THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE DEATH OF HARTHACNUT
The great development of Viking activity which took place after 855
was certainly not unconnected with the course of events in Denmark
itself. Hárekr was attacked by his two nephews in 850 and compelled to
share the kingdom with them. In 854 large bands of Vikings returned to
their fatherland after twenty years' ravaging in Frankish territory.
Trouble now arose between Hárekr and his nephew Godurm (O.N. Guðormr),
one of the returned leaders. Civil war broke out and ultimately, after
a great fight, the kingship fell to a younger Hárekr, a relative of
the late king. A severe dynastic struggle of this kind must have been
accompanied by much unsettlement and perhaps by an actual proscription.
It would certainly seem that there was some definite connexion between
these events and the coincident appearance of the sons of Ragnarr
Loðbrók as leaders of a more extended Viking movement both in England
and in France. Three of his sons--Halfdanr, Ubbi and Ívarr--took part
in the first wintering in Sheppey in 855, while in the same year
another son Björn Ironside appeared on the Seine.
The figure of Ragnarr Loðbrók himself belongs to an earlier generation,
and great as was his after-fame we unfortunately know very little of
his actual career. He would seem to have been of Norwegian birth,
closely connected with the south of Norway and the house of Guðröðr,
but like that prince having extensive interests in Denmark. He probably
visited Ireland in 831, for we read in Saxo of an expedition made by
Ragnarr to Ireland when he slew king Melbricus and ravaged Dublin,
an event which is pretty certainly to be identified with an attack
made on the Conaille district (co. Louth) by foreigners in 831 when
the king Maelbrighde was taken prisoner. He led the disastrous Seine
expedition in 845 (_v. supra_, p. 21). The next glimpse of him which
we have is probably that found in certain Irish annals where he is
represented as exiled from his Norwegian patrimony and living with some
of his sons in the Orkneys while others were absent on expeditions to
the British Isles, Spain and Africa, and a runic inscription has been
found at Maeshowe in the Orkneys confirming the connexion of the sons
of Loðbrók and possibly of Loðbrók himself with those islands. The
expeditions would be those mentioned above and the yet more famous one
made to Spain, Africa and Italy by Björn Ironside in the years 859-62
(_v. infra_, pp. 46-7). Ragnarr Loðbrók's later history is uncertain.
According to the Irish annals quoted above, his sons while on their
expedition dreamed that their father had died in a land not his own
and on their return found it to be true. This agrees with Scandinavian
tradition according to which Ragnarr met his death at the hands of
Aelle, king of Northumbria, by whom he was thrown into a snake-pit,
while the capture of York by Ívarr the Boneless in 866-7 (_v. infra_)
is represented as part of a great expedition of vengeance undertaken
by the sons of Ragnarr. This tradition (apart from certain details) is
probably historical, but we have no definite confirmatory evidence.
With this note on the history of Denmark at this time and on the career
of the most shadowy, if at the same time the most famous of the Viking
leaders, we may turn once more to the history of events in England.
For ten years after the wintering in Sheppey, England was left in
a state of comparative peace. The change came in 866 when a large
Danish force which had been bribed to leave the Seine by Charles the
Bald sailed to England and took up its quarters in East Anglia. In
867 they crossed the Humber and captured York, their task being made
easier by the quarrels of Aelle and Osberht as to the kingship of
Northumbria. Next year the rivals patched up their differences, but
failed to recapture York from the Danes under Ívarr and Ubbi. Setting
up a puppet king Ecgberht in Northumbria north of the Tyne, the Danes
next received the submission of Mercia and returned to York in 869. In
870 they marched through Mercia into East Anglia, as far as Thetford,
engaged the forces of Edmund, king of East Anglia, defeated and slew
him, whether in actual battle or in later martyrdom, as popular
tradition would have it, is uncertain. The death of St Edmund, king and
martyr, soon became an event of European fame and no Viking leader was
more widely execrated than the cruel Ívarr, who was deemed responsible.
