out. And so it has to last, century after century; Wends, wolves,
wild swine, all alike dumb to us. Dumb, or sounding only one
huge unutterable message (seemingly of tragic import), like the
voice of their old Forests, of their old Baltic Seas:--
perhaps more edifying to us SO. Here at last is a definite date
and event:--

"A.D. 928, Henry the Fowler, marching across the frozen bogs,
took BRANNIBOR, a chief fortress of the Wends;" [Kohler,
Reichs-Historie (Frankfurth und Leipzig, 1737),
p. 63. Michaelis, Chur-und Furstlichen Hauser in
Deutschland (Lemgo, 1759, 1760, 1785), i. 255.]--
first mention in human speech of the place now called Brandenburg:
Bor or "Burg of the Brenns" (if there ever was any TRIBE of
Brenns,--BRENNUS, there as elsewhere, being name for KING or
Leader); "Burg of the Woods," say others,--who as little know.
Probably, at that time, a town of clay huts, with dit&h and
palisaded sod-wall round it; certainly "a chief fortress of the
Wends,"--who must have been a good deal surprised at sight of
Henry on the rimy winter morning near a thousand years ago.

This is the grand old Henry, called, "the Fowler"
(Heinrich der Vogler), because he was in his
Vogelheerde (Falconry or Hawk-establishment, seeing
his Hawks fly) in the upland Hartz Country, when messengers came
to tell him that the German Nation, through its Princes and
Authorities assembled at Fritzlar, had made him King; and that he
would have dreadful work henceforth. Which he undertook; and also
did,--this of Brannibor only one small item of it,--warring right
manfully all his days against Chaos in that country, no rest for