FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
ans, harassed the land of the West-Saxons chiefly, most of all by their _aescs_, which they had built many years before. Then King Alfred commanded long ships to be built to oppose the aescs; they were full-nigh twice as long as the others; some had sixty oars, and some had more; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher than the others. They were shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish, but so as it seemed to him that they would be most efficient. Then some time in the same year, there came six ships to Wight, and there did much harm, as well as in Devon, and elsewhere along the sea-coast. Then the king commanded nine of the new ships to go thither, and they obstructed their passage from the port towards the outer sea. Then went they with three of their ships out against them; and three lay in the upper part of the port in the dry; the men were gone from them ashore. Then took they two of the three ships at the outer part of the port, and killed the men, and the other ship escaped; in that also the men were killed except five; they got away because the other ships were aground. They also were aground very disadvantageously, three lay aground on that side of the deep on which the Danish ships were aground, and all the rest upon the other side, so that no one of them could get to the others. But when the water had ebbed many furlongs from the ships, the Danish men went from their three ships to the other three which were left by the tide on their side, and then they there fought against them. There was slain Lucumon the king's reeve, and Wulfheard the Frisian, and AEbbe the Frisian, and AEthelhere the Frisian, and AEthelferth the king's _geneat_, and of all the men, Frisians and English, seventy-two; and of the Danish men one hundred and twenty." Lastly, we have the evidence of Procopius that "three numerous nations inhabit Britain,--the Angles, the Frisians, and the Britons."[5] Whatever interpretation we may put upon the preceding extracts, it is certain that the Frisians are the nearest German representatives of our Germanic ancestors; whilst it is not uninteresting to find that the little island of Heligoland, is the only part of the British Empire where the ethnological and political relations coincide. _Gibraltar._--This isolated possession serves as a text for the ethnology of Spain; and there is no country wherein the investigation is more difficult. It is difficult, if we look at the an
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Danish
 

Frisian

 
aground
 

Frisians

 
difficult
 
killed
 
commanded
 

Britain

 

inhabit

 

Procopius


nations

 

numerous

 

Britons

 

preceding

 

extracts

 

interpretation

 

evidence

 

Whatever

 

Angles

 

Lastly


Wulfheard

 

AEthelhere

 

Saxons

 

Lucumon

 
AEthelferth
 
geneat
 

twenty

 

harassed

 

hundred

 

seventy


English

 
serves
 
possession
 

isolated

 

coincide

 

Gibraltar

 

ethnology

 

country

 

investigation

 
relations

political
 
Germanic
 

ancestors

 

whilst

 
representatives
 

nearest

 

German

 

uninteresting

 

Empire

 
ethnological