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It is very remarkable that, during all those conflicts of the Irish with the Danes, when the Northmen strewed the island with dead and ruins; when they seemed to be planting their domination in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and even the Isle of Man, on a firm footing; when the seas around England and Ireland swarmed with pirates, and new expeditions started almost every spring from the numerous harbors of the Baltic the Irish colony of Dal Riada in Scotland, which was literally surrounded by the invaders, succeeded in wresting North Britain from the Picts, drove them into the Lowlands, and so completely rooted them out, that history never more speaks of them, so that to this day the historical problem stands unsolved What became of the Picts? various as are the explanations given of their disappearance.
She is as true a friend as a woman can be to a man, but there it ends." "With her." "Certainly, with her only. She knows that I would do all that a man can to win her." "You are frank." "Why should I not be with one I trust so absolutely? You think us Northmen cold, underhanded.
But we were never such thieves and marauders, caterans bloody and unashamed, as the Galloway kerns and the Northmen, and in all my time we had plenty to do to fend our straths against reivers and cattle-drovers from the bad clans round about us. We lift no cattle in all Campbell country.
Mr Worsaae found many memorials of the Northmen in London: for example, the church of St Clement's Danes, where this people had their burial-place; the name Southwark, which is 'unmistakably of Danish or Norwegian origin; St Olave's Church there, and even Tooley Street, which is a corruption of the name of that celebrated Norsk saint; but, above all, in the fact that 'the highest tribunal in the city has retained in our day its pure old northern name "Husting." The fact is, that about the time of Canute, the Danes predominated over the rest of the population of London.
There they built themselves little hamlets and villages of true English type, whose very names to this day remind one of their ancient Saxon origin. Later on, the Danes or Northmen conquered the country, which they called after their own name, Normandy, that is to say, the Northmen's land.
It has not been altogether choked by the tares of Paris. The word "Saxon" is so vague that we cannot pretend to say exactly who the Saxons of Bayeux were; but Saxons of some sort were there, even before another Teutonic wave came in with Rolf Ganger and his Northmen. Bayeux, as we have said, was the Scandinavian stronghold. Men spoke Danish there when not a word of Danish was understood at Rouen.
They too are "Normans," Northmen, if that be any great beauty ! Of the chief god, Odin, we shall speak by and by. Mark at present so much; what the essence of Scandinavian and indeed of all Paganism is: a recognition of the forces of Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal Agencies, as Gods and Demons. Not inconceivable to us.
Little did Columbus and his men suspect that a whole unknown continent and the world's greatest ocean, the Pacific, still separated them from Japan. The small island was one of the Bahama group, and is now known as Watling Island. If the voyages of the Northmen five hundred years earlier be left out of account, this island was the first point of the New World reached by Europeans.
The Northmen expressed their satisfaction at finding that their burden need no longer be carried, and throwing aside the boughs which had formed the litter, proceeded with him on their way. They asked him many questions concerning the Dragon. Most of these he answered readily enough, but he evaded those as to the place where she had been built, or the port from which she had sailed.
Yet the people were far from pleased, for he had already shown a disposition to treat them harshly and they feared that a tyrant had succeeded to the throne. By his stern rule he gained several uncomplimentary titles, the English calling him Harold the Haughty, the Germans Harold the Inflexible, and the Northmen Harold the Hardruler.
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