"There against "the ferocious ocean Even the safety of its coasts, which one day in a calm this sea is unsafe. "Before will call up real fleets and mighty ves me rolleth a waste of water and sels; green England-the word rises above me go rolling the storm-clouds, to the lips and expresses all. Here the formless dark grey daughters of also moisture pervades every thing, air, which from the sea, in cloudy even in summer the mist rises; even buckets scoop up the water, ever wea- on clear days you perceive it fresh from ried lifting and lifting, and then pour it the great sea-girdle, or rising from vast again in the sea, a mournful wearisome but ever slushy meadows, undulating business Over the sea, flat on his with hill and dale, intersected with face, lies the monstrous, terrible North hedges to the limit of the horizon wind, sighing and sinking his voice as Here and there a sunbeam strikes of in secret, like an old grumbler, for once the higher grasses with burn ng flash in good humor, unto the ocean he and the splendor of the verdure dar talks, and he tells her wonderful sto zles and almost blinds you. The overries."* Rain, wind, and surge leave flowing water straightens the flabby room for naught but gloomy and melan- stems; they grow up, rank, weak, and choly thoughts. The very joy of the bil- filled with sap; a sap ever renewed, lows has in it an inexplicable restless- for the gray mists creep under a stra ness and harshness. From Holland to tum of motionless vapor, and at dis Jutland, a string of small, deluged tant intervals the rim of heaven is islands bears witness to their rav- drenched by heavy showers. ages; the shifting sands which the tide are yet commons as at the time of the drifts up obstruct and impede the Conquest, deserted, abandoned,* wild, banks and entrance of the rivers.‡ covered with furze and thorny plants, The first Roman fleet, a thousand sail, with here and there a horse grazing in perished there; to this day ships solitude. Joyless scene, unproductive wait a month or more in sight of port, soil! † What a labor it has been to tossed upon the great white waves, humanize it! What impression it must not daring to risk themselves in the have made on the men of the South, shifting, winding channel, notorious the Romans of Cæsar! I thought, for its wrecks. In winter a breastplate when I saw it, of the ancient Saxons, of ice covers the two streams; the sea wanderers from West and North, who drives back the frozen masses as they came to settle in this land of marsh descend; they pile themselves with a and fog, on the border of primeval crash upon the sand-banks, and sway forests, on the banks of these great to and fro; now and then you may see muddy streams, which roll down their a vessel, seized as in a vice, split in slime to meet the waves. They must two beneath their violence. Picture, have lived as hunters and swineherds; in this foggy clime, amid hoar-frost growing, as before, brawny, fierce, and storm, in these marshes and for- gloomy. Take civilization from this ests, half-naked savages, a kind of soil, and there will remain to the inwild beasts, fishers and hunters, but habitants only war, the chase, gluttony especially hunters of men; these are drunkenness. Smiling love, sweet ney, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians; § poetic creams, art, refined and nimble latter on, Danes, who during the fifth thought, are for the happy shores ci and the ninth centuries, with their the Mediterranean. Here the bar. swords and battle axes, took and kept barian, ill housed in his mud-hovel the island of Britain. who hears the rain pattering whole days among the oak leaves - what dreams can he have, gazing upon is mud-pools and his sombre sky?" A rude and foggy land, like their own, except in the depth of its sea and Heine, The North Sea, translated by Charles G. Leland. See Tacitus, Ann. book 2, for the impressions of the Romans, truculentia cœli." ས Watten, Platen, Sande, Düneninseln. *Notes of a Journey in England. Léonce de Lavergne, De l'Agriculture anglaise. "The soil is much worse than that of France." There are at least four rivers in England passing by the name of "Ouse," which is only another form of "ooze."