446 NATURAL niSTOKY OF 



the coasts of Gaul and Spain, until they reached the 

 mouth of the Rhine in safety, and loaded with "booty. 

 This event may be the basis of the mystical legend of 

 the Bristly Bull monster, which rose out of the sea, 

 and became the parent of the Borstigen, Meringauen, 

 or Meeringen ; for it explains how a daring, rich, and 

 victorious body of Celto Scythae and Finni of the west, 

 being moulded into one united companionship by mis- 

 fortune and by success, replete with the experience of 

 their adventurous achievement, and possessed of cap- 

 tive wives and slaves from highly civilized nations, 

 should have grasped power at home, and given that 

 settled purpose of conquest to these restless tribes, 

 which, until then, had been only known as the mere 

 maraudings of pirates. 



By the departure of the Franks eastward and across 

 the Rhine, and of the Saxons and Angles to Britain, 

 room was made for other tribes, who either wanted 

 space on the spot, or were daily pressing onwards 

 through the swamps and forests of Poland and Russia. 

 We shall not relate the great influx of them before 

 and with the Huns, and of numerous Finnic and Getic 

 nations from the east, among which the eastern and 

 western Goths were the most conspicuous. Like se- 

 veral others, they had struck upon the shores of the 

 southern Baltic, and then found they must turn to the 

 soutn. They or similar migratory bands compelled 

 Alans, Vandals, Burgundians, &c., to precede or to 

 follow them, and to produce that remarkable cross 



