The Ethnology of the British Islands Part 15

"For him then did the people of the Geats prepare upon the earth a funeral pile, strong, hung round with helmets, with war-boards and bright Byrnies, as he had requested: weeping the heroes then laid down, in the midst their dear lord; then began the warriors to awake upon the hill the mightiest of bale fires; the wood-smoke rose aloft, dark from the foe of wood; noisily it went, mingled with weeping: the mixture of the wind lay on till it had broken the bonehouse, hot in his breast: sad in mind, sorry of mood they moaned the death of their lord:--The people of the Westerns wrought then a mound over the sea, it was high and broad, easy to behold by the sailors over the waves, and during ten days they built up the beacon of the war-renowned, the mightiest of fires; they surrounded it with a wall, in the most honourable manner that wise men could devise it: they put into the mound rings and bright gems,--all such ornaments as the fierce-minded men had before taken from the h.o.a.rd; they suffered the earth to hold the treasure of warriors, gold on the the sand, there it yet remaineth as useless to men as it was of old.

Then round the mound rode a troop of beasts of war, of n.o.bles, twelve in all: they would speak about the king, they would call him to mind, they would relate the song of words, they would themselves speak: they praised his valour, and his deeds of bravery they judged with praise, even as it is fitting that a man should extol his friendly Lord, should love him in his soul, when he must depart from the body to become valueless. Thus the people of the Geats, his domestic comrades, mourned their dear Lord; they said that he was of the kings of the world, the mildest and gentlest of men, the most gracious to his people, and the most jealous of glory."

That Norse, Frisian, Angle, and other Germanic elements are combined in this poem is certain; and, looking to the extent to which Beowulf, the hero, besides other points of indistinctness in respect to his personality, is Geat as well as Angle, I cannot but suspect an incorporation of some Slavonic and Lithuanic ones as well. _Finn_, too, as a hero, not of the Laps and Finlanders (to whom he would be the proper eponymus), but of the Frisians, creates a further complication.

Hrogar, too, the Dane or Jute, has a name inconveniently unlike that of the more historical Radiger who will soon come under notice.

The chief fact we get from Beowulf is, as is generally the case with early poems, one in the history of Fiction; and, to guard against disparaging such facts as these, let us remember that the history of Fiction is the history of the Commerce of Ideas.

Now Beowulf tells us that, at the time of its composition, at latest, and, probably, much earlier, there was a certain interchange of legend or history between the Danes, Swedes, Lombards, Franks, Angles, Frisians, and Geats. We may say, then, that the Angli had an Heroic Age.

In respect to their historic epoch, a well-known notice in Beda, freely adopted by most of his after-comers, deduces the Angles from that part of Germany which he calls _Angulus_, between the provinces of the Jutes and Saxons, and which up to his own time remained a waste--"patria quae _Angulus_ dicitur, et ab eo tempore usque hodie desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur."

The Saxon Chronicle simply translates this. Alfred strengthens it, writing that there "the English dwelt before they came hither."--_i.e._, to England.

Ethelweard speaks of "Anglia vetus, sita inter Saxones et Giotos, habens oppidum capitale, quod sermone Saxonico _Sleswic_ nuncupatur, secundum vero Danos, _Hathaby_."

A well-known locality in the Duchy of Sleswick supplies the commentary on these texts. A triangular block of land, about the size of the county of Middles.e.x, is bounded on two of its sides by the Slie and the Firth of Flensburg, and on the third by the road from that town to Sleswick.

Many writers think that the Angles should be placed here; and, thinking this, maintain that no population except that of the Angles or some closely allied tribe has a claim to be considered as the early occupants of Holstein and Sleswick. They overlook, however, the important fact that Ptolemy, who places the _Angili_ in a locality far south of the parts in question, places, in those parts, populations which he separates from his _Angili_. They also overlook the still more important fact that the only populations earlier than the present of which definite traces can be discovered in either Holstein or Sleswick, are the Frisians and the Slavonians--the Frisians on the west, and the Slavonians on the east.

In another point of view this district is important, although the line of criticism upon which it has its bearing is gradually becoming obsolete. When the direct influence of the Danes and Norwegians upon the language of Britain was less recognized than it is now, it was by no means uncommon to explain such Scandinavian words as occurred by the a.s.sumption that they were _Angle_ as opposed to _Saxon_, the Angle being the most Danish of all the proper German dialects--transitional, perhaps, to the Teutonic and Scandinavian divisions of the so-called Gothic stock. This was a line of criticism difficult to refute; since the advocate of the Angle origin of Danish words might fairly argue that it was not enough to shew that a word was Scandinavian. It must also be shewn to have been non-existent in the North-German dialects. This brought in the proverbial difficulty of proving a negative a.s.sertion.

Hence, the district of Anglen and Beda's statement concerning it are important.

Now, at the present moment, this district of Anglen is just as _Angle_ or _English_ as the rest of Germany--that is, next to not at all. It is Low German, tinctured with Danish; having once been more Danish still, as is shewn by the geographical names ending in -_by_, -_skov_, and -_gaard_.

