whom we call Indo-European, or Aryan. These Saxons--one of the fiercest
tribes of the Teutonic barbarians;--lived, before the invasion of
Britain, in that part of Europe which we now call Schleswig, in the
heart of the peninsula which parts the Baltic from the northern seas;
also in those parts of Germany which now belong to Hanover and
Oldenburg. It does not appear from the best authorities that these
tribes--called Engle, Saxon, and Jute--wandered about seeking a
precarious living, but they were settled in villages, in the government
of which we trace the germs of the subsequent social and political
institutions of England. The social centre was the homestead of the
_oetheling_ or _corl_, distinguished from his fellow-villagers by his
greater wealth and nobler blood, and held by them in hereditary
reverence. From him and his brother-oethelings the leaders of a warlike
expedition were chosen. He alone was armed with spear and sword, and his
long hair floated in the wind. He was bound to protect his kinsmen from
wrong and injustice. The land which inclosed the village, whether
reserved for pasture, wood, or tillage, was undivided, and every free
villager had the right of turning his cattle and swine upon it, and also
of sharing in the division of the harvest. The basis of the life was
agricultural. Our Saxon ancestors in Germany did not subsist exclusively
by hunting or fishing, although these pursuits were not neglected. They
were as skilful with the plough and mattock as they were in steering a
boat or hunting a deer or pursuing a whale. They were coarse in their
pleasures, but religious in their turn of mind; Pagans, indeed, but
worshipping the powers of Nature with poetic ardor. They were born
warriors, and their passion for the sea led to adventurous enterprise.
Before the close of the third century their boats, driven by fifty oars,
had been seen in the British waters; and after the Romans had left the
Britons to defend themselves against the Scots and Picts, the harassed
rulers of the land invoked the aid of these Saxon pirates, and, headed