Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/196

182 mentioned in early Northern literature by the name of Æscings.

Bede tells us that the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa came to Kent in three long ships, and of this there was no doubt a tradition current in his time. As it bears a remarkable resemblance to a Gothic tradition of older date, we may perhaps see in it another gleam of light connecting the Jutes with the Northern Goths. The old Gothic story speaks of the migration of people of three tribes of that race from Scandinavia to the eastern side of the Baltic Sea. It tells us of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ, who passed from their old homes in Scandinavia across the Baltic in three vessels. In this case it is clear that, as the migrating people were of three tribes, the traditional number of vessels was made to correspond to the number of the tribes. Similarly, in the Kentish tradition the number of vessels may have been repeated from age to age to the time of Bede, and have had its origin in people of three tribes having been among the settlers.

There is a similar tradition in reference to Sussex, and another in which the invaders are said to have come in five ships for the conquest of Wessex, and these traditions may also denote separate tribal expeditions.

Kent possesses at the present time, and has possessed from a time beyond the memory of man, a remarkable custom in its law of inheritance in cases of intestacy—i.e., the custom of gavelkind. The principal incidents of it are the partibility of the inheritance, the right of the widow or widower, the freedom from escheat for felony, and the infant’s right to ‘aliene by feoffment’ at the age of fifteen years. It is a custom which is the most remarkable of all which are recognised by our common law, seeing that a whole county is thus marked off from the rest of England by a peculiar rule of inheritance. While