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Now we have sufficient reason to believe that Thuringians and Rugians abode for a while in Bohemia and parts of Bavaria, and Lombards in Moravia, and that these gentry, hearing of loot to be had in plenty farther south, left their temporary homes, crossed the Danube and made themselves unpopular elsewhere, leaving the lands of Bohemia and Moravia to anyone who cared to take them.

The character of the scenery is more severe, and the air harsher than in the neighbourhood of Mohra. Luther himself called his Mansfeld countrymen sons of the Harz. In the main, these Harz people are much rougher than the Thuringians. Here also, at first, Luther's parents found it a hard struggle to get on.

The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand, over the ample space of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of the Gepidæ; and the three valiant brothers, who reigned over the Ostrogoths, were posted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths.

One after another the various nations submitted: the Vandals and Gepidæ in the fourth century; the Goths somewhat earlier; the Franks at the end of the fifth; the Alemanni and Lombards at the beginning of the sixth; the Bavarians, Hessians, and Thuringians in the seventh and eighth. Of these, all embraced the Arian form except the Franks, who were converted by the Catholic clergy.

The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand, over the ample space of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was commanded by Ardaric, king of the Gepidæ; and the three valiant brothers who reigned over the Ostrogoths were posted on the left to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths.

Hawart and Hagen closed in strife. Had any seen it, they had beheld wonders. They smote mightily with their swords. Hawart died by the knight of Burgundy. When the Thuringians and Danes saw their masters slain, they rushed yet fiercer against the house, and grisly was the strife or they won to the door. Many a helmet and buckler were hewn in pieces. "Give way," cried Folker, "and let them in.

The Thuringians served in the army of Attila: they traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war that they exercised the cruelties which, about fourscore years afterwards, were revenged by the son of Clovis.

Another proof of the romanizing influence of the Church may be found in the fact that the Franks established in Belgium forgot their tribal affinities. While in the seventh century Ripuarians, Alamans and Thuringians constituted themselves into so many distinct duchies, no attempt was ever made to found a Salian duchy in Northern Belgium.

When Athanaric, the chief magistrate of the Thuringians, had become informed of those unexpected occurrences, he prepared to maintain his ground, with a resolution to rise up in strength should he be assailed as the others had been.

The swords fell thick and fast in the heroes' hands. Through the knight from the Burgundian land Hawart needs must die. When the Thuringians and the Danes espied their lordings dead, there rose before the hall a fearful strife, before they gained the door with mighty hand. Many a helm and shield was hacked and cut thereby.