The Asæ met in Ida Valle, And talked of the world's great calamities: These things done, the wonderful dice Which those of the former days possessed. There were fields without sowing; All adverse things became prosperous. Baldur will come again. Haudur and Baldur: Hroptr and Sigroptr; The Asæ will dwell without evils. Do you yet understand? Then Heinar shares the power of chusing Vidar, And the sons of the two brothers Inhabit the vast mansion of the winds. Do you know more? A hall stands brighter than the sun; Covered with gold in Gimle. There virtuous people will dwell: And for ages will enjoy every good. There will come the obscene dragon flying, The serpent from Nidar-fiolli. He carries the corpses in his wings: He flies over the ground: The infernal serpent, Nidhoggur : Now the earth gapes for him. CHAP. IV. BOOK III. CHAP. I. The Arrival of HENGIST. His Transactions and Wars with the BOOK HITHERTO England had been inhabited by III. branches of the Kimmerian and Keltic races, apparently visited by the Phenicians and Carthaginians, and afterwards occupied by the Roman military and colonists. From these successive populations it had obtained all the benefits which each could impart. But in the fifth century, the period had arrived when both England and the south of Europe were to be possessed and commanded by a new description of people, who had been gradually formed amid the wars and vicissitudes of the Germanic continent; and to be led to manners, laws, and institutions peculiarly their own, and adapted, as the great result has shown, to produce national and social improvements, superior to those which either Greece or Rome had attained. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain must therefore not be contemplated as a barbarisation of the country. Our Saxon ancestors brought with them a superior domestic and moral character, and the rudiments of new political, juridical, and intellectual blessings. An interval of slaughter and desolation unavoidably occurred before they I. established themselves and their new systems in CHAP. the island. But when they had completed their conquest, they laid the foundations of that national constitution, of that internal polity, of those peculiar customs, of that female modesty, and of that vigour and direction of mind, to which Great Britain is indebted for the social progress it has so eminently acquired. Some parts of the civilisation which they found in the island assisted to produce this great result. Their desolations removed much of the moral degeneracy we have before alluded to. ALTHOUGH in the fictions of romance kingdoms fall almost at the will of the assailant, yet in real life no great revolutions of states occur, without the preparatory and concurring operation of many political causes. The Saxons had for nearly two centuries been attacking Britain, with no greater successes than the half-naked Scoti from Ireland had obtained. They plundered where they arrived unexpectedly. They were defeated when they encountered a military or naval resistance. Hengist and Ella would not have been more fortunate than their depredatory countrymen who had preceded them, if the events of the day had not by their agencies conducted them and their successors from exile and piracy, to the proprietorship and kingdoms of the English octarchy. AMID the sovereignties into which the island was divided, and the civil distractions which this division of power produced, it appears that one ruler was made the supreme monarch, with the addition of a council of the other chiefs. The council is mentioned by all the ancient writers who treat of 252 BOOK this period', and Gwrtheyrn is named by each as the predominating sovereign.2 GWRTHEYRN is mentioned as a proud and cruel tyrant; but with these features Gildas describes the general body of the Britons, both clergy and laity. Their supreme king seems to have acted only with the selfish spirit of his contemporaries, and he was surrounded with many political difficulties that would have embarrassed a wiser and a better man. His authority was disputed by a chieftain of Roman parentage, whose parents had perished in the possession of the imperial purple, and to whom Gildas gives the name of Ambrosius Aurelianus. The Scoti and Picts were harassing the island wherever they could penetrate, and a mortal distemper was raging among the people', which appears to have spread over a large part of 1 As by Gildas, s. 22, 23. Nennius, c. 38, &c. Bede, p. 52. Flor. Wig. 194. 2 Thus W. Malmsb. p. 9. "Omnes reguli insulæ Vortigerni substernebantur monarchiæ.' The traditions of the Welsh that have been committed to writing notice the same plan of government. The seventh historical triad exhibits Arthur as the pen-teyrn, literally the head-king; and Maelgwn, the king of Gwynedd, as the pen-hynain, or chief elder. Welsh Archæol. vol. ii. p. 3. According to this British appellation, Gwrtheyrn was the pen-teyrn, whose supreme power was called unbenaeth, literally, the one head-ship or monarchy. 3 See Gildas's epistola annexed to his history, p. 10–39. 4 Nennius, c. 28. 5 Gildas, s. 25. Nennius, c. 44. The Welsh triads call him Emrys Wledig, or king Emrys, which is the name disfigured, in the MSS. or printed copy of Nennius, into Embreis gleutic, c. 44. He is frequently mentioned in the triads. His descendants were alive in the time of Gildas, but much degenerated. 6 Gildas, c. 20. Bede, lib. i. c. 16. The Vita S. Carentoci names the leaders of the Scoti, "In istis temporibus Scotti superaverunt Britanniam; nomina ducum quorum Briscus, Thuibaius, Machleius, Anpacus." MSS. Vesp. A. xiv. p. 90. 7 Gildas, c. 21. |