The Pageant of British History

by Edward Parrott

Worshipped his heathen gods beneath the sacred oak.”

Here come your first Britons, tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired, long of limb, and ruddy of countenance. Some, from the dense forest interior, are clad in the skins of the bears and other wild animals which they have slain; others wear garments of the rough cloth which they have woven on their own rude looms, or have obtained by barter from traders of distant and more civilized lands. None of them are mere yelling savages, bedaubed with blue war-paint; they have long passed that stage. They are all warriors born and bred, fierce in fight but sociable and friendly in peace. They live in tribes under their “kings;” they graze their cattle, till the land, and search the gravels of the rivers for tin.

Let us visit a British “town” of Kent, a century or so before the coming of the Romans, and learn something of the old British mode of life. We plunge into the dark shades of the forest, and follow a narrow track that winds hither and thither through the dense undergrowth. We are armed, for in the thickets and in the caves of the rocky hillocks lurk the gray wolf, the fierce boar, the black bear, and the wild cat. Now and then a startled deer gazes at us for a moment, and bounds away into safety. In the stream which we ford herons are fishing and beavers are building. Overhead the hawks are sailing by, and from a neighbouring marsh comes the boom of a bittern.

On we go, and at length reach a great cleared space. The trees have been felled, and some of the land is under tillage. Horses, sheep, oxen, and swine are quietly feeding, and here and there are strips of grain and barley. Half a mile away is the town. All round it is a moat, with an earthen wall topped by a stockade of oak logs. As we approach the narrow entrance, we see the pointed roofs of many huts, from which thin lines of blue smoke are curling up into the summer air.

We enter the town by a zigzag road, and pass the homesteads, square or round in shape, and built of unhewn or roughly hewn trees placed on end, with roofs of interlaced boughs thatched with rushes or covered with turf. Each homestead consists of one room, large enough to contain the whole family. The floor is of earth, or perhaps covered with thin slates. In the middle of it is the family fire, which continues to burn night and day all the year round; when it dies out, the home is deserted. The smoke escapes by a hole in the roof. Round the fire, along the sides of the room, is a bed made of rushes and covered with hides or coarse rugs. On this the members of the family sit at meals, and sleep at night with their feet towards the fire. The rushes and green grass which are placed between the family fire and the family bed serve as a table, and on this at meal times are placed large platters containing oatmeal cakes, meat, and broth.

In front of the entrance to one of the homesteads a blue-eyed, fair-haired woman, in a tunic of dark-blue cloth, sits grinding corn with a quern or handmill. Little boys, clad in strips of bear-skin, engage in a wrestling match hard by. Sturdy little lads they are, for their rearing has been of a Spartan character; they were plunged into the water of the stream at birth, and they received their first taste of food on the point of their father’s sword. Yonder old woman is boiling water by making pebbles red-hot in the fire and dropping them into an earthen water-pot.

Passing on, we reach a long, low dwelling, which by its size indicates the superior condition of its owner. It is, indeed, the home of the chieftain of the tribe. Big mastiffs and wolf-hounds growl over their bones at the door. Within, the walls are covered with skins. Round shields of hide with shining metal bosses and rims of iron, spears with bronze or iron heads, and bows with quivers of reed arrows tipped with flint adorn the walls. One sword in particular holds the place of honour as a rare prize; it is of iron, with a sheath of bronze studded with red coral.

The chieftain comes forward to welcome us—a tall, well-made man, blue of eye, with long, fair hair and a tawny moustache of which he is vastly proud. Over his flame-red blouse, which is belted at the waist, is a twisted torque of gold, cunningly fashioned and adorned with beautiful tracery; across his blouse is thrown a tartan plaid fastened at the shoulder by a brooch of polished boar tusk. His trousers fit closely to the ankles, and are so characteristic an article of his attire that he is known as “wearer of breeches” in distant Rome. Where his skin is bare, we notice that it is painted with patterns of blue. He greets us heartily, and a slave at his direction hands us a great silver-rimmed horn filled with mead.

His wife shares in the welcome. She is a robust, healthy matron, fit mother of her stalwart sons, who she prays may grow up as heroes, and do ere long some doughty deed which shall entitle them to the heroic names which they have yet to possess. When the day’s work is done, she will gather them about her knees and recite the wild legends of their sires, whose mighty feats of war still inspire young Britons to the fray. She wears a tunic with a scarf of red-striped plaid fastened by a pin of bronze. A string of dusky pearls hangs about her neck, and spiral rings of silver adorn her fingers. The ivory bracelets and the amber beads which she proudly wears have been brought from afar by the traders who visit the town from time to time.

The wife is mistress of the home. She has the management not only of all household affairs, but, as she is the wife of a warrior, the care and direction of the whole concerns of the family both indoors and out. She and her sisters spin, knit, weave, dye, sow, cook, grind corn, and milk the cows—indeed do most of the hard work that is done. Her husband considers field-labour and farm-work entirely beneath his dignity. War and hunting are his work, and right well does he excel in both. Probably safely housed in a hut hard by is his precious scythe-wheeled chariot, in which he goes forth to war when the horn is sounded, the shield is struck, and the cran-tara—the “fiery cross”—is sent through the tribe as a call to arms. He and his fellow-warriors spend much time in their warlike exercises; the slaves, the weaklings, and the old men tend the flocks and herds and conduct the tillage.