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 armed man might come. 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 beasts were slain for sacrifice, were kept there. 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 temple-keepers, many 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 all spoil was given to the gods, and regular templedues 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 in each half of a 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; Waldhere, 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

L

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.

Tongue.

9. The old English could write in heathen days, but they only used writing for marking their weapons and 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

It is written in runes, the letters of an alphabet the Teutons borrowed and adapted from the Greek.

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 [the heaven's lord

lifted-I the-noble 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.

10. The old English are described as brave, hard-working, earnest, truthful, and law-abiding people, cruel Look and mind. 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 The christening he chanced to see some young English boys 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 Alleluiah 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

he became Pope he sent his friend Augustine the monk and a company of forty priests and monks with him to King Æthelberht of Kent, who had married a Christian wife, Bertha, daughter of the King of Paris. Æthelberht received them kindly, gave them an old Roman church, S. Martin's, at Canterbury, and after a while, persuaded by their good words and godly lives, was baptized with many of his people. The East Saxons and their king also became Christians, and Augustine was hallowed Archbishop of Canterbury, and two of his followers made bishops of London and Rochester.

Augustine tried to get the Welsh clergy to take him as their archbishop and join him in preaching to the heathen English; but they would not, whereupon he told them that since they did not choose to live in peace with their Christian brethren and share their work, they should meet a punishment from heathen foes. Now the first king that became Overlord of England was Æthelfrith of Northumberland, who having beaten the Scots at Catterick in 603, now in 607 gained the great victory of Chester (which was spoken of above) over the Welsh princes. To that battle there came from Bangor a congregation of Welsh priests and monks to pray for their countrymen's success; but Æthelfrith, having routed the princes, took and slew 1200 of these monks, saying that they had done their best to overthrow him by their prayers. Thus Augustine's words were fulfilled to the letter.

land and East

England.

2. Æthelfrith's successor, Eadwine, married Æthelberg, First christening daughter of Æthelberht of Kent, who brought of Northumber with her to Northumberland a priest named Paullinus, a companion of Augustine's. He tried to turn king and people to the New Faith, but vainly, till in 626, on the first day of Easter, the West Saxon king sent his henchman Eomer with a two-edged poisoned dagger to slay Eadwine. Eomer came to the king as if to give a message, and, watching his time, struck at him; but Lilla, one of his men, "loyalty's martyr," threw himself before the blow and was killed, the king escaping by the faithfulness. That very night the queen bore a daughter, Eanfled, and Eadwine, thinking that the Christian's God had saved him on his holy day, gave her to Paullinus to be baptized, vowing that if he came back safe and victorious over the West Saxons he would become a Christian himself. Coming back in triumph, he accordingly called his wise men together and asked them what they thought of the New Faith; they said that it seemed to them a good one, because the gods they