
 204, 208 
 
 in Germany, 200-2 
 
 in Athens, 209 
 
 ■ — in India, 209, 215 
 
 among females, 203, 204 
 
 Provinces of the Empire, 334-7, 347 
 Ptolemaic Geography, 29, 30, 233, 235 
 Pytheas of Marseilles, 5, 77, 94 
 his diary and geographical system, 
 
 6, 15, 24, 29-32, 42, 48-54 
 his astronomical discoveries, 8, 13, 
 
 '4, 15. 28, 71, 72. 79 
 on the Coast of Spain, 16, 17, 18, 
 
 24-7 
 
 — among the Celtic Islands, 25-7, 279 
 — • in Britain, 28, 31-40, 48, 75 
 
 — in Germany, 40-2, 49-54, 57, 60, 64 
 
 with the Ostians and Cimbri, 49-51, 
 
 54. 60-2 
 
 on the Amber Coast, 61-5 
 
 reaches the Vistula, 42 
 
 his voyage to Thule, 7, 32-40, 42, 
 
 52, 67-74, 79, 80 
 
 "Queen Mab," 283 
 Quhjaise, 188 
 Quief-mez, 195 
 
 Regni, 311, 312, 313, 384 
 Reindeer, 3, 56 
 Religion, Roman : — 
 
 of the later Empire, 329, 330, 349 
 
 Fetichism, 330 
 
 Magism, 351 
 
 Pantheism, 348-51 
 
 Serapis, 348, 350 
 
 Isis, 348, 350 
 
 Astarte, 349 
 
 Osiris, 348, 349 
 
 Mithras, 350, 351 
 
 (&* also under " Germans," "Gauls," 
 "Ireland," "Totemism.") 
 
 "Richard of Cirencester," forgery of, 336 
 
 Rock-carvings, 170-4 
 
 Rolf Krake, 212, 235 
 
 Roman baths, 225, 323, 341 
 
 Roman conquest of Britain : Julius 
 Caesar's invasions, 105-11, 236, 303-4; 
 Caractacus, war with, 306; invasion 
 of Claudius, 306-10 ; campaigns of 
 Plautius, 310-12!; revolt of Boadicea, 
 308, 313-17; Regni and Belgse sub- 
 dued, 311; head-quarters of legions, 
 311, 320; campaigns of Ostorius Sca- 
 pula, 312 ; Caractacus, 244, 245, 312 ; the 
 conscription — British regiments abroad, 
 311, 313; comn^^nd of Paullinus, 314- 
 17; of Frontinus, 318; of Cerealis, 318 ; 
 policy of Agricola, 239, 313, 318, 319; 
 Hadrian's campaign, 319, 320; Vettius 
 Bolanus, 323, 324; building of the wall, 
 324-8; developement of camps into 
 cities, 320, 322, 323, 327, 328; Brigan- 
 tian rising quelled by LoUius Urbicus, 
 328; expedition of Severus, 330, 331 ; 
 Carausius, 329, 332; victories 'of Con- 
 
456 
 
 Origins of English History. 
 
 Roman Conquest — continued 
 stantius, 332, 333, 335 ; accession and 
 policy of Constantine, 335, 336, 337 ; 
 his five provinces, 336 ; completion of 
 system of defence, 347; taxation, 347, 
 348 ; establishment of Christianity, 348, 
 351; invasion of Picts and Scots, 352; 
 victories of Theodosius, 352,354; Saxon 
 pirates, 353; revolt of Maximus, 354, 
 355 ; Irish attacks, 356; independence of 
 Britain, 356, 357; "the Cities," 357, 
 3S8 
 
 Emperors : — 
 
 Augustus, 303 ; Claudius, 306, 307, 308, 
 309, 310; Vitellius, 3n ; Vespasian, 
 311, 318, 324; Titus, 311 ; Nero, 317; 
 Hadrian, 219, 320, 324, 325, 326, 336, 
 348 ; Trajan, 320 ; Severus, 324, 325, 
 330, 331. 337; Antoninus Pius, 242, 
 Z43i 328, 336 ; Carausius, 329, 332 ; 
 Caracalla, 331, 332, 337; Geta, 
 331 ; Diocletian, 332, 334, 336, 
 347, 348 ; Maximinus, 332 ; Constan- 
 tius I, 332, 334, 335, 336; Con- 
 stantine the Great, 334, 335, 336, 337, 
 348 ; Maximus, 335, 354, 355 ; Con- 
 stantine II, 346 ; Theodosius, 346 ; 
 Gratian, 354; Honorius, 357; Constan- 
 tine the Soldier, 356, 357 ; Marcian, 
 364; Valentinian III, 301, 364 
 
