To Matilda, the most eloquent and true handmaid of Christ, Ethelwerd the patrician, health in the Lord! I have received, dearest sister, your letter which I longed for, and I not only read it with kisses, but laid it up in the treasury of my heart. Often and often do I pray the grace of the Most High, to preserve you in safety during this life present, and after death to lead you to his everlasting mansions. But as I once before briefly hinted to you by letter, I now, with God's help, intend to begin in the way of annals from the beginning of the world, and explain to you more fully about our common lineage and descent, to the end that the reader's task may be lightened, and the pleasure of the hearer may be augmented, whilst he listens to it. Concerning the coming of our first parents out of Germany into Britain, their numberless wars and slaughters, and the dangers which they encountered on ship-board among the waves of the ocean, in the following pages you will find a full description. In the present letter therefore I have written, without perplexity of style, of our modern lineage and relationship, who were our relations, and how, and where they came from: as far as our memory can go, and according as our parents taught us. For instance king Alfred was son of king Ethelwulf, from whom we derive our origin, and who had five sons, one of whom was king Ethelred[6] my ancestor, and another king Alfred who was yours. This king Alfred sent his daughter Ethelswitha into Germany to be the wife of Baldwin,[7] who had by her two sons Ethelwulf and Arnulf, also two daughters Elswid and Armentruth. Now from Ethelswitha is descended count Arnulf,[8] your neighbour. The daughter of king Edward son of the above-named king Alfred was named Edgiva, and was sent by your aunt into Gaul to marry Charles the Simple. Ethilda also was sent to be the wife of Hugh, son of Robert: and two others were sent by king Athelstan to Otho that he might choose which of them he liked best to be his wife. He[9] chose Edgitha, from whom you derive your lineage; and united the other in marriage to a certain king[10] near the Jupiterean Mountains, of whose family no memorial has reached us, partly from the distance and partly from the confusion of the times. It is your province to inform us of these particulars, not only from your relationship, but also because no lack of ability or interval of space prevents you.[11] HERE ENDS THE PROLOGUE. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: Ethelred died and Alfred succeeded him A.D. 871.] [Footnote 7: Baldwin, count of Flanders died A.D. 918. See Malmesbury, p. 121.] [Footnote 8: Arnulf, count of Flanders, A.D. 965.] [Footnote 9: The emperor Otho married Edgitha A.D. 930.] [Footnote 10: Lewis the blind.] [Footnote 11: The writer adds the barbarous verse, "Esto mihi valens cunctis perhenniter horis," which is as easy to construe as to scan.] BOOK THE FIRST BEGINS.