tribe, who had come south-eastward with them, and whose name is said
to signify the men who had 'bided' (remained) behind the rest.

What manner of men they were it is hard to say, so few details are
left to us. But we may conceive them as a tall, fair-haired people,
clothed in shirts and smocks of embroidered linen, and gaiters cross-
strapped with hide; their arms and necks encircled with gold and
silver rings; the warriors, at least of the upper class, well horsed,
and armed with lance and heavy sword, with chain-mail, and helmets
surmounted with plumes, horns, towers, dragons, boars, and the other
strange devices which are still seen on the crests of German nobles.
This much we can guess; for in this way their ancestors, or at least
relations, the War-Geats, appear clothed in the grand old song of
Beowulf. Their land must have been tilled principally by slaves,
usually captives taken in war: but the noble mystery of the forge,
where arms and ornaments were made, was an honourable craft for men
of rank; and their ladies, as in the middle age, prided themselves on
their skill with the needle and the loom. Their language has been
happily preserved to us in Ulfilas' Translation of the Scriptures.
For these Goths, the greater number of them at least, were by this
time Christians, or very nearly such. Good Bishop Ulfilas, brought
up a Christian and consecrated by order of Constantine the Great, had
been labouring for years to convert his adopted countrymen from the
worship of Thor and Woden. He had translated the Bible for them, and
had constructed a Gothic alphabet for that purpose. He had omitted,
however (prudently as he considered) the books of Kings, with their
histories of the Jewish wars. The Goths, he held, were only too fond
of fighting already, and 'needed in that matter the bit, rather than
the spur.' He had now a large number of converts, some of whom had
even endured persecution from their heathen brethren. Athanaric,