[46]. This fact, which has escaped the accurate, and generally merciless, criticism of Gibbon, is very clearly proved by Zeuss, Die Deutschen, etc. pp. 361, 362.
[47]. The passage is sufficiently important to deserve transcription at length. “Saxonum gens, sicut tradit antiquitas, ab Anglis Britanniae incolis egressa, per Oceanum navigans Germaniae litoribus studio et necessitate quaerendarum sedium appulsa est, in loco qui vocatur Haduloha, eo tempore quo Thiotricus rex Francorum contra Irminfridum generum suum, ducem Thuringorum, dimicans, terram eorum ferro vastavit et igni. Et cum iam duobus proeliis ancipiti pugna incertaque victoria miserabili suorum cede decertassent, Thiotricus spe vincendi frustratus, misit legatos ad Saxones, quorum dux erat Hadugoto. Audivit enim causam adventus eorum, promissisque pro victoria habitandi sedibus, conduxit eos in adiutorium; quibus secum quasi iam pro libertate et patria fortiter dimicantibus, superavit adversarios, vastatisque indigenis et ad internitionem pene deletis, terram eorum iuxta pollicitationem suam victoribus delegavit. Qui eam sorte dividentes, cum multi ex eis in bello cecidissent, et pro raritate eorum tota ab eis occupari non potuit, partem illius, et eam quam maxime quae respicit orientem, colonis tradebant, singuli pro sorte sua, sub tributo exercendam. Caetera vero loca ipsi possiderunt.” Transl. Sci. Alexandri, Pertz, ii. 674. This was written about 863. Possibly some ancient and now lost epic had recorded the wars of the Saxon Heaðogeát.
[48]. Beda attempts to give some account of the early state of Britain previous to the arrival of Augustine; a few quotations from Solinus, Gildas, and a legendary life of St. Germanus, comprise however nearly the whole of his collections. Either he could find no more information, or he did not think it worthy of belief. He even speaks doubtfully of the tale of Hengest. Hist. Eccl. i. 15.
[49]. The Homeric poems and those of the Edda are obvious examples: but nothing can be more instructive than the history which Livy and Saxo Grammaticus have woven out of similar materials.
[50]. Sax. Chron. under the respective dates.
[51]. Cerdic and Cyneríc landed in 495, after forty years Cerdic dies, and Cyneríc reigns twenty-six more!
[52]. The chronology is inconsistent throughout, and it is inconceivable that it should have been otherwise. Beda himself assigns different dates to the arrival of the Saxons, though it is the æra from which he frequently reckons.
[53]. Thorpe’s Lappenb. i. 78 seq.
[54]. Beówulf, ii. Postscript to the Preface, xxvii.
[55]. Geát, the eponymus of a race, Geátas, is found in the common genealogy previous to Wóden; his legend is alluded to in the Codex Exoniensis, pp. 377, 378, together with those of Ðeódríc, Wéland and Eormanríc. Witta in the Kentish line is found in the Traveller’s Song, l. 43. Offa in the Mercian genealogy occurs in the same poem, l. 69, in the fine epos of Beówulf, and in Saxo Grammaticus. Fin the son of Folcwalda is one of the heroes of Beówulf. Scyld, Sceáf and Beówa are found in the same poem, etc. These facts render it probable that many other, if not all the names in the genealogies were equally derived from the peculiar national or gentile legends, although the epic poems in which they were celebrated being now lost, we are unable to point to them as we have done to others.