for a long time at Athelney, in Somersetshire; and near Eddington he again beat the Danes. In the neighbourhood of Athelney, Alfred also induced Gudrun (Gorm), the king of the Danish Vikings, to receive baptism. The oppressed inhabitants were in these parts scarcely ever free from the devastating attacks of the Vikings and conquerors. The Danes frequently established themselves in castles near the coast, as at Exeter, in Devonshire; Dorchester and Wareham, in Dorsetshire; Winchester, in Hampshire; and Chichester, in Sussex. At Southampton, in Hampshire, and under the Isle of Wight, they generally wintered with large fleets. Thence they made incursions into the land of the Anglo-Saxons; and if they could not entirely expel them, and colonize the south of England in their stead, they at least endeavoured to weaken and exhaust it as much as possible.

On the whole, it would not have been very easy for the Danes to settle themselves entirely in any parts of the south, or south-west, of England; not even on the coasts near the harbours, though regularly visited by the ships of the Norwegian Vikings. The inhabitants in these parts were mostly of pure Saxon descent, and consequently already prejudiced against the Danes, on account of the old disputes between the Scandinavian and Saxon races; at all events, they somewhat differed from the Danes in character, manners, and customs. These districts were, besides, too remote from Denmark; and in case of an attack from the Anglo-Saxons, which might naturally be expected to take place, assistance might come too late. The Danes were not so safe there as on the east coast of England, which lay opposite to Jutland, and where, if any danger threatened them, a ship could easily be sent with a message to their friends over the sea, so that, with a tolerably favourable wind, a strong fleet could be speedily brought within sight of the AngloSaxons. The Angles, whose descendants inhabited these eastern and northern districts, seem too, with regard to language and national manners, to have borne a greater

resemblance to the Danes than the inhabitants of any other part of England, so that it was by no means difficult for the Danes speedily to amalgamate with them. In addition to this, the eastern coasts offered much the same allurements to the Danes as the more southern provinces. They were remarkable for their fertility and for the riches of their inhabitants, acquired as well by agriculture as by trade with Saxony, Belgium, and Gaul. Precisely on the east coast, indeed, were situated at that time some of the largest commercial towns in England.

It is not surprising, therefore, that, with the exception of London and its environs, there are not found in the south of England, as is the case farther north, many names of places of well-defined Danish or Norwegian origin, which have preserved the old northern forms down to the present day, and which thus clearly testify that a genuine Scandinavian population must long have lived there. It is only at the extremities of the coasts that an occasional promontory, or "Næs," and small islands whose names end in ey and holm, remind one of the Northmen: as Flatholmes (Dan., Fladholmene) and Steepholmes in the Severn, where there are said to be remains of Danish fortifications; Grasholm (Dan., Græsholm), to the west of Pembrokeshire; Bardsey, west of Caernarvonshire; Priestholm (Dan., Præsteholm), near the northern inlet of the Menai Straits; and several others.

In the south of England one cannot discover any striking resemblance to the Danes either in the language, features, or frame of body of the people. What they have chiefly left behind them here is a name, which will certainly never be entirely eradicated from the people's memory. Centuries after the Danish dominion was overthrown in England, the dread of the Danes was handed down from one generation to another, and even to this day they occupy a considerable share in the remembrance of the English nation. Throughout England the common people-nay, even a great number of the more educated

classes-know of no other inhabitants of the north of Europe than "the Danes;" and as they include under this name both Swedes and Norwegians, the idea of the unity of Scandinavia has unconsciously taken root amongst them. That they have so implicitly awarded the first place in Scandinavia to the Danes, has not originated solely from the fact that, anciently, the Danes were really regarded as the leading people in the north-whence also the old Norwegian language was often called "dönsk tunga" (Danish tongue); nor because the Danes at that time undoubtedly exercised a more important influence on the British Isles than the other inhabitants of the north: it may, likewise, have arisen from the circumstance that, partly in consequence of its situation, Denmark has continued to stand, even down to our time, in much closer relations both of peace and war with England, than Sweden has; and that the separation of Norway from Denmark is still too recent an event to have completely penetrated to the knowledge of the less informed part of the English people. Even had the remembrance of the Danes in England lain slumbering there, such events as the battle in Copenhagen roads in 1801, and the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, must at once have brought all the old tales respecting the doings of the Danes in England to the lips of the English people.

