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 him thenceforth till he died.

The beginning of German Kings; the first, or essentially the first sovereign of united Germany,--Charlemagne's posterity to the last bastard having died out, and only Anarchy, Italian and other, being now the alternative.
"A very high King," says one whose Note-books I have got, "an authentically noble human figure, visible still in clear outline in the gray dawn of Modern History.