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Updated: September 9, 2025
Just why a band of Northmen, as they were called, some dictionary makers spell it Norsemen, should think it worth while to go so far inland I cannot say; but a war-party did get as far as Ulf's village on a plundering expedition, perhaps hoping to find gold.
Roused to action at last the northern earls sent out summonses in all directions for the levies to assemble. The invaders were next heard of at Scarborough, which made a brave resistance, but the Norsemen took post on the steep hill overhanging the town, and gathering there a vast pile of wood set it on fire, and hurled blazing timbers down on the place.
Now, among the hostile first leaders were two uncles of the Ericsons, brothers of Gunhild, great champions both; Skreya, the elder of them, on the disappearance of the glittering helmet, shouted boastfully, 'Does the king of the Norsemen hide himself, then, or has he fled? Where now is the golden helmet? And so saying, Skreya, and his brother Alf with him, pushed on like fools or madmen.
But while all was in confusion among the main body of the invaders on the eastern bank of the river, while men were buckling on their armour and gathering in their ranks, the cloud of war rolled rapidly down the descent, and with a mighty shout the English vanguard fell upon the Norsemen on the western bank.
"They belong to Earl Erik, the son of Earl Haakon." "Then we may look for hard blows from them. Erik and his men are Norsemen like ourselves, and he has reason not to love me and mine." While he spoke Queen Thyra, who was with him, came on deck. When she saw the desperate odds she burst into tears. "Do not weep," said Olaf.
He looked for an omen, and it came in the shape of two ravens, which followed his ships with loud clucking cries. These were the birds sacred to Odin and he hailed their coming with delight. The great deity of the Norsemen seemed to promise him favor and success. Turning against the king to whom he had promised to act as a vassal, he savagely ravaged the Danish coast lands.
In Greenland a few insignificant heaps of stones are supposed to show where some of them built small villages. Far in the north Stefansson found fair-haired, blue-eyed Eskimos. These may be descendants of the Norsemen, although they have migrated thousands of miles from Greenland. In Maine the Micmac Indians are said to have had a curious custom which they may have learned from the vikings.
But so quickly had the invaders landed, so speedily had they stormed the stronghold, that ere Kenric and his followers appeared upon the heights, the castle of Kilmory was in flames. The Norsemen, taking their machines to the rear, had stormed the building at its weakest point. The heavy missiles from their shot wagons soon succeeded in making a breach.
This land, which was probably a part of Nova Scotia, proved to be a lonely shore with dense forests. Cabot called it "Land First Seen." It was entirely deserted, not a human being nor a hut of any kind being in sight. Here Cabot and his son Sebastian and some of his crew went ashore, and were the first white men, excepting the Norsemen, to step upon the mainland of America.
When we, however, remember that the Eskimo once ranged as far south as Massachusetts, that they did not reach Greenland till the fourteenth century, that they had for three centuries intimate relations with Scandinavians, that they were very fond of legends, and that the Wabanaki even now mingle with them, the marvel would be that the Norsemen had not left among them traces of their tales or of their religion.
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