itain, and this made it much easier for the
Angles and Saxons (who had previously tried to get in) to come and
remain in this country. Thus our Teuton forefathers came and conquered
much the greater part of Britain, the Picts and Scots remaining in the
north and the Welsh in the west of the island. It was their custom to
kill or make slaves of all the people they could, and so completely
did they conquer that part of Britain in which they settled that they
kept their own language and manners and their own heathenish religion,
and destroyed or desecrated Christian churches which had been set up.
Hence Christian missionaries were required to convert our ancestral
worshippers of Woden and Thunder, and a difficult business it was to
Christianise such pagans, for they stuck to their false gods with the
same tenacity that the northern nations did.

In his poem of "King Olaf's Christmas" Longfellow refers to the
worship of Thor and Odin alongside with the worship of Christ in the
northern nations:--

"At Drontheim, Olaf the King
Heard the bells of Yule-tide ring,
As he sat in his banquet-hall.
Drinking the nut-brown ale,
With his bearded Berserks hale
And tall.

* * * * *

O'er his drinking horn, the sign
He made of the Cross divine
As he drank, and muttered his prayers;
But the Berserks evermore
Made the sign of the Hammer of Thor
Over theirs."

In England, too, Christ and Thor were worshipped side by side for at
least 150 years after the introduction of Christianity, for while some
of the English accepted Christ as their true friend and Saviour, He
was not accepted by all the people. Indeed, the struggle against Him
is still going on, but we anticipate the time when He shall be
victorious all along the line.

The Christmas festival was duly observed by the missionaries who came
to the South of England from Rome, headed by Augustine, and in the
northern parts of the country the Christian festivities were revived
by the Celtic missionaries from Iona, under Aidan, the famous
Columbian monk. At least half of England was covered by the Columbian
monks, whose great foundation upon the rocky island of Iona, in the
Hebrides, was the source of Christianity to Scotland. The ritual of
the Celtic differed from that of the Romish missionaries, and caused
confusion, till at the Synod of Whitby (664) the Northumbrian Kingdom
adopted the Roman usages, and England obtained