-TR. : II. was it becomes a pleasure. About the eighth century, the final decay of the Huge white bodies, cool-blooded, great Roman corpse which Charlewith fierce blue eyes, reddish flaxen magne had tried to revive, and which hair; ravenous stomachs, filled with was settling down into corruption meat and cheese, heated by strong called them like vultures to the prey drinks; of a cold temperament, slow Those who had remained in Denmark to love,* home-stayers, prone to brutal with their brothers of Norway, fanati drunkenness these are to this day the cal pagans, incensed against the Chris features which descent and climate tians, made a descent on all the surpreserve in the race, and these are rounding coasts. Their sea-kings,* what the Roman historians discovered "who had never slept under the smoky in their former country. There is no rafters of a roof, who had never drained living, in these lands, without abun- the ale-horn by an inhabited hearth," dance of solid food; bad weather laughed at wind and storms, and sang: keeps people at home; strong drinks "The blast of the tempest aids our are necessary to cheer them; the oars; the bellowing of heaven, the Jenses become blunted, the muscles howling of the thunder, hurt us not; are braced, the will vigorous. In the hurricane is our servant, and every country the body of man is root drives us whither we wish to go." "We ed deep into the soil of nature; and in hewed with our swords," says a song this instance still deeper, because, be- attributed to Ragnar Lodbrog, ing uncultivated, he is less removed it not like that hour when my bright from nature. In Germany, storm- bride I seated by me on the couch?" beaten, in wretched boats of hide, amid One of them, at the monastery of the hardships and dangers of seafaring Peterborough, kills with his own hanc life, they were pre-eminently adapted all the monks, to the number of eighty for endurance and enterprise, inured four; others, having taken King Ælla, to misfortune, scorners of danger. divided his ribs from the spine, drew Pirates at first: of all kinds of hunting his lungs out, and threw salt into his the man-hunt is most profitable and wounds. Harold Harefoot, having most noble; they left the care of the seized his rival Alfred, with six hunland and flocks to the women and dred men, had them maimed, blinded, slaves; seafaring, war, and pillage † hamstrung, scalped, or embowelled.t was their whole idea of a freeman's Torture and carnage, greed of danger, work. They dashed to sea in their fury of destruction, obstinate and two-sailed barks, landed anywhere, frenzied bravery of an over-strong killed every thing; and having sacri- temperament, the unchaining of the ficed in honor of their gods the tithe of butcherly instincts, such traits mee their prisoners, and leaving behind us at every step in the old Sagas them the red light of their burnings, The daughter of the Danish Jarl, seewent farther on to begin again.ing Egil taking his seat near her, re"Loid," says a certain litany, "deliver us from the fury of the Jutes." "Of all barbarians these are strongest of body and heart, the most formidable," --we may add, the most cruelly feroWhen murder becomes a trade, >ous. Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, pasum: Diem noctemque continuare potando, aulli probrum.-Sera juvenum Venus.-Totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt. Dargaud, Voyage en Danemark. They take six meals per day, the first at five o'clock in the morning. One should see the faces and meals at Hamburg and Amsterdam." † Bede, v. 1o. Sidonius, viii. 6. Lingard, Hist. of England, 1854, i. chap. 2. Zozimos, iii. 147. Amm. Marcellinus, xviii. 326. pels him with scorn, reproaching him with "seldom having provided the wolves with hot meat, with never hav ing seen for the whole autumn a raven croaking over the carnage.' But Egi seized her and pacified her by singing, "I have marched with my bloody sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought, the fire passed over the dwellings of men; we have sent to sleep in blood those who kept | tures of the border country, and the the gates. From such table-taik, and such maidenly tastes, we may judge of the rest.* great primitive forests which furnished stags for the chase and acorns for his pigs. The ancient histories tell us Lehold them now in England, more that they had a great and a coarse apsettled and wealthier: do you expect petite.