any permanent traces of their influence on the character, the language, or the institutions of the English people.

It is now some years since Mr Samuel Laing took the lead in the attempt to place the claims of the Northmen to the consideration of the English student of history in a very different light; and though his hypothesis may be somewhat startling to those who pride themselves on their purely Anglo-Saxon traditions, Mr Laing's peculiar talent, 'his large acquaintance with the remains of the antient Saga literature, and a residence of some length in the interior of Norway, enabled him to support it with great force of argument.

In a dissertation prefixed to his historical work on the antient kings of Norway, Mr Laing finds reason to conclude, from a review of the Icelandic Chronicles and an examination of long prevailing customs and institutions still existing in Norway, that the invaders of England in the 9th and 10th centuries "surpassed the cognate Saxon people they were plundering and subduing" (both being branches of the Teutonic race) "in literature as much as in arms;-that poetry, history, laws, social institutions and usages, many of the useful arts, and all the elements of civilization and freedom were existing among them in those ages in much greater vigour than among the Anglo-Saxons themselves:" and that, in fact, the Northmen conferred on the country they colonized, benefits at least equivalent to those which they derived themselves from their settlement in England.

More recently, an agreeable Danish writer, starting from an opposite point of view, has drawn from a careful examination of existing memorials, as well as from historical notices, of the Danes and Norwegians in England, evidence not only for vindicating their claims to the possession, from the earliest period of their settlement, of a very considerable degree of culture and civilization, irrespective of what they acquired by their new position, but exhibiting their predominance in large and important sections of Anglo-Saxon England: a predominance not merely transient but exercising a permanent influence on the national character, habits and language, and to which M. Warsaae considers himself justified in attributing some of those cherished in

• “The Heimskringla; or Chronicle of the kings of Norway, by Samuel Laing Esq." Longmans. 1844.

stitutions which, in common acceptance, are peculiarly esteemed to be of Anglo-Saxon origin.†

An examination of this theory, which has been so ably devoloped, both from a foreign and domestic quarter, forms a fitting branch of our present enquiries; and its progress will bring under our notice many of those interesting memorials of the Danes and Norwegians in England which have been collected from historical and antiquarian researches.

The power of the Northmen in the 9th and 10th centuries was mainly owing to their maritime superiority. But the skill required for building and fitting out numerous fleets and navigating them through the storms and currents of the northern seas argues a very considerable progress in the arts of civilization. Ferocious and sanguinary as they were, the piratical bands who in those centuries landed on the coasts of England and France must have been far in advance of the barbarous hordes which in the decline and fall of the Western empire migrated in successive swarms from the deserts of central Europe, and after long marches threw themselves on the frontier of civilized states. For such enterprises brute courage only was wanting; no preparations were necessary; the nomad tribes found subsistence in pasture and plunder as they moved onward. But in reference to the invasions of the Northmen, we are reminded how much of art and skilful workmanship were required in the frame, the cordage, the sails, the ironwork,-in provisioning, arming and equipping fleets capable of transporting large bodies of men even to the shores of England and France. It may be said that such a flotilla consisted chiefly of large boats, decked perhaps fore and aft, while the midship was open for stowage and the benches of the rowers. But even such a craft as this could not be fitted out without the resources just enumerated; while squadrons of the Northmen sometimes included vessels of large burthen and dimensions. From very early times we find them building and equipping sea-going ships. We are told that Charlemagne wept

"An account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland and Ireland, by I. I. A. Warsaae." Murray, 1852.

when he saw a fleet of these Northern pirates on the waters of the Mediterranean; and shortly afterwards the Norwegians discovered Iceland;-a century later their colonists extended their discoveries to Greenland, and even to some parts of the coast of America.

What is more to the present purpose, it appears that the maritime expeditions of the Scandinavians were not exclusively directed to objects of plunder or conquest; but we find them from a very early period engaged in the peaceful pursuits of commerce. Annual fairs were held on the shores of the Baltic to which trading ships resorted from all parts of the Scandinavian peninsula. While the Romans occupied Britain, an active trade was carried on from the opposite coast of Jutland, which after the Saxon invasion continually increased; and we shall presently find good reason to believe that soon after the time of Alfred the Great, when the Danes and Norwegians became settled in England, the greater part of the trade of the North was in the hands of Scandinavian merchants."

