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Updated: July 23, 2025
It is interesting to learn that the turbulent kingdoms named, the land of the sea-kings and the warlike barbarians of the north, each of which had needed the hand of a strong man to control them, all now fell under the sceptre of a woman, who at first reigned over Denmark and Norway and soon added Sweden to her dominion. But Queen Margaret was no weakling.
The blood of the sovereigns of France, the kingdom of kingdoms, of the sea-kings of Denmark, of the ancient kings of Burgundy, and of the Lombards of the Iron Crown it is with this mine heart is throbbing, and man saith, `Be still! How can I be still, unless I were still in death?
I can account for it only in the supposition that the mischief was inhered, an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the ninth century. Education and reflection have, indeed, since wrought a change in my feelings. The trumpet of the Cid, or Ziska's drum even, could not now waken that old martial spirit.
It was time to return the visit of the Armada. Some of the sea-kings were gone. Those magnificent freebooters, Drake and Hawkins, had just died in the West Indies, and doughty Sir Roger Williams had left the world in which he had bustled so effectively, bequeathing to posterity a classic memorial of near a half century of hard fighting, written, one might almost imagine, in his demi-pique saddle.
"Even now, as I look at it, I can scarcely persuade myself that it is the light, graceful speronara we saw during daylight; and am far more inclined to believe it a being from another world the ghost of one of the old sea-kings one reads of or, perhaps, a malign spirit stalking over the deep in search of prey.
Githa his wife, the Dane, a woman with a haughty but noble spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and lawless blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, was more fitted to stir their ambition and inflame their fancies, than curb their tempers and mould their hearts. We have seen the career of Sweyn; but Sweyn was an angel of light compared to his brother Tostig.
This is to be accounted for from the fact, that during its entire length it was contemporaneous with the reign of Harold, "the Fair-haired" King of Norway, the scourge of the sea-kings. This more fortunate Charles XII., born in 853, died at the age of 81, after sixty years of almost unbroken successes, over all his Danish, Swedish, and insular enemies.
Meanwhile, Haldor, Erling, Glumm, Hakon of Drontheim, Ulf, Guttorm Stoutheart, and all the other Sea-kings, not only of Horlingdal, but of the surrounding valleys, with a host of smaller bonders, unfreemen, and thralls, went down to the shores of the bay and prepared for battle.
The like treaties existed with the English, but had been very little heeded by the Algerines till recently, when the possession of Gibraltar and Minorca had provided harbours for British ships, which exercised a salutary supervision over these Southern sea-kings.
A loud ringing cheer was the answer to this speech, and then the whole concourse hurried down the hill and embarked; the vessels were quickly arranged in order according to their size; the war-horn sounded; thousands of oars dipped at the same moment, the blue waters of the fiord were torn into milky foam, and slowly, steadily, and in good order the fleet of the Sea-kings left the strand, doubled the cape to the north of Horlingfiord, and advanced in battle array to meet the foe.
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