[26] Possibly their name may be connected with that of the Eudoces, a tribe mentioned by Tacitus as neighbours of the Angli. But that identification, if confirmed, would not add much to our knowledge.
[27] It is conjectured, but only conjectured, that it took place at Maes Garmon (the field of Germanus?), near Mold in Flintshire.
[28] It will be observed that this date is eight years later than that given by Tiro. It is probably derived from Bede (i., 15), who, however, does not seem to have had any definite information as to the exact year of the first invasion, though he certainly places it in the reigns of the Emperors Marcian and Valentinian III., that is (according to his inaccurate reckoning) somewhere between 449 and 455.
[29] The site of Fethan-lea is not ascertained. Dr. Guest’s identification of it with Faddiley in Cheshire, and the large consequences thence deduced by him (Origines Celticæ, ii., 287–309), can hardly survive the strenuous attack made on them by Mr. Stevenson in the Eng. Hist. Rev., xvii., 637.
[30] Probably in Wiltshire (ibid., 638).
[31] “Forwurdon,” not the usual peaceful and beautiful “forth-ferdon” (fared forth).
[32] Or Agitius, as Gildas calls him.
[33] The name of Vortigern, inserted here in Gale’s edition, is absent from the best, though found in a few manuscripts.
[34] Isaiah xix. 11.
[35] Nennius makes such a muddle of his chronology that he virtually asserts that Christ was born A.D. 183; and he accepts the idle tales about Brutus, ancestor of the Britons, and descendant of Aeneas, which had been apparently fabricated by Irish students of Virgil two centuries before he wrote.