authorities as lay
in his reach.[i] Especially, he is glad to find that the
character he had conceived as Edwy's perfectly coincides with the
description given by Palgrave in his valuable History of the Anglo-Saxons:

"Edwy was a youth of singular beauty, but vain, rash, petulant,
profligate, and surrounded by a host of young courtiers, all bent on
encouraging and emulating the vices of their master."

Another object of the tale has been to depict the trials and
temptations, the fall and the recovery, of a lad fresh from a home full
of religious influences, when thrown amidst the snares which abounded
then as now. The motto, "Facilis descensus Averno," etc, epitomises the
whole story.

In relating a tale of the days of St. Dunstan, the author has felt bound
to give the religious colouring which actually prevailed in that day. He
has found much authority and information in Johnson's Anglo-Saxon
Canons, especially those of Elfric, probably contemporaneous with the
tale. He has written in no controversial spirit, but with an honest
desire to set forth the truth.

It may be objected that he has made all his characters speak in very
modern English, and has not affected the archaisms commonly found in
tales of the time. To this he would reply, that if the genuine language
were preserved, it would be utterly unintelligible to modern Englishmen,
and therefore he has thought it preferable to translate into the
vernacular of today. The English which men spoke then was no more
stilted or formal to them than ours is to us.

Although he has followed Mr. Freeman in the use of the terms English and
Welsh, as far less likely to mislead than the terms Saxons and Britons,
and far truer to history, yet he has not thought proper to follow the
obsolete spelling of proper names; he has not, e. g., spelt Edwy, Eadwig
or Elgiva, Aelfgifu. Custom has Latinised the appellations, and as he
has rejected obsolete terms in conversation, he has felt it more
consistent to reject these more correct, but less familiar, orthographies.

The title, "First Chronicle of Aescendune," has been adopted, because
the tale here given is but the first of a series of tales which have
been told, but not yet written, attaching themselves to the same family
and locality at intervals of generations. Thus, the second illustrates
the struggle between Edmund Ironside and Canute; the third, the Norman
Conquest; etc. Their appearance in print must depend upon the indul