Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/74

 A few hundred years passed—and then there remained but little more indication of this brazen impact than one can discover there today. Durnovaria became Durnover Field. The dry bones of the conquerors and masters were enclosed in the warm but indifferent embraces of the untamable soil. Pavements of tiles were overgrown with sod. Sheep grazed within Maumbry Rings; the slopes that had rung with triumphal shouts now protected fleecy backs from the gelid November winds. Hadrian's soldiery lay buried in shallow graves, their knees drawn up to their chins; herdsmen gaped dumbly at the curious upturned "skellintons."

From the east came Germanic marauders. The autochthonous Keltic warriors were driven further and further back—over into Wales, up into the hills of Scotland. Some of the chieftains held out in their stony strong-holds, miraculously parrying all onslaughts until they were exterminated, and thus the Arthurian legends were born. Blond Saxons, prevailing by numbers and savagery, built their settlements. The Cyning, with his grave Witenagemot and his shouting thegnas, at last succeeded in impressing the enduring countenance of Wessex, the land of the West-Saxons, with the spiritual aspect it bears today. Their Teutonic language, called the "Englisce spræce," unlocking its word-hoards, resounded through the raftered halls and the cultivated fields, to remain there practically unchanged by the vicissitudes of many centuries. Also their pagan Nordic superstitions, but thinly overlaid, eventually, with Christian celestial machinery. Wyrd, the inscrutable personification of Destiny, transplanted from Scandinavia, found