The only piece of truly cotemporary evidence in Beda is the statement of its being a _waste_ when he wrote, and this is better explained by supposing it to have been a March, or Debateable Land, between the Germanic and Danish occupants of Sleswick, than by the notion that it was left empty by the exodus of its occupants to Great Britain. The deduction of the Angli from an improbably small area, on the wrong side of the Peninsula, must be looked upon as an inference under the garb of a tradition. Such I believe it to have been; freely, however, admitted that if Anglen poured forth upon England even half the Angles that England contained, it was likely enough to have been most effectually emptied.

At one time I went further than the mere denial of _Anglen_ being the original home of the _Angles_ in the exclusive manner that Beda so evidently considers it, and looked upon the word as a mere translation of the word _Angulus_--since the area in question is certainly one of the nooks and corners of the Peninsula. But the fact of there being one or two small outlying districts, retaining (I believe) certain privileges, beyond the area bounded by the Slie, the Firth of Flensburg and the road to Sleswick, in the parts about Leck and Bredsted, and on the North-Frisian frontier, has modified this view, and inclined me to the notion that the _Anglen_ districts of Sleswick were really _Angle_--though Angle only in the way that Britain was Angle, _i.e._, from the effect of an invasion from Hanover. If so, although we fail in finding in Sleswick the mother-country of the English, we get a detail in the history of the Angles of Germany instead--this being that certain Angles, probably at the time they were reducing Britain, may have turned their faces northwards, and effected settlements in certain parts of Sleswick, having, previously, reached the Trave. Hence they achieved a small maritime conquest on the coast of the Baltic, just as they effected certain large ones on the sh.o.r.es of Britain. Why do I suppose this to have been by sea? Because, when true history begins, whatever the men of _Anglen_ in Sleswick may have been, the intermediate parts of Holstein are Wagrian. The settlement, then, in Anglen, is just a detail in the naval history of the Angles, during the period of their rise and progress--that is, if it be anything Angle at all.

A notice of Procopius now finds place. An Angle princess betrothed to Radiger, prince of the Varni, is deserted by her promised husband for Theodechild, his father's widow, and avenges herself by sailing for the mouth of the Rhine with a large fleet, conquering her undervaluer, forgiving him as women are likely, and dismissing her rival, as they are sure to do in such cases. To deny "all historical foundation to this tale," writes Mr. Kemble,[22] "would perhaps be carrying scepticism to an unreasonable extent. Yet the most superficial examination proves that in all its details, at least, it is devoid of accuracy. The period during which the events described must be placed, is between the years 534 and 547; and it is very certain that the Varni were not settled at that time where Procopius has placed them; on that locality we can only look for Saxons. It is hardly necessary to say that a fleet of four hundred s.h.i.+ps and an army of one hundred thousand Angles, led by a woman, are not data upon which we could implicitly rely in calculating either the political or military power of any English princ.i.p.ality at the commencement of the sixth century, or that s.h.i.+ps capable of carrying two hundred-and-fifty men each, had hardly been launched at that time from any port in England. Still I am not altogether disposed to deny the possibility of predatory expeditions from the settled parts of the island adjoining the eastern coasts."

From this criticism I only differ in thinking that, instead of Procopius having mistaken Saxons for Varni, he has mistaken the Elbe for the Rhine.

It is a point of some uncertainty, but of no great importance to ascertain whether the Angle subjects of the insulted but forgiveful princess were from Britain or from Hanover--islanders already in a state of reaction against their continental fatherland, or simply Angles of the Elbe. The accounts of Procopius respecting both countries are eminently obscure and contradictory. It is only certain that as early as the ninth century there were continental writers who attributed to the Germans of Britain movements from the Island to the Continent as far back from their own time as the fifth century. Nay, later still, there were some historians who wholly reversed the order of Anglo-Saxon migration, and deduced the true Fatherland Germans from England.

And now the history of the rise and progress of the Angles on the soil of Germany ends. Even if it can be increased there is but _modic.u.m_ of information. Yet we could scarcely expect more. On the contrary, why should not the Angles have shared the total obscurity of the Nuithones, Sigulones, and others? What population amongst those with which they came in contact could have recorded their alliances, their victories, or their defeats? Not the Frisians, who were unlettered as long as they were Pagan, and Pagan until the tenth century. Not the Slavonians, whose spiritual and intellectual darkness was equal. Not the Romans, for reasons already given. There only remained the Gauls and Britons. But, unfortunately, in the eyes of the Gauls and Britons, although all Angles were Saxons, all Saxons were not Angles--so that the proportion of proper Angle history which we have in the Gallic and British accounts of the Saxons cannot be determined.

The history of the Saxons of the continent has been stated to have been the history of the _Old_-Saxons. And up to the time of Beda, and about half a century later, such was the case. Hence, the rule is as follows--where we hear of Saxon actions by sea, the actors may be Old-Saxons, Angles, Frisians, Scandinavians, or Slavonians, and where we hear of actions on the _Terra Firma_ of Germany, and also in the times anterior to B.C. 800, the actors are Old-Saxons rather than Anglo-Saxons. In this case, except in Britain, we have little or no Angle history under the name of Saxon; and, as there is equally little under the name of Angle, we have, as has been already seen, next to no Angle history at all--_i.e._, _in Germany_.

