hair; another would be tall, with blue eyes and fair hair. They came
from different countries and along different paths, but each race
brought some good with it. One brought skill in taming animals,
until it had at last tamed even the pig and the bee; another brought
iron tools to take the place of stone ones. Another brought the
energy of the chase and war, and another a delight in sailing a ship
or in building a fortress.

One thing they had in common--they wandered, and they wandered to the
west. From the cold wastes and the dark forests of the north and
east, they were ever pushing west to more sunny lands. As far back
as we can see, the great migration of nations to the west was going
on. The islands of Britain were the furthest point they could reach;
for beyond it, at that time, no man had dared to sail into the
unknown expanse of the ocean of the west. In the islands of Britain,
the mountains of Wales were among the most difficult to win, and it
was only the bravest and the hardiest that could make their home
among them.

The first races that came were short and dark. They came in tribes.
They had tribal marks, the picture of an animal as a rule; and they
had a strange fancy that this animal was their ancestor. It may be
that the local nicknames which are still remembered--such as "the
pigs of Anglesey," "the dogs of Denbigh," "the cats of Ruthin," "the
crows of Harlech," "the gadflies of Mawddwy"--were the proud tribe
titles of these early people. Their weapons and tools were polished
stone; their hammers and hatchets and adzes, their lance heads and
their arrow tips, were of the hardest igneous rock--chipped and
ground with patient labour.