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Aunt Charlotte's stories of English history for the little ones
Aunt Charlotte's stories of English history for the little ones Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Augustine's Mission To Ethelbert. CHAP. III.—THE ANGLE CHILDREN. A.D. 597. 5HE old English who had come to Britain were heathen, and believed in ma... more »ny false gods : the Sun, to whom they made Sunday sacred, as Monday was to the Moon, Wednesday to a great, terrible god, named Woden, and Thursday to a god called Thor, or Thunder. They thought a clap of thunder was the sound of the great hammer he carried in his hand. They thought their gods cared for people being brave, and that the souls of those who died fighting gallantly in battle were the happiest ofall ; but they did not care for kindness or gentleness. Thus they often did very cruel things, and one of the worst that they did was the stealing of men, women, and children from their homes, and selling them to strangers, who made slaves of them. All England had not one king. There were generally about seven kings, each with a different part of the island; and, as they were often at war with one another, they used to steal one another's subjects, and sell them to merchants who came from Italy and Greece for them. Some English children were made slaves, and carried to Rome, where they were set in the marketplace to be sold. A good priest, named Gregory, was walking by. He saw their fair faces, blue eyes, and long light hair, and, stopping, he asked who they were. " Angles," he was told, " from the isle of Britain." "Angles?" he said, "they have angel faces, and they ought to be heirs with the angels in heaven." From that time this good man tried to find means to send teachers to teach the English the Christian faith. He had to wait for many years, and, in that time, he was made Pope, namely, Father-Bishop of Rome. At last he heard that one of the chief English kings, Ethelbert of Kent, had married Bertha, the daug...« less