 Inscriptions, 264, 280, 290, 335 
 
 in Britain, 262, 263, 264, 
 
 311, 313, 320, 322, 326, 329, 330, 
 
 336, 339, 343. 346, 348, 349. 35°, 381 
 
 Law, 200, 209, 210, 215 
 
 Legions in Britain, 306 ; their 
 
 head-quarters, 311 ; constitution of 
 the legions, 321, 322, 327 ; Ninth 
 legion, 314, 320; Fourteenth legion, 
 314, 316 ; Twentieth Valens Victrix, 
 314, 320; Second Augusta, 320; Sixth, 
 320 ; German auxiliaries, 314, 322, 327, 
 
 335. 336 
 
 Mines in Britain, 225, 341, 342 
 
 Provinces, scheme of Diocletian, 334, 
 
 347; of Constantine, 336, 337 
 
 Religion {see under Religion) 
 
 remains in Britain, 225, 235, 315, 
 
 384 
 
 tessellated pavements, 238 
 
 villa at Bignor, 310 
 
 Roads:— 334, 335, 337, 338-46; 
 
 Stone-street, 315 ; Watling-street, 314, 
 
 338, 339. 340. 343. 344; Stane-gate, 
 327; Riggate, 334; the Feutingeriaii 
 Table, 343, 345, 346 ; Fosse-way, 338, 
 
 339, 340, 342. 344 ; Ermin-street, 338, 
 
 340, 341. 342. 343, 344; Ikenild-street, 
 338. 340, 342. 343. 344, 345 J Ryknild. 
 street, 338; Pedlar's-way, 343; in 
 Cornwall, 338, 340, 346 ; the Quatuor 
 Chimini, 338; cross-routes, 341, 342, 
 346 ; Sam Helen, 335 ; Doctor-gate, 
 341 ; junction of roads at Chester, 342 ; 
 at Dunstable, 343 ; at Silchester, 343 
 
 Walls, 319, 321, 323, 330, 353; 
 
 connection with system of roads, 
 341-4; description of by Bede, 325, 
 326; by Gildas, 325; "Hadrian's 
 wall" or " Pict's wall," 242, 324; de- 
 scriptions of, 326, 327 ; questions as to, 
 324, 328, 336 ; wall of Antoninus 
 ("Grahame's Dyke "), 328, 329 ; walls of 
 London, 315, 333; of Colchester, 315, 
 323; ofWroxeter, 315, 323; of Leices- 
 ter, 315, 323; of Carlisle, 341; Mint 
 Wall at Lincoln, 323 
 
 Romances, Greek, 5, 78, 93 ; " Hyper- 
 boreans," 5, 78, 88-92; "Wonders 
 beyond Thule," 78, 82, 83, 86; 
 " Brittia," 85, 86, 373, 374 ; "Attacosi," 
 92 
 Round-Barrows, 145-50 
 Runic inscriptions, 171, 378, 379, 410 
 Russia, customs in, 119, 198, 218, 297 
 Rutupiae (Richborough), 107, 320, 346 
 
 Sarum, 120, 304 
 Saxnoth, descent from, 176, 395 
 Saxon Islands, descriptions of, 359, 369 
 Saxon Shore, 194, 342-6, 353, 383 
 Saxons, kingdoms founded by, 369, 382-3, 
 
 386-93 
 Sculptured stones, 172, 173 
 Selago, superstitions as to, 260 
 Silchester, 304, 315, 323, 343, 344, 346 
 Silurians, 138, 141, 142, 143, 151, 231, 
 
 237, 239, 266, 267, 312, 318; connec- 
 
Index, 
 
 457 
 
 Silurians — continued 
 tion with Druidism, 266, 267, 268 ; 
 superstitions of, 1 79, 1 82 
 Sm-eater, custom of, 181, 182 
 Slavonians, customs of, 91, 92, 186, 198, 
 
