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Coppee, Henry

"English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction"

It is on this account
especially that these works should be studied.

GILDAS.--Among the writers who must be considered as belonging to the
Celtic race, although they wrote in Latin, the most prominent is _Gildas_.
He was the son of Caw, (Alcluyd, a British king,) who was also the father
of the famous bard Aneurin. Many have supposed Gildas and Aneurin to be
the same person, so vague are the accounts of both. If not, they were
brothers. Gildas was a British bard, who, when converted to Christianity,
became a Christian priest, and a missionary among his own people. He was
born at Dumbarton in the middle of the sixth century, and was surnamed
_the Wise_. His great work, the History of the Britons, is directly
historical: his account extends from the first invasion of Britain down to
his own time.
A true Celt, he is a violent enemy of the Roman conquerors first, and then
of the Saxon invaders. He speaks of the latter as "the nefarious Saxons,
of detestable name, hated alike by God and man; ... a band of devils
breaking forth from the den of the barbarian lioness.


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