we had the domestic writings that were produced in the first Christian
ardour, such an expectation might have been partially fulfilled. But in
any case we should not expect too much from early and unformed
literature. It is the mature fruit of long cultivation to produce a
literature that reflects the present. Almost all early literature is
conventional, because the spontaneous is not esteemed and is not
preserved. But whatever might have happened under other conditions, the
fact now is that the literature of our first Christian era is almost
entirely lost. It perished in the Danish invasions. The works of Beda
are, indeed, preserved, and in one sense they make a large exception to
the general statement, yet the exception is not one that is of great
import for our immediate purpose. His works, even when he is upon a
local subject, breathe little of local curiosity or interest. His was a
cloistered life, his view was ever directed through the vista of books
and learned correspondence towards the central heart of Christianity,
and he deigned but rarely to cast a look behind him at the old
superstitions of his people. His writings, which are all in Latin,
contribute something, but it is little, towards our knowledge of Saxon
heathendom. We are indebted to him for an explicit statement about the
meaning of the word "Easter." It is as follows:--"_Rhedmonath_ is so
called from their goddess _Rheda_, to whom in that month they
sacrificed.... With the people of my nation, the old folk of the Angles,
the month of April, which is now styled Paschal Month, had formerly the
name of _Esturmonath_, after a goddess of theirs who was called
_Eostra_, and whose festival is kept in that month; and they still
designate the Paschal Season from her name, by force of old religious
habit keeping the same name for the new solemnity."[46] This is a sample
of what Beda might have told us about the old heathendom, if he had made
it a subject of inquiry. The information is the more valuable because it
was not forthcoming from any other source. The Germans have an obscure