Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/66

52 that dawn, and only traditions concerning them came down to the historic period. Many such traditions are no doubt based on actual occurrences, the details of which have become more or less hazy, and in some instances distorted by the additions acquired through their narration by word of mouth from age to age. The story of Hengist may be a tradition of this kind.

As already stated, Nennius, in the ‘Historia Britonum,’ gives one name to all the invaders of Britain, that of Saxons, and does not attempt to distinguish them under the national or tribal names by which they were known among themselves. It was sufficient for his purpose as a British historian to describe these enemies of his countrymen by one general name.

In the passage of Bede in which he refers to some of the tribes from which his countrymen were known to have descended, we obtain a glimpse of those wider views of the origin of the Old English race which were known in his time, and were probably well recognised by existing tribal differences in dialect, customs, and even in the physical appearance of the people at the time he wrote.

In the passage of Nennius in which he mentions that among the early invaders of Britain there were some who came from almost all the provinces of Germany, we have corroboration of Bede’s statement and another glimpse of the current knowledge in Britain at that time, and of the wider origin of the Old English than the later chroniclers have transmitted to us.

The general names Saxons, Angles, and Jutes were no doubt at first used as comprehensive terms for people of various tribes, but as time passed an, and the chroniclers omitted all references to the tribal names mentioned by Bede, these three names came to be regarded in a more limited sense as the names of the actual nations from which alone the Old English sprang. The omission of Frisians is especially remarkable. It has been shown that under the name Saxons the Frisians must have been