The turn of Wessex came next. The fortunes of battle fluctuated but
the accounts usually terminate with the ominous words 'the Danes held
possession of the battle field.' In 871, Alfred commenced his heroic
struggle with the Danes and in the first year of his reign some nine
pitched battles were fought, beside numerous small engagements. So keen
was the West Saxon resistance that a truce was made in 871 and the
Danes turned their attention to Mercia once more. London was forced
to ransom itself at a heavy price and a coin of Halfdanr, probably
minted in London at the time, has been found. After a hurried visit
to Northumbria the _here_ settled down for the winter of 872-3 at
Torksey in the Lindsey district, whence they moved in 873 to Repton
in Derbyshire. They overthrew Burhred of Mercia and set up a foolish
thegn of his as puppet ruler of that realm. In the winter of 874-5 the
_here_ divided forces: one part went under Halfdanr to the Tyne valley,
the other under Guthrum (O.N. Guðormr) to Cambridge.
In 876 Halfdanr divided up the lands of Northumbria among his followers
who soon ploughed and cultivated them. At the same time they did not
forget their old occupations. Raids were made against the Picts and the
Strathclyde Welsh, while Halfdanr soon became involved in the great
struggle going on in Ireland at that time between Norsemen and Danes.
This ultimately led to his death in 877 (_v. infra_, p. 58).
In the meantime the struggle continued in Wessex. In 875 Alfred
captured seven Danish ships. In 876 the southern division of the _here_
slipped past the West Saxon _fyrd_ and reached Wareham in Dorsetshire,
but came to terms with Alfred. Though the peace was sworn with all
solemnity on their sacred altar-ring, the mounted portion of the _here_
slipped off once more and established themselves in Exeter. Their land
forces were supported by a parallel movement of the fleet. At Exeter
Alfred made peace with them and the _here_ returned to Mercia. There
half the land was divided up among the Danes while the southern half
was left in the hands of Ceolwulf.
Alfred reached the nadir of his fortunes when the _here_ returned to
Wessex in the winter of 877-8, drove many of the inhabitants into
exile across the sea, and received the submission of the rest with the
exception of King Alfred and a few followers who took refuge in the
Island of Athelney amid the Somersetshire marshes. Alfred soon gathered
round him a force with which he was able to issue from his stronghold
and ultimately to inflict a great defeat on the Danes at Edington near
Westbury. They now made terms with Alfred by the peace of Wedmore, and
agreed to leave Alfred's kingdom while their king Guthrum received
Christian baptism. They withdrew first to Cirencester and then to East
Anglia. Here they settled, portioning out the land as they had done in
Northumbria and Northern Mercia. A peace was drawn up between Alfred
and Guthrum of East Anglia defining the boundary between their realms.
It was to run along the Thames estuary to the mouth of the Lea (a few
miles east of London), then up the Lea to its source near Leighton
Buzzard, then due north to Bedford, then eastwards up the Ouse to
Watling St. somewhere near Fenny or Stony Stratford. From this point
the boundary is left undefined, probably because the kingdoms of Alfred
and Guthrum ceased to be conterminous here.
England now had peace for some twelve years. Alfred made good use of
the interval in reorganising his army and strengthening the kingdom
generally, so that when attacks were renewed in 892 he was much better
prepared to meet them. In the autumn of that year two fleets coming
from France arrived in England: one landed on the Limen (between Hythe
and Romney Marsh), the other under the leadership of Hæsten (O.N.
Hásteinn) at Milton in North Kent. Alfred's difficulties were increased
by the fact that during the next four years the Danish settlers in
Northumbria and East Anglia played a more or less actively hostile
part, both by land and sea. The Danes showed all their old mobility
and in a series of raids crossed England more than once--first to
Buttington on the Severn (co. Montgomery), then to Chester, and on a
third occasion to Bridgenorth in Shropshire. They met with a uniformly
stout and well organised resistance under the leadership of Alfred, his
son Edward the Elder, and his brother-in-law Aethelred of Mercia, and
in the end they had to retire with no fresh acquisition of territory.
For the most part they distributed themselves among the East Anglian
and Northumbrian Danes, but those who had no cattle wherewith to
stock their land took ship and sailed back to the Seine. There were
no further attacks from abroad during Alfred's reign, but piratical
raids made by the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes caused him a good
deal of trouble, and in order to meet them he definitely addressed
himself to the long delayed task of equipping a fleet. The vessels were
carefully designed according to Alfred's own ideas: they were larger,
swifter and steadier than the Danish vessels and they soon showed their
worth when more than 20 vessels with their crews were lost by the Danes
in one year. It is interesting to note that these vessels were manned
in part by Frisian sailors, probably because of the low ebb to which
English seamanship had sunk.
