IV 



THE ANGLO-SAXONS 



If we remember the point made two chapters 

 back that, in their migrations, human races are 

 usually accompanied by their domestic animals, 

 we know at once to look across the North Sea 

 into Western Germany for the cattle that came 

 in to fill up the gap left by the departure of the 

 Celtic and Roman cattle into the west and the 

 north. The nature of the English migration is 

 first indicated in Bede's " Ecclesiastical History." 

 The English were eventually an amalgamation 

 of, at least, three tribes : the Jutes from what is 

 now Jutland, the Angles from what is now 

 Schleswig-Holstein, and the Saxons from the 

 country south of that and westwards towards 

 Holland and the Frisian islands, Bede, in 

 telling from which of these tribes the people in 

 different parts of England are descended, says :^ 

 " From the Angles, that is, the country which is 

 called Anglia, and which is said, from that time, 

 to remain desert to this day,^ between the 



I " Ecclesiastical History," Bohn's edition, p. 24. 

 ■'' Bede lived from about 677 to 735. 



38 



