work till sunset, when there would be supper and all would go to bed. The women were cooking and baking and spinning under the mistress's eye. Ploughing and sowing and harrowing, hedging and ditching, were the first outdoor labours of the year; then after the lambing season was over and the winter-cut wood had been carted and stacked, hay-making set in; then came the harvest. When the corn was carried, hawking and hunting began, and the herds of swine were driven to the woods to fatten on the masts and acorns; when the leaves had fallen, the corn was thrashed and winnowed, beer was brewed, and cattle and pigs killed and salted for the winter. There were bonfires and a feast at the beginning of winter. At Yule there was feasting and holiday for a fortnight. In the spring people went maying and set up Maypoles. Midsummer was a time for merry-making and gatherings of all kinds, fairs, markets, horse-races, and games. The courts were held at such seasons, and in heathen times the sacrifices. Till the Christian calendar came in the week was of five days, and there was no day of rest like our Sunday.

7. The English believed in many gods. Thunder, bluff and red bearded, whose car rattled in the storm Religion. as he hurled his lightning hammer at his foes the giants; Woden, father of victory, wisest of gods and men, knowing all things past and to come, since he sold one of his eyes (by the lack of which he was known when he walked in disguise among men) for the Water of Wisdom; Tew, bravest of the gods, who gave his right arm to save the heavenly powers from hurt; Frey, bestower of riches and good seasons; Heimdall, the giantgod, father of mankind; Eager, the cruel sea-god that takes down drowning men; Ran, his wife, who catches them in her net; Freya, the beautiful goddess whose magic necklace, love-inspiring, was the most precious of jewels; Beadu, lady of war; the Weirds, goddesses of fate, strongest of all; and Hell, the black giantess that kept the souls of the wicked in her cold, dark, snake-haunted caves. All these and more they feared or loved, besides believing in etyns [giants], ogres, and such monsters as the two Wolves that are ever chasing the sun and moon, and sometimes grip hold of them for a space, so causing eclipses; dwarves, little clever spiteful beings "that ever dwell beneath the ground nor dare behold the sun," making magic weapons and charmed rings, and digging out the treasures of the earth; and elves, fairies of the woods and meadows and wells.

The English buried or burned their dead carefully for fear their angry souls should haunt the spot where the uncared

B

for body lay; and as they thought the after life was just like this one, they put food and drink and weapons and horses into the grave with him that the soul might pass its spirit-life happily hunting by night in the woods and feasting by day inside the barrow.

The gods' temples were large halls inside a wooden fence into which no man might come armed. The wooden stocks which stood for the images of the gods, the holy ring on which oaths were sworn, the blood-stone on which the victims were slain for sacrifice, were kept there. There too were sometimes sacred trees, on which the victims' heads were hung. Here the hallowed feasts were held with the flesh of the horses and boars offered to the idols, and fresh-brewed ale in which toasts were drunk to the gods' honour. The templekeepers, some of whom were women, had no power like the Druids, every householder being priest for his household, and the king for the tribe; but they were consulted as soothsayers, and would go round the country from house to house practising their witchcraft, pretending to make spirits show themselves to men to foretell the future, and "sitting out" in desert places to raise the dead to answer the questions of the living. A tenth of war-spoil was given to the gods, and probably temple-dues paid.

Poetry.

8. The English were fond of poetry and singing to the harp. Every king had his gleeman, who was loved and honoured by all, for on him it depended whether a man's brave deeds should go down to those that came after him. One of the ways the missionaries found most powerful in getting the people to listen to the Gospel was the putting of Latin hymns into English and singing them in the streets. The church chanting, which was strange to them, also pleased the people much. Old English verse was not like ours, rhymed, but alliterative or letter-catching-one stressed word of the two in each half line must begin with the same consonant or a different vowel. The piece given below will show how it was. Their poetry was either epic, telling stories of gods or heroes, or didactic, teaching useful knowledge, often by proverbs (for the heathen English had no books). The heathen poems are unhappily lost, though we know some of the stories they told about Weyland, the cunning smith, his brother Egill, the mighty archer, and Wade, with his magic boat; Sigmund, that slew the dragon and got the golden hoard; Heremod, and his feats of war; Finn, and the fight at Finnsboro', his hall, and others. One whole poem written by a Christian about a heathen hero is left, and it shows what these older poems were like; it tells

the life and deeds of Beowulf the Gaut, who rid the Danish king of two fearful ogres, Grendel and his mother, reigned long and well in his own land, and died at last of the wounds he got in killing a firedrake.

