Page "Saxons" Paragraph 37

Historians are divided about what followed: some argue that the takeover of southern Great Britain by the Anglo-Saxons was peaceful.

There is, however, only one known account from a native Briton who lived at this time in the mid 5th Century A. D., ( Gildas ), and his description is of a forced takeover: For the fire ... spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean.

In these assaults ... all the columns were levelled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests, and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side.

Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press ; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds ; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels ...

Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers ; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation ... Others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of the seas ( albeit with trembling hearts ), remained still in their country.