Their war-standards were horses’ tails; before a battle there was a muster, at which arms and horses were inspected, and if any defects were discovered, the warrior who was guilty was at once put to death.  The day and hour of combat were fixed by soothsayers, propitious signs were sought, and war-ditties chanted.  It was a custom to make a drinking-vessel of the skull of some famous chieftain amongst the enemy when he was killed in battle. (We shall have a notable example of this presently.) Any freeman or slave who strayed beyond the boundaries of the territory was killed by the border-guard if he was detected.  Dogs and even human beings were offered as sacrifices.  Their sentences for the expiation of crime were as barbarous as the people themselves.  Noses and ears were cut off as the most ordinary punishment.  Polygamy was practised, and eunuchs protected the harem.  The ruler, who was called the ‘Chagan,’ had power of life and death over his subjects.  He alone sat at table during his meals; his ‘court,’ including even his spouse, squatted around and fed upon the floor.  In the seventh century their religion was a mixture of heathenism and Mohammedanism, and they were only converted to Christianity by slow degrees after they had settled on the Danube and come into close contact with the Eastern Empire.[116] Even then we find (about the middle of the ninth century) that although the kings embraced Christianity, the great mass of the people remained unconverted, and even resented the change of religion in their rulers.

There is much more that is interesting in the customs of the Bulgarians, especially when they had come under something like a settled government.  The nobles seem to have resembled our ‘ealdormen’ in the very earliest phase of our history, and to have exercised considerable influence, notwithstanding the absolutism of the ruling head.  From living only in tents of skins, a practice still adhered to in the warmer months, they built wooden huts in winter.  They clothed themselves in long robes, and wore caps which were doffed reverentially in the presence of their rulers.  They fed on millet and on horseflesh, and drank mead and a liquor extracted from the birch tree.  Their punishments continued to be most barbarous, quartering alive being a common practice.  Their superstitions were interesting.  Serpents were ‘taboo,’ so was a hut which had been struck by lightning, whilst the howlings of dogs and wolves were good omens, significant of success or plenty.

We first hear of the Bulgari towards the close of the fifth century when they were situated near the mouth of the Volga, from whence they moved into Dacia.  Meeting with little opposition and joined by other tribes, they soon became formidable invaders of the Eastern Empire, and are said to have carried their arms time after time through Thrace, Epirus, Thessaly, as far as Peloponnesus in Europe, and into Asia Minor, until at length they were met by Belisarius, one of