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Page 16
Far other than these, their neighbour Saxons, Jutes and
Angles!--tribes between whom the distinctions are of no moment
whatsoever, except that an English boy or girl may with grace remember
that 'Old England,' exactly and strictly so called, was the small
district in the extreme south of Denmark, totally with its islands
estimable at sixty miles square of dead flat land. Directly south
of it, the definitely so-called Saxons held the western shore of
Holstein, with the estuary of the Elbe, and the sea-mark isle,
Heligoland. But since the principal temple of Saxon worship was close
to Leipsic,[9] we may include under our general term, Saxons, the
inhabitants of the whole level district of North Germany, from the
Gulf of Flensburg to the Hartz; and, eastward, all the country watered
by the Elbe as far as Saxon Switzerland.
[Footnote 9: Turner, vol. i., p. 223.]
Of the character of this race I will not here speak at any length:
only note of it this essential point, that their religion was at
once more practical and more imaginative than that of the Norwegian
peninsula; the Norse religion being the conception rather of natural
than moral powers, but the Saxon, primarily of moral, as the lords
of natural--their central divine image, Irminsul,[10] holding the
standard of peace in her right hand, a balance in her left. Such a
religion may degenerate into mere slaughter and rapine; but it has the
making in it of the noblest men.
[Footnote 10: Properly plural 'Images'--Irminsul and Irminsula.]
More practical at all events, whether for good or evil, in this trust
in a future reward for courage and purity, than the mere Scandinavian
awe of existing Earth and Cloud, the Saxon religion was also more
imaginative, in its nearer conception of human feeling in divine
creatures. And when this wide hope and high reverence had distinct
objects of worship and prayer, offered to them by Christianity, the
Saxons easily became pure, passionate, and thoughtful Christians;
while the Normans, to the last, had the greatest difficulty in
apprehending the Christian teaching of the Franks, and still deny the
power of Christianity, even when they have become inveterate in its
form.
Quite the deepest-thoughted creatures of the then animate world, it
seems to me, these Saxon ploughmen of the sand or the sea, with their
worshipped deity of Beauty and Justice, a red rose on her banner, for
best of gifts, and in her right hand, instead of a sword, a balance,
for due doom, without wrath,--of retribution in her left. Far
other than the Wends, though stubborn enough, they too, in battle
rank,--seven times rising from defeat against Charlemagne, and
unsubdued but by death--yet, by no means in that John Bull's manner
of yours, 'averse to be interfered with,' in their opinions, or their
religion. Eagerly docile on the contrary--joyfully reverent--instantly
and gratefully acceptant of whatever better insight or oversight a
stranger could bring them, of the things of God or man.
And let me here ask you especially to take account of that origin of
the true bearing of the Flag of England, the Red Rose. Her own
madness defiled afterwards alike the white and red, into images of the
paleness, or the crimson, of death; but the Saxon Rose was the symbol
of heavenly beauty and peace.
I told you in my first lecture that one swift requirement in our
school would be to produce a beautiful map of England, including
old Northumberland, giving the whole country, in its real geography,
between the Frith of Forth and Straits of Dover, and with only
six sites of habitation given, besides those of Edinburgh and
London,--namely, those of Canterbury and Winchester, York and
Lancaster, Holy Island and Melrose; the latter instead of Iona,
because, as we have seen, the influence of St. Columba expires
with the advance of Christianity, while that of Cuthbert of
Melrose connects itself with the most sacred feelings of the entire
Northumbrian kingdom, and Scottish border, down to the days of
Scott--wreathing also into its circle many of the legends of Arthur.
Will you forgive my connecting the personal memory of having once had
a wild rose gathered for me, in the glen of Thomas the Rhymer, by the
daughter of one of the few remaining Catholic houses of Scotland, with
the pleasure I have in reading to you this following true account
of the origin of the name of St. Cuthbert's birthplace;--the rather
because I owe it to friendship of the same date, with Mr. Cockburn
Muir, of Melrose.
"To those who have eyes to read it," says Mr. Muir, "the name
'Melrose' is written full and fair, on the fair face of all this reach
of the valley. The name is anciently spelt Mailros, and later, Malros,
never Mulros; ('Mul' being the Celtic word taken to mean 'bare'). Ros
is Rose; the forms Meal or Mol imply great quantity or number. Thus
Malros means the place of many roses.
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