It strikes the enquirer at once with suspicion when he finds the tales supposed peculiar to his own race and to this island, shared by the Germanic populations of other lands, and with slight changes of locality, or trifling variations of detail, recorded as authentic parts of their history. The readiest belief in fortuitous resemblances and coincidences gives way before a number of instances whose agreement defies all the calculation of chances. Thus, when we find Hengest and Hors approaching the coasts of Kent in three keels, and Ælli effecting a landing in Sussex with the same number, we are reminded of the Gothic tradition which carries a migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Gepidae, also in three vessels, to the mouths of the Vistula, certainly a spot where we do not readily look for that recurrence to a trinal calculation, which so peculiarly characterizes the modes of thought of the Cymri. The murder of the British chieftains by Hengest is told _totidem verbis_ by Widukind and others, of the Oldsaxons in Thuringia[30]. Geoffry of Monmouth relates also how Hengest obtained from the Britons as much land as could be enclosed by an ox-hide; then, cutting the hide into thongs, enclosed a much larger space than the grantors intended, on which he erected Thong castle[31]—a tale too familiar to need illustration, and which runs throughout the mythus of many nations. Among the Oldsaxons the tradition is in reality the same, though recorded with a slight variety of detail. In their story, a lapful of earth is purchased at a dear rate from a Thuringian; the companions of the Saxon jeer him for his imprudent bargain; but he sows the purchased earth over a large space of ground, which he claims and, by the aid of his comrades, ultimately wrests from the Thuringians[32]. Footnote 30: Widukind in Leibnitz, Rer. Brunsw. i. 73, 74; Repgow, Sachsensp. iii. 44, § 2. It is amusing enough to see how the number of ships increases as people began to feel the absurdity of bringing over conquering armies in such very small flotillas. Footnote 31: Galf. Monum. H. Brit., vi. 11. Thong castle probably gave a turn to the story here which the Oldsaxon legend had not. The classical tale of Dido and Byrsa is well known to every schoolboy. Ragnor Lodbrog adopted the same artifice, Rag. Lodb. Saga, cap. 19, 20. Nay the Hindoos declare that we obtained possession of Calcutta by similar means. Footnote 32: Widuk. _in loc. citat._, also Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, No. 547, 369, and Deutsche Rechtsalt. p. 90, where several valuable examples are cited: it is remarkable how many of these are Thuringian.