16 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
pably uncritical assertions of our conquered neigh-
bours ? I confess that the more I examine this
question, the more completely I am convinced that
the received accounts of our migrations, our subse-
quent fortunes, and ultimate settlement, are devoid
of historical truth in every detail.
It strikes the enquirer at once with suspicion
when he finds the tales supposed peculiar to his
own race and to this island, shared by the Ger-
manic populations of other lands, and with slight
changes of locality, or trifling variations of detail,
recorded as authentic parts of their history. The
readiest belief in fortuitous resemblances and co-
incidences gives way before a number of instances
whose agreement defies all the calculation of
chances. Thus, when we find Hengest and IIors
approaching the coasts of Kent in three keels, and
Ælli effecting a landing in Sussex with the same
number, we are reminded of the Gothic tradition
which carries a migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths
and Gepidae, also in three vessels, to the mouths
of the Vistula, certainly a spot where we do not
readily look for that recurrence to a trinal calcula-
tion, which so peculiarly characterizes the modes of
thought of the Cymri. The murder of the British
chieftains by Hengest is told totidem verbis by
Widukind and others, of the Oldsaxons in Thurin-
gia1. Geoffry of Monmouth relates also how Hen-
j Widukind in Leibnitz, Ker. Brunsw. i. 73, 74; Repgow, Sachsensp.
iii. 44, § 2. It is amusing enough to see how the number of ships
increases as people began to feel the absurdity of bringing over con-
quering armies in such ι ery small flotillas.
сн. i.J
SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS.
17
gest obtained from the Britons as much land as
could be enclosed by an ox-hide ; then, cutting the
hide into thongs, enclosed a much larger space
than the grantors intended, on which he erected
Thong castle1—a tale too familiar to need illustra-
tion, and which runs throughout the mythus of
many nations. Among the Oldsaxons the tradi-
tion is in reality the same, though recorded with
a slight variety of detail. In their story, a Iapful
of earth is purchased at a dear rate from a Thurin-
gian ; the companions of the Saxon jeer him for
his imprudent bargain ; but he sows the purchased
earth over a large space of ground, which he claims
and, by the aid of his comrades, ultimately wrests
from the Thuringians2.
To the traditional history of the tribθs peculiarly
belong the genealogies of their kings, to which it
will be necessary to refer hereafter in a mythological
point of view. For the present it is enough that I
call attention to the extraordinary tale of Offa,
who occurs at an early stage of the Mercian table,
among the progenitors of the Mercian kings. This
story, as we find it in Matthew Paris’s detailed ac-
count3, coincides in the minutest particulars with a
' Galf. Monum. H. Brit., vi. 11. Thong castle probably gave a turn
to the story here which the Oldsaxon legend had not. The classical
tale of Dido and Byrsa is well known to every schoolboy. Ragnor
Lodbrog adopted the same artifice, Rag. Lodb. Saga, cap. 19, 20.
Nay the Hindoos declare that we obtained possession of Calcutta by
similar means.
2 Widuk. in loc. citai., also Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, No. 647, 309,
and Deutsche Rechtsalt. p. 00, where several valuable examples are
cited : it is remarkable how many of these are Thuringian.
3 Vit. Offae Primi, edited by Wats.
VOL. I. C