Gabhra. Our own forefathers, the Teutons, from North Germany were now gaining possession of the land, and the Cymric Kelts were being driven further and further westward. But the Kelts did not yield without many a hard struggle for land and liberty; and the danger and conflict of the time called out brave warriors, who fell on the battlefield, dying for freedom and home; and produced many a deeply-stirred poet, who sang of hope in the conflict, and of sorrow and mourning over those who fell in the struggle.

Among the warrior chiefs of the time Urien was the most famous. He carried on the war of Keltic independence in the north, while Arthur, a name less known in Keltic literature than in English, was the leader in the south. Around Urien gathered the chief poets of the time: Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, and Taliesin. Aneurin was also a warrior, and was himself present at the great battle of Cattraeth, the sad story of which he is supposed to sing in a poem called Gododin. Ninety-seven stanzas of this poem still remain, and nearly every one is a lament over a different Cymric chief who fell in this battle.

The battle of Cattraeth was probably fought near Richmond, in Yorkshire; it was one of the last desperate efforts of the Kelts to expel the Teuton invaders; and many tribes had joined their forces for this final struggle. The battle lasted for a week, and three hundred and sixty of the Cymric chiefs fell upon the battle-field. One of the stanzas of the Gododin describes the gay going-forth of the chiefs to battle, and the dark sad close of the long conflict when all was over

"To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row
Twice two hundred warriors go;
Every warrior's manly neck

Chains of regal honour deck

Wreathed in many a golden link ;

From the golden cup they drink

Nectar that the bees produce,

Or the grape's extatic juice,

Flushed with mirth and hope they burn;
But none from Cattraeth's vale return,
Save Aeron brave and Conan strong
(Bursting through the bloody throng),
And I, the meanest of them all,

That live to weep and sing their fall.”*

Llywarch Hen, another poet of the time, was the Prince of Argoed, and also took part in the struggle of his race with the invading Teutons. He was chief bard and friend of Urien, and fought beside him at Lindisfarne, where the great chief was killed. After the battle, Llywarch carried the head of his friend and chief from the field wrapped in his cloak, and he sang-"The head that I carry carried me; I shall find it no more; it will come no more to my succour. Woe to my hand, my happiness is lost!" Llywarch outlived many of his friends and all his sons, who every one died upon the battle-field fighting for their country. He was an old man, and had been called Llywarch Hen—which means the old-when he lost his last and youngest son Gwenn. Over him he sang, what was perhaps his last lament-"O, Gwenn, woe to him who is too old, since he has lost you. A man was my son, a hero, a generous warrior, and he was the nephew of Urien. Gwenn has been slain at the ford of Morlas. Sweetly sang a bird on a peartree above the head of Gwenn, before they covered him with the turf. That broke the heart of old Llywarch."

Those were terrible times, and men who felt things as the bards did, and saw around them the slaughter and downfall of their race, and the hopelessness of the struggle, grew broken in spirit, and could sing no more stirring songs, filled with the promise of victory to the Cymri. Thus Merlin, a bard of Arthur's hall, went out of his mind at the sight of

the miseries and horrors that he saw, and spent the rest of his life in desolate places, singing only of sorrow and mourning, until he was at last found lying dead on the bank of a river.

At length the long struggle between the two races came to an end. The Teutons made settlements and dwelt as conquerors in the land; but the Kelts still held undisturbed possession of Wales. With the coming in of the Teutons we shall find a new element in the literature

of our country. We have said that there runs through all English literature an earnest striving after the highest ideal of what is right, as well as of what is beautiful. Now this steadfast desire to find out the right and to put down wrong comes into our literature from the Teutons. They had less imagination than the Kelts, and seldom made use of any figures of speech, but spoke the truth in simple, plain words. By degrees our island became peopled by the Teutons, and as the principal tribe among the settlers was called Englisc, the people all took the name of English, and called the country England.

They spoke a language which was formed by the mixing of the different dialects of the Teutonic settlers, and they called this language English. It forms the great foundation of the language we first learned to speak as little children; but the English of the present day has undergone some changes, which we shall hear of later on in the story of our English literature. The earliest literature we have in English is perhaps the story of Beowulf. The saga of Beowulf was brought into England by the northern tribes which settled in Northumbria, for it is a story of Scandinavian life. But the language in which it comes to us is the First English, of the period after the Teutons had settled in England, and the scenery of the poem is very like that of the Yorkshire coast around Whitby; there are also indications of its having been written after the

conversion of the Teutons to Christianity. It is probably, therefore, an old, well-known Scandinavian story put into First English verse by some poet of a later time.

This is the story:-Hrothgar, King of Denmark, had built a great house for himself and his followers, or “hearthsharers," as the poem calls them. It was a large hall, with flat stones down the centre, which formed the hearth. Around were tables and benches, and the latter served for beds at night. There was a great feast when the hall was finished, and the sounds of minstrelsy and song floated far out into the dark night. They reached the ears of a monster who lived at the bottom of a lonely lake across the moors. When all the warriors were asleep, the door of the hall was pushed opened, and Grendel, the monster, stalked into the hall. He seized thirty of the sleepers, carried them off and ate them. Night after night the warriors one after another disappeared, until Hrothgar had lost nearly all his men, and those which remained had to find another sleeping-place, so that the beautiful hall, the pride of Hrothgar and his hearth-sharers, stood empty and deserted.

One day the watchers on the coast saw a vessel approaching the shore of Denmark from Norway. A young Viking was on board, tall and strong as a young oak-tree, whose single hand had in it the grip of thirty men. This was Beowulf. In his own land the wandering minstrels had told of Grendel and his deeds, and Beowulf was come to slay the monster. That night the warriors feasted again in Hrothgar's hall, and then lay down to sleep; but Grendel had heard the sounds of revelry, and came striding across the moors into the dark hall. He laid his hand on Beowulf, and instantly found himself seized in a grip from which he could not get free. A struggle began, and at last Grendel tore himself away, leaving his arm in Beowulf's hand.

There was feasting and joy that night in Hrothgar's hall, and the warriors lay down to sleep, as they thought, in peace. But in the dead of night a more terrible monster, in the form of a woman, strode into the hall, and seized one of the best of Hrothgar's men. This was Grendel's mother, come to avenge her son. Beowulf was sleeping in another place, and in vain did the warriors draw their swords upon the monster. She escaped; and the next day Beowulf undertook to find her and slay her also. He found the waste of waters where she dwelt, and descended through it till he came to her dwelling. There he saw the dead body of Grendel, and there also he saw stores of treasures heaped up high, and amongst these an old sword of the giants. With this he killed, after a long struggle, the mother of Grendel. Taking the head of Grendel only, and leaving the hoard of treasures, Beowulf rose up through the water, to the joy of the waiting warriors who had thought him dead. Four men could scarcely carry Grendel's head between them back to the hall.

The second part of the saga of Beowulf tells how he fought with and killed a fiery dragon, who had wasted his own land, and how he found in the dragon's cave a vast hoard of treasure, which the monster guarded. But Beowulf saved his country at the expense of his own life; the dragon had wounded him, and for that poison there was no cure. He left the treasure to his people, and bade them bury him on the high cliff by the sea-shore. Over his grave the warriors raised a mighty mound, and rode around it singing a song of mourning for their chief, and praising him as the very king of men, and yet the mildest, kindest of them all.

Although when the Teutons first settled in this country they were heathen, yet they did not remain so. Augustine came over from Rome, and taught Christianity to the English in the south; and the Kelts, many of whom were