Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_. Other
notes may be found after the Index.
THE
NORTHMEN
IN BRITAIN
“_There is no man so high-hearted over earth, nor so good in
gifts, nor so keen in youth, nor so brave in deeds, nor so loyal
to his lord, that he may not have always sad yearning towards the
sea-faring, for what the Lord will give him there._
“_His heart is not for the harp, nor receiving of rings, nor
delight in a wife, nor the joy of the world, nor about anything
else but the rolling of the waves. And he hath ever longing who
wisheth for the Sea._”
“THE SEAFARER”
(Old English Poem).
[Illustration: _The Coming of the Northmen_]
THE NORTHMEN
IN BRITAIN
_BY_
Eleanor Hull
AUTHOR OF
‘THE POEM-BOOK OF THE GAEL’ ‘CUCHULAIN, THE HOUND OF ULSTER’
‘PAGAN IRELAND’ ‘EARLY CHRISTIAN IRELAND’
ETC.
_WITH SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY_
M. MEREDITH WILLIAMS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Turnbull & Spears, Printers, Edinburgh_
Foreword
Two great streams of Northern immigration met on the shores of Britain
during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. The Norsemen from
the deep fiords of Western Norway, fishing and raiding along the
coasts, pushed out their adventurous boats into the Atlantic, and
in the dawn of Northern history we find them already settled in the
Orkney and Shetland Isles, whence they raided and settled southward
to Caithness, Fife, and Northumbria on the east, and to the Hebrides,
Galloway, and Man on the western coast. Fresh impetus was given to
this outward movement by the changes of policy introduced by Harald
Fairhair, first king of Norway (872–933). Through him a nobler type of
emigrant succeeded the casual wanderer, and great lords and kings’ sons
came over to consolidate the settlements begun by humbler agencies.
Iceland was at the same time peopled by a similar stock. The Dane,
contemporaneously with the Norseman, came by a different route. Though
he seems to have been the first to invade Northumbria (if Ragnar
and his sons were really Danes), his movement was chiefly round the
southern shores of England, passing over by way of the Danish and
Netherland coast up the English Channel, and round to the west. Both
streams met in Ireland, where a sharp and lengthened contest was fought
out between the two nations, and where both took deep root, building
cities and absorbing much of the commerce of the country.
The viking was at first simply a bold adventurer, but a mixture of
trading and raiding became a settled practice with large numbers
of Norsemen, who, when work at home was slack and the harvest was
sown or reaped, filled up the time by pirate inroads on their own or
neighbouring lands. Hardy sailors and fearless fighters they were; and
life would have seemed too tame had it meant a continuous course of
peaceful farming or fishing. New possessions and new conquests were the
salt of life. “Biorn went sometimes on viking but sometimes on trading
voyages,” we read of a man of position in Egil’s Saga, and the same
might be said of hundreds of his fellows.
It was out of these viking raids that the Dano-Norse Kingdoms of Dublin
and Northumbria grew, the Dukedom of Normandy, and the Earldom of
Orkney and the Isles.
The Danish descents seem to have been more directly for the purpose of
conquest than those of the Norse, and they ended by establishing on
the throne of England a brief dynasty of Danish kings in the eleventh
century, remarkable only from the vigour of Canute’s reign.
The intimate connexion all through this period between Scandinavia,
Iceland, and Britain can only be realized by reading the Northern Sagas
side by side with the chronicles of Great Britain and Ireland, and it
is from Norse sources chiefly that I propose to tell the story.
