The early history of England, or Britain, as it was anciently called, is involved in great obscurity. The reason of this is, that its first inhabitants, a colony from some other nation, were so much occupied in providing for the actual wants of life, as to have but very little time to spare for the purpose of preserving records of the country whence they came. They were, too, in a state of barbarism, and altogether ignorant of the arts of reading or writing. When they wished to keep a memorial of any great event, such as a victory, a treaty of peace, the death of one king, or the coronation of another, they marked the spot where the occurrence took place with a heap of stones, or set up a rough hewn pillar, and bade their children recount to their descendants the circumstance which it was intended to commemorate. An imperfect memory of certain great events was thus kept alive, and the pillar, or the heap of stones, was appealed to as a memorial, long after the people who had assisted in raising it were dead.
The traditions connected with these rude memorials are the only sources from which our knowledge of some very ancient events is to be derived. They are calledtraditions, because they were not written accounts, but such as were transmitted, or handed down, through a long succession of ages, by being repeated from father to son. Sometimes, too, these traditions were made into songs, which, being easily learned by heart, very much assisted in preserving a knowledge of the events they were intended to record…
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