When once Edward the Elder's claim to the throne was firmly established
in the battle fought at 'the Holm,' somewhere in South Cambridgeshire,
he commenced, with the active co-operation of his brother-in-law
Aethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, the great work of strengthening the
hold of the English on Southern Mercia preparatory to an attempt to
reconquer the Danelagh. Chester was rebuilt in 907. In 910 a fort was
built at 'Bremesbyrig,' possibly Bromesberrow in Gloucestershire.
Aethelred died in the next year, but his wife Aethelflæd, the 'Lady of
the Mercians,' continued his work, and forts were built at 'Scergeat,'
perhaps Shrewsbury, at Bridgenorth on the Severn, at Tamworth, and at
Stafford in 912. In 914 Warwick was fortified, while in 915 forts were
built at Chirbury in Shropshire and Runcorn in Cheshire.
On the death of Aethelred, Edward took London and Oxford and the parts
of Mercia adhering to them into his own hands. Two forts were built
on the north and south sides of the Lea at Hertford in 911-12, and
another at Witham on the Blackwater in Essex. Edward's work soon bore
fruit, for we read that in the same year a large number of those who
had been under Danish rule now made submission to the king. The Danes
in the Five Boroughs became restless under the continued advance of the
English, and twice in the year 913 they made raids from Leicester and
Northampton as far as Hook Norton in Oxfordshire and Leighton Buzzard,
while in the next year Edward, for the first time in his reign, was
troubled by raiders from abroad. Coming from Brittany they sailed
up the Severn, ravaged South Wales and the Archenfield district of
Herefordshire, but could do nothing against the garrison of Gloucester,
Hereford and other neighbouring towns, which seem already to have been
fortified. They were forced to leave the district and so careful a
watch did Edward keep over the coast of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall
that they could make no effective landing, though they tried twice, at
Porlock and at Watchet. Ultimately they took up their quarters in the
islands of Flatholme and Steepholme in the Bristol Channel, but lack of
food soon drove them away to Ireland in a starving condition. In the
same year Edward built two forts at Buckingham, one on each side of
the Ouse, and his policy again found speedy justification when Earl
Thurcytel (O.N. Ðorkell) and all the chief men who 'obeyed[5]' Bedford,
together with many of those who 'obeyed' Northampton submitted to him.
Everything was now ready for the great advance against the Danes.
Derby fell in 917, while in the next year Leicester yielded without
a struggle. Their fall was accompanied by the submission of the men
of Derbyshire and Leicestershire. At the same time the inhabitants
of York declared themselves ready to enter the service of Mercia.
Edward fortified Bedford in 915, Maldon and Towcester in South
Northamptonshire in 916. Again the Danes from Northampton and Leicester
tried to break through the steadily narrowing ring of forts and
they managed to get as far south as Aylesbury, while others from
Huntingdon and East Anglia built a fort at Tempsford in Bedfordshire
near the junction of the Ivel and the Ouse. They besieged a fort at
'Wigingamere' (unidentified) but were forced to withdraw. Edward
gathered an army from the nearest garrison towns, besieged, captured,
and destroyed Tempsford (915). In the autumn he captured Colchester and
a Danish attempt on Maldon failed. Edward now strengthened Towcester
and received the submission of Earl Thurfrith (O.N. Ðorröðr) and all
the Danes in Northamptonshire as far north as the Welland. Huntingdon
was occupied about the same time and the ring of forts around East
Anglia brought about the submission of the whole of that district,
Cambridgeshire making a separate compact on its own account. In 918
Edward built a fort just south of Stamford and soon received the
submission of the Danes of South Lincolnshire, and in the same year
occupied Nottingham, building a fort and garrisoning it with a mixed
English and Danish force. He was now ruler of the whole of Mercia
owing to the death of his sister Aethelflæd, and in 919 he fortified
Thelwall in Cheshire, on the Mersey, and rebuilt the old Roman fort
at Manchester. In 920 he built a second fort at Nottingham and one at
Bakewell in Derbyshire. The reconquest of the Danelagh was complete and
Edward now received the submission of the Scots, the Strathclyde Welsh,
of Regnold (O.N. Rögnvaldr) of Northumbria, and of English, Danes and
Norsemen alike. The Danish settlers accepted the sovereignty of the
West Saxon king and henceforward formed part of an expanded Wessex
which had consolidated its power over all England south of a line drawn
roughly from the Humber to the Dee.
