Page:The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon.djvu/45

 farther than Britain towards the northern coast of Spain, from which, however, a wide sea divides it. In Ireland snow seldom or never lies on the ground more than three days; no man there, on account of winter, either makes hay in the summer, or erects buildings to shelter his cattle. No reptiles are seen there: no serpent can exist; for though serpents have been often carried there from Britain, when the ship approaches the shore, as soon as they breathe the air wafted from the land they instantly die. On the other hand, almost all the products of the island are antidotes to poison. In short, we have known persons bitten by serpents, to whom the scrapings of the leaves of books brought from Ireland, immersed in water, having been given to drink, the potion immediately absorbed the venom, which was spreading throughout the body, and allayed the swelling. God hath therefore endowed the island with this wonderful gift, and has appointed a multitude of the saints for its protection. Moreover, He has enriched it with milk and honey; vineyards are not wanting, and it abounds with fish and fowl, deer and goats. This is truly the country of the Scots; but if any one is desirous of knowing the time it was first inhabited, though I find nothing about it in Venerable Bede, the following is the account given by another writer. At the time the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, the survivors banished from among them a certain nobleman named Scyticus, that he might not acquire the dominion over them. The banished man having wandered for some time in Africa, and last came with his family to the dwellings of the Philistines, and by the Salt Lake they journeyed between Russicada and the mountains of Syria, and came by the River Malva, and traversed Mauretania, navigating the Tuscan Sea to the Pillars of Hercules. Thus they arrived in Spain, where they dwelt many years, and their posterity multiplied greatly. Thence they came into Ireland, 1200 years after the passage of Israel through the Red Sea. The Britons, however, inhabited Britain before. For the Britons occupied Britain in the third age of the world; the Scots, Ireland, in the fourth. These accounts are not much to be depended on; but it is certain that the Scots came from Spain to Ireland, and that part of them,