 214, 2i6, 263 
 Solte, socage, 184, 189, 192, 204, 207 
 Spain, lost languages of, 98 
 St. Alban, 349 
 St. Anne, 264, 271 
 St. Augustine, 395, 399, 412, 414 
 St. Beanus, 298 
 St. Beuno, 296 
 St. Boniface, 129 
 St. Birinus, 295 
 
 St. Branwen, 279, 291 • 
 
 St. Brendan, 298 
 St. Bridgit, 279, 280, 298 
 St. Brychan, 278, 279 
 St. Cadoc, 278 
 St. Carannog, 278 
 St. Clou, 382 
 St. Colman, 290 
 St. Columba, 174, 277 
 St. Cuthbert, 295, 241 
 St, Dominic of Ossory, 227 
 St. Dubricius, 278 
 St. Ethelreda, 342 
 St George, 296 
 St. Germanus, 359, 360 
 St. Helen, 334, 335 
 St. Hermes, 279 
 St Jerome, 98, 351 
 St. John, 212, 213 
 St. Lupus, 359, 360 
 St. Michael, 213 
 St. Monacella, 291 
 "St. Mourie," 296 
 St. Oswald, 397 
 St, Patrick, 28, 277 
 St. Sampson of Dol, 365 
 St. Tegla, 296 
 St. Ursula, 354, 355 
 St. WUfrid, 382, 414 
 St. Winifred, 284 
 Staicho, 352, 356 
 
 Stonehenge, 5, 34, 89, 90, 144, 146 
 Strathclyde, 78, 97 
 Suicide, 90, 92, 382 
 
 Taliesin, 253-5, 398 
 
 Tanais, 15, 42 
 
 Tanaus, 319 
 
 Tara, 176, 274, 277 
 
 Tarshish, 8 
 
 Taunton-Deane, 188, 189, 194 
 
 Taus, 319 
 
 Tchuds, customs of, 186, 217, 218 
 
 Tenures of land, 3, 189-92, 195, 203-5, 
 
 402-9 
 Teutones, 61, 64, 95, in - 
 Thames, 38, 106, 107, 304, 306 
 Thanes, 401-3 
 
 Thanet, 36-8, 86, 343, 377, 405 
 Theel-land, 196 
 Theodosius, 354 
 Thule, 32, 42, 55 
 
 theories as to, 6, 39, 68-74, 82, 86, 
 
 87,98 
 
 legends of, 198 [see " Pytheas ") 
 
 Tides, early theory of, 15, 17, 52, 72, 75 
 Tin-trade, 7, 13, 18, 25, 27, 28, 34-9, 
 
 125, 226, 235-7 
 
 Totemism, 299-301 
 
 Trade, British, 28, 3S-b, 305, 306 [see 
 "Amber," "Dogs," "Metals") 
 
 Trading-roads, 12, 13, 34, 62, 64 
 
 Triads, Welsh, 2, 3, 250-2, 258 
 
 Trinobantes, 108, 306 
 
 Tuatha-De-Danann, 139, 155-9, 283 
 
 Tumuli, 126-36, 145-9 ; Arthur's Oven, 
 329; Cruc-occident, 254; Fairy Toote, 
 128; Hilda's- Lowe, 131,374, 410; Kit's 
 Coty House, 131, 379; St. Iltyd's 
 House, 172; Wayland Smithy, 130, 132, 
 374. 410 
 
 long - barrows, British, 128-34, 
 
 146, 147, 250 ; Continental, 129-33 
 
 round-barrows, British, 145-9, 169, 
 
 172; Continental, 171, 172 
 
 Turquoise found in tombs, 129, 143 
 
 Ugrian tribes, 126, 153, 168, 186, 216- 
 
 19 {see also under " Finns.") 
 Urbgen of Reged, 398 
 Uriconium <Wroxeter), 323, 339, 344, 
 
 345. 392 
 Urus, 58-60, 120, 121, 134, 223 
 Uxisana (Ushant), 27, 28 
 
 2 I 
 
458 
 
 Origins of English History. 
 
