the finest linen, and marched in solemn procession toward the town, but no sooner were they within the gateway than they set down the coffin right across the entrance, placed a bar to keep the gate open, drew their swords, and sounded to arms with their trumpets. The whole army, at this signal, rushed to the assault, soon made themselves masters of the town, and with the usual Scandinavian barbarity, massacred all the male inhabitants. The priests and monks, who had been so eager to offer their services, were in the worst plight, for the Varangians, says Snorri, "cut down every one around them, priest and layman, without distinction." *

A somewhat similar story, though not mentioned in any of the Icelandic sagas, is told by the Norman chroniclers of the famous sea-king Hastings. This adventurer having heard of the wealth and splendour of the capital of the Christian world, entered the Mediterranean, about the year 857, with a fleet of one hundred vessels, and after plundering the coasts of Spain and Africa, and the Balearic Isles, appeared before the ancient Etruscan city of Lunat, which he mistook for Rome, when the inhabitants were celebrating the festival of Christmas. Finding the town well prepared for defence, Hastings had recourse to that perfidy which a Northman never scrupled to employ against an adversary. He accordingly sent some of his followers to inform the count and bishop that he had merely entered the port to repair his shattered fleet; and that being also weary of a sea-roving life, he was desirous of becoming a Christian, in order to find that repose in the bosom of the church which he had so long sighed for. Deceived by these fair words, the worthy bishop went to the camp of the Northmen and baptized Hastings. But although the Italians furnished their unwelcome visitors with provisions and other necessaries, they took care not to let them enter the city. Hastings, ever fertile in expedients, therefore pretended to be dangerously ill, and whilst his camp resounded with the lamentations of his followers, he made known his intention of leaving the rich booty he had acquired to the church, provided the bishop would allow him to be interred in one of the sacred edifices in the city. This was con

• Heimsk. ix. 10.

+ Some traces of this ancient city are still discernible on the left bank of the Magra, near Carrara.

ceded without much difficulty, and shortly afterward a chosen band of Northmen bore a coffin into the cathedral, supposed to contain the lifeless body of their chieftain. But no sooner had they set it down than Hastings started up, sword in hand, and killed without hesitation the poor bishop who had baptised him, whilst he was celebrating the sacred office at the altar for the repose of the soul of the remorseless sea-rover *. His followers then drew forth their concealed weapons, massacred all who were assembled in the cathedral, and made themselves masters of the city, which they set fire to, after committing their usual acts of ferocityt. Hastings, we are told, then loaded his vessels with a rich booty, and set sail on his return home, not forgetting to take with him the handsomest women of Luna 1.

Although these stories of Harald and Hastings have no historical value, the events narrated are quite in accordance with the character of the Northmen, and may perhaps have actually. taken place. All that we know with certainty, however, is, that Harald took several towns in Sicily, and that the city of Luna was destroyed in the middle of the ninth century, by a band of Norman sea-rovers; a fact which is attested by several Italian writers as well as by the Norman chroniclers.]

* The Norman Trouvère Benoit, in his rhymed Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy, says

"E Hastenc est en pez sailli,
Enz en sun poin s'espée nue
Cum male deserte a rendue
A saint euesque sun parein
Tut le fendi de ci qu'al sein
Mort l'a e le conte ensement
S'a il des meillors plus de cent."
"Braient dames, plorent puceles
Aqui l'em coupe braz e mameles.
Suz les auters les esceruient,
Tut detrenchent et tut occient,"
says Benoit.

† Depping, Liv. ii. ch. 3.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE MARITIME EXPEDITIONS OF THE ANCIENT
SCANDINAVIANS.

How formidable soever the ancient Scandinavians were by land to most of the inhabitants of Europe, it must yet be allowed that their maritime expeditions occasioned still more destructive ravages and greater terror. We cannot read the history of the eighth, the ninth and the tenth centuries, without observing with surprise the sea covered with their vessels, and from one end of Europe to the other, the coasts of those countries, now the most powerful, a prey to their depredations.

During the space of two hundred years, they almost incessantly ravaged England, and frequently subdued it. They often invaded Scotland and Ireland, and made incursions on the coasts of Livonia, Courland and Pomerania. Already feared, before the time of Charlemagne, they became still more terrible as soon as this great monarch's eyes were closed. He is known to have shed tears on hearing that these barbarians had, on some occasion, defied his name, and all the precautions he had made to oppose them. He foresaw what his people would suffer from their courage under his feeble successors. And never was presage better grounded. They soon spread, like a devouring flame, over Lower Saxony, Friesland, Holland, Flanders, and the banks of the Rhine as far as Mentz. They penetrated into the heart of France, having long before ravaged the coasts; they everywhere found their way up the Somme, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne and the Rhone. Within the space of thirty years, they frequently pillaged and burnt Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Poitiers, Bourdeaux, Toulouse, Saintes, Angoulême, Nantes, and Tours. They settled themselves in Camargue, at the mouth of the Rhone, from whence they wasted Provence and Dauphiny as far as Valence. In short, they ruined France, levied immense tribute on its monarchs, burnt the palace of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and, in conclusion, caused one of the finest provinces of the kingdom to be ceded to them. They often carried their arms into Spain *, and even made themselves dreaded in Italy and Greece. In fine, they no less infested the north than the south with their incursions, spreading everywhere desolation and terror: sometimes as furiously bent on their mutual destruction, as on the ruin of other nations; sometimes animated by a more pacific spirit, they transported colonies to unknown or uninhabited countries, as if they were willing to repair in one place the horrid destruction of human kind occasioned by their furious ravages in others.

A people, who are ignorant of manual arts and professions, of justice, and of all means of providing for their own security or subsistence except by war, never fail to betake themselves to piracy, if they inhabit a country surrounded by the

The Pelasgi or first Greeks were generally pirates and robbers. "Some of them," says Thucydides †, "attacked unfortified cities; others, such as the Carians and Cretans, who dwelt along the coasts, fitted out fleets to scour the seas." But whereas the Greeks are represented to us as pirates in the first periods of their history, it is to be observed, that the Scandinavians did not become so till late. Sidonius Apollinarius, a writer of the fifth century, is, I think, the first who mentions the piracy of the Northern nations. He attributes this practice to the Saxons, of whom he draws a frightful picture *. The Danes and Norwegians had not as yet ventured far from their coasts. I imagine that their nearest neighbours had not allurements sufficient to tempt them. The inhabitants of those countries, as poor and warlike as themselves, were likely to return them blow for blow. Britain and Gaul were too distant and too well defended to become the first attempt of the Scandinavian ravagers. They began then by arming a few vessels, with which they plundered the states nearest to them, and overpowered such few merchant ships as