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side of the Severn, to enable them to itse Aust Passage in all 

 states of the tide, or when " New " Passage would not be so 

 safe; they of course guaranteeing neutrality for the piece of 

 ground thus reserved. There are always two to a bargain, 

 unless one is overwhelmingly stronger than the other ; and we 

 know from history that Opfa had no such superiority over the 

 Silures ; or he would have made his line on the Ush instead 

 of the Wye, as the Romans did, speedily after their conquest 

 of this part of Britain. 



So far as regards that portion of it which lies in Gloucester- 

 shire, skirting as it does the natural boundary line of the Wye 

 over much of its course, there is good reason to suppose that 

 it keeps on the tract of far more ancient encampments. This 

 was unquestionably the case with Wan's Dyke in Somersetshire, 

 a section of which shews an older bank has been added to. 

 Seter thinks the increment due to the Eomans; but this 

 appears improbable. 



It is pretty clear, looking at the general line of the Dyke, 

 that even now, after all the political oscillations of ten centmries, 

 it forms the real dividing hue between the Saxon and Welsh 

 peoples — Offa's Dyke, and not any mere county boundary. 



Ofpa himself is described in the "Saxon Chronicle" as a direct 

 descendant of Odin in the 13th generation from him. Some 

 will smile at this ; yet there is no more reason for considering 

 Odin as a mere myth than the Dvike of Wellington. But as 

 he chanced to live in a period when Valhalla took the same 

 position as Westminster Abbey does now, he passed into a god, 

 on his demise, as naturally as he would have passed into a saint 

 had he been 500 years later: the advantage he had in coming on 

 the world's stage at such an early period being, that he secured 

 one day in every week in his honour, instead of one in every year — 

 « Wednesday" instead of " St. Odin's day." In 1875 the utmost 

 he could have expected to attain would be, not even a saint's 

 day, but a volume of biography* and a funeral sermon by Dean 

 Stanley, as a " muscular christian" of no ordinary standing. 



* Life and Correspondence of the late General Odin, with a photograph, 

 and maps of his battle-fields. London : John Mxtrkay. 