Contents
THE AGE OF THE VIKINGS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE FIRST COMING OF THE NORTHMEN 11
II. THE SAGA OF RAGNAR LODBROG, OR “HAIRY-BREEKS” 15
III. THE CALL FOR HELP 22
IV. ALFRED THE GREAT 29
V. HARALD FAIRHAIR, FIRST KING OF NORWAY, AND THE
SETTLEMENTS IN THE ORKNEYS 36
VI. THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND 45
VII. THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND 52
VIII. KING ATHELSTAN THE GREAT 56
IX. THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 65
X. TWO GREAT KINGS TRICK EACH OTHER 78
XI. KING HAKON THE GOOD 82
XII. KING HAKON FORCES HIS PEOPLE TO BECOME CHRISTIANS 85
XIII. THE SAGA OF OLAF TRYGVESON 91
XIV. KING OLAF’S DRAGON-SHIPS 100
XV. WILD TALES FROM THE ORKNEYS 108
XVI. MURTOUGH OF THE LEATHER CLOAKS 117
XVII. THE STORY OF OLAF THE PEACOCK 122
XVIII. THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF 135
XIX. YULE IN THE ORKNEYS, 1014 144
XX. THE STORY OF THE BURNING 157
XXI. THINGS DRAW ON TO AN END 166
THE DANISH KINGDOM OF ENGLAND
XXII. THE REIGN OF SWEYN FORKBEARD 179
XXIII. THE BATTLE OF LONDON BRIDGE 186
XXIV. CANUTE THE GREAT 191
XXV. CANUTE LAYS CLAIM TO NORWAY 198
XXVI. HARDACANUTE 211
XXVII. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 221
XXVIII. KING HAROLD, GODWIN’S SON, AND THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD
BRIDGE 226
XXIX. KING MAGNUS BARELEGS FALLS IN IRELAND 237
XXX. THE LAST OF THE VIKINGS 244
CHRONOLOGY 249
INDEX 251
Illustrations
THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
LADGERDA 16
ALFRED AT ASHDUNE 26
HARALD FAIRHAIR 42
OLAF CUARAN 62
THOROLF SLAYS EARL HRING AT BRUNANBURH 72
THE DYING KING HAKON CARRIED TO HIS SHIP 88
KING OLAF’S “LONG SERPENT” 102
MURTOUGH ON HIS JOURNEY WITH THE KING OF MUNSTER IN FETTERS 118
“OLAF TOOK THE OLD WOMAN IN HIS ARMS” 132
DEATH OF BRIAN BORU AT CLONTARF 152
“THE VISION OF THE MAN ON THE GREY HORSE” 166
“COME THOU OUT, HOUSEWIFE,” CALLED FLOSI TO BERGTHORA 172
THE BATTLE OF LONDON BRIDGE 188
KING CANUTE AND EARL ULF QUARREL OVER CHESS 214
KING MAGNUS IN THE MARSH AT DOWNPATRICK 240
MAP
BRITISH ISLES IN THE TIME OF THE NORTHMEN 176
Authorities
For the Sagas of the Norwegian Kings: _Snorri Sturleson’s
Heimskringla, or Sagas of the Kings of Norway_. Translated by S.
Laing and by W. Morris and E. Magnüsson
For Ragnar Lodbrog: _Saxo Grammaticus_ and _Lodbrog’s Saga_
For Ragnar Lodbrog’s Death Song: _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_. Vigfusson
and York Powell
For the Orkneys: _Orkneyinga Saga_
For the Battle of Brunanburh: _Egil Skallagrimson’s Saga_. Translated
by W. C. Green
For the Story of Olaf the Peacock and Unn the Deep-minded: _Laxdæla
Saga_. Translated by Mrs Muriel Press
For the Story of the Burning: _Nial’s Saga_. Translated by G. W.
Dasent
For the Battle of Clontarf: _Wars of the Gael and Gall_. Edited by
J. H. Todd; _Nial’s Saga_, and _Thorstein’s Saga_
For Murtough of the Leather Cloaks: The bard Cormacan’s Poem. Edited
by J. O’Donovan (Irish Arch. Soc.)
_English Chronicles_: The English Chronicle; William of Malmesbury’s,
Henry of Huntingdon’s, Florence of Worcester’s Chronicles;
Asser’s _Life of Alfred_
_Irish Chronicles_: Annals of the Four Masters; of Ulster; _Chronicum
Scotorum_; Three Fragments of Annals, edited by J. O’Donovan
I desire to thank Mrs Muriel Press and Mr W. C. Green for kind
permission to make use of portions of their translations of Laxdæla and
Egil’s Sagas; also Mr W. G. Collingwood for his consent to my adoption
in my map of some of his boundaries from a map published in his
_Scandinavian Britain_ (S.P.C.K.); and to the Secretary of the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge for giving his sanction to
this.
