Not 1066 and All That - not at all. They knew their stuff. This was "The Dawn of British History" by Alice Korkran (author of "Life of Lord Leighton" etc., published by Harrap in 1912. The cover has an attractive colour illustration of an Early Brit, tastefully draped in untreated furs, standing behind a heap of beakers, shells and tusks (or possibly horns - they are too small for elephants, and too big for walrus, but not like any cow horn I remember from the days before dehorning. I suspect too samll for aurochs, as well. He has a long spear and a gold armring, with a suspiciously neat beard and moustache.

I have just seen at the end that Patrick fought against the worship of Baal in Ireland. (Ireland is regarded as part of British history in this work of erudition, but this was probably common at the time.)

The frontispiece is of a set of elegant Druids in designer robes about to sacrifice a barely clad maiden at Stonehenge. (For a children's book of the date, her nipples, viewed in profile from over her head are extraordinarily prominent.)

The book ends with Germanus' "Hallelujah" victory over, apparently, the Picts and the Scots - I thought he was concerned with defeating the Pelagians. No mention of heresy here.

Which reminds me of a book called "Between the Forest and the Hills" about the period of the last of Romanised Britain, by Ann Lawrence. It is an amusing book - Romanised characters have names like Radius and Humurus, and it takes liberties, but the liberties are with what is now known, and would not require unlearning when studying the real situation. A difficult situation between the Romanised city folk and the incoming English is resolved by a stranger who teaches the townsfolk to sing Hallelujah - but it is perfectly obvious that what they are singing is rather more complex than what Germnanus would have taught. And rather later in date. Definitely Handel!