the Frankish monarch, and the Eyder was established as their common boundary. On Hemming's death, the Danish sovereignty was contested between Sigefrid and Ring, in whose warfare 11,000 men with both the competitors perished.

СНАР.

I.

IV.

The sea

kings.

CHAP. II.

The Sea-Kings and Vikingr of the North.

BOOK WHEN We review these kings and sub-kings of the North, we behold only a part of its political situation. There were also sovereigns who possessed neither country nor regular subjects, and yet filled the regions adjacent with blood and misery. The Sea-kings of the North were a race of beings whom Europe beheld with horror. Without a yard of territorial property, without any towns, or visible nation', with no wealth but their ships, no force but their crews, and no hope but from their swords, the sea-kings swarmed on the boisterous ocean, and plundered in every district they could approach. Never to sleep under a smoky roof, nor to indulge in the cheerful cup over a hearth2, were the boasts of these watery sovereigns, who not only flourished in the plunder of the sea and its shores, but who sometimes amassed so much booty, and enlisted so many followers, as to be able to assault provinces for permanent conquest. Thus Haki and Hagbard were sea-kings; their reputation induced many bands of rovers to join

1 Multi enim reges hinc fuere maritimi (Sæ-konungar) qui maximis quidem copiis sed nulli præerant regioni. Snorre, Yngl. Saga, c. 34. p. 43. Multi insuper qui nec ditiones nec subditos habebant sed piratica tantum et latrociniis opes quærebant, Wiik-kungar et Naak-kungar, i. e. reges maritimi dicebantur. Verelius, Hist. Suio-Gott. p. 6. 2 Snorre, p. 43.

II.

their fortunes. They attacked the king of Upsal, CHAP. whom Haki defeated and succeeded. Some years afterwards, the sons of Yngvi, who had become sea-kings, and lived wholly in their war-ships, roamed the ocean in search of adventures. They encountered the king of Haley-ia, and hanged him. They also assaulted Haki, and overpowered him.^ Solvi was a sea-king, and infested the eastern regions of the Baltic with his depredations. He suddenly landed in Sweden in the night, surrounded the house where the king of Upsal was sleeping, and applying firebrands, reduced all who were in it to ashes. Such was the generous warfare of these royal pirates.

5

IT is declared to have been a law or custom in the North, that one of the male children should be selected to remain at home, to inherit the government. The rest were exiled to the ocean, to wield their sceptres amid the turbulent waters. The consent of the northern societies entitled all men of royal descent, who assumed piracy as a profession, to enjoy the name of kings, though they possessed no territory. Hence the sea-kings were the kinsmen of the land-sovereigns. While the eldest son ascended the paternal throne, the rest of the family hastened, like petty Neptunes, to esta

3 Snorre, Yngling, c. 25. p. 30, 31.

4 Snorre, p. 31, 32. The practice of hanging the chief they overpowered, seems to have furnished their scalds with some gloomy wit. One of them calls the tree from which the king was suspended, the horse of Sigar. Ibid. 31.

5 Snorre, p. 43.

Mæssenius Scond. i. p. 4.; and see Wallingford, 533.

7 Olaf. Trygg. Saga ap. Bartholin. Antiq. Dan. 446. Snorre has given a particular instance of this. Saga af Olafi, Hinom. Helga, c. 4. Wormius recognises the same custom. Mon. Dan. 269.

IV.

BOOK blish their kingdoms in the waves; and, if any of the fylki-kongr, or thiod-kongr, were expelled their inheritance by others, they also sought a continuance of their dignity upon the ocean. When the younger branches of a reigning dynasty were about to become sea-kings, the ships and their requisite equipments were furnished as a patrimonial right, and perhaps as a political convenience.

Northern

piracy.

WHEN we recollect the numerous potentates of Scandinavia, and their general fecundity, we may expect that the ocean swarmed with sea-kings. Such was their number, that one Danish sovereign is mentioned by Saxo to have destroyed seventy of the honourable but direful race. Their rank and successes always secured to them abundant crews, and the mischief they perpetrated must have been immense." These sea-kings were also called Herkongr.

10

THE sea-kings had the name of honour, but they were only a portion of those pirates, or vikingr,

8 See Verelius, Hist. Suio-G. p. 6. Pontanus, Hist. Dan. p. 87. Stephanius in Sax. p. 152. Thus a grandson of the famous Ragnar Lodbrog was a sea-king, while his brother succeeded to the crown of Sweden. Filii Biornis jarnsidæ fuere Eirikus et Refillus, hic erat Herkongr oc Sækongr. Hervarar Saga, 225.

9 Thus Gudrum: ab eo regno pulsus piratico more vixit, 1 Lang. 480. Thus also Biorn, 2. 1. 10. 89.

10 Saxo Gram. lib. vii. p. 142.

11 Snorre has recorded the sufferings of Sweden in his Ynglinga Saga; and the famous inscription on the lapis Tirstedensis, given by Wormius, Monum. 267., and commented on by Bartholin, 438., records the memory of Frotho, a vikingr terrible to the Swedes, 443. The ancient Sveno Aggonis mentions the extensive depredations of Helghi, a rex maris, Hist. Dan. 1 Langb. 44. And the Nornagesti Historia in one instance exhibits a volume of such incidents. "Hi regulos permultos subjugaverant, pugnatores fortissimos interfecerant, urbesque incendio deleverant ac in Hispania et Gallia immensam stragem ediderant." Ap. Torfæus, Series Reg. Dan. 384.

who in the ninth century were covering the ocean. Not only the children of the kings, but every man of importance, equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire property by force. 12 At the age of twelve, the sons of the great were in action under military tutors. 13 Piracy was not only the most honourable occupation, and the best harvest of wealth, it was not only consecrated to public emulation by the illustrious who pursued it, but no one was esteemed noble, no one was respected, who did not return in the winter to his home with ships laden with booty. The spoil consisted of every necessary of life, clothes, domestic utensils, cattle, which they killed and prepared on the shores they ravaged, slaves, and other property. It is not surprising that, while this spirit prevailed, every country abounded in deserts.

16

So reputable was the pursuit, that parents were even anxious to compel their children into the dangerous and malevolent occupation. It is asserted in an Icelandic Saga, that parents would not suffer the wealth they had gained by it to be

12 Snorre, Saga, Olafi Helga, c. 192. p. 315.

13 Snorre furnishes us with a fact of this kind: " quo tempore primum navem bellicam adscendit Olafus Haraldi filius XII annos natus erat." His mother appointed Ranius, who had been his foster-father, and had been often in warlike expeditions, the commander of the forces, atque Olafi curatorem. Saga, af Olafi Helga, c. 2. p. 3.

14 The northern writers attest the glory which accompanied piracy. See Bartholin, 437. Verelius in Hervarar Saga, 47. Wormius, Mon. Dan. 269. Bartholin quotes the Vatzdæla, which says, Mos erat magnorum virorum regum vel comitum, æqualium nostrorum, ut piratica incumberent, opes ac gloriam sibi acquirentes, p. 438.

15 Stephanius in Sax. p. 69.

16 Thus Eystein, king of Upsal, pirated in Vaurnia, prædas ibi agit vestes, aliasque res pretiosas nec non colonorum utensilia rapiens, pecoraque in litore mactans, quo facto domum reversi sunt. Snorre, Yngling. Saga, c. 51. p. 58. So Adils plundered in Saxland, and got many captives. Ibid. c 32. p. 40.

CHAP.

II.