THE ANCIENT BRITONS. THE Country we live in is a large island, called BRITAIN. It is divided into two parts: the northern part is now named Scotland, and the southern part, England. At first there were no houses, gardens, or fields, such as we see now; but most of the island was covered with great forests and marshes. The people who lived in it were called BRITONS, and were wild, ignorant savages. In summer they went about naked; and in winter they clothed themselves with the skins of the wild beasts which they killed in hunting. Their hair was allowed to grow very long, and they stained their bodies of a blue colour, to frighten their enemies. They ate acorns and other wild fruits, and lived in caves, or in huts made of branches of trees covered over with mud. These were generally built together in little villages in the midst of forests. Their time was chiefly spent in hunting in the woods, or in fishing. For the latter, they used small boats called coracles, made of wicker-work covered with skins. They were often at war with each other, and fought with a rude kind of spear and arrows, of which the heads were made of sharp pieces of stone. The Britons were divided into many tribes. Each tribe had a chief, who led them in battle, and ruled over them in time of peace. In the south of Britain, the part we now call Cornwall, the natives used to dig in the ground for tin, which they sold to merchants, who came from a long way off to These merchants were almost the fetch it. only people who knew there was such an island as Britain. They tried to keep it quite a secret where they went to get the tin, for fear other merchants should come and buy it too. Once one of them, while sailing to Britain, found that the people in a Roman ship were watching him, and rather than let them find out where he was going, he steered his ship so that it ran on the shore, and was wrecked. In another part of the island, the Britons used to find copper, but they made little use of it. In exchange for the tin, the merchants gave them salt, earthenware, and other articles, which were not found in Britain. The people were very fond of songs, and there were men called Bards, who used to make stories in poetry, and sing them to the music of the harp. |