What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied their victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the senate; the Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no pity for age, no refuge for chastity.

Among themselves there is the same ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death.

at their own request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her days by hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband's tomb.

All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar with Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the Heruli not so much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles, bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in their hands.

Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli.
sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author, (Isid.
Hispal.