Note P — APPENDIX I. AN ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT MINSTRELS IN ENGLAND.

[If the Saxons had not been accustomed to have minstrels of their own ... and to shew favour and respect to the Danish scalds.] If this had not been the case, we may be assured, at least, that the stories given in the text could never have been recorded by writers who lived so near the Anglo-Saxon times as Malmesbury and Ingulphus, who, though they might be deceived as to particular facts, could not be so as to the general manners and customs, which prevailed so near their own times among their ancestors.