THE

II

WHEN THE VIKINGS CAME

HE American antiquarians of the middle of the nineteenth century had a great dislike to anything vague or legendary, and they used to rejoice that there was nothing of that sort about the discovery of America. The history of other parts of the world, they said, might begin in myth and tradition, but here at least was firm ground, a definite starting-point, plain outlines, and no vague and shadowy romance. Yet they were destined to be disappointed, and it may be that nothing has been lost, after all. Our low American shores would look tame and uninteresting but for the cloud and mist which are perpetually trailing in varied beauty above them, giving a constant play of purple light and pale shadow, and making them deserve the name given to such shores by the old Norse legends, "Wonderstrands." It is the same, perhaps, with our early history. It may be fitting that the legends of the Northmen should come in, despite all the resistance of antiquarians, to supply just that indistinct and vague element which is needed for picturesqueness. At any rate, whether we like it or not, the legends are here.

I can well remember, as a boy, the excitement produced among Harvard College professors when the

ponderous volume called Antiquitates Americanæ, containing the Norse legends of "Vinland," with the translations of Professor Rafn, made its appearance on the library table. For the first time the claim was openly made that there had been European visitors to this continent before Columbus. The historians shrank from the innovation: it spoiled their comfort. Indeed, George Bancroft would hardly allude to the subject, and set aside the legends, using a most inappropriate phrase, as "mythological." And it so happened, as will appear by-and-by, that when the claim was first made it was encumbered with some very poor arguments. Nevertheless, the main story was not permanently hurt by these weak points. Its truth has never been successfully impeached; at any rate, we cannot deal completely with American history unless we give some place to the Norse legends. Picturesque and romantic in themselves, they concern men in whom we have every reason to be interested. These Northmen, or Vikings, were not a far-away people with whom we have nothing in common, but they really belonged to the self-same race of men with most of ourselves. They were, perhaps, the actual ancestors of some living Americans, and kinsfolk to the majority. Men of the same race conquered England, and were known as Saxons; then conquered France, and were known as Normans; and finally crossed over from France and conquered England again. These Norse Vikings were, like most of us, Scandinavians, and so were really closer to us in blood and in language than was the great Columbus.

What were the ways and manners of these Vikings? We must remember at the outset that their name

implies nothing of royalty. They were simply the dwellers on a vik, or bay. They were, in other words, the sea-side population of the Scandinavian peninsula, the only part of Europe which then sent forth a race of sea-rovers. They resembled in some respects the Algerine corsairs of a later period, but, unlike the Algerines, they were conquerors as well as pirates, and were ready to found settlements whereever they went. Nor were the Vikings yet Christians, for their life became more peaceful from the time when Christianity came among them. In the prime of their heathenism they were the terror of Europe. They carried their forays along the whole coast. They entered the ports of England, and touched at the islands on the Scottish coast. They sailed up French rivers, and Charlemagne, the ruler of western Europe, was said to have wept at seeing their dark ships. They reached the Mediterranean, and formed out of their own number the famous Varangian guard of the later Greek emperors, the guard which is described by Walter Scott in Count Robert of Paris. They reached Africa, which they called "Saracens' Land," and there took eighty castles. All their booty they sent back to Norway, and this wealth included not only what they took from enemies, but what they had from the very courts they served; for it was the practice at Constantinople, when an emperor died, for the Norse guard to go through the palaces and take whatever they could hold in their hands. To this day Greek and Arabic gold coins and chains may be found in the houses of the Norwegian peasants, or seen in the museums of Christiania and Copenhagen.

Such were the Vikings, and it is needless to say that

with such practices they were in perpetual turmoil at home, and needed a strong hand to keep the peace among them. Sometimes a king would make a foray among his own people, as recorded in this extract from the Heimskringla, or Kings of Norway, written by Snorri Sturleson, and translated by Laing:

"King Harald heard that the Vikings, who were in the West Sea in winter, plundered far and wide in the middle part of Norway, and therefore every summer he made an expedition to search the isles and outskerries [outlying rocks] on the coast. Wheresoever the Vikings heard of him they all took to flight, and most of them out into the open ocean. At last the king grew weary of this work, and therefore one summer he sailed with his fleet right out into the West Sea. First he came to Shetland, and he slew all the Vikings who could not save themselves by flight. Then King Harald sailed southward to the Orkney Islands, and cleared them all of Vikings. Thereafter he proceeded to the Hebrides, plundered there, and slew many Vikings who formerly had had men-at-arms under them. Many a battle was fought, and King Harald was always victorious. He then plundered far and wide in Scotland itself, and had a battle there."

We see from the last sentence that King Harald himself was but a stronger Viking, and that, after driving away other plunderers, he did their work for himself. Such were all the Norsemen of the period; they were daring, generous, open - handed. They called gold in their mythology "the serpent's bed,' and called a man who was liberal in giving “a hater of the serpent's bed," because such a man parts with gold as with a thing he hates. But they were cruel, treacherous, unscrupulous. Harald, when he commanded the emperor's body-guard at Constantinople and was associated with Greek troops, always left his allies to fight for themselves and be defeated, and

only fought where his Norsemen could fight alone and get all the glory. While seeming to defend the Emperor Michael, he enticed him into his power and put out his eyes. The Norse chronicles never condemn such things; there is never a voice in favor of peace or mercy; but they assume, as a matter of course, that a leader will be foremost in attack and last in retreat. In case of need he must give his life for his men. There is no finer touch in Homer than is found in one of the sagas which purport to describe the Norse voyages to Vinland. It must be remembered, in order to understand it, that the Northmen believed that certain seas were infested with the teredo, or ship-worm, and that vessels in those seas were in the very greatest danger.

"Bjarni Grimalfson was driven with his ship into the Irish Ocean, and they came into a worm-sea, and straightway began the ship to sink under them. They had a boat which was smeared with seal oil, for the sea-worms do not attack that. They went into the boat, and then saw that it could not hold them all. Then said Bjarni: 'Since the boat cannot give room to more than the half of our men, it is my counsel that lots should be drawn for those to go in the boat, for it shall not be according to rank.' This thought they all so high-minded an offer that no one would speak against it. They then did so that lots were drawn, and it fell upon Bjarni to go in the boat, and the half of the men with him, for the boat had not room for more. But when they had gotten into the boat, then said an Icelandic man who was in the ship, and had come with Bjarni from Iceland, 'Dost thou intend, Bjarni, to separate from me here?' Bjarni answered, 'So it turns out.' Then said the other, ‘Very different was thy promise to my father when I went with thee from Iceland than thus to abandon me, for thou saidst that we should both share the same fate.' Bjarni replied: 'It shall not be thus. Go thou down into the boat, and I will go up into the ship, since I see that thou art so