tyranni Danorum, utrum simul aliqui regnaverunt, an alter post alterum brevi tempore vixit, incertum est.”[64] Of these kings, down to the ninth century, very little is known. The truth is, most of them were petty feudal chiefs, inconsiderable as those of the Scottish Highlands, during the middle ages. It is acknowledged by the most critical of the Danes themselves, that even the islands which now constitute so small a portion of the monarchy were not united under one sceptre until the middle of the fourth century. This honour is ascribed to Dan, surnamed Mykillati, or the Magnanimous, the sixth in descent from Skiold. There can, however, be no doubt that both a too early period has been assigned to this event, and that a dismemberment of these islands was frequently effected. Certainly we read of independent principalities in them as late as the eighth century. Jutland, which forms so considerable a portion of the monarchy, had its separate governors, or kings, who, though sometimes dependent on the kings of Zealand, were often at war with them, and rulers over them. Doubtless the peninsula and islands were frequently under the same sceptre; but the union was a violent one, and was preserved only as long as the victor had the necessary means to reward obedience. If we read of such unions as early as the fifth century, or even the fourth, we also read of separate kings in Jutland as late as the ninth. The truth is, when the author of the forced union paid the debt of nature, the monarchy was immediately dismembered, and its separate parts received their local rulers. Where, from time immemorial, island has been at war with island, district with district, nothing is so difficult as to effect a cordial union between them. Ages are required to destroy the hostility which ages have confirmed. Those isolated governments preserved no record of their transactions; the memory of them was perpetuated by tradition alone, or by the metrical songs to which that tradition gave rise. Both _create_ in a degree much greater than they perpetuate,—a fact illustrated by the whole course of northern history prior to the ninth century. Hence the confusion, the contradictions, the darkness which rest upon it, and the impossibility of yielding much credence to the relations of ancient or modern writers on the subject. As, however, all these relations have some foundation in truth, it would be unwise, and even unjust, to bury in utter oblivion the names and alleged deeds of the kings antecedent to the historic times.[65] [Sidenote: B.C. 4. to A.C. 35.]