certain day's work; but after it he gave them leisure, and leave that each should work in the twilight and at night for himself, and as he pleased. He gave them arable land to sow corn in, and let them apply their crops to their own use. He laid upon each a certain quantity of labour to work themselves free by doing it; and there were many who bought their freedom in this way in one year, or in the second year, and all who had any luck could make themselves free within three years. With this money he bought other slaves; and to some of his freed people he showed how to work in the herring-fishery; to others he showed some useful handicraft; and some cleared his outfields and set up houses. He helped all to prosperity.

CHAPTER XXIII.—Of Earl Eirik.

When Earl Eirik had ruled over Norway for twelve years, there came a message to him from his brotherin-law King Canute, the Danish king, that he should go with him on an expedition westward to England; for Eirik was very celebrated for his campaigns, as he had gained the victory in the two hardest engagements which had ever been fought in the north countries. The one was that in which the Earls Hakon and Eirik fought with the Jomsborg vikings; the other that in which Earl Eirik fought with King Olaf TrygThord Kolbeinson speaks of this:

veson.

"A song of praise
Again I raise.

To the earl bold
The word is told,

That Knut the Brave
His aid would crave:

The earl, I knew,

To friend stands true."

The earl would not sleep upon the message of the king, but sailed immediately out of the country, leaving behind his son Earl Hakon to take care of Norway; and, as he was but seventeen years of age, Einar Tambaