The remnants of articles of clothing with graceful patterns, interwoven with threads of gold and silver, which have fortunately escaped entire destruction, show the existence of great skill in weaving. Entire suits of wearing apparel remain to tell us how some of the people dressed in the beginning of our era.

Beautiful vessels of silver and gold also testify to the taste and luxury of those early times. The knowledge of the art of writing and of gilding is clearly demonstrated. In some cases, nearly twenty centuries have not been able to tarnish or obliterate the splendour of the gilt jewels of the Northmen. We find among their remains—either of their own manufacture or imported, perhaps as spoils of war—repoussé work of gold or silver, bronze, silver, and wood work covered with the thinnest sheets of gold; the filigree work displays great skill, and some of it could not be surpassed now. Many objects are ornamented with niello, and of so thorough a northern pattern, that they are incontestably of home manufacture. The art of enamelling seems also to have been known to the artificers of the period.

Objects, many of which show much refined taste, such as superb specimens of glass vessels with exquisite painted subjects—unrivalled for their beauty of pattern, even in the museums of Italy and Russia—objects of bronze, &c., make us pause with astonishment, and musingly ask ourselves from what country these came. The names of Etruria, of ancient Greece, and of Rome, naturally occur to our minds.

Other objects of unquestionable Roman and Greek manufacture, and hundreds and thousands of coins, of the first, second, third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, show the early intercourse the people of the North had with the western and eastern Roman empire, and with Frisia, Gaul, and Britain.

A careful perusal of the Eddas and Sagas will enable us, with the help of the ancient Greek and Latin writers, and without any serious break in the chain of events, to make out a fairly continuous history which throws considerable light on the progenitors of the English-speaking people, their migrations northward from their old home on the shores of the Black Sea, their religion, and the settlement of Scandinavia, of England, and other countries.

CHAPTER II.
ROMAN AND GREEK ACCOUNTS OF THE NORTHMEN.

The three maritime tribes of the North—The fleets of the Sueones—Expeditions of Saxons and Franks—Home of these tribes—The tribes of Germania not seafaring—Probable origin of the names Saxons and Franks.

Roman writers give us the names of three maritime tribes of the North, which were called by them Sueones, Saxones, and Franci. The first of these, which is the earliest mentioned, is thus described by Tacitus (circ. 57–117 A.D.):—

“Hence the States of the Sueones, situated in the ocean itself, are not only powerful on land, but also have mighty fleets. The shape of their ships is different, in that, having a prow at each end, they are always ready for running on to the beach. They are not worked by sails, nor are the oars fastened to the sides in regular order, but left loose as in some rivers, so that they can be shifted here or there as circumstances may require.”[[4]]

The word Sviar, which is constantly met with in the Sagas to denote the inhabitants of Svithjod (Sweden), or the country of which Upsala was the capital, corresponds somewhat to the name Sueones, and it is highly probable that in Sueones we have the root of Sviar and of Svithjod. The ships described by Tacitus are exactly like those which are described in this work as having been found in the North.