It is impossible at this day to draw any accurate distinction between the Scandinavian colonies in England which were of Norwegian, and those which were of Danish origin. The former probably prevailed most in the northern districts, while the Danes occupied in great numbers the eastern coast of England contiguous to Jutland, from which the passage across the North Sea in the smallest class of vessels was easily made. From this circumstance and from the Scandinavian kings who mounted the throne of England being of Danish origin, it may perhaps have happened that the invasion of the Northmen, and all the relics and traces of it, are popularly attributed to the Danes. We are however rather inclined to think that even if the Danes preponderated in numbers, the Norwegians, the boldest and the purest race, formed the most influential element in the mixed population. They were certainly the most daring and enterprising sailors; for the coasts of Denmark are flat and without harbours its eastern shores are washed by an inclosed sea, and the voyages of the Danes were confined to the comparatively neighbouring countries of England, Holland and France. But no one can have visited the western districts of Norway-the cradle of the adventurers who

embarked on the most important expeditions, both for discovery and conquest in the early ages, and where the most genuine remains of the primitive manners and institutions are still to be found; no such visitor, marking with intelligence the features of the country, can be at any loss to understand how a people, which tradition transports from the plains of central Asia, should in the course of time have become distinguished for their maritime enterprise.

It was not to the great extent of coast washed by the ocean that the old Northmen owed their naval preeminence, for that advantage was equally shared by other nations, who, neither then nor in later times, have turned it to so good account. Nor was their insulated position in the bleak north, far out of the great highway of nations, such as could ever render their harbours entrepots of commerce which others, possessing far less natural advantages, have become in different ages of the world. It is in the peculiar and characteristic features of the Norwegian territory that the traveller traces the causes which operated so forcibly on its early inhabitants, tempting and almost impelling them to become a sea-faring people. He finds the face of the country to consist, for the most part, of vast masses of elevated tableland totally unfitted for human habitation, affording indeed on the lower levels pasturage for cattle during the summer months, but buried in snow during the greater part of the year. The vallies between these mountain "fjelds" are generally narrow, and incapable, even under the cultivation of the present time, to provide corn enough for the sustenance of an increasing population. At the foot of these fjelds, and winding among them far into the interior, are inlets of the ocean, often expanding into broad basons and forming magnificent inland lakes. The traveller is startled at finding the blue sea, of unfathomable depth, penetrating by these channels sometimes more than a hundred miles into the bosom of the mountains. The waters of the Fjords generally wash the bases of the mountain-ranges. Primeval forests clothe the gorges of the intersecting glens, and sometimes overspread in dark masses the shelving flanks of the fjelds. Among such wild and rugged scenery, there is small space whereon the foot of man can be planted. One sees now, as was no doubt the case from the earliest times, that wherever the cliffs

recede, and a small strip of land, however narrow, intervenes between the margin of the fjord,-on the steep slopes of the lower ranges, at the openings of the lateral valleys,-the hand of industry has reclaimed from the surrounding barrenness all that could be made available for the support of life.

We perceive then how the primitive population must have been early induced and impelled to resort to the water for that which it offered in a thousand channels, and the land denied. The fisheries afforded most needful supplies of food;-shut in by impassable mountains, the fjords were the only channels of interior communication, the only exit for the surplus population of a country in which the means of subsistence have always been scanty; and the way by which alone supplies could be introduced. Iron-ore of the finest quality, and fuel for smelting it, abounded; and the pine-forests were at hand, from which the rude barks could be at once launched into the water; while the peaceful surface of the lakes and fjords tempted to the adventure. Not only so, but exterior to these inland seas, the whole coast to the North Cape-a distance of twelve degrees of latitude-is studded with continuous clusters of rocky islands which break the surges of the northern ocean, and offer a safe but intricate navigation, which in the infancy of the science was fitted to prepare the northern sailor for the bold adventure of launching out into the ocean itself. Even now this navigation is frequented by the vessels engaged in the fisheries on the northern coast; and by the way, the jachts in which the produce is conveyed to Bergen-rude open boats of considerable tonnage with a single lofty mast and one large square-sail-are no bad types, and probably, in a country where there has been so little change, are models, of the inferior class of vessels which bore the followers of the Vikings to the shores of England; while the mystic runes which in the times of heathenism were inscribed on the poop and on the oars, to preserve from shipwreck, are now represented by some sacred apophthegm, pointing to the ancient tradition, and expressive, perhaps, of aspirations the form of which only has changed.‡

Nurtured in such a school, it is no matter of wonder that the

See "Rambles among the Fjelds and Fjords of the Western districts of Norway, by Thomas Forester." Longmans, 1850.