The Northmen in Britain
THE AGE OF THE VIKINGS
Chapter I
The First Coming of the Northmen
The first actual descent of the Northmen is chronicled in England under
the year 787, and in Ireland, upon which country they commenced their
descents about the same time, under the year 795; but it is likely,
not only that they had visited and raided the coasts before this, but
had actually made some settlements in both countries. The Ynglinga
Saga tells us that Ivar Vidfadme or “Widefathom” had taken possession
of a fifth part of England, _i.e._ Northumbria, before Harald Fairhair
ruled in Norway, or Gorm the Old in Denmark; that is to say, before
the history of either of these two countries begins. Ivar Vidfadme
is evidently Ivar the Boneless, son of Ragnar Lodbrog, who conquered
Northumbria before the reign of Harald Fairhair. There are traces of
them even earlier, for a year after the first coming of the Northmen
to Northumbria mentioned in the English annals we find that they
called a synod at a place named Fingall, or “Fair Foreigners,” the
name always applied to the Norse in our Irish and sometimes in our
English chronicles. Now a place would not have been so named unless
Norse people had for some time been settled there, and we may take it
for granted that Norse settlers had made their home in Northumbria at
some earlier period. We find, too, at quite an early time, that Norse
and Irish had mingled and intermarried in Ireland, forming a distinct
race called the Gall-Gael, or “Foreigners and Irish,” who had their
own fleets and armies; and it is said that on account of their close
family connexion many of the Christian Irish forsook their religion
and relapsed into the paganism of the Norse who lived amongst them. We
shall find, as we go on in the history, that generally the contrary
was the case, and that contact with Christianity in these islands
caused many Norse chiefs and princes to adopt our faith; indeed, it was
largely through Irish and English influence that Iceland and Norway
became Christian. Though we may not always approve of the way in which
this was brought about, the fact itself is interesting.
The first settlers in Iceland were Irish hermits, who took with them
Christian books, bells, and croziers, and the first Christian church
built on the island was dedicated to St Columba, the Irish founder of
the Scottish monastery of Iona, through whom Christianity was brought
to Scotland.
Yet there is no doubt that the coming of the Northmen was looked
upon with dread by the English, and there is a tone of terror in
the first entry in the chronicles of their arrival upon the coast.
This entry is so important that we will give it in the words of
one of the old historians: “Whilst the pious King Bertric [King of
Wessex] was reigning over the western parts of the English, and the
innocent people spread through the plains were enjoying themselves
in tranquillity and yoking their oxen to the ploughs, suddenly there
arrived on the coast a fleet of Danes, not large, but of three ships
only: this was their first arrival. When this became known, the King’s
officer, who was already stopping in the town of Dorchester, leaped on
his horse and galloped forwards with a few men to the port, thinking
that they were merchants rather than enemies, and commanding them in an
authoritative tone, ordered them to go to the royal city; but he was
slain on the spot by them, and all who were with him.”[1]
This rude beginning was only a forecast of what was to follow. We hear
of occasional viking bands arriving at various places on the coast
from Kent to Northumbria, and ravaging wherever they appeared. At
first they seem to have wandered round the coast without thought of
remaining anywhere, but about sixty years after their first appearance
(in 851), we find them settling on the warmer and more fertile lands
of England during the winter, though they were off again when the
summer came, foraging and destroying. This became a regular habit
with these visitors, and led gradually to permanent settlements,
especially in Northumbria. The intruders became known as “the army,”
and the appearance of “the army” in any district filled the inhabitants
with terror. Our first definite story of the Northmen in England is
connected with the appearance of “the army” in Yorkshire A.D. 867. We
learn from the English chronicles that violent internal discord was
troubling Northumbria at this time. The king of the Northumbrians was
Osbert, but the people had risen up and expelled him, we know not for
what reason,[2] and had placed on the throne a man named Ælla, “not of
royal blood,” who seems to have been the leader of the people.
Just at this moment, when the country was most divided, the dreaded
pagan army advanced over the mouth of the Humber from the south-east
into Yorkshire. In this emergency all classes united for the common
defence, and we find Osbert, the dethroned king, nobly marching side
by side with his rival to meet the Northmen. Hearing that a great army
was approaching, the Northmen shut themselves up within the walls of
York, and attempted to defend themselves behind them. The Northumbrians
succeeded in making a breach in the walls and entering the town;
but, inspired by fear and necessity, the pagans made a fierce sally,
cutting down their foes on all sides, inside and outside the walls
alike. The city was set on fire, those who escaped making peace with
the enemy. From that time onward the Northmen were seldom absent from
Northumbria. York became one of their chief headquarters, and the
constant succession of Norse ships along the coast gradually brought a
considerable influx of Norse inhabitants to that part of England. It
became, in fact, a viking kingdom, under the sons of Ragnar Lodbrog,
whose story we have now to tell. This was in the time of the first
Ethelred, when Alfred the Great was about twenty years of age. Ethelred
was too much occupied in warring with the pagans in the South of
England to be able to give any aid to the Northumbrians.