* Even at the time of the Conto find them much changed Changed quest the custon of drinking to excess it may be, but for the worse, like the was a common vice with men of the Franks, like all barbarians who pass highest rank, and they passed in this from action to enjoyment. They are way whole days and nights without in more gluttonous, carving their hogs, termission. Henry of Huntingdon, ir filling themselves with flesh, swallow- the twelfth century, lamenting th ing down deep draughts of mead, ale, ancient hospitality, says that the Nor spiced wines, all the strong, coarse man kings provided their courtiers drinks which they can procure, and so with only one meal a day, while the they are cheered and stimulated. Add Saxon kings used to provide four. One to this the pleasure of the fight. Not day, when Athelstan went with his easily with such instincts can they at- nobles to visit his relative Ethelfleda, tain to culture; to find a natural and the provision of mead was exhausted ready culture, we must look amongst at the first salutation, owing to the the sober and sprightly populations of copiousness of the draughts; but the south. Here the sluggish and Dunstan, forecasting the extent of the heavy † temperament remains long royal appetite, had furnished the buried in a brutal life; people of the house, so that the cup-bearers, as is Latin race never at a first glance see the custom at royal feasts, were able in them aught but large gross beasts, the whole day to serve it out in horns clumsy and ridiculous when not dan- and other vessels, and the liquor was gerous and enraged. Up to the six- not found to be deficient. When the teenth century, says an old historian, guests were satisfied, the harp passed the great body of the nation were little from hand to hand, and the rude harelse than herdsmen, keepers of cattle mony of their deep voices swelled unand sheep; up to the end of the eigh- der the vaulted roof. The monasteries teenth drunkenness was the recreation themselves in Edgard's time kept up of the higher ranks; it is still that of games, songs, and dances till midnight. the lower; and all the refinement and To shout, to drink, to gesticulate, to softening influence of civilization have feel their veins heated and swollen with not abolished amongst them the use of wine, to hear and see around them the the rod and the fist. If the carnivor-riotous orgies, this was the first need ous, warlike, drinking savage, proof against the climate, still shows beneath the conventions of our modern society and the softness of our modern polish, imagine what he must have been when, anding with his band upon a wasted or desert country, and becoming for the first time a settler, he saw extending to the horizon the common pas Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, Icelanders, are one and the same people. Their language, laws, religion, poetry, differ but little. The more northern continue longest in their primitive manner. Germany in the fourth and fifth centuries, Denmark and Norway in the seventh and eighth, Iceland in the tenth and eleventh centuries, present the same condition, and the muniments of each country will fill up the gaps that exist in the history of the others. † Tacitus, De mor. Germ. xxii.: Gens nec stuta nec callida. of the Barbarians. The heavy human brute gluts himself with sensations and with noise. For such appetites there was a stronger food,-I mean blows and battle. In vain they attached themselves to the soil, became tillers of the ground, in distinct communities and distinct re gions, shut up in their march with *W. of Malmesbury. Henry of Hunting don, vi. 365. t Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, xxii. xxiii. Kemble, Saxons in England, 1849, i. 70, ii. 184. "The Acts of an Anglo-Saxon parlament are a series of treaties of peace between all the associations which make up the State; a continual revision and renewal of the alliances offensive and defensive of all the free men. They are universally matual contracts for the maintenance of the frid or peace.' of eighty. Many amongst them were put to death by the thanes; one thane was burned alive; brothers slew on another treacherously. With us civil. ization has interposed, between the desire and its fulfilment, the counteract "He their kindred and comrades, bound together, separated from the mass, enclosed by sacred landmarks, by primeval oaks on which they cut the figures cf birds and beasts, by poles set up in the midst of the marsh, which whosoever removed was punished with crueling and softening preventive of reflectortures. In vain these Marches and Ga's were grouped into states, and finally formed a half-regulated society, with assemblies and laws, under the lead of a single king; its very structure indicates the necessities to supply which it was created. They united in order to maintain peace; treaties of peace occupy their Parliaments; provisions for peace are the matter of their laws. War was waged daily and everywhere; the aim of life was, not to be slain, ransomed, mutilated, pillaged, hung and of course, if it was a woman, violated. Every man was obliged to appear armed, and to be ready, with his burgh or his township, to repel marauders, who went about in bands.