49 
were called Cumbri, a designation we first meet with in the 
Chronicle of Ethelwerd—at a much later date though than this. 
The Saxon Chronicle says, that in 875 the Danes made frequent 
attacks on the “ Pehtas” and on “ Streecled Weelas.” Ethelwerd 
translates this passage into Latin, as ‘“ Pihtis Cumbrisque.” Here 
we have the frst mention in history of our name. 
Whether it is a corruption of Cambri, i. e. Welsh, or whether 
it comes from the ¢zms, or valleys, with which our country is 
intersected, it is hard to say. The cwms are common enough— 
as the poet says in the song of “Sally Gray” :— 
There’s Cumwhitton,. Cumwhinton, Cumranton, 
Cumrangen, Cumrew, and Cumcatch, 
And mony mair cums i’ the county, 
But nin with Cumdivock can match. 
The English Conquest of Britain therefore left this great 
British or Welsh kingdom, extending first from the Dee to the 
Clyde, consisting of small petty states—Reged, Strathclyde, and 
Cumbria, of which sometimes one got the superiority, sometimes 
another ; and the name of the one having the upper hand for the 
time got applied to the whole,—just as England is used as an 
equivalent for Great Britain and Ireland, because the seat of 
government is in England. 
The Britons of Strathclyde, or Cumbria, occupy a tolerably 
large space on the map, but a very small one in history—their 
annals have entirely perished, and nothing authentic remains con- 
cerning them, except a very few passages, wholly consisting ot 
incidental notices relating to their subjection and their misfortunes. 
Romance would furnish much more: for it was in Cumbria 
that Rhydere, or Roderic, the Magnificent, is represented to have 
reigned, and Merlin to have prophesied. Arthur held his court in 
Merry Carlisle ; and Peredur, the Prince of Sunshine, whose name 
we find amongst the princes of Strathclyde, is one of the great 
heroes of the Mabinogion, or tales of youth, long preserved among 
the Cymric. These fantastic personages, however, are of importance 
in one point of view, because they show what we might otherwise 
ignore, that from the Ribble, in Lancashire, or thereabouts, up to 
9) 
