HENRY OF HUNTINGDON'S
HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH.
BOOK I.[1]
Britain is truly an island of the utmost fertility, abounding in corn and fruit trees, which are nourished by perennial streams. It is diversified by woods, sheltering birds and beasts of chase, affording merry sport to the hunter. Wild fowl of all sorts are exceedingly plentiful, both those which are peculiar to the land and those which frequent the water, whether the rivers or the sea. Moreover, the island is remarkably adapted for feeding cattle and beasts of burthen; insomuch that Solinus remarks that "in some parts of Britain the herbage of the meadows is so luxuriant that unless the cattle are shifted to poorer pasture there is risk of their suffering from surfeit." The never-failing springs feed rivers abounding in fish. Salmon and eels, especially, are very plentiful. Herrings are taken on the coasts, as well as oysters and other kinds of shell-fish. Among these are the muscles, which produce beautiful pearls, of a great
- ↑ Henry of Huntingdon, in the First Book, after giving a general description of Britain, and some slight account, mostly fabulous, of its early history, embraces the period from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the final abandonment of the province by the Romans in the time of Theodosius II. But this Book is rather an epitome of the lives and characters of the Roman emperors, than a narrative of events in British, or Roman-British history. His principal authorities for the former are Eutropius, and the Epitome of Aurelius Victor; but Bede's Ecclesiastical History furnishes the staple of his narrative; and he also draws largely from the History of the Britons attributed to Nennius—by some to Gildas; and he has also interwoven in his history information derived from other sources which cannot now be traced.
