Now Beowulf tells us that, at the time of its composition, at latest, and, probably, much earlier, there was a certain interchange of legend or history between the Danes, Swedes, Lombards, Franks, Angles, Frisians, and Geats. We may say, then, that the Angli had an Heroic Age. In respect to their historic epoch, a well-known notice in Beda, freely adopted by most of his after-comers, deduces the Angles from that part of Germany which he calls _Angulus_, between the provinces of the Jutes and Saxons, and which up to his own time remained a waste--"patria quæ _Angulus_ dicitur, et ab eo tempore usque hodie desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur." The Saxon Chronicle simply translates this. Alfred strengthens it, writing that there "the English dwelt before they came hither."--_i.e._, to England. Ethelweard speaks of "Anglia vetus, sita inter Saxones et Giotos, habens oppidum capitale, quod sermone Saxonico _Sleswic_ nuncupatur, secundum vero Danos, _Hathaby_." A well-known locality in the Duchy of Sleswick supplies the commentary on these texts. A triangular block of land, about the size of the county of Middlesex, is bounded on two of its sides by the Slie and the Firth of Flensburg, and on the third by the road from that town to Sleswick. Many writers think that the Angles should be placed here; and, thinking this, maintain that no population except that of the Angles or some closely allied tribe has a claim to be considered as the early occupants of Holstein and Sleswick. They overlook, however, the important fact that Ptolemy, who places the _Angili_ in a locality far south of the parts in question, places, in those parts, populations which he separates from his _Angili_. They also overlook the still more important fact that the only populations earlier than the present of which definite traces can be discovered in either Holstein or Sleswick, are the Frisians and the Slavonians--the Frisians on the west, and the Slavonians on the east. In another point of view this district is important, although the line of criticism upon which it has its bearing is gradually becoming obsolete. When the direct influence of the Danes and Norwegians upon the language of Britain was less recognized than it is now, it was by no means uncommon to explain such Scandinavian words as occurred by the assumption that they were _Angle_ as opposed to _Saxon_, the Angle being the most Danish of all the proper German dialects--transitional, perhaps, to the Teutonic and Scandinavian divisions of the so-called Gothic stock. This was a line of criticism difficult to refute; since the advocate of the Angle origin of Danish words might fairly argue that it was not enough to shew that a word was Scandinavian. It must also be shewn to have been non-existent in the North-German dialects. This brought in the proverbial difficulty of proving a negative assertion. Hence, the district of Anglen and Beda's statement concerning it are important.