The Sea-kings And Their Daring Feats

From the word vik, or bay, comes the word viking, long used to

designate the sea-rovers of the Northland, the bold Norse wanderers who

for centuries made their way to the rich lands of the south on plundering

raids. Beginning by darting out suddenly from hiding places in bays or

river mouths to attack passing craft, they in the end became daring

scourers of the seas and won for themselves kingdoms and dominions in the

ettled realms of the south.



Nothing was known of them in the early days. The people of southern

Europe in the first Christian centuries hardly knew of the existence of

the race of fair-skinned and light-haired barbarians who dwelt in the

great peninsula of the north. It was not until near the year 800 B.C.

that these bold brigands learned that riches awaited those who dared

seize it on the shores of France, England, and more southern lands. Then

they came in fleets and spread terror wherever they appeared. For several

centuries the realms of civilization trembled before their very name.



"From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us!" prayed the

priests, and the people joined fervently in the prayer.



Long before this period the sea was the favorite hunting ground of the

daring sons of the north, but the small chiefs of that period preyed upon

each other, harrying their neighbors and letting distant lands alone. But

as the power of the chiefs, and their ability to protect themselves

increased, this mode of gaining wealth and fame lost its ease and

attraction and the rovers began to rove farther afield.



Sea-kings they called themselves. On land the ruler of a province might

be called either earl or king, but the earl who went abroad with his

followers on warlike excursions was content with no less name than king,

and the chiefs who set out on plundering cruises became from the first

known as sea-kings. Pirates and freebooters we would call them to-day,

but they were held in high distinction in their native land, and some of

the most cruel of them, on their return home, became men of influence,

with all the morality and sense of honor known in those early days. Their

lives of ravage and outrage won them esteem at home and the daring and

successful sea-king ranked in fame with the noblest of the home-staying

chiefs. We have seen how King Erik began his career as a viking and ended

it in the same pursuit; how Rollo, a king's son, adopted the same

profession; and from this it may be seen that the term was one of honor

instead of disgrace.



From all the lands of the north they came, these dreaded sons of the sea,

from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark alike, fierce heathens they who cared

nought for church or priest, but liked best to rob chapels and

monasteries, for there the greatest stores of gold and silver could be

found. When the churches were plundered they often left them in flames,

as they also did the strong cities they captured and sacked. The small,

light boats with which they dared the sea in its wrath were able to go

far up the rivers, and wherever these fierce and bloodthirsty rovers

appeared wild panic spread far around. So fond were they of sword-thrust

and battle that one viking crew would often challenge another for the

pure delight of fighting. A torment and scourge they were wherever they

appeared.



The first we hear in history of the sea-kings is in the year 787, when a

small party of them landed on the English coast. In 794 came another

flock of these vultures of the sea, who robbed a church and a monastery,

plundering and killing, and being killed in their turn when a storm

wrecked their ships and threw them on shore. As a good monk writes of

them: "The heathen came from the northern countries to Britain like

stinging wasps, roamed about like savage wolves, robbing, biting, killing

not only horses, sheep, and cattle, but also priests, acolytes, monks,

and nuns."



The Norsemen had found a gold mine in the south and from this time on

they worked it with fierce hands. Few dared face them, and even in the

days of the great Charlemagne they ravaged the coast lands of France.

Once, when the great emperor was in one of his cities on the

Mediterranean coast, a fleet of the swift viking ships, known by their

square sails, entered the harbor. Soon word was brought that they had

landed and were plundering. Who they were the people knew not, some

saying that they were Jews, others Africans, and others that they were

British merchants.



"No merchants they," said the emperor. "Those ships do not bring us

goods, but fierce foes, bloody fighters from the north."



The warriors around him at once seized their weapons and hurried to the

shore, but the vikings had learned that the great emperor was in the city

and, not daring to face him, had sought their ships and spread their

sails again. Tears came to the eyes of Charlemagne as he watched them in

their outward flight. He said to those around him:



"It is not for fear that these brigands can do me any harm that I weep,

but for their daring to show themselves on this coast while I am alive.

Their coming makes me foresee and fear the harm they may do to my

descendants."



This story may be one of those legends which the monks were fond of

telling, but it serves to show how the dread Norsemen were feared. France

was one of their chief fields of ravage and slaughter. First coming in

single ships, to rob and flee, they soon began to come in fleets and grew

daring enough to attack and sack cities. Hastings, one of the most

renowned of them all, did not hesitate to attack the greatest cities of

the south.



In 841 this bold freebooter sailed up the Loire with a large fleet, took

and burned the city of Amboise, and laid siege to Tours. But here the

inhabitants, aided, it is said, by the bones of their patron saint, drove

him off. Four years later he made an attack on Paris, and as fortune

followed his flag he grew so daring that he sought to capture the city of

Rome and force the Pope to crown him emperor.



