Even from the productions of the Germans in that century that were most full of heart and soul, their songs, which no careful hand transcribed on parchment, we may draw some conclusions. Their oldest kind of poetry is not entirely unknown to us,--the native epic verse, with its alliterations--and in some of the popular songs and proverbs which have been preserved, we still find the ancient love of contests of wit and of enigmas, with which a troubadour delighted his hearers by the hearth of the Saxon chief. After the great national exodus, written records begin slowly to appear in Germany. They came, together with that irresistible power which changed so much of the whole spirit of the German people,--with Christianity. However energetically religion turned the mind into new paths, and however fearful was the destruction occasioned by popular tumults at that period of immigration, the changes in the Germans arising from both sources were not sufficient to shatter everything ancient into ruins. We are too apt to consider the national exodus as a chaotic process of destruction. It is true that it drove from their homes many of the most powerful German nationalities that were located in and beyond East Germany, and the depopulated domiciles were filled with the Sclavonians who followed. The Bavarians migrated from Bohemia to the Danube; the Suevi, Allemanni, and Burgundians, southwards to their present localities. The names of old nationalities have disappeared, and new ones have spread themselves far across the Rhine. But nearly half the Germany which was known to the Romans--the wide territory from the North Sea to the Thuringian woods and the Rhone, from the Saal to near the Rhine--retains, on the whole, its old inhabitants; for the Thuringians, the Chattens, and indeed most of the races of Lower Saxony, only came in partial swarms; they probably greatly diminished in marching through foreign lands, and by emigrations of their kinsmen; they were also, as for example the Thuringians, frequently intermingled with foreign hordes, who settled among them. But the nucleus of the old inhabitants remained through all fluctuations, and maintained their own old home traditions, peculiarities of speech, customs, and laws.