CHAPTER IV.
THE COLONISATION OF THE COAST.
Though the myths which surround the arrival of the English in Britain have little historical value, they are yet interesting for the light which they throw incidentally upon the habits and modes of thought of the colonists.

They have one character in common with all other legends, that they grow fuller and more circumstantial the further they proceed from the original time.

Baeda, who wrote about A.D.700, gives them in a very meagre form: the English Chronicle, compiled at the court of AElfred, about A.D.900, adds several important traditional particulars: while with the romantic Geoffrey of Monmouth, A.D.1152, they assume the character of full and circumstantial tales.

The less men knew about the conquest, the more they had to tell about it.
Among the most sacred animals of the Aryan race was the horse.

Even in the Indian epics, the sacrifice of a horse was the highest rite of the primitive religion.