erful stories were told. Thus they believed in the existence of
the Arimaspians, a race of one-eyed people; there are legends, too, of
the Agrippei who were described as bald and snub-nosed. The Greeks
also mention the Gryphons, who, they said, were guardians of immense
quantities of gold. The most wonderful people to the Greeks were the
Hyperboreans, or dwellers beyond the regions of the north wind, (p. 025)
who were looked upon with awe and pity because it was said that
they lived in a country where snow fell summer and winter. These were
some of the races and tribes supposed to inhabit Russia, which goes
far to prove that the knowledge of that country, in those times, was
neither extensive nor very accurate.

The truth is that we know very little about the early inhabitants of
Russia; nor do they concern us greatly, because grave changes occurred
in the fourth century of our era. At that time several large and
warlike tribes of Central Asia moved westward compelling other tribes
on their route to join them or to move ahead. Thus they gathered
strength until it looked as if Asia was bent upon the conquest of
Europe. They poured in through the gap between the Ural mountains and
the Caspian Sea, and the civilized people of southeastern Europe were
unable to cope with the savage hordes. In the vanguard were the Goths,
who made an effort to settle, in Scythia, but they were forced to move
on when Attila, who is known as the Scourge of God, swooped down upon
them with his Huns. He was followed by a host of Finns, Bulgarians,
Magyars, and Slavs who, however, left his wake, scattered and settled
down. Soon after the Slavs became known to Greek authors and were
described by them. They were divided into a number of tribes, among
them the Russian Slavs who settled about the sources of the Volga and
the Oka, and were the founders of Novgorod, Pskof, and Izborsk.

They must have been a numerous people. We hear of another tribe
settling on the banks of the Vistula, and laying the foundation of (p. 026)
the future kingdom of Poland. They settled on the upper Elbe, and in
the north of Germany. It is believed that the Slavs are ancestors of
the people in Bohemia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Servia, and Dalmatia, and in
Prussia of those living in Pomerania and Brandenburg.

All these Slavs, although widely dispersed, practiced the same heathen
rites, spoke the same language, and nursed the same traditions, until
they fell under different