King Alfred of England: Makers of HistoryAbbott, Jacob
History
King Alfred of England: Makers of History
Abbott, Jacob
Alfred, King of England, 849-899 -- Juvenile literature; Great Britain -- History -- Alfred, 871-899 -- Juvenile literature
It is scarcely necessary to say that this meant Britain. Brutus,
following the directions which the oracle had given him, set sail from
the island, and proceeded to the westward through the Mediterranean
Sea. He arrived at the Pillars of Hercules. This was the name by which
the Rock of Gibraltar and the corresponding promontory on the opposite
coast, across the straits, were called in those days; these cliffs
having been built, according to ancient tales, by Hercules, as
monuments set up to mark the extreme limits of his western wanderings.
Brutus passed through the strait, and then, turning northward, coasted
along the shores of Spain.
At length, after enduring great privations and suffering, and
encountering the extreme dangers to which their frail barks were
necessarily exposed from the surges which roll in perpetually from
the broad Atlantic Ocean upon the coast of Spain and into the Bay of
Biscay, they arrived safely on the shores of Britain. They landed and
explored the interior. They found the island robed in the richest
drapery of fruitfulness and verdure, but it was unoccupied by any
thing human. There were wild beasts roaming in the forests, and the
remains of a race of giants in dens and caves--monsters as diverse
from humanity as the wolves. Brutus and his followers attacked all
these occupants of the land. They drove the wild beasts into the
mountains of Scotland and Wales, and killed the giants. The chief of
them, whose name was Gogmagog, was hurled by one of Brutus's followers
from the summit of one of the chalky cliffs which bound the island
into the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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