The submission of Rögnvaldr, king of Northumbria and the mention
of Norsemen need some comment. On the death of Halfdanr in 877 an
interregnum of seven years ensued and then, in accordance with
instructions given by St Cuthbert in a vision to abbot Eadred of
Carlisle, the Northumbrians chose a certain Guthred (O.N. Guðröðr) as
their king. He was possibly a nephew of the late king, ruled till 894,
and was also known as Cnut (O.N. Knútr). We have coins bearing the
inscription 'Elfred rex' on the obverse and 'Cnut rex' on the reverse,
indicating apparently some overlordship of king Alfred. Together with
these we have some coins with 'Cnut rex' on the obverse and 'Siefredus'
or (Sievert) on the reverse, and others, minted at 'Ebroice civitas'
(i.e. York), with the sole inscription 'Siefredus rex.' This latter
king would seem to have been first a subordinate partner and then,
on Guðröðr's death, sole ruler of Northumbria. Other coins belonging
to about the same period and found in the great Cuerdale hoard near
Preston, bear the inscription 'Sitric Comes,' and there is good reason
to believe that Siefredus (O.N. Sigröðr) and Sitric (O.N. Sigtryggr)
are to be identified with Sichfrith and Sitriucc who just at this time
are mentioned in the Irish annals as rival leaders of the Norsemen in
Dublin. The identification is important as it shows us that Northumbria
was now being brought into definite connexion with the Norse kingdom
of Dublin and that the Norse element was asserting itself at the
expense of the Danish in Northern England.
The rule of Sigröðr and Sigtryggr alike had come to an end by 911 and
we know nothing more until the year 918 when a fresh invasion from
Ireland took place under a certain Rögnvaldr. He gained a victory at
Corbridge-on-Tyne and captured York in 919 or 920. He divided the lands
of St Cuthbert among his followers but died in 921, the year of his
submission to the overlordship of Edward. The Irish annals speak of
him as king of White and Black foreigners alike, thus emphasising the
composite settlement of Northumbria.
Another leader from Ireland, one Sigtryggr, succeeded Rögnvaldr as
king of Northumbria. He was on friendly terms with Aethelstan and
married his sister in 925. He died in 926 or 927 and then Aethelstan
took Northumbria under his own control. Sigtryggr's brother Guðröðr
submitted to Aethelstan but after four days at the court of king
Aethelstan 'he returned to piracy as a fish to the sea.' Both Sigtryggr
and Guðröðr left sons bearing the name Anlaf (O.N. Ólafr) and with
them Aethelstan and his successors had much trouble. Anlaf Sihtricsson
lived in exile in Scotland and gradually organised against Aethelstan
a great confederacy of Scots, Strathclyde Welsh and Vikings, both
Danish and Norwegian, Anlaf Godfreyson brought help from Ireland and
the great struggle began. The course of the campaign is uncertain but
if the site of its main battle, 'Brunanburh,' is to be identified with
Birrenswark Hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire, it would seem that Aethelstan
carried the war into the enemy's country. The result of the battle
was a complete victory for the forces of Aethelstan and his brother
Edmund. Constantine's son, five kings and seven jarls were among the
slain. We have in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a poem[6] celebrating the
victory, and it describes in vivid language the hurried return home of
Constantine, lamenting the death of his son, and the headlong flight of
Anlaf Godfreyson to Dublin. England had been freed from its greatest
danger since the days of king Alfred and his struggle with Guthrum.
Aethelstan had no more trouble with the Norsemen and we have evidence
from other sources that at some time during his reign, probably at an
earlier date, he exchanged embassies with Harold Fairhair, king of
Norway. The latter sent him a present of a ship with golden prow and
purple sails and the usual bulwark of shields along the gunwale, while
Harold's favourite son Hákon was brought up at Aethelstan's court.
There he was baptised and educated and is known in Norse history as
Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri.
