oringia, the shore-land, and go into
Mauringia, a word which Mr. Latham connects with the Merovingi, or
Meerwing conquerors of Gaul. Others say that it means the moorland,
others something else. All that they will ever find out we may see for
ourselves already.--A little tribe of valiant fair-haired men, whether
all Teutons, or, as Mr. Latham thinks, Sclavonians with Teuton leaders,
still intimately connected with our own English race both by their
language and their laws, struggling for existence on the bleak brown bogs
and moors, sowing a little barley and flax, feeding a few rough cattle,
breeding a few great black horses; generation after generation fighting
their way southward, as they exhausted the barren northern soils, or
became too numerous for their marches, or found land left waste in front
of them by the emigration of some Suevic, Vandal, or Burgund tribe. We
know nothing about them, and never shall know, save that they wore white
linen gaiters, and carried long halberts, or pole-axes, and had each an
immortal soul in him, as dear to God as yours or mine, with immense
unconscious capabilities, which their children have proved right well.

Then comes another saga, how they met the Assipitti, of whom, whether
they were Tacitus's Usipetes, of the Lower Rhine, or Asabiden, the
remnant of the Asen, who went not to Scandinavia with Odin, we know not,
and need not know; and how the Assipitti would not let them pass; and how
they told the Lombards that they had dogheaded men in their tribe who
drank men's blood, which Mr. Latham well explains by pointing out, in the
Traveller's Song, a tribe of Hundings (Houndings) sons of the hound; and
how the Lombards sent out a champion, who fought the champion of the
Assipitti, and so gained leave to go on their way.

Forward they go, toward the south-east, seemingly along the German
marches, the debateable land between Teuton and Sclav, which would,
mechanically speaking, be the line of least resistance. We hear of
Gothland--wherever that happened to be just then; of Anthaib, the land
held by the Sclavonian Anten, and Bathaib, possibly the land held by the
Gepidae, or remnant of the Goths who bided behind (as Wessex men still
say), while the Goths moved forward; and then of Burgundhaib, wherever
the Burgunds might be then. I know not; and I will dare to say, no man
can exactly know. For no dates are given, and how can they be? The
Lombards have not yet emerged out of th