an trackway, well defined, which extends along the
watershed between Thames and Avon. The writer has himself heard from the
rustics of the neighbourhood the explanation given by Oswy, while that
put in the mouth of Father Cuthbert is the opinion of the learned.

xx For this new translation of Urbs beata the author is
indebted to his friend the Rev. Gerald Moultrie.

xxi The reader will remember the strong feeling of
animosity then existing between seculars and regulars.

xxii This demoniacal laughter is one of the many
legends about St. Dunstan.

xxiii See Preface.

xxiv Ruined British Cities.

The resistance of the Britons (or Welsh) to their Saxon (or English)
foes was so determined, that, as in all similar cases, it increased the
miseries of the conquered. In Gaul the conquered Celts united with the
Franks to make one people; in Spain they united with the Goths; but the
conquerors of Britain came from that portion of Germany which had been
untouched by Roman valour or civilisation, and consequently there was no
disposition to unite with their unhappy victims, but the war became one
of extermination. Long and bravely did the unhappy Welsh struggle. After
a hundred years of warfare they still possessed the whole extent of the
western coast, from the wall of Autoninus to the extreme promontory of
Cornwall; and the principal cities of the inland territory still
maintained the resistance. The fields of battle, says Gibbon, might be
traced in almost every district by the monuments of bones; the fragments
of falling towers were stained by blood, the Britons were massacred
ruthlessly to the last man in the conquered towns, without distinction
of age or sex, as in Anderida. Whole territories returned to desolation;
the district between the Tyne and Tees, for example, to the state of a
savage and solitary forest. The wolves, which Roman authorities describe
as nonexistent in England, again peopled those dreary wastes; and from
the soft civilisation of Rome the inhabitants of the land fell back to
the barbarous manners and customs of the shepherds and hunters of the
German forests. Nor did the independent Britons, who had taken refuge
finally in Wales, or Devon and Cornwall, fare much better. Separated by
their foes from the rest of mankind, they returned to that state of
barbarism from which they had emerged, and became a scandal at last to
the growing civilisation of their English foes.

Under these circumstances the