Bede's work titled An Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, and its first chapter, Of the Situation of Britain and Ireland, and of Their Ancient Inhabitants, was not written as a work of fiction. Bede was a church scholar and historian and wrote this text as a sort of religious history of the people of modern day England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He lived and wrote in England, though much of his source material was folkloric or books previously produced by and kept by the Church. The content of The Situation is quite historically accurate and describes the lands, natural goods, and people of the British Isles. Where the content may be fictional, it is based on folklore, as in the suggestion that a cure for snakebite might be made from brewing the leaves of books made in Ireland. In such cases, we can interpret Bede's writing as an accurate representation of what people may have believed, felt, or done rather than treating it as pure fiction.