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magicians assured him would be impregnable to the end of all time. With extreme diligence he caused workmen to be brought, wood, stones and other materials to be collected; but in the morning, what was his astonishment to see that the materials had vanished! The same prodigy was repeated three times. On demanding what this meant, he was gravely informed that unless he could find a boy unbegotten by father, sacrifice him on the spot, and sprinkle the foundations of the citadel with the blood*, he might build till Doomsday, but never would he raise a wall an inch high. Such a boy, he thought, was not easily to be found; but as he was assured one existed somewhere in his dominions, he despatched messengers in every direction in search of the prodigy. Having passed from province to province, the messengers one day reached a rural village where some boys were at play. One of the boys being the constant winner, another in anger said to him; “No good will ever happen to thee, thou unbegotten knave!" These words naturally arrested the attention of the royal messengers, who went to the boy's mother, and enquired whether he was really unbegotten; the woman affirmed that he was; that though she had never known man, her womb had risen in the usual way, and the boy came at the usual time. The abbot, however, intimates that the woman very well knew who was the father, but that she would not confess it lest she should be put to death. This requires explanation. There was a law, we are told, among the ancient Britons, if an unmarried woman were once frail, she should be thrown from a precipice, and her paramour beheaded; among the Saxons, that she should be buried alive, and her accomplice hanged over her grave; or she should else turn common prostitute, and be compelled to submit to every one's will; in other words, to be degraded to the

This allusion to the blood-stained rites of druidism is a good evidence of antiquity. The traces of that horrible superstition lingered among the people long after the introduction of Christianity.

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lowest depths of infamy, and thereby banished from all reputable society. To such a law, allusion is evidently made by Nennius; its existence is positively affirmed by Josceline, the biographer of St. Kentigern*, who intimates that the saint himself had some such origin as the boy, and that the case was by no means rare. Audivimus frequenter sumptis transfigiis puellarum pudicitiam expugnatam esse, ipsamque defloratam sui minime nosse. To escape the penalty of her transgression, the woman, if shrewd, might naturally convert the credulity of the age to her purpose. The boy was taken to the king, and in a convention of the nobles, it was decreed that he should be put to death. Why am I brought hither?" demanded the youth. "To be killed," was the consoling answer, " that thy blood may sprinkle the foundation, and that the citadel may be built!" "Who has suggested this notable contrivance?" enquired the intended victim of Vortigern. " My magicians." Not satisfied with this authority, the boy asked them who had taught them that his blood was necessary for the construction of the fortress. No answer. "I will unfold the whole mystery," said the boy. Then turning to the magicians, he asked them what lay under the ground on which they were standing. They could not tell. "There is a pool of water beneath," said he ; " dig and see." A pool was found. "What is in the pool?' Still the magicians could not answer. "I know," said the boy; "there are two vases in the pool.' The vases were found. "What is there between these vases? The same silence. "I will tell you; there is a tent between them." The tent was found. "What does the tent contain?" The magicians are silent as before. "Two serpents; the one white, the other red."

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* Erat in illo populo barbaro, a diebus antiquis, lex promulgata, ut puella quæ in paternis fornicatis gravida inveniebatur, de supercilio montis altissimi præcipitaretur, corruptor autem illius capitis plecteretur. Similiter apud antiquos Saxones, pene usque ad moderna tempora sancitum durabat, ut quælibet virgo in paternis sponte deflorata, absque ulla retractatione viva sepeliretur, violator vero ipsius supra sepulchrum ejus suspenderetur. -Joscelinus Monachus Furnesensis in Vita S. Kentigerni (apud Pinkerton, Vitæ SS. Scotiæ, p. 201.).

The serpents were found asleep. "Wait!" cried the youth," and see what they will do when they awake.” No sooner were they roused than they furiously assailed each other; and in their successive struggles, though the white dragon had at first the advantage, the red expelled it from the tent; the victor pursued the other beyond the pool, when tent and all vanished. Of course the magicians could make nothing of this mystery; but the boy declared that the two dragons were the two nations; that the white one was the Saxon, the red the British; that the pool was the world; that though the former serpent had the advantage for some time, the native one was ultimately victorious; so, in the present conflicts, the Saxons might temporarily triumph, but the Britons would in the end drive them beyond the sea. The reader has no doubt already divined that this beardless prophet was Merlin.*

