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"It is like that the Danes are on the road." "Not yet," I said, touched by question and offer alike. "There is many a mile between here and Ipswich, and I think that to go to Wormingford is my work, surely." So I rode away fast, seeing in the valley below me the lights of the house that I sought. As I had said, the errand was indeed mine.
During the reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been imposed on all the lands of England. It was commonly called DANEGELT; because the revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the Danes, or in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile nation.
He wished with speed Grendel to guerdon for grim raids many, for the war he waged on Western-Danes oftener far than an only time, when of Hrothgar's hearth-companions he slew in slumber, in sleep devoured, fifteen men of the folk of Danes, and as many others outward bore, his horrible prey. Well paid for that the wrathful prince!
Still, terrible in defeat, more than half fought their way out of the trap into which they had fallen, and retired upon their camp, closely pursued, until the trump of Edmund recalled the pursuers, anxious lest they should in turn fall into an ambuscade, for reinforcements were awaiting the Danes behind. From this time the prospects of Edmund and England brightened.
It seems that the Danes, after they became Christians, were the first to introduce the custom; after them, the Anglo- Normans, in the true spirit of their race, made a flourishing business of it. The Irish themselves never thought of such at first. There was no fear of any one ever claiming the ground on which God's house stood.
Alfred in the following spring again assembled his army and laid siege to London, which was still in the possession of the Danes. Athelstan did not venture to march to its assistance, and the town, which had long been in the Northmen's hands, was captured. The greater portion of the city was burned in the siege.
There the Danes took them presently, and that was the end of England's fleet. But Wulfnoth turned viking; and would have nought to do with Ethelred after that. His Sussex earldom was beyond reach of attack through the great Andred's-weald forests that keep its northern borders, and he could keep the sea line. So Ethelred left him alone, and Swein would not disturb him.
The English and Welsh coasts, at least, were familiar to their pilots, and they combined, as was usual in that age, the military with the mercantile character. In 1142, and again in 1165, a troop of Dublin Danes fought under Norman banners against the brave Britons of Cambria, and in the camps of their allies, sung the praises of the fertile island of the west.
Again and again, after Eadward the Elder took Mercia, the Danes went about burning and wasting England. The wooden towns were flaming through the night, and sending up a thick smoke through the day, from Thamesmouth to Cambridge. "And next was there no headman that force would gather, and each fled as swift as he might, and soon was there no shire that would help another."
Moreover, we must separate, so as to drive them down to their ships, for they were spread over the country, burning and destroying on every side. We lay but one night on Brent, while the leaders held counsel, and even as we sat gathered, we could see plainly the fires the Danes had lit, of burning hamlet and homestead, far and wide across the marshes of Parret.
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