But in the same poem we meet with the name in the simple form Hræd; for, when we remember that one of the Icelandic notices of Reidhgotaland is that it lay to the east of Poland, we may fairly infer that Reidhgotaland was the country of the nation mentioned in the following passage:—
Eadwine I sought and Elsa,
Ægelmund and Hungar,
And the proud host
Of the With-Myrgings;
Wulfhere I sought and Wyrnhere;
[158]Full oft war ceas'd not there,
When the Hræds' army,
With hard swords,
About Vistula's wood
Had to defend
Their ancient native seat
Against the folk of Ætla.
Such faint light then as can be thrown upon the Reudigni of Tacitus disconnects them with the Angli both geographically and ethnologically, connecting them with the Prussians, and placing them on the Lower Vistula.
The Aviones.—The Aviones are either unknown to history, or known under the slightly modified form of Chaviones. Maximian conquers them about A.D. 289. His Panegyrist Mamertinus associates them with the Heruli. Perhaps, the Obii are the same people. If so, they cross the Danube in conjunction with the Langobardi, and are mentioned, as having done so, by Petrus Patricius.
The Eudoses will be noticed when Ptolemy's list comes under consideration.
So will the Suardones.
No light has ever been thrown on the Nuithones.
Over and above the Saxons, to whom a special chapter will be devoted, Ptolemy's list contains:—
1. The Sigulones.—The Saxons lay to the north of Elbe, on the neck of the Chersonese, and[159] the Sigulones occupied the Chersonese itself, westwards. Two populations thus placed between the Atlantic and the Baltic, immediately north of the Elbe, leave but little room for each other.
"Then," writes Ptolemy, "come—