He calls the German Ocean the _Tithic Valley_, or the Valley of _Tithys_ (_Thetis?_). In one out of the two MSS. which deviate from the form _Tithecam Vallem_, the reading is _Aticam_, and in the other _Styticam_. I give the texts of Gildas in full. They may serve to shew his style:--"Itaque illis ad sua remeantibus, emergunt certatim de curucis, quibus sunt trans Tithecam vallem vecti, quasi in alto Titane incalescente caumate de aridissimis foraminum cavernulis fusci vermiculorum cenei, tetri Scotorum Pictorumque greges, moribus ex parte dissidentes, et una eademque sanguinis fundendi aviditate concordes, furciferosque magis vultus pilis, quam corporum pudenda pudendisque proxima vestibus tegentes, cognitaque condebitorum reversione, et reditus denegatione, solito confidentius, omnem Aquilonalem extremamque terræ partem, pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt."--_Historia_, §. 15. But, perhaps, Gildas readily wrote Scythica; for there _was_ a reason, as reasons went in the sixth century, for his doing so. It was, probably, the following lines in Virgil:-- "Aspice et extremis domitum cultoribus orbem, Eoasque domos Arabum, _pictosque Gelonos_."--G. xi. 115. That either Gildas or Beda knew of the line or translated it as if the _Picts_ were _Geloni_ cannot be shewn; but that an author not very much later than Beda did so is shewn by the following extract from a Life of St. Vodoal, written about the beginning of the tenth century--"The Blessed Vodoal was (as they say) sprung from the arrow-bearing nation of the _Geloni_, who are believed to have drawn their origin from _Scythia_. Concerning whom, the poet writes _Pictosque Gelonos_; and from that time till now they are called _Picts_."[36] _Sagittiferi_ is as Virgilian as the word _Picti_-- "Hic Nomadum genus et discinctos Mulciber Afros, Hic Lelegas, Carasque sagittiferosque Gelonos Finxerat."--Aen. viii. 725. Another element in the reasoning upon the date of the earliest Scandinavians is the fact that more than one enquirer has noticed in the nomenclature of a writer so early as Ptolemy, words with an aspect more or less Scandinavian--_e.g._, Ar-_beia_, Leucopi-_bi_-um, _Vand_-_uarii_ (Aqui-colæ), _Lox_-ius fluvius (=Salmon River), and, perhaps, some others. To argue that there were Scandinavians amongst us in the second century, because certain words were Norse, and then to infer the Norse character of the words in question from the presence of Scandinavians is a vicious circle from which we must keep apart. At the same time, the insufficiency of the early historians to give a negative, the oversight of Beda in respect to the word _dal_, and the exceptions which can be taken to the gloss _penn fahel_, are all elements of importance. The present writer believes that there _were_ Norsemen in Britain anterior to A.D. 787, and also that those Norsemen _may_ have been the Picts.