For an account of this remarkable adventure of the bold Hastings see the

article, "The Raids of the Sea-Rovers," in the German volume of

"Historical Tales." In that account are also given the chief exploits of

the vikings in France and Germany. We shall therefore confine ourselves

in the remainder of this article to their operations in other lands, and

especially in Ireland.



This country was a common field for the depredations of the Norse rovers.

For some reason not very clear to us the early vikings did not trouble

England greatly, but for many years they spread terror through the sister

isle, and in the year 838 Thorgisl, one of their boldest leaders, came

with a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, with which he attacked and

captured the city of Dublin, and afterwards, as an old author tells us,

he conquered all Ireland, securing his conquest with stone forts

surrounded with deep moats.



But the Irish at length got rid of their conqueror by a stratagem. It was

through love that the sea-king was lost. Bewitched with the charms of

the fair daughter of Maelsechnail, one of the petty kings of the land,

he bade this chieftain to send her to him, with fifteen young maidens in

her train. He agreed to meet her on an island in Loch Erne with as many

Norsemen of high degree.



Maelsechnail obeyed, but his maidens were beardless young men, dressed

like women but armed with sharp daggers. Thorgisl and his men, taken by

surprise, were attacked and slain. The Irish chief had once before asked

Thorgisl how he should rid himself of some troublesome birds that had

invaded the island. "Destroy their nests," said the Norseman. It was wise

advice, and Maelsechnail put it in effect against the nests of the

conquerors, destroying their stone strongholds, and killing or driving

them away, with the aid of his fellow chieftains.



Thus for a time Ireland was freed. It was conquered again by Olaf the

White, who in 852 defeated some Danes who had taken Dublin, and then,

like Thorgisl, began to build castles and tax the people. Two other

viking leaders won kingdoms in Ireland, but Olaf was the most powerful of

them all, and the kingdom founded by him lasted for three hundred and

fifty years. From Dublin Olaf sailed to Scotland and England, the booty

he won filling two hundred ships.



The sea-rovers did not confine their voyages to settled lands. Bold ocean

wanderers, fearless of man on shore and tempest on the waves, they

visited all the islands of the north and dared the perils of the unknown

sea. They rounded the North Cape and made their way into the White Sea as

early as 750. The Faroe, the Orkney and the Shetland Islands were often

visited by them after 825, and in 874 they discovered Iceland, which had

been reached and settled by Irishmen or Scots about 800. The Norsemen

found here only some Irish hermits and monks, and these, disturbed in

their peaceful retreat by the turbulent newcomers, made their way back to

Ireland and left the Norsemen lords of the land. From Iceland the rovers

reached Greenland, which was settled in 986, and about the year 1000 they

discovered North America, at a place they named Vinland.



Such is, briefly told, the story of the early Norse wanderers. They had a

later tale, of which we have told part in their conquest of Ireland.

Though at first they came with a few ships, and were content to attack a

town or a monastery, they soon grew more daring and their forces larger.

A number of them would now fortify themselves on some coast elevation and

make it a centre for plundering raids into the surrounding country. At a

later date many of them ceased to pose as pirates and took the role of

invaders and conquerors, storming and taking cities and founding

governments in the invaded land.



Such was the work of Thorgisl and Olaf in Ireland and of Rollo in

Normandy. England was a frequent field of invasion after 833, which

continued until 851, when King Ethelwulf defeated them with great

slaughter. Fifteen years later they came again, these new invaders being

almost all Danes. During all his reign Alfred the Great fought with them,

but in spite of his efforts they gained a footing in the island, becoming

its masters in the north and east. A century later, in 1016, Canute, the

king of Denmark, completed the conquest and became king of all England.



This is not the whole story of the sea-kings, whose daring voyages and

raids made up much of the history of those centuries. One of the most

important events in viking history took place in 862, when three brother

chiefs, probably from Sweden, who had won fame in the Baltic Sea, were

invited by the Russian tribes south of Lake Ladoga to come and rule over

them. They did so, making Novgorod their capital. From this grew the

empire of Russia, which was ruled over by the descendants of Rurik, the

principal of these chiefs, until 1598.



Other vikings made their way southward through Russia and, sailing down

the Dnieper, put Constantinople in peril. Only a storm which scattered

their fleet saved the great city from capture. Three times later they

appeared before Constantinople, twice (in 904 and 945) being bought off

by the emperors with large sums of money. Later on the emperors had a

picked body-guard of Varangians, as they called the Northmen, and kept

these till the fall of the city in 1453. It was deemed a great honor in

the north to serve in this choice cohort at Myklegaard (Great City), and

those who returned from there doubtless carried many of the elements of

civilization to the Scandinavian shores.



To some of these Varangians was due the conquest of Sicily by the

Northmen. They were in the army sent from Constantinople to conquer that

island, and seeing how goodly a land it was they aided in its final

conquest, which was made by Robert Guiscard, a noble of Normandy, whose

son Roger took the title of "King of Sicily and Italy." Thus it was that

the viking voyages led within a few centuries to the founding of kingdoms

under Norse rulers in England, Ireland, Sicily, Russia, and Normandy in

France.