BOOK IV. year, and the seas were burdened with ever-succeeding fleets of such greedy and ruthless savages. It was the lot of Ragnar to have a numerous posterity 47, and all his passions were infused into his children, whom he educated to be sea-kings like himself. But as our history is concerned with his English exploits only, we will state them from his Quida, in its own language, and in the succession in which they are there placed. The Quida begins with Ragnar's attempt on Gothland, by which he obtained his wife Thora. This expedition, and others in Eyra-sound, or the Baltic; at the mouth of the Dwina; at Helsingia, in the bay of Finland; and against Herrauthr, his wife's father; at Scarpey, in Norway; at Uller Akri, near Upsal; at the Indoro Isles, in the bay of Drontheim; and on the island of Bornholm, occupy the first nine stanzas. After these exploits the sea-king comes nearer to the British shores, and begins his southern ravages with an attack on Flanders. This is followed by a bold invasion of England, in which he boasts of the death of the Anglo-Saxon Walthiofr. We hewed with our swords Hundreds, I declare lay Round the horses of the Island-rocks, At the English promontory. We sailed to the battle Six days before the hosts fell. We chanted the mass of the spears With the uprising sun. Destiny was with our swords: Walthiofr fell in the tumult.48 Conflicts at Perth, and on the Orkneys, are then exultingly sung: another occurs afterwards in England. 47 According to Saxo, he had ten sons by his three wives, p. 169, 170. 172. The Ragnar Saga, ap. Torfæus, 346, 347., gives their mothers differently from Saxo, 49 Lod. Quid. St. 11. John. p. 14. Hard came the storm on the shield On that morning was there Was it not as when the young widow Exploits at the Hebrides; in Ireland, at another coast, where "the thorn of the sheath glided to the heart of Agnar," his son; at the Isle of Sky; and in the bay of Ila, on the Scottish coast, are triumphantly narrated. Another stanza follows, which seems to make Lindisfarne the locality of the battle: We had the music of swords in the morning For our sport at Lindis-eyri With three kingly heroes. Many fell into the jaws of the wolf; The hawk plucked the flesh with the wild beasts; Few ought therefore to rejoice That they came safe from the battle. Ira's blood into the sea Profusely fell; into the clear wave.50 He next records his expedition on the British isle of Anglesey: The swords bit the shields; Red with gold resounded The steel on the clothes of Hillda. They shall see on Aungol's Eyri, In the ages hereafter, How we to the appointed play Of heroes advanced. Red were on the distant cape The flying dragons of the river that gave wounds.51 After two stanzas of eulogy on battles, he begins to commemorate his disastrous change of fortunes, and avows that it was unexpected to him: It seems to me, from experience, That we follow the dercees of the fates. 49 St. 15. p. 18. 51 St. 21. p. 24. 50 St. 20. p. 24. CHAP. BOOK IV. Few escape the statutes of the natal goddesses. But he consoles himself with his belief in his mythology: It delights me continually That the seats of Baldor's father In the mansions of dread Fiolner. pagan He animates his spirit as the adders sting him, with the remembrance of his children, as if he anticipated their fierce revenge for his sufferings: His strength decreases as he sings: he feels advancing death, yet seems to catch a gleam of pleasure from the hopes of the vengeance which his children. will inflict: 52 St. 24. p. 28. 53 St. 25. p. 28. 54 We have a specimen of the traditions of the Norwegians concerning this lady, in Torfæus. He says that in Spangareid, an isthmus in Norway, the greatest part of her history remains uncorrupted. The people of this region relate from the accounts of their ancestors, that a golden harp came on shore in a small bay near them, on which was found a little girl. She was brought up; afterwards kept sheep; became famed for her beauty; married a Danish king, and was called Otlauga. They show a hill, called Otlauga's hill. The bay is named Gull-Siken, or golden bay; and the stream near this is called Kraakabecker, or the rivulet of Kraaka. Torf. ser. Reg. p. 35. Kraka was one of this lady's prior names. 55 St. 26. p. 30. The recollection of his own exploits gives a momentary impulse of new vigour, and the number announces the ferocious activity of his sea-king life: Fifty and one times have I Call'd the people to the appointed battles Little do I believe that of men There will be any King, more famous than ourself. When young I grasped and reddened my spear. The Esir must invite us; 57 I will die without a groan."7 As the fatal instant presses on, he rouses himself to expire with those marks of exultation which it was the boast of this fierce race to exhibit: We desire this end. The Disir goddesses invite me home; As if from the hall of him rejoicing in spoils, From Odin, sent to me. Glad shall I with the Asæ Drink ale in my lofty seat. The hours of my life glide away, The sovereign that arose with sufficient ability to meet and change the crisis which these new habits of the Scandinavian nations were bringing on Europe, was Alfred the Great, the son of Ethelwulph, and grandson of Egbert. 56 St. 27. p. 30. 57 St. 28. p. 32. 58 St. 29. p. 32. Torfæus supposes two other Lodbrogs. I am not sure that he is not dividing the same person into three parts. But it is clear that the Ragnar Lodbrog, the subject of the Quida, is the person whom Ella of Northumbria destroyed between 862 and 867, and whose children, in revenge, executed that invasion which destroyed the octarchy of England, and dethroned Alfred for a time. СНАР. BOOK Ethel wulph's CHAP. IV. The Reign of ETHELWULPH.-Invasion of the Northmen.-Birth of ALFRED the Great. - His Travels. position. ETHELWULPH's De THE death of Egbert, in 836, checked for a while IV. the ascendancy of the West Saxon power, because 836-856. his sceptre descended to an inferior hand in his son Ethelwulph. This prince, who from the failure of education. other issue became his successor, was then a monk. Educated in the earlier part of his life by Helmstan the bishop of Winchester, he had shared at first in his father's warlike toils. In 823, he had marched with Alstan into Kent after the defeat of Mercia, and was appointed by his father king of that country 1, but the passive timidity of his disposition alienated him from an ambitious life, and he returned to his preceptor, who recommended him to the care of Swithin, a prior of the monastery at Winchester. From Swithin the prince received not only instruction, but also the monastic habit, and by his first master was appointed a sub-deacon.2 The quiet seclusion which Ethelwulph's slow capacity and meek temper coveted, was not refused to him by Egbert, because another son promised to perpetuate his lineage. But life is a mysterious gift, 66 There is a charter of Egbert, dated 823, in which he says of Ethelwulph, quem regem constituimus in Cantia." Thorpe, Reg. Roff. p. 22. 2 Rudborne, Hist. Mag. Winton. lib. iii. c. 1. p. 199., published in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol. i.-Malmsbury Pontiff. p. 242. Wallingf. 532. No good document authorises us to say that he was made a bishop. 3 The expressions of the chroniclers are in general mere negatives, implying that Egbert left no other heir; but the extract which Leland has translated, ex Chronico quodam Vilodunensi Anglicis rithmis scripto, explicitly says, Atwulphus rex Egberti filius secundus. Collectanea, voi. iii. p. 219. |