THE MHMK CUMK l<'h'<>M Till-: I', LACK SKI. '2~> 



In fact we hesitate to look still further into the future of the 

 English race, for fear of being accused of exaggeration. 



There is a mythical version of the settlement of Britain 

 contradictory of the Roman records. This version is that of 

 Gildas whose ' De Excidio Britannia, 1 ' is supposed to have 

 been composed in the sixth century (560 A.D.), and whose 

 statements have unfortunately been taken by one historian 

 after the other as a true history of Britain. His narrative, 

 which gives an account of the first arrival of the Saxons in 

 Britain and the numerous wars which followed their invasion, 

 has been more or less copied by Nennius, Bede and sub- 

 sequent chroniclers, whose writings are a mass of glaring 

 contradictions, diffuse and intricate, for they contain names 

 which appear to have been invented by the writers and which 

 cannot be traced in the language of those times, while the 

 dates assigned for the landing of the so-called Saxons do not 

 agree with one another. 



The historians who use Gildas as an authority and try to 

 believe his account of the settlement of Britain by Hengist 

 and Horsa (the stallion and the mare) are obliged, in order to 

 explain away the Roman records, to give a most extraordinary 

 interpretation to the Notitia. 



AVe are all aware that the people of every country like to 

 trace their origin or history as far back as possible, and that 

 legends often form part of the fabric of those histories. The 

 early chroniclers, who were credulous and profoundly ignorant 

 of the world, took these fables for facts, or they may have 

 possibly been incorporated in the text of their supposed works 

 after their time. The description of the settlement of a 

 country must be founded on facts which can bear the test of 

 searching criticism if they are to be believed and adopted ; 

 (Hildas and his copyists cannot stand that test, and the Roman 

 records, as corroborated by the archaeology and literature of 

 the North and the archeology of England, must be taken as 

 the correct ones. 



The mythological literature of the North bears evidence 

 of a belief prevalent among the people, that their ancestors 

 migrated at a remote period from the shores of the Black SIM. 

 through south-western Russia, to the shores of the Baltic. 



