occupation of towns, and even districts, on the opposite shores of
South Wales, existed on the northern coast of Somerset and Devon.
Both races are named by the Welsh and Irish chroniclers in their
accounts of the expulsion of these settlers from Wales in A.D. 795,
and the name of the old west country port of Watchet being claimed
as of Norse origin, I have not hesitated to place the Norsemen
there.

Owen and Oswald, Howel and Thorgils, and those others of their
friends and foes beyond the few whose names have already been
mentioned as given in the chronicles, are of course only historic
in so far as they may find their counterparts in the men of the
older records of our forefathers. If I have too early or late
introduced Govan the hermit, whose rock-hewn cell yet remains near
the old Danish landing place on the wild Pembrokeshire coast
between Tenby and the mouth of Milford Haven, perhaps I may be
forgiven. I have not been able to verify his date, but a saint is
of all time, and if Govan himself had passed thence, one would
surely have taken his place to welcome a wanderer in the way and in
the name of the man who made the refuge.

CHAS. W. WHISTLER.

STOCKLAND, 1904.



CHAPTER I. HOW OWEN OF CORNWALL WANDERED TO SUSSEX, AND WHY HE BIDED THERE.