After the death of Aethelstan, Anlaf Sihtricsson, nicknamed Cuaran
(i.e. with the sock or brogue of leather, so called from his Irish
dress) came to England and captured York. From there he made an
attempt to conquer the Danish district of the Five Boroughs. He seems
to have got a good part of Mercia into his hands but in the end
Edmund freed the Danes from Norse oppression and took once more into
his hands all Mercia south of a line from Dore (near Sheffield) to
Whitwell (Derbyshire) and thence to the Humber. Edmund and Anlaf came
to terms, but Anlaf was driven out by the Northumbrians in 943, and
in the next year that province fell into the hands of Edmund. In 947
Eric Blood-axe, son of Harold Fairhair, was accepted as king by the
Northumbrians. In Scandinavian tradition we learn how he was expelled
from Norway in 934 by the supporters of Hákon, went on Viking raids in
the west, was appointed ruler of Northumbria by Aethelstan on condition
of his defending it against attack, but was not on good terms with
Edmund, who favoured one Ólaf. Probably Eric retired after Aethelstan's
death and only returned to England in 947. In 948 Edmund forced the
Northumbrians to abandon his cause and about the same time Anlaf
returned from Ireland and ruled till about 950 when he was replaced
by Eric, whose short rule came to an end in 954. In that year he was
expelled by the Northumbrians and killed at Stainmoor in Westmorland.
The attempt to establish a Norse kingdom of Northumbria had failed and
henceforward that district was directly under the rule of the English
king. English authority was supreme once more even in those districts
which were largely peopled with Scandinavian settlers.
England had no further trouble with Norse or Danish invaders until
the days of Ethelred the Unready, but no sooner did that weak and
ill-advised king come to the throne than, with that ready and intimate
knowledge of local conditions which they always displayed, we find
Danes making an attack on Southampton and Norsemen one on Chester. The
renewed attacks were not however due solely to the weakness of England,
they were also the result of changed conditions in Scandinavia itself.
In Denmark the reign of Harold Bluetooth was drawing to a close, and
the younger generation, conscious of a strong and well-organised nation
behind them, were ambitious of new and larger conquests, while at the
same time many of them were in revolt against the definitely Christian
policy of Harold in his old age. They turned with hope towards his
young son Svein, and found in him a ready and willing leader. In
Norway, Earl Hákon had broken away from the suzerainty of Harold
Bluetooth, but the Norwegians could not forget that he owed his throne
to a foreign power, and his personal harshness and licentiousness as
well as his zealous cult of the old heathen rites were a cause of much
discontent. The hopes of the younger generation were fixed on Olaf
Tryggvason, a man filled with the spirit of the old Vikings. Captured
by pirates from Esthonia when still a child, he was discovered,
ransomed, and taken to Novgorod, where he entered the service of the
Grand Duke Vladimir. Furnished by him with a ship he went 'viking' in
the Baltic and then ten years later we find him prominent among the
Norsemen who attacked England in the days of king Ethelred. In 991
a Norse fleet under Olaf visited Ipswich and Maldon. Here they met
with a stout resistance headed by the brave Byrhtnoth, earl of Essex,
and in the fragmentary lay of the fight at Maldon[7], which has been
preserved to us, we see that there was still much of the spirit of the
heroic age left in the English nation even in the days of Ethelred
II. It was to buy off this attack that a payment of Danegeld to the
extent of some ten thousand pounds was made. From Maldon Olaf went to
Wales and Anglesey and it was somewhere in the west that he received
knowledge of the Christian faith from an anchorite and was baptised.
He did not however renounce his Viking-life, but joined forces with
his great Danish contemporary Svein Forkbeard. Bamborough was sacked
in 993, and both were present at the siege of London in 994, when they
sailed up the Thames with 490 ships. The attack was a failure and Olaf
came to terms with Ethelred agreeing to desist from further attack in
return for a payment of sixteen thousand pounds of Danegeld. Olaf was
the more ready to make this promise as he was now addressing himself
to the task of gaining the sovereignty of Norway itself. Many of the
Norsemen returned with Olaf but the attacks on the coast continued and
the invaders, chiefly Danes now, ravaged the country in all directions.