‡ The animal was yet too powerful, too impetuous, too untamed. Anger and covetousness in the first place brought him upon his prey. Their history, I mean that of the Heptarchy, is like a history of "kites and crows." § They slew the Britons, or reduced them to slavery, fought the remnant of the Welsh, Irish, and Picts, massacred one another, were hewn down and cut to pieces by the Danes. In a hundred years, out of fourteen kings of Northumbria, seven were slain and six deposed. Penda of Mercia killed five kings, and in order to take the town of Bamborough, demolished all the neigh-in order to ensure a better price. boring villages, heaped their ruins into an immense pile, sufficient to burn all the inhabitants, undertook to exterminate the Northumbrians, and perished himself by the sword at the age tion and calculation; here, the impulse it "You might have seen with sorrow long files of young people of both sexes and of the greatest beauty, bound with ropes, and daily exposed for sale. as They sold in this manner slaves their nearest relatives, and even their own children." And the chronicler adds that, having abandoned this practice, they "thus set an example to all the rest of England." Would you know the manners of the * Vita S. Dunstani, Anglia Sacra, ii. † It is amusing to compare the story of Edwy and Elgiva in Turner, ii. 216, etc., and then in Lingard, i. 132, etc. The first accuses Dun stan, the other defends him.-Tz. Life of Bishop Wolstam. nighest ranks, in the family of the last | the Roman world, which were destined king?* At a feast in the king's hall, to produce a better people out of its Harold was serving Edward the Con- ruins. In the first place, "a certain fessor with wine, when Tostig, his earnestness, which leads them out of brother, moved by envy, seized him by frivolous sentiments to 1oble ones.' "# the hair. They were separated. Tos- From their origin in Germany this is tig went to Hereford, where Harold what we find them, severe in manners, had ordered a royal banquet to be pre- with grave inclinations and a manly pared. There he seized his brother's dignity. They live solitary, each one attendants, and cutting off their heads near the spring or the wood which has and limbs, he placed them n the ves- taken his fancy.t Even in villages sels of wine, ale, mead, and cider, and the cottages were detached; they mus sent a message to the king: "If you have independence and free air. They go to your farm, you will find there had no taste for voluptuousness; love plenty of salt meat, but you will do was tardy, education severe, their food well to carry some more with you." simple; all the recreation they indulged Harold's other brother, Sweyn, had in was the hunting of the aurochs, violated the abbess Elgiva, assassinated and a dance amongst naked swords. Beorn the thane, and being banished Violent intoxication and perilous wa from the country, had turned pirate. gers were their weakest points; they When we regard their deeds of vio- sought in preference not mild pleasures, lence, their ferocity, their cannibal jests, but strong excitement. In every thing, we see that they were not far removed even in their rude and masculine infrom the sea-kings, or from the follow-stincts, they were men. Each in his ers of Odin, who ate raw flesh, hung men as victims on the sacred trees of Upsala, and killed themselves to make sure of dying as they had lived, in blood. A score of times the old ferocious instinct reappears beneath the thin crust of Christianity, In the eleventh century, Siward, the great Earl of Northumberland, was afflicted with a dysentery; and feeling his death near, exclaimed, "What a shame for me not to have been permitted to die in so many battles, and to end thus by a cow's death! At least put on my breastplate, gird on my sword, set my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my battle-axe in my right, so that a stout warrior, like myself, may die as a warrior." They did as he bade, and thus died he honorably his armor. They had made one step, and only one, from barbarism. III. Under this native barbarisan there were noble dispositions, unknown to Tantæ sævitiæ erant fratres illi quod, cum alicujus nitidam villam conspicerent, dominatorem de nocte interfici juberent, totamque progeniem illius possessionemque defuncti obtinerent. Turner, iii. 27. Henry of Huntingdon, vi. 367. "Pene gigas statura," says the chronicler. H. of Huntingdon, vi. 367. Kemble, i. 393. Turner, ii. 3. own home, on his land and in his hut, * Grimm, Mythology, 53, P eface. Tacitus, xx. xxiii. xi. xii. xiii. et passim |