Legends about "the Danes" are very much disseminated among the people, even in the south of England. There is scarce a parish that has not in some way or another preserved the remembrance of them. Sometimes they are recorded to have burnt churches and castles, and to have destroyed towns, whose inhabitants were put to the sword; sometimes they are said to have burnt or cut down forests; here are shown the remains of large earthen mounds and fortifications which they erected; there, again, places are pointed out where bloody battles were fought with them. To this must be added the names of places; as, the Danes-walls, the Danish forts, the Dane-field, the

Dane-forest, the Danes-banks, and many others of the like kind. Traces of Danish castles and ramparts are not only found in the southern and south-eastern parts of England, but also quite in the south-west, in Devonshire and Cornwall, where, under the name of Castelton Danis, they are particularly found on the sea coast. In the chalk cliffs, near Uffington, in Berkshire, is carved an enormous figure of a horse, more than 300 feet in length; which, the common people say, was executed in commemoration of a victory that King Alfred gained over the Danes in that neighbourhood. On the heights, near Eddington, were shown not long since the entrenchments, which, it was asserted, the Danes had thrown up in the battle with Alfred. On the plain near Ashdon, in Essex, where it was formerly thought that the battle of Ashingdon had taken place, are to be seen some large Danish barrows, which were long, but erroneously, said to contain the bones of the Danes who had fallen in it. The so-called dwarfalder (Sambucus ebulus), which has red buds, and bears red berries, is said in England to have germinated from the blood of the fallen Danes. It is therefore also called Daneblood and Danewort, and flourishes principally in the neighbourhood of Warwick; where it is said to have sprung from, and been dyed by, the blood shed there, when Canute the Great took and destroyed the town.

Monuments, the origin of which is in reality unknown, are, in the popular traditions, almost constantly attributed to the Danes. If the spade or the plough brings ancient arms and pieces of armour to light, it is rare that the labourer does not suppose them to have belonged to that people. But particularly if bones or joints of unusual size are found, they are at once concluded to be the remains of the gigantic Danes, whose immense bodily strength and never-failing courage had so often inspired their forefathers with terror. For though the Englishman has stories about the cruelties of the ancient Danes, their

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barbarousness, their love of drinking, and other vices, he has still preserved no slight degree of respect for Danish bravery and Danish achievements. "As brave as a Dane" is said to have been an old phrase in England; just as "to strike like a Dane was, not long since, a proverb at Rome. Even in our days Englishmen readily acknowledge that the Danes are "the best sailors on the Continent;" nay even that, themselves of course excepted, they are "the best and bravest sailors in all the world." It is, therefore, doubly natural that English legends should dwell with singular partiality on the memorials of the Danes' overthrow. Even the popular ballads revived and glorified the victories of the English. Down to the very latest times was heard in Holmesdale, in Surrey, on the borders of Kent, a song about a battle which the Danes had lost there in the tenth century.

Amidst the many memorials of "the bloody Danes," the name of Canute the Great lives in glorious remembrance amongst the English people. It is significant that later times have ascribed to Canute the honour of important public undertakings for the common benefit, which, however, at most, he can only have continued and forwarded. In the once marshy districts towards the middle of the east coast of England, there is a ditch several miles long, called the Devil's dyke (in Cambridgeshire), the formation of which is by some attributed to Canute, although it existed in the time of Edward the Elder. Canute's name is also given to a very long road over the morasses near Peterborough (Kinges or Cnutsdelfe), although it was made before his reign. Canute's name is also preserved in Canewdon (Canuti domus), near London, and close by the battle-field of Ashingdon, in Essex, where he is said to have frequently resided. In like manner a bird, said to have been brought into England from Denmark, has been called after him Knot (Lat., Tringa Canutus seu Islandica).