It is supposed that one of the earliest runic inscriptions is the following, which dates from about 400 A.D. It is cut on a drinking horn,[1] and (reproduced in English characters) stands thus:
EK HLEWAGASTIR - HOLTINGAR - HORNA - TAWIDO
I, Hlewagastir, son of Holta, made the horn
[1] The golden horn of Gallehas, found on the Danish-German frontier.
With the introduction of Christianity the Latin alphabet, from which our modern English alphabet is derived, took the place of the runic characters, which bore some resemblance to Greek, and English literature began with the coming of the monks.
99. The First Books.
One of the first English books of great value was the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," a history covering a period beginning 1 A.D. and ending in 1154. The work was probably written by the monks in Canterbury, Peterborough, and other monasteries. It may be considered as an annual register of iportant events. Thorpe says of it, "No other nation can produce any history written in its own vernacular, at all approaching the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" either in antiquity, truthfulness, or extent, the historical books of the Bible alone excepted."
Though written in prose, it countains various fragments of poetry, of which the following (rendered into modern English), on the death of Edward the Confessor (1066), may be quoted as an example:
"Then suddenly came On Harold's self,
Death the bitter A noble Earl!
And that dear prince seized. Who in all times
Angels bore Faithfully hearkened
His steadfast soul Unto his lord
Into heaven's light. In word and deed,
But the wise King Nor ever failed
Bestowed his realm In aught the King
On one grown great, Had needed of him!"
Other early books were Caedmon's poem of the Creation, also in English, and Bede's "Church History" of Britain, written in Latin, a work giving a full and most interesting account of the coming of Augustine and his first preaching in Kent. All of these books were written by the monks in different monasteries.