9. The old English could write in heathen days, but they only used writing for marking their weapons and Tongue. goods, or for charms. This line upon a large

golden horn found in the old home of the English at Gallehus was written about A.D. 350, and is the oldest bit of English known

EC HLEWAGASTIZ· HOLTINGAZ · HORNA · TAWIDO the horn worked.]

[I

Hlewgast

the Holting

It is written in runes, the letters of an alphabet the Teutons borrowed and adapted from the Greek, perhaps through Gaul. This is part of a poem of Cadmon, made more than three centuries later, and engraven upon a stone cross at Ruthwell, before the year 750—

Rod was ic aræræd: ahof ic riicne cuningc [A-cross was I reared

heafunæs hlafard [heaven's lord

lifted-I the-mighty king,]

: hælda ic ni darstæ
bend I-durst-not]

bismærædu ungcet men ba ætgadre: ic was midh bloda bistemid. [mocked us-two men both together I was with blood moistened.]

One can see by these verses that the old English tongue was fully inflected like Latin and Greek, with nouns, adjectives, and verbs declined in many forms, while the bodies of many of the words were almost the same as ours now, only more broadly, slowly, and clearly spoken, though others of them are now disused and forgotten.

Look and mind.

10. The old English are described as brave, hard-working, earnest, truthful, and law-abiding people, cruel and bloodthirsty especially towards foreigners, and too apt when their work was done to give themselves up to gross eating, hard drinking, and deep play. In look they were tall and stout, round headed, with fine thick yellow or brown hair, grey or brown eyes, large teeth, clear ruddy skins, and pleasing faces. Their hands and feet rather big but well shapen. They could bear great fatigue and toil, and were not easily turned back from anything they had once begun.

The Scots.

11. While the English were conquering Britain a body of Scots from Ireland under Fergus MacErc landed on the west coast of Caledonia about 500 A.D. and set up a little kingdom there, which went on fighting

with the Picts till about 836, when, their royal families having intermarried, Kenneth MacAlpin became heir to both crowns, and from that time the kingdom of Picts and Scots began to be called Scotland and all its people Scots. Kenneth and his descendants ruled as far south as the line of Agricola. Their royal dun was at Perth, but they were crowned on the Holy Stone at Scone, which Fergus was said to have brought from Ireland. The Scots were Christians, for Ireland had, we know, been converted a generation before they left it. In 565 there came to one of their islands, Hy, now called Iona, a noble Irish monk named Columba, who had left his own land for a penance. He drew many disciples round his cell, and founded a monastery, which became famous for the holiness and learning of its monks, and for the missionaries it sent forth among the heathen Picts in Caledonia, and the heathen English of Northumberland. The border between Scots and English was fixed in 603 by the battle of Dawston or Catterick.

CHAPTER IV.

The English become Christian. Overlordship of Northumberland and Marchland Kings.

1. The next two hundred years are taken up on one hand by the conversion of the English, first begun by Roman, but chiefly carried out by Scottish missionaries, the settlement of the English Church, and the changes it brought about; and on the other hand by the struggles of the great kings of Northumberland and the Marchland to bring all the smaller kingdoms under their rule, and so become overlords of England. It is told that while Pope Gregory was yet a simple priest he chanced to see some young English boys The christening of Kent and at the slave-market in Rome. Struck by their Essex, 597. white skins, light hair, and fair faces, he asked who they were, of what faith and nation. When he was told that they were heathen Angles from Britain, and their king's name Ælla, playing on the words he answered, "They that have the faces of angels should be singing Allelu iah with them rather than sitting in the darkness of sin." Then touched with pity he went to the Pope and asked leave to go to England and preach the Gospel there, but the Roman people loved him so well they would not let him go. Still he never forgot the sight of the poor children, and when