28 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
warriors, who lived and fought and died upon the
soil of England.
We are ignorant what fasti or mode even of
reckoning the revolutions of seasons prevailed in
England, previous to the introduction of Chris-
tianity. We know not how any event before the
year 600 was recorded, or to what period the me-
mory of man extended. There may have been rare
annals : there may have been poems : if such there
were they have perished, and have left no trace
behind, unless we are to attribute to them such
scanty notices as the Saxon chronicle adds to Beda’s
account. From such sources however little could
have been gained of accurate information either as
to the real internal state, the domestic progress,
or development of a people. The dry, bare en-
tries of the chronicles in historical periods may
supply the means of judging what sort of annals
were likely to exist before the general introduction
of the Roman alphabet and parchment, while, in
all probability, runes supplied the place of letters,
and stones, or the δ^cΛ-wood from which their name
is derived, of books. Again, the traditions embo-
died in the epic, are preeminently those of kings
and princes : they are heroical, devoted to cele-
brate the divine or half-divine founders of a race,
the fortunes of their warlike descendants, the man-
ners and mode of life of military adventurers, not
the obscure progress, household peace and orderly
habits of the humble husbandman. They are full
of feasts and fighting, shining arms and golden
goblets : the gods mingle among men almost their
си. I.]
SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS.
29
equals, share in the same pursuits, are animated by
the same passions of love, and jealousy and hatred ;
or, blending the divine with the mortal nature, be-
come the founders of races, kingly because derived
from divinity itself. But one race knows little of
another or its traditions, and cares as little for them.
Alliances or wars alone bring them in contact with
one another ; and the terms of intercourse between
the races will for the most part determine the cha-
racter under which foreign heroes shall be admitted
into the national epos, or whether they shall be
admitted at all. All history then, which is founded
in any degree upon epical tradition (and national
history is usually more or less so founded) must be
to that extent imperfect, if not inaccurate; only
when corrected by the written references of con-
temporaneous authors, can we assign any certainty
to its records ɪ.
Let us apply these observations to the early
events of Saxon history : of Kent indeed we have
the vague and uncertain notices which I have men-
tioned : even more vague and uncertain are those
of Sussex and Wessex. Of the former, we learn
that in the year 477, Ælli, with three sons, Cymen,
Wlencing and Cissa, landed in Sussex ; that in the
year 485 they defeated the Welsh, and that in 491
they destroyed the population of Anderida2. Not
another word is there about Sussex, before the ar-
* The Homeric poems and those of the Edda are obvious examples :
but nothing can be more instructive than the higtory which Livy and
Saxo Grammaticus have woven out of similar materials.
2 Sax. Chτon. under the respective dates.