e as
the other, because they are both surrounded with an atmosphere of the
fabulous. Hengist and Horsa come to us encompassed with Gothic
traditions that belong to other nations. Arthur presents himself with
his attributes of the magician Merlin, and the knights of the Round
Table. But are we therefore to deny altogether their historical
existence? In following the _ignis fatuus_ of tradition, the credulous
annalists of the monastic age were lost in the treacherous ground over
which it led them. The more patient research of a critical age sees in
that doubtful light a friendly warning of what to avoid, and hence a
guide to more stable pathways.

Hengist and Horsa--who, according to the Anglo-Saxon historians, landed
in the year 449 on the shore which is called Ebbsfleet--were personages
of more than common mark. "They were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils son
of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden." So says the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_, and adds, "From this Woden sprang all our royal families."
These descendants, in the third generation from the great Saxon
divinity, came over in three boats. They came by invitation of
Wyrtgeone--Vortigern--King of the Britons. The King gave them land in
the southeast of the country, on condition that they should fight
against the Picts; and they did fight, and had the victory wheresoever
they came. And then they sent for the Angles, and told them of the
worthlessness of the people and the excellences of the land. This is the
Saxon narrative. The seductive graces of Rowena, the daughter of Horsa,
who corrupted the King of the Britons by love and wine, is an
embellishment of the British traditions.

Then came the great battles for possession of the land. At Aylesford and
Crayford the Kentish Britons were overthrown. Before the Angles the
Welsh fled like fire. These events occupy a quarter of a century. While
they are going on, the Roman Emperor, as we have mentioned upon
indubitable authority, receives an auxiliary force of twelve thousand
men from Britain. We cannot rely upon narratives that tell us of _the_
king of the Britons, when we learn from no suspicious sources that the
land was governed by many separate chiefs; and which represent a petty
band of fugitives as gaining mighty triumphs for a great ruler, and then
subduing him themselves in a wonderfully short time.

The pretensions of Hengist and Horsa to be the immediate descendants of
Woden would seem to imply their mythical o