This legend of the abbot Nennius is sufficiently wild: it is, however, much less so than it became in subsequent times, when every mouth and every writer added, as patriotism required, to the original romance. In the hands of Wace, author of the Roman de Brut, of our Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Gaiamar, of Layamon, and others, it assumed a more imaginative, and, in fact, a more interesting appearance. On this subject we cannot resist giving a few extracts from the romance of Merlin, which is certainly a legend of the Anglo-Saxon times. It appears to have been translated either from British, or from Norman-French, into English, and the translator is certainly much older than Gower, or any of our vernacular poets. The language had evidently been modernised before Mr. Ellis published the extracts in his Specimens of Early English Romances. They will illustrate the progressive character of fable in all ages and countries. That from the ninth to the twelfth century, such additions, such poetical embellishments, should be introduced, need not surprise us: there is no

Gildas, de Excidio Britanniæ, p.13., &c. Nennius, Historia Britonum, cap. 38-43. p. 108-119. Nicholson, English Historical Library, p. 33.

greater difference between Geoffrey of Monmouth and Nennius, than between Nennius and Gildas. This fact is very instructive: it may enable the judicious investigator into the antiquities of ancient Britain, and of Britain even in the Anglo-Saxon period- antiquities which it is not our present object to consider, and which, if it were, we should omit until we had access to the ancient relics still subsisting in the Welsh language, it may enable such a one to steer his way through the darkest path ever traversed by historian. †

*

There was once, says the romance in question, in England a rich man, with a loving wife, a dutiful son, and three fair yet chaste daughters. But this happiness was not long to last: the lady was naturally violent in temper; the devil perceived it, and assailed the weak part so skilfully, that she quarrelled with her son, and very seriously wished him in a place that shall be nameless. The devil heard the wish, and, determined to have his own, strangled the unfortunate youth during sleep. The despairing mother hung herself, and the father died of a broken heart, without confession or absolution. Melancholy was the situation of the three orphan sisters; but they were comforted, as much as their case would allow, by a neighbouring hermit, the holy Blaise, who endeavoured, by the imposition of penance, fasting, and prayer, to protect them against the evidently declared enmity of the prince of darkness. But Satan was not to be thus foiled: he prevailed on an old hag to seduce the mind of the eldest. Her wanton discourse had its effect; the young lady sinned, was discovered, and, according to the law we have mentioned, was buried alive. The second sister was next assailed, and with equal success; but, to escape death, she submitted to indiscriminate prostitution. Now for

To these relics we hope ere long to have access. Until then we shall not enter into the subject; if we incidentally glance at it, we do so only to illustrate the Anglo-Saxon portion of our task.

The more curious reader we refer to the history of Geoffrey and the Brut of Wace. The poem of Layaman, with many other va uable MSS., could have been given us by Dr. Grundtvig, but for something which we have no wish to investigate.

the youngest. The terrified young lady flew to the hermitage, acquainted Blaise with the lamentable news, and pathetically besought his aid to escape or to resist the arts of the demon. He not only exhorted her to watch every thought, but to take every possible precaution against the visible assaults of demons who dwelt in the middle air. This notion, that such beings, who were always on the watch to seduce wanton maidens, were often permitted to effect their object, was very prevalent in these islands. To it the monk of Furness, as we have before observed, alludes; and it is more explicitly avowed by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Vita Merlini.* The author of the romance before us remounts to the origin of the thing. He tells us, on the authority of "David the prophet and Moses," that when the angels, who rebelled under Lucifer, were thrust from heaven, and were transferred from angels of light into "fiendes black," not all of them fell into the pit of hell some rested in the mid air, ever ready to assume any shape, and to employ any temptation, against At the conclusion of his sage exhortation to the trembling maiden, the holy Blaise

men.

"Bade her heo should nim keep †,
That heo ne laid her nought to sleep,
And, namely, nought at night
But heo hadde candle light,

And windows and doors in that stound
Weren sperd by roof and ground.

And make thee again, with good voice,
The sign of the holy crois. §

Bid

him that he warrant be

Again the fiend and his poustie.' "¶

Et sibi multoties exaëre corpore sumpti
Nobis apparent, et plurima sæpe sequuntur;
Quin etiam coitu mulieres aggrediantur,

Et faciunt gravidas, generantes more profano.

In the Lady of the Lake, Scott has a personage thus generated.

† Nim keep, to take care.

Cross.

Pegged, fastened.

Pray.

Power. Mr. Ellis has evidently taken great liberties with the language.

He should have adhered to his MSS.

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