26
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
even the locality is unknown ? What account shall
we render of those occurrences, which exist for us
only in the confused forms given to them by suc-
cessive ages ; some, mischievously determined to
reduce the abnormal to rule, the extraordinary to
order, as measured by their narrow scheme of ana-
logy ? Is it not obvious that to seek for historic
truth in such traditions, is to be guilty of violating
every principle of historic logic 1 Such was the
course pursued by our early chroniclers, but it is
not one that we can be justified in repeating. In
their view no doubt, the annals of the several Saxon
kingdoms did supply points of definite information ;
but we are now able to take the measure of their
credulity, and to apply severer canons of criticism
to the facts themselves which they believed and re-
corded. If it was the tendency and duty of their
age to deliver to us the history that they found, it
is the tendency and duty of ours to enquire upon
what foundation thathistory rests, and what amount
of authority it may justly claim.
The little that Beda could collect at the begin-
ning of the eighth century, formed the basis of all
the subsequent reports. Though not entirely free
from the prejudices of his time, and yielding ready
faith to tales which his frame of mind disposed him
willingly to credit, he seems to have bestowed some
pains upon the investigation and critical apprecia-
tion of the materials he collected. But the limits
of the object he had proposed to himself, viz. the
ecclesiastical history of the island, not only imposed
upon him the necessity of commencing his detailed
CH. I∙]
SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS.
•27
narrative at a comparatively late period ɪ, but led
him to reject much that may have been well known
to him, of our secular history. The deeds of pagan
and barbarous chieftains offered little to attract his
attention or command his sympathies ; indeed were
little likely to be objects of interest to those from
whom his own information was generally derived.
Beda’s account, copied and recopied both at home
and abroad, was swelled by a few vague data from
the regnal annals of the kings ; these were probably
increased by a few traditions, ill understood and ill
applied, which belonged exclusively to the epical
or mythological cycles of our own several tribes
and races, and the cognate families of the continent ;
and finally the whole was elaborated into a mass of
inconsistent fables, on the admission of Cymric or
Armorican tales by Norman writers, who for the
most part felt as little interest in the fate of the
Briton as the Saxon, and were as little able to ap-
preciate the genuine history of the one as of the
other race. Thus Woden, Bældæg, Geat, Scyld,
Sgeaf and Beowa gradually found their way into
the royal genealogies ; one by one, Brutus, Aurelius
Ambrosius, Uther Pendragon and Arthur, Hen-
gest, Hors and Vortigern, all became numbered
among historical personages ; and from heroes of
respective epic poems sunk down into kings and
1 Beda attempts to give some account of the early state of Britain
previous to the arrival of Augustine ; a few quotations from Solinus,
Gildas, and a legendary life of St. Germanus, comprise however nearly
the whole of his collections. Either he could find no more information,
ɑr he did not think it worthy of belief. IIe even speaks doubtfully of
the tale of Hengest. Hist. Eccl. i. 15.