[161]. This has been well shown by Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 10.
[162]. This was first observed by Sharon Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 105.
[163]. Theodosii xviii (A.D. 441) Britanniæ usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latæ in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur.
[164]. Compare the expression, ‘Repellunt nos Barbari ad mare, repellit nos mare ad Barbaros; aut jugulamur aut mergimur,’ with what is said of the Saxons, ‘Confovebatur namque, ultionis justæ præcedentium scelerum causa, de mari usque ad mare ignis orientalis,’ etc.; and of the Britons, ‘Itaque nonnulli miserarum reliquiarum in montibus deprehensi acervatim jugulabantur ... alii transmarinas petebant regiones.’
[165]. Nennius, after describing how the Saxons increased in number in Britain, and how Octa passed from the north to Kent, from whom the subsequent kings of Kent descended, proceeds, ‘Tunc Arthur pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum regibus Brittonum, sed ipse dux erat bellorum.’ The ‘illos’ here is referred in another MS. to the Saxones mentioned in the beginning of the passage, and not to the ‘reges Cantiorum.’
[166]. ‘Et vocatur Britannico sermone Guaul.’ This district is termed in the Bruts Mureif, from ‘mur,’ signifying a wall, and is identified with Reged, the kingdom of Urien, the old form of which name was Urbgen—Urbigena—City-born, alluding probably to Dumbarton.
[167]. ‘Id est Cat Coit Celidon,’ the battle of the wood Celidon.
[168]. The Vatican MS. adds, ‘ubi illos in fugam vertit quem nos Cat Bregion appellamus.’ This strange name seems to belong to the Picts more than to the Saxons, who could hardly have possessed Edinburgh at that early period.
[169]. 516, Bellum Badonis in quo Arthur portavit Crucem Domini nostri Jesu Christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeros suos et Britones victores fuerunt.—An. Cam. Tradition points to Ossa Cyllellaur, a descendant of Octa, as Arthur’s opponent in this battle.
[170]. The author goes no further than this in this work. The question as to the true character of Arthur, and the site of these battles, is discussed in the Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. pp. 51-58; and in Mr. Glennie’s Arthurian Localities. Neither does he import into this work any matter from the old Welsh poems, which, whether genuine or spurious, afford at all events no proper basis for an historical narrative.