I gave him sixpence, and descended the hill on one side, while he,
with his team, descended it on the other.
"A genuine Saxon," said I; "I daresay just like many of those who,
under Hengist, subdued the plains of Lloegr and Britain. Taliesin
called the Saxon race the Coiling Serpent. He had better have
called it the Big Bull. He was a noble poet, however: what
wonderful lines, upon the whole, are those in his prophecy, in
which he speaks of the Saxons and Britons, and of the result of
their struggle -
"A serpent which coils,
And with fury boils,
From Germany coming with arm'd wings spread,
Shall subdue and shall enthrall
The broad Britain all,
From the Lochlin ocean to Severn's bed.
"And British men
Shall be captives then
To strangers from Saxonia's strand;
They shall praise their God, and hold
Their language as of old,
But except wild Wales they shall lose their land."
I arrived at Wrexham, and having taken a very hearty breakfast at
the principal inn, for I felt rather hungry after a morning's walk
of ten miles, I walked about the town. The town is reckoned a
Welsh town, but its appearance is not Welsh - its inhabitants have
neither the look nor language of Welshmen, and its name shows that
it was founded by some Saxon adventurer, Wrexham being a Saxon
compound, signifying the home or habitation of Rex or Rag, and
identical, or nearly so, with the Wroxham of East Anglia.