 VALHALLA-meres, 91 
 
 Vandals, 356 
 
 Venedotian Code, 186, 187 
 
 Veneti, 27, 28, 236, 237 
 
 Venta Belgaram (Winchester), 232, 345, 
 
 384 
 
 Icenorum (Norwich), 232, 344 
 
 Silurum (Caer-went), 232, 321 
 
 Ventland, 142, 232, 233 
 
 Vepses, customs of, 217-19 
 Verulam, 315, 360 
 Vettius Bolanus, 323, 324 
 Vicarius Britannise, 336 
 Village communities, 404-7 
 
 feasts, 250, 407-9 
 
 Villeinage, 207, 404 
 Vistula, IS, 42, 43, 47, 54 
 Vol du Chapon, 201 
 Vortigern, 273, 359, 364, 368 
 Vortimer, 377, 378 
 
 Wales, 3, 143, 163, 224, 237-40, 314, 
 
 318, 334, 33S, 344, 345, 393-S 
 
 chronicles of, 336, 338, 348 
 
 customs, 142, 143, 186, 187, 189, 
 
 200 
 
 dynasties, 299, 334, 335, 366, 392 
 
 mythology, 250-5, 265, 273-5, 278, 
 
 379, 282, 284, 288-92 
 
 religion, 27, 179-82, 248-55, 260, 
 
 265-9, 296 
 
 (For "Language" and "Triads," see 
 under " Welsh ") 
 Wayland Smith, 130, 132, 374, 410 
 Weapons ; — 
 
 Prehistoric, 39, 125-7, I45i 146-SO, 
 
 168-9, 171, 268, 305 
 
 British, 142, 246, 308, 316 
 
 Gaulish, 116, 117, 122, 305 
 
 reflexive, 117, 118 
 
 Wells, worship of, 256, 259, 282, 284, 
 
 285, 293, 334, 407, 410 
 Welsh language in Wales, 97-104, 159-67, 
 
 232, 233 
 
 of Strathclyde and Cornwall, 97, 98 
 
 of Brittany, 97, 103 
 
 Welsh Triads, 2, 3, 250-2, 258 
 Wends, 91, 373 
 
 Wessex, conquest of, 386-95 
 Westminster Abbey, 412 
 Whitby, synod of, 415 
 Whitsun-ales, 407 
 
 Wight, Isle of, 39, 236, 323, 390, 399 
 Wihtgar, 389, 390, 399 
 Winchester, 232, 345, 384 
 Wipped's fleet, 377, 378 
 Wissent (see " Aurochs " and " Zubr") 
 Woad, 241, 400 
 
 Woden, worship of, 91, 129, 380, 382, 
 387, 412, 413 
 
 descent from, 176, 375, 387, 396 
 
 Woden-hills, 394, 412 
 
 Wolds of Yorkshire, 145, 147, 168, 242 
 V/olves in Britain, 3, 122, 149, 223, 230, 
 
 270 
 Worship (see under "Ancestor," "Earth," 
 
 "Fire," and "Wells") 
 
 Xenophon of Lampsacus, 64 
 
 York, 320, 323, 325, 341, 348, 351 
 Yorkshire, 3, 334 ; Holderness, 304, 373 ; 
 
 Wolds, 145, 147, 168, 242 
 
 Ypwine's fleet, 376-S 
 
 Yule, 409-ti 
 
 Zealand, 171, 371 
 Zealand, New, 186 
 Zubr, 59, 60 
 
WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTEKS, 
 
 GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIEtI>S, 
 
 LONDON, W.C. 
 
Plate I. 
 
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 SPAIN. (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, 1478) 
 
Flate II. 
 
 THE WORLD OF THE ANCIENTS. (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, 1478.) 
 
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 Plate III. 
 
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 EASTERN EUROPE. (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, 1525.) 
 
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 IV. 
 
 NORTHERN EUROTE. (FROM OLAUS MAGNUS, HISTORIA SEPTENT EDIT. 1567) 
 
PLate V. 
 
 ■TERTIA- ES'ROEJ^-TABVLA- 
 
 GAUL, (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, I478.) 
 
■PRIMA • EVROP^' 
 
 •TABVLA- 
 
 Plate VI. 
 
 
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 THE BRITISH ISLANDS. (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, I478.) 
 
Plate VII. 
 
 
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 SOUTH EASTERN BRITAIN (FROM THE PEUTINGER TABLES.) 
 
Plate VIII. 
 
 
 QVARTA- EVROPE-TABVLA 
 
 GERMANY. (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, 1478.) 
 
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 THE ISLE OF THANET. (FROM DUGDALE'S MONASTICON. EDIT. 165S-73.) 
 
Plats X. 
 
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS. (FROM THE LATIN PTOLEMY, 1525.)