We have watched, in the dim twilight preceding the dawn of history,
the coming of the first Norsemen to the sea. They are a spirited and
fearless people, and they have chanced, if chance it is, to come to
that sea on which navigation is most hazardous and difficult. We
marvel they so quickly learn the arts of seamanship, and make the
fierce new element their dwelling place. They seem now to have reached
the country of their choice: its natural beauties kindle in their
breasts an immediate and romantic response of affection. They are
enamored of its wild haunts, its fjords and mountains, and they are
inspired by the surging fury of the storm. But we witness, after a
few centuries of comparative inaction, a strange transformation. The
whole Norse people, without concert, without occasion, becomes a nation
of wandering pirates. They urge forth their dragon ships, no matter
whither, if only they shall find new foemen or new coasts. With the
outbreak of this passion for booty and adventure we mark the beginning
of the viking-age. We then count two weary centuries of violence and
bloodshed, of plunder and conquest. A new continent is discovered and
colonized, a Danish dynasty is set up in England, a Norwegian duchy
is endowed in France. Thus we witness the decline—not in defeat, but
in triumph, not by overthrow from without, but by suppression from
within—of viking-supremacy in the West. It remains to speak of another
chapter of viking-history, enacted during this same period in the East,
and by vikings of the land.
In the ancient sagas frequent mention is made of Ostrogardia or
Garderike. This was the modern Russia, then a barbarous wilderness, and
inhabited by shifting tribes of Finns. Just at the beginning of the
historical era a new people appears—the Slavs. It is another member of
the Aryan family of nations, which has sent out already into Europe
the Celtic, the Greek, the Roman, the Gothic, and the Scandinavian;
and it is probably the last remnant of the race. These Slavs, already
divided into various tribes, move westward, take possession of the
country, and lay the foundation of the two cities of Novgorod and Kiev,
destined later to become the capitals of two Slavonic empires. Three
centuries pass. The Slavs have become attached to the home of their
choice, and are beginning to develop a civilization. But it is the day
of viking restlessness in the North, and Scandinavian rovers are moving
eastward as well as south and west. In the early Russian chronicles
we are told that in 859 A. D. a band of Varangians or Northmen, under
the leadership of Rurik, invaded the country and began to spoil the
native tribes. In due time they attack and capture Novgorod itself;
but after a brief triumph the invaders, who were but a handful, were
expelled by an uprising of the Slavs. Rurik and his followers made
haste, not to return to Sweden, but to push their way southward
through the wilderness, as many Northmen had done before. They reach
Constantinople, and are welcomed as recruits for the imperial army. The
vikings who had come before them had already won the praise and esteem
of the imperial court; and so much do the Northmen grow in favor, that
we soon find the emperor will entrust himself to no other guard of
honor than a regiment of Varangian foot.
The Slavs and Finns in Novgorod meanwhile find the blessings of freedom
harder to bear than the authority of their late conquerors. After
two years of anarchy and internal dissension they send messengers
to Constantinople, inviting the Norsemen, whom they had thrust out,
to return and resume the government. “We have a goodly country,” say
they, “and large. All we need is the strong arm to keep it orderly.
Come, then, be our princes, and rule our state.” In response to this
petition Rurik and his two brothers, Sindf and Truvor, with a large
following of Varangian families, returned to Novgorod. Here Rurik
established himself as supreme ruler; and to prevent the success of a
fresh uprising of the Slavs, invited into the country a large accession
of Varangian population. To his brothers he gave the principalities
of Bielozero and Izborsk; but they soon dying, Rurik assumed again
authority. So strong did this new Scandinavian kingdom become that we
find ere long an army raised for the storming of Constantinople. The
project was, however, abandoned, and the vikings who had planned it
contented themselves with seizing the little province of Kiev. This
also in a few years was brought under the dominion of Novgorod. Thus
was laid the foundation of the great “Empire of All the Russias.” The
bulk of the population was composed of Slavs and Finns: the nobles were
Varangians, and Rurik was the first Czar.
It was but just that the superior race thus installed in the government
of this vast region should give its name to the new nation. The
first Varangians or Swedes who traversed Russia on their way to
Constantinople had been called by the Finnish natives “_Ruotsalaiset_,”
or Russians, from the name of the district (Roden or Rosen) whence
they had come.[D] This name adhered to Rurik and his followers, and so
the whole empire came finally to be called Russia. The line of Rurik
continued to furnish Czars to the Russian throne until the death of
Feodor, in 1598.
The work of the vikings is now finished: what is its sum? Three-fourths
of the European continent has become Scandinavian, or has submitted to
Scandinavian rule: thousands of lives have been sacrificed, and perhaps
half the wealth of Europe has been plundered or destroyed. What is the
compensation? We can only look to history for the answer. Here has
been a great revolution; but revolutions are steps in human progress.
Progress always demands as its price the best the age or generation has
to give. The installation of the Goths and Teutons in Europe cost five
centuries of woe and strife,—we can now see why; for it was destined to
give the world a better civilization and a better leadership. But this
leadership could not come from the Teuton alone: he is never prompted
to enterprise in the world at large; he is never aggressive, he is
strong only at home. Why then those six generations of viking conquest
and mingling with the conquered, if not to supply this lack through the
evolution of the British nation?
That England is the leader of this Teutonic age, that she alone has
extended and is extending the borders of Teutonic influence, that it
was she who enabled Protestantism to triumph and freedom to prevail,
that it was she only who could lay the phantom of mediæval despotism
which Napoleon raised—all this is undoubted. But is her leadership
after all due to admixture of viking blood? Has she not become mistress
of the seas simply because she is encompassed by them?
But island states do not grow strong by privileges of the sea; else
would Ireland and Scotland have rivalled the power of England. Then
there is a much larger Scandinavian element in the English people than
is commonly supposed. We forget that Sweyn and Canute won England
more through the Danes who were living there already than by the aid
of new invaders from Scandinavia. We can also trace clearly in later
England the Norse disposition and character. We can find it depicted in
Chaucer’s Shipman (prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 388-410), who,
after the lapse of four centuries, is still a viking of the old sort.
We find also the old quality of defiance well perpetuated. In his work
on monarchy (written about the middle of the fifteenth century), Sir
John Fortescue thus compares the Frenchman and the Englishman: “It is
cowardice and lack of heart and courage that keepeth the Frenchman
from rising, and not poverty; which courage no Frenchman hath like to
the Englishman. It hath been often seen in England that three or four
thieves, for poverty, have set upon seven or eight true men, and robbed
them all. But it hath not been seen in France that seven or eight
thieves have been hardy to rob three or four true men. Wherefore it is
right said that no Frenchman be hanged for robbery, for that they have
no hearts to do so terrible an act. There be therefore more men hanged
in England, in a year, for robbery and manslaughter, than there be
hanged in France for such cause of crime in seven years.”
We pass now to inquire what literary monuments or record the Northmen
of the viking era have left behind them.
They wrote, as is well known, by means of an alphabet of runes. These
were sixteen in number, corresponding in value to our F, U, Th, O, R,
K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, and Y. Their origin is unknown. From the
Scandinavians they were borrowed by the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, and
though never a common means of communication, were nevertheless at one
time written and understood from Constantinople to Iceland. They are
found preserved especially in monumental inscriptions, of which we take
the following specimens from Stephens’s _Runic Monuments_, and Wimmer’s
_Runeskriftens Oprindelse_: