we know less than of their political life. But there is no ground for
believing them to have been very different in these respects from the
other German peoples who were soon to overwhelm the Roman world. Though
their border nowhere touched the border of the Empire they were far from
being utterly strange to its civilization. Roman commerce indeed reached
the shores of the Baltic, and we have abundant evidence that the arts and
refinement of Rome were brought into contact with these earlier
Englishmen. Brooches, sword-belts, and shield-bosses which have been
found in Sleswick, and which can be dated not later than the close of the
third century, are clearly either of Roman make or closely modelled on
Roman metal-work. Discoveries of Roman coins in Sleswick peat-mosses
afford a yet more conclusive proof of direct intercourse with the Empire.
But apart from these outer influences the men of the three tribes were
far from being mere savages. They were fierce warriors, but they were
also busy fishers and tillers of the soil, as proud of their skill in
handling plough and mattock or steering the rude boat with which they
hunted walrus and whale as of their skill in handling sword and spear.
They were hard drinkers, no doubt, as they were hard toilers, and the
"ale-feast" was the centre of their social life. But coarse as the revel
might seem to modern eyes, the scene within the timbered hall which rose
in the midst of their villages was often Homeric in its simplicity and
dignity. Queen or Eorl's wife with a train of maidens bore ale-bowl or
mead-bowl round the hall from the high settle of King or Ealdorman in the
midst to the mead benches ranged around its walls, while the gleeman sang
the hero-songs of his race. Dress and arms showed traces of a love of art
and beauty, none the less real that it was rude and incomplete. Rings,
amulets, ear-rings, neck-pendants, proved in their workmanship the
deftness of the goldsmith's art. Cloaks were often fastened with golden
buckles of curious and exquisite form, set sometimes with rough jewels
and inlaid with enamel. The bronze boar-crest on the warrior's helmet,