Treachery was rife in the English forces and again and again the
ealdormen failed in the hour of need. Danegeld after Danegeld was
paid in the vain hope of buying off further attacks, and the almost
incredible sum of 158,000 pounds of silver (i.e. some half million
sterling) was paid as Danegeld during a period of little more than 20
years. Once or twice Ethelred showed signs of energy; once in 1000 when
a fleet was sent to Chester, which ravaged the Isle of Man while an
army devastated Cumberland, and again in 1004 when a great fleet was
made ready but ultimately proved of no use. Ethelred's worst stroke
of policy was the order given in 1002 for the massacre on St Brice's
Day of all Danes settled in England. His orders were carried out only
too faithfully and among the slain was Svein's sister Gunnhild, the
wife of a Danish jarl in the king's service. Svein's vengeance was
relentless, and during the next ten years the land had no peace until
in 1013 Ethelred was driven from the throne, and Svein himself became
king of England. Svein died in 1014 and his son Cnut succeeded to his
claim. Ethelred was invited by the _witan_ to return, and ultimately
Wessex fell to Cnut, while the district of the Seven Boroughs (the old
five together with York and Chester) and Northumbria passed into the
hands of Ethelred, or rather of his energetic son Edmund. This division
of the country placing the district once settled by Danes and Norsemen
under an English king while the heart of England itself was in the
possession of a Scandinavian king shows how completely the settlers
in those districts had come to identify themselves with English
interests as a whole. Mercia was nominally in Ethelred's power, but its
ealdorman, Eadric Streona, was the most treacherous of all the English
earls. On Ethelred's death in 1016 the _witan_ chose Edmund Ironside
as king and a series of battles took place culminating in that at
Ashingdon in Essex where the English were completely defeated through
the treachery of Eadric. A division of the kingdom was now made
whereby Wessex fell to Edmund, Mercia and Northumbria to Cnut--thus
easily was the allegiance of the various districts transferred from
one sovereign to another. Edmund only lived a few months and Cnut then
became king of all England. For twenty years the land enjoyed peace
and prosperity. In 1018 the greater part of the Danish army and fleet
returned to Denmark, some forty ships and their crews sufficing Cnut
for the defence of his kingdom. During the next four years he received
the submission of the king of Scotland and made a memorable pilgrimage
to Rome. The most important event of his later years was however his
struggle with Olaf the Stout, the great St Olaf of Norway.
Norway was now entirely independent of Danish sovereignty and when Cnut
sent an embassy voicing the old claims of the Danish kings he received
a proudly independent answer from St Olaf. For the time being Cnut
had to be satisfied, but in 1025 he sailed with a fleet to Norway,
only to suffer defeat at the Battle of the Helge-aa (i.e. Holy River)
in Skaane, at the hands of the united forces of Norway and Sweden.
Three years later the attack was renewed. Olaf's strenuous and often
cruel advocacy of the cause of Christianity had alienated many of his
subjects and the Swedes had deserted their ally. The result was that
Olaf fled to Russia and Cnut was declared king of Norway. Two years
later the exile returned and fell fighting against his own countrymen.
Cnut was now the mightiest of all Scandinavian kings, but on his death
in 1035 his empire fell apart; Norway went to his son Svein, Denmark
to Harthacnut and England to Harold Harefoot. Harold was succeeded by
Harthacnut in 1040, but neither king was of the same stamp as Cnut and
they were both overshadowed by the great Godwine, earl of Wessex. When
Harthacnut died in 1042 the male line in descent from Cnut was extinct,
and though some of the Danes were in favour of choosing Cnut's sister's
son Svein, Godwine secured the election of Edward the Confessor. With
the accession of Edward Danish rule in England was at an end and,
except for the ambitious expedition of Harold Hardrada, foiled at
Stamford Bridge in 1066, there was no further serious question of a
Scandinavian kingship either in or over England.
The sufferings of England during the second period of invasion
(980-1016) were probably quite as severe as in the worst days of
Alfred--the well-known _Sermo Lupi ad Anglos_, written by Archbishop
Wulfstan of York in 1014, draws a terrible picture of the chaos and
anarchy then prevailing--but we must remember that neither these years
nor the ensuing five and thirty years of Danish kingship left as deep
a mark on England as the earlier wars and the settlements resulting
from them. There was no further permanent occupation or division
of territory and though some of the earldoms and the great estates
passed into the hands of the king's Danish followers, there was no
transformation of the whole social life of the people such as had taken
place in the old Danelagh districts.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] This phrase is used repeatedly in the Chronicle in connexion with
such towns as Bedford, Cambridge, Derby, Leicester and Northampton, and
there can be no question that these groups represent the shires which
now take their names from these towns. For purposes of convenience we
shall henceforward speak of such groups as 'shires.'
[6] See Tennyson's translation.
[7] See Freeman's _Old English History for Children_ for a translation
of this poem.