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Updated: May 29, 2025
As the whole population of Denmark, in the reign of Canute who died in 1035, is estimated at 800,000 souls, we may judge from their fleets how large a portion of the men were engaged in these piratical pursuits. The ships on which they prided themselves so highly were flat-bottomed craft, with little or no keel, the sides of wicker work, covered with strong hides.
Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the English in his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home, Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improvements. He was a poet and a musician. He grew sorry, as he grew older, for the blood he had shed at first; and went to Rome in a Pilgrim's dress, by way of washing it out.
Canute reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued; the southern parts were left to Edmond. This prince survived the treaty about a month. He was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices of Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to the crown of England.
He had large lips which seemed constantly working, and a row of excellent teeth which had the same appearance, for they shone when he spoke his clear sharp words, which came out with a snap, as when the sparks are emitted from a great fire. Among the many he had helped to an education, his neighbor Lars Hogstad stood foremost. Lars was not much younger than Canute, but had developed more slowly.
And as he drew aside, and the forces filed before him, the cry of; "God save King Harold!" rose with loud acclaim and lusty joy, borne over the waves of the river, startling the echoes in the ruined keape of the Roman, heard in the halls restored by Canute, and chiming, like a chorus, with the chaunts of the monks by the tomb of Sebba in St. Paul's by the tomb of Edward at St. Peter's.
Canute answered quickly: "I don't know whether the last speaker has been the one least benefited not only by the dead of this family, but also by its still living representative." In this remark he aimed first at the fact that his powerful grandfather had, in his day, managed the farm for Lars' grandfather, when the latter, on his own account, was on a little visit to the penitentiary.
While Edmond had the advantage in strength, Canute was his superior in shrewdness. For when the champions met in deadly fray and Canute was disarmed by his opponent, the wily Dane proposed a parley, and succeeded in persuading Edmond to divide the kingdom between them.
I fancy that the demonstration of King Canute settled once and for all the stupid attempt to ignore a moving force. A dynamic conception of society always frightens a great number of people. It gives politics a restless and intractable quality. Pure reason is so gentlemanly, but will and the visions of a people these are adventurous and incalculable forces.
But you are so vicious and so personal about it. After all, you know, the gods were kind to you it did turn back those waves of battle. You had better luck than Canute." "Besides," said the chef-major, "you can always say that you had front row stage box." There was nothing to do to save my face but to laugh with them. And they were still laughing when they tramped across the road to dinner.
At last its hour came; but when Canute founded a Danish dynasty he and his Danes were Christians. "This I can now truly say, that so long as I have lived I have striven to live worthily, and after my death to leave my memory to my descendants in good works."
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