with their white-winged ships, like swift and merciless birds of prey, were a constant menace to the dwellers along the coast, whose homes they burned, and whose property they stole away. In 449 the Britons invited aid from one of these same Teutonic tribes, and in that year a colony from Jutland, under the twin chiefs Hengest and Horsa, settled on the island of Thanet off the coast of Kent. But the Jutes themselves soon turned invaders, and as fleet followed fleet, bringing successive bands of their kinsfolk, Kent also became their possession, together with various tracts along the southern coast. Perhaps because of the success of these first-comers, perhaps because of the crowding of vigorous warlike neighbors, representatives of two other tribes, the Angles and the Saxons, peoples nearly related to the Jutes, joined in the general migration of the tribes. Dwellers originally in the low-coast countries of North Germany bordering on the North Sea, inhabiting a part of the Danish peninsula and territory extending westward as far as the mouth of the Emms, a region beset with fog and damp, and constantly exposed to the incursions of the sea, the life of these hardy Teutons was one continuous struggle with storm and flood. No wonder that in their eyes the island of Britain appeared a bright and winsome land, or that they were attracted to its sunnier shore. The ocean ways had long been familiar to them, and for generations before the final movement their adventurous bands of sea-rovers had pillaged and harried the British coasts. These tribes had much in common: they were of one parent stock, their language was practically one, their social customs and institutions were alike. Their religion was the common religion of the north. The names of our week days preserve still the memory of their gods. Wednesday is the day sacred to Woden, THE HOME-MAKING 5 the head of their mythology and the ancestor of their kings; Thor, the god of thunder and storm, is remembered in Thursday; Frig's name appears in Friday; while Tuesday takes the name of Tiw, the god of darkness and death. Prominent in their mythology is Wyrd, the genius of fate: "Goes ever Wyrd as it will," declares the hero of the epic Beowulf. Yet, pagans though they were, savage to cruelty in feud and war, boastful of speech, heavy eaters and deep drinkers, our Teutonic forefathers were at the same time a sturdy, healthful race, maintaining customs that were honest and wholesome, morally sound, and in many ways superior to the more cultured peoples of southern Europe. As we have seen, the Jutes populated the eastern county of Kent; they also established settle- The Homements here and there on the southern coast. Making. The Angles settled in the country north of that occupied by the Jutes, and built up a great kingdom known as East Anglia, a division of which into Northfolk and Southfolk is still indicated in the shires of Norfolk and Suffolk; still farther north did this English conquest move, until even Northumbria was under the English power. Meanwhile the Saxons had not lagged behind their neighbors in the conquest of the island. Successive migrations of this people had already won more than a foothold upon the southern shore, and different divisions of the tribe shared in the possession of this part of South Britain. East Saxons ruled the district lying between Kent and Suffolk, which is now called Essex; to the south of them lay the domain of the South Saxons, who have left their name in Sussex; while the more powerful kindred of the West Saxons covered the territory as far west as Cornwall, and won in time the dominion of all South England, establish ing the great kingdom of Wessex. Thus the history of Britain from the beginning of the fifth century to the beginning of the seventh is a confused and bloody chronicle of invasion and conquest. The Celtic race that portion of it which was not absorbed by intermingling with the invaders was enslaved or driven toward the west and north; those who found an abiding place among the mountains of the west were given by their Teuton conquerors the name of Welsh, or strangers. At the beginning of the ninth century there were four principal divisions of the English people: there were (1) the English of the north, covering the whole of Northumberland, and (2) the English of East Anglia in Norfolk and Suffolk; Kent was fairly included within the borders of (3) the West Saxons, while (4) the central division of the island, also Anglian, surrounded on three sides by these other kingdoms, and on the west by the Welsh, was known as Mercia, the country of the March, or the border. During the ninth century a new spoiler appeared on the English coasts. The Danes began their forays on these earlier invaders, and the English peoples, who for two hundred years had been contending among themselves for leadership, were finally united into one nation under Ecgberht, King of the West Saxons, and still more securely under the great King Alfred (871901) through the force of a common peril and common need. These long centuries of conquest and adjustment in the history of these related German tribes may be designated as the Anglo-Saxon Period; it extends from the arrival of Hengest and Horsa in 449 to the invasion of the Normans under William in 1066, and thus covers the space of a little more than six hundred years. The Scop. II. ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. These fair-skinned, blue-eyed English folk were, from the first, lovers of song and story. The very relics of their earliest art preserve the scene and spirit of their recreation. Fierce in fight, often merciless in the pursuit of a conquered foe, they loved the gleam of their own hearth-fire and the coarse comfort of the great Saxon hall, with its heavy tables and crowded benches. Here at night the troop gathered, carousing, in some interval of peace. The earl himself, at the high table set crosswise at one end of the huge hall, had before him his noisy band of vassals thronging the mead-benches. The blaze of the hearthfire in their midst lights up the faces of these ruddy, strong-limbed warriors; it flashes on spear and axe, and is reflected from the armor, curiously woven of link-mail, which grotesquely decorates the walls, half hidden by shaggy skins of wolf and bear. The noisy feasting is followed by a lull. The harp appears. Perhaps the lord of the household himself receives it, and in vigorous tones chants in time with the twanging chords some epic of his ancestors, or boasts of his own fierce deeds. Perhaps the instrument is passed from hand to hand while thane after thane unlocks the "word-hoard" of his memory as he may. But most frequently it is the professional scop, or gleeman, who strikes the rhythmic notes, and takes up the burden of the tale; he has a seat of honor near his lord; to him the rough audience listens spellbound; he sways their wild spirits at his will. "There was chant and harp-clang together In presence of Healfdene's battle-scarred heroes. |