si REFERENCE \n U BRARV LIBRARIES 3 3333 REFERENOB C V\ J ' TOB CmRATCHMPM^fRbm DONNSLL LIB2MY CENTER 20 WEST 53 STREET HEW YORK, N.Y. 10019 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 any- thing else but the rolling of the waves. And he hath ever longing who wishethfor the Sea." " THE SEAFARER " (Old English Poem). PUELLJ L A"") TILDES FOU!; / , Tin- duiiim: of I In' .\in-ilunfn 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 BT M. MEREDITH WILLIAMS NEW YORK Y: C&QWELl,' COMPANY THOMAS' - . , i .- j FUBt.aiSiH.ERS , . .,...., , . Tiu-nbull , ,Ptittrf,Jidi>iburgh V\ Foreword great streams of Northern immigration met on the shores of Britain during the ninth, I 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 south- ward 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 his sons the first to invade Northumbria (if Ragnar and 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 V,he wesL Bo1;h streams met in " Ireland, where a ghat-p and lengthened contest was fought out between the two- nations, and where both , 13 , U 6 The Northmen in Britain 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 life too fighters they were ; and would have seemed 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 Duke- dom 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 OP 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 The Northmen in Britain CHAP. PAGE \\ 111. THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF .... 135 XIX. VILE IN THE ORKNEYS, 1014 .... 144 XX. THE STORY OF THE BURNING .... l-">7 XXI. THINGS DRAW ON TO AN ENI> . Hi'! THE DANISH KINGDOM OF ENGLAND XXII. THE REIGN OF SWEYN FORKBEARD . 179 XXIII. TIIK BATTLE OF LONDON BRIDGE . XXIV. CANUTE THE GREAT ..... 191 XXV. CANUTE LAYS CLAIM TO NORWAY . 198 XXVI. HARDACANUTE . .211 XXVI I. 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 PAOR 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 KlNG 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 HORSED . 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 <>f the Norwegian Kings: Snorri Hlurfcsun'x Hriins- bring/a, or .V</if</.v of tin- Kings of \ni~t cui/. Translated by S. I.aingand by W. Morris and K. Magniisson For Kagnar Lodbrog : Sa.ro GrammattCtU and lA>dl>n>g'.<! Saga For Itagnar I.odbrog's Death Song: Cor/ins Poeticuin llnrmlc. Vigfusson and York Powell For the Orkneys : Orkneyinga Saga For the Battle of Brunanburh : Egil SkaUagnmton t Saga. Translated hv \V. C. Green For the Story of Olaf the Peacock and Unn the Deep-minded : I.a.nl/rld Translated Mrs Muriel Press .SV/^'rt. by For the Story of the Burning : dial's .SV/<j. Translated by G. W. Dasent For the Battle of Clontarf: Wars of Ihe Gael and Gall. Edited AV<//'.v 'I'linrstcin's by J. H. Todil ; Sa^n, and Saga For Murtough of the Leather Cloaks: The bard Cormacan's Poem. Edited by J. O'Donovan (Irish Arch. Soc.) Chronicles: The Chronicle William of English English ; Malmes- bury's, Henry of Huntingdon's, Florence of Worcester's Chronicles; Asser's Life oj Alfred Irish Chronicles: Annals of the Four Masters ; of Ulster; Chroni- cuni Scolorum Three of edited ; Fragments Annals, 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 Laxda-la and Egil's Sagas; also Mr W. (J. Collingwood for his consent to inv adoption in mv map of some of his boundaries from a map published in his Scandinavian lirilnin (S.P.C. K.); and to the Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge for giving his sanction to this. 10 The Northmen in Britain THE AGE OF THE VIKINGS Chapter I The First Coming of the Northmen first actual descent of the Northmen is chronicled in England under the year 787, and in 1 Ireland, upon which country they commenced under the their descents about the same time, 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 in that is to before the of Old Denmark ; say, history 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 Fin- " gall, or Fair Foreigners," the name always applied to 11 12 The Northmen in Britain 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.