Another set of wild people used to come over in boats across the North
Sea and German Ocean. These people had their home in the country that
is called Holstein and Jutland. They were tall men, and had blue eyes
and fair hair, and they were very strong, and good-natured in a rough
sort of way, though they were fierce to their enemies. There was a
great deal more fighting than any one has told us about; but the end
of it all was that the Roman soldiers were wanted at home, and though
the great British chief we call King Arthur fought very bravely, he
could not drive back the blue-eyed men in the ships; but more and more
came, till, at last, they got all the country, and drove the Britons,
some up into the North, some into the mountains that rise along the
West of the island, and some into its west point.

The Britons used to call the blue-eyed men Saxons; but they called
themselves Angles, and the country was called after them Angle-land.
Don't you know what it is called now? England itself, and the people
English. They spoke much the same language as we do, only more as
untaught country people, and they had not so many words, because they
had not so many things to see and talk about.

As to the Britons, the English went on driving them back till they
only kept their mountains. There they have gone on living ever since,
and talking their own old language. The English called them Welsh, a
name that meant strangers, and we call them Welsh still, and their
country Wales. They made a great many grand stories about their last
brave chief, Arthur, till, at last, they turned into a sort of fairy
tale. It was said that, when King Arthur lay badly wounded after his
last battle, he bade his friend fling his sword into the river, and
that then three lovely ladies came in a boat, and carried him away to