ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.




CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH.


At a period earlier than the dawn of written history there lived
somewhere among the great table-lands and plains of Central Asia a race
known to us only by the uncertain name of Aryans. These Aryans were a
fair-skinned and well-built people, long past the stage of aboriginal
savagery, and possessed of a considerable degree of primitive culture.
Though mainly pastoral in habit, they were acquainted with tillage, and
they grew for themselves at least one kind of cereal grain. They spoke a
language whose existence and nature we infer from the remnants of it
which survive in the tongues of their descendants, and from these
remnants we are able to judge, in some measure, of their civilisation
and their modes of thought. The indications thus preserved for us show
the Aryans to have been a simple and fierce community of early warriors,
farmers, and shepherds, still in a partially nomad condition, living
under a patriarchal rule, originally ignorant of all metals save gold,
but possessing weapons and implements of stone,[1] and worshipping as
their chief god the open heaven. We must not regard them as an idyllic
and peaceable people: on the contrary, they were the fiercest and most