But with the reign of Charlemagne the criticism changes. The _Saxon_ history, even in Germany, becomes _Anglo_-Saxon, as well as _Old_-Saxon, and it may be that the events are pretty equally distributed between the two divisions. The reason is clear. The arms of Southern and Middle Europe have penetrated to the parts beyond the Weser, and it only requires the _Angles_ to be described under their own proper name (instead of that of Saxon) for us to have the materials of an average history. It is a sickening and revolting history, and a history that few nations but the English can afford. Throughout the whole length and breadth of Germany there is not one village, hamlet, or family which can shew definite signs of descent from the continental ancestors of the Angles of England. There is not a man, woman, or child who can say, _I have pure Angle blood in my veins_. In no nook or corner can dialect or sub-dialect of the most provincial form of the German speech be found which shall have a similar pedigree with the English. The Angles of the Continent are either exterminated or undistinguishably mixed up with the other Germans in proportions more or less large, and in combinations more or less heterogeneous. And the history of the Conquest and Conversion of the Saxons by Charlemagne is the history of this extinction. It is this that makes it so impossible to argue backwards from the present state of the Angles of Germany to an earlier one, and so to reconstruct their history. They have _no_ present state. Neither have the _Old_-Saxons--their next of kin. Of the Frisians only, the next nearest, there are still fragments; for, although the enemy of the Old-Saxons and the Anglo-Saxons was the enemy of the Frisians also, he was not equally their exterminator. They may or may not have been braver than the Angles and Old-Saxons. They certainly occupied a more impracticable country. To this period--the period of their reduction--the Angli and Werini of Thuringia are attributed. They may, indeed, have got there as they did to Sleswick, by conquest, and at an earlier period. If so, there was an alliance. They were, however, more probably transplanted.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Saxons in England, i. 24.

CHAPTER XI.

RECAPITULATIONS AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.--PROPOSITIONS RESPECTING THE KELTIC CHARACTER OF THE ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS OF BRITAIN, ETC.--THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND THE ANCIENT GAULS, ETC.--THE SCOTCH GAELS.--THE PICTS.--THE DATE OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS.--THE NAMES ANGLE AND SAXON.

Of the British Isles at the time of the Angle invasion we have effected a sketch, rather than a picture; a sketch indistinct in outline, and with several of its details almost invisible. Nevertheless, it is a sketch in which some of the points are pretty clear. Germans of one or more varieties, Kelts either Gaelic or British, Picts who may be anything, Romans and Roman Legionaries are the chief elements. These we have had to distribute in Time and s.p.a.ce as we best could. We have also had, as we best could, to investigate their relations to each other.

Let us look back upon what has been attempted in this respect.

And first in respect to our _data_. The statements of the early authors, and the value which is due to them, have formed the subject of a separate chapter;[23] and it is hoped, that, without any undue disparagement, they have been shewn to be valid only when they are opposed to a very small amount of either conflicting facts or _a priori_ improbabilities. I also lay but little stress upon them when they a.s.sert a negative, and equally little when their apparent testimony may be reduced to an inference. Their absolute testimony, however, must be taken as we find it.

Partly for the sake of recapitulation, and partly with the view to give a further investigation to certain questions which could not well be considered until certain preliminary facts had been laid before the reader, the more important inferences are put in form of the following propositions, to some of which a commentary is attached.

I.

_The British Isles were peopled from the Keltic portion of the continent originally and exclusively._

This implies an objection to the doctrine of any _pre_-Keltic population, and to the inferences deduced from certain real or supposed peculiarities in the shape of the skulls from the tumuli of the Stone period. (_See_ pp. 26-27.)

II.

_The Gaels cannot be derived from the Britons, nor the Britons from the Gaels; on the contrary, each branch must have been developed from some common stock._

This rests upon the differences between the British and Gaelic languages. (_See_ Chapter V.)

III.

_Of this common stock the British branch, at least, must have been developed on the continent._ (_See_ Chapter VI.)

This, of course, a.s.sumes that the Galli of Gaul were not derived from Britain; a view which has never been adopted, and which probably has so little to recommend it as to make its investigation superfluous.

The British language of Britain and the Gaelic of Gaul would not have been so much alike as they were had they developed themselves separately, each after their own fas.h.i.+on.

This last proposition depends, however, to a great extent, upon the following, viz., that--

IV.

_The similarity between the ancient language of Gaul and the ancient language of Britain is measured by that between the present Welsh and the Armorican of Brittany._

The arguments of pp. 86-87, resting as they do upon the close relations.h.i.+p between the ancient language of Gaul[24] and the British--would be materially impaired by any thing which subtracted from the evidence in favour of that relations.h.i.+p.

Now the present Welsh and the present Armorican of Brittany are languages that are very nearly mutually intelligible.

And as the Armorican represents the ancient Gallic, and the Welsh the ancient British, the affinity between the two old tongues must have been, at least, equal to that between the two new ones.

But what if the Armorican do not represent the ancient Gallic, but be merely so much Welsh or Cornish transferred to Brittany in the fifth century? In such a case the argument is materially weakened.