410-600] THE SAXONS AND THE DANES 
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small, so they drove the Britons away from the south- 
eastern corner of the land, and took it for themselves. 
Attracted by the rich plunder, the mildness of the climate, 
and the richness of the soil, more and more of the Saxons 
came, and the Britons were driven farther and farther to 
the west. They were not cowards, and they resisted so vali- 
antly that it was more than one hundred years before they 
were really overcome. 
One of the British chiefs, King Arthur, succeeded in uniting 
the tribes of the Britons, and for a time made some headway 
against the heathen invaders. He is said to have made his resi- 
dence at Caerleon in Wales, where he lived in splendid state, 
gathering about him many brave knights and beautiful ladies, 
Twelve of the noblest and bravest of these knights sat with 
the king about the “ Round Table.” These “Knights of 
the Round Table,” were accustomed to ride out in search 
of adventures, and were bound by vows to protect women, 
punish oppressors, chain up wicked giants and dwarfs, and 
to drive back the heathen. In time King Arthur and his 
brave knights passed away, but the desecendants of the 
Britons in Wales still tell the story of their early hero king. 
Little is known about the fate of the Britons. Large 
numbers of them fell in battle; probably many of them 
became the slaves of the conquerors; the remainder were 
driven into the highlands of the north and the west. Thous- 
ands of the invaders, attracted by the fertile lands of the 
Britons and the plunder to be obtained, poured into the 
country. Britain was in the hands of the Saxons, and 
thenceforth the country was known as England. 
12. The Saxons on the continent.—The new conquerors 
had lived in Jutland and about the mouth of the Elbe River. 
There were in reality three tribes, the Jutes, Angles, and 
Saxons, but the Britons spoke of them all as Saxons. They 
belonged to the Low German stock; that is, they lived 
in the low parts of Germany bordering on the Baltic 2uC 
North Seas. 
In the writings of the Roman historian, Tacitus, there is 
a description of the German tribes to which the Saxons be- 
longed, "The men were tall and muscular, wi. fair hair and