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tions. The hostile and dangerous neighbourhood of the Saxons naturally compelled them to coalesce together as much as possible; and for a very long period they formed the chief support of the Danish power in England. Protected by them from all attacks from the south, the Scandinavian settlers were enabled securely to continue establishing themselves in the more northern districts. To arrest the sudden attacks of the Britons in the west, the Danes also had, on the north-eastern frontier of Wales, the city of Chester, whose name (Anglo-Saxon, Lægeceaster, from the Latin castra, a camp) shows that it had been a fortified place still earlier, under the Romans.

Chester formed one of the principal entrances from Wales into the midland parts of England, as well as into what was then called Northumberland: under which name was comprised, at least by the Danes and Norwegians, all the country to the north of the rivers Mersey and Humber, from sea to sea, and up to the Scottish frontier. Covered by the "Five Burghs," it was here that the greater part of Danish England lay. It was a country filled, particularly in the north-west, with mountains, and intersected by numerous rivers. Near these, valleys opened themselves in every direction, of which the largest and most considerable lay around the tributary streams of the Humber, in what is now Yorkshire. A separate kingdom had existed here from the oldest times; and here the Danes, like the Britons, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxons before them, possessed the most important city in the north of England. Built on the river Ouse, which falls into the Humber, it carried on an extensive trade; and, as the principal seat of the Northumbrian kings and chiefs, was doubly important. The Britons called it "Caer Eabhroig," or Eabhruc," the Romans " Eboracum," the Anglo-Saxons Eoforwic," and the Danes "" Jorvik;" whence it is plain that the form "York," now in use, is derived.

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The Humber and York were for the north of England much what the Thames and London were for the south.

It is not therefore surprising that York came to possess within its walls the largest and most splendid cathedral in England, which still towers aloft, a proud and awe-inspiring monument of the power and religious enthusiasm of the middle ages; nor that the history of York comprises, so to speak, the whole of that of Northumberland.

The soil of south England received the dust of the Christian Danish kings, and of Canute the Great, the hero of Christendom. But the north of England held the bones of many a mighty Danish chieftain, who had never renounced his belief in the ancient gods; and, in the neighbourhood of York, one of the most renowned of heathen heroes, King Regner Lodbrog, met his death. The names of Regner and his sons were reverenced and feared in England from their earlier Viking expeditions. When about to invade England, he suffered shipwreck, and together with only a few of his men saved himself on the coast of Northumberland. The Saxon king, Ella, advanced against him from York; a battle ensued, and, after the bravest resistance, Regner was overcome and made a prisoner. With true northern pride he would not make himself known to Ella, who caused him to be thrown into a pen filled with snakes; and it was not till the dying Regner had sung his swan's-song, "Grynte vilde Grisene, kjendte de Galtens Skjebne" (How the young pigs would grunt if they knew the old boar's fate), that Ella too late observed to his terror that he had exposed himself to the fearful vengeance of the king's sons; who, guided by the shrewd Ivar Beenlöse, had long been silently preparing for the conquest of Ella's kingdom. Ella was vanquished and made prisoner; and, according to the Norwegian legend, Regner's sons, to avenge their father's miserable death, caused a blood-eagle to be carved on Ella's back. The place of Ella's death is said by some to have been near the town of "Ellescroft," or Ella's Grave. The English accounts make Regner's sons, Ingvar and Ubbe, revenge their father's death in the year 870, by

murdering in a most horrible manner King Edmund (who was afterwards canonized) at the castle of Eglesdon, in East Anglia. They shot at him as at a mark, then cut off his head, and lastly laid the body among thorns, in the same forest where their father had been put to death.

Ivar Beenlöse (the Boneless) succeeded to the kingdom of Northumberland after Ella; where also such names of subsequent kings as Sigtryg, Regnald, Godfred, Anlaf (Olaf), and Heric (Erik), unmistakably show their Scandinavian origin. In Olaf's time, at the beginning of the tenth century, the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstane (Adelsteen) succeeded in subjecting Northumberland, whilst Denmark and Norway, as before-mentioned, were prevented by internal distractions from sending any effectual assistance to the Danes in England. Olaf fled to Ireland, and Godfred to Scotland, to assemble the Scandinavian warriors in those parts, and Athelstane in the mean time destroyed the Danish castle in York. It is related that Olaf returned with more than six hundred ships, and again took possession of York. He had with him a great number of Northmen and Danes from Ireland and Scotland, together with a great many Celtic Cymri and Britons, and the Scottish King Constantine was also in his army. Athelstane and this brother Edmund arrayed a mighty force against them at Brunanborg (Bromford?), where, in the year 937, a battle was fought; which, though unfavourable to the Danes, afforded the old northern bards matter for enthusiastic song, of which the Sagas have still preserved some remains. Subsequently a treaty with King Edmund, in 941, gave Olaf the dominion over the country east and north of Watlinga-Stræt; but the dispute soon broke out afresh. After the death of the Northumbrian King Erik in 951, Northumberland ceased to be a kingdom. From this time it became an earldom (Jarledömme), which was, however, for the most part, almost entirely independent of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and governed by Norwegian chieftains. For a long time it constantly received fresh inha

bitants from the mother countries, Denmark and Norway. Many Norwegians came over; nay, even the King Erik just mentioned may possibly have been the renowned Norwegian King Erik Blodöxe, a son of Harald Haarfager, the first absolute sovereign of Norway. After the death of Harald, Erik became chief sovereign in Norway; but he and his queen, the notorious Gunhilde, ruled here with so much cruelty, that the Norwegians gave Erik the surname of Blodöxe (Blood-axe). Driven from his kingdom, he at length repaired to Northumberland, where King Athelstane is said to have made him a tributary king, and where, after many vicissitudes of fortune, he met his death.

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Between the Northumbrian Jarledömme-whence the dignity of the Northern "Jarls" began to extend itself to the rest of England, which has still preserved it in the title of "Earl' as well as between the Danish part of England and the proper kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons in general, disputes must naturally have prevailed of a more or less sanguinary kind. As a necessary consequence of this, the Danish kings, in their later expeditions against the Anglo-Saxons for the purpose of conquest, resorted to, and sought support in, the Danish part of the north of England, in the districts near the Humber. In the year 1013, King Svend Tveskjæg anchored in this river with a powerful fleet, when he came over to conquer England. In conjunction with his son Canute, who afterwards completed the conquest, he had previously lain at anchor at Sandvik (Sandwich), in Kent. From the Humber he anchored in the river Trent, at Gegnesburgh (or Gainsborough), in Lincolnshire; whence he harried the whole of eastern, and part of southern England. The Old Danish land to the north of Watlinga-Stræt was the first to pay him homage; the rest of England soon yielded to him, and King Ethelred was obliged to fly to Normandy. But just as Svend, in the midst of his victorious career, had returned to Gainsborough-just as he was fleecing and levying con

tributions both on laity and clergy-he suddenly fell from his horse at an assize, or Thing, in a fit of illness, and died the following night, the 3rd of February, 1014. Monkish chronicles relate that it was St. Edmund who killed him. Ethelred, who now returned to England, in vain ordered a strict search to be made for the body of Svend, with the view of wreaking a cowardly vengeance on the impotent corpse of the man who, when alive, had been so terrible an antagonist to him. But the body had been secretly conveyed to York, where it was kept concealed during the winter (but scarcely in the cathedral, although that church had been founded long before, and was, perhaps, even con siderably enlarged by the Norwegian princes who resided at York). Towards the spring it was brought over to Denmark by some Englishwomen, who were probably of Scandinavian extraction, and placed in the cathedral of Roeskilde, in one of the pillars in the grand choir.

Under the Danish rule, the Danish-Norwegian population in the north of England increased considerably, both in strength and numbers; although Christianity, by the wise arrangements of Canute, and particularly by his severe laws against heathenism, was almost completely disseminated there. Even after the Danish dominion had come to an end by the death of Hardicanute in 1042, and the Anglo-Saxon kings had again taken the helm, the old warlike spirit of the north continued, in spite of Christianity, to stir in the Northumbrian people. The successors of the Vikings still preferred, to a natural death, a glorious one on the field of battle; but Christian tenets no longer permitted them to be marked, when on the bed of sickness, with the point of a spear, in order to consecrate themselves to Odin, according to the heathen custom. The mighty Danish jarl Sivard (Sigeward or Siwerd) reigned over them at that time, who had fought in many battles both in England and Scotland, whereby his name became immortalized in Shakspeare's "Macbeth." When the news was brought to him that his son had fallen in

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