[56] Or as the Saxon chronicler quaintly puts it, “that if Welshmen would not be kith and kin (sibbe) with us they should by Saxon hands perish”.
[57] We may probably conjecture that the rapid far-reaching campaigns of early English kings, such as Ethelfrid, were rendered possible by the still solid condition of the great Roman roads, which in the Middle Ages fell grievously into decay. Thus even the civilisation of the Roman empire fought for the barbarians.
[58] This remark was made by Professor Freeman.
[59] In telling this story Bede hints that Paulinus received by supernatural means the particulars of an earlier supernatural appearance; but he does not put forward this theory very confidently, and we may, perhaps, sufficiently account for the incident if we suppose that Paulinus himself, unknown at that time to Edwin, was the chief actor in the first scene, the memory of which he revived at an opportune time to strengthen the wavering faith of the king.
[60] It must be remembered that this is the Anglian version of the story, possibly unjust to Cadwallon, and that the Britons had the wrongs of two centuries to avenge.
[61] Skene, Celtic Scotland, ii., 89.
[62] By Skene, u.s., ii., 63.
[63] Nennius (Hist. Brit., § 64) says “in bello Catscaul”. Cat is an old English word for battle; caul is probably corrupted from guaul, the word elsewhere used by Nennius for the Roman wall (cf. §§ 23 and 38).
[64] Brut y Tywysogion, s.a., 681.
[65] “Urbs regia” (Bede, iii., 6); “urbs munitissima” (Simeon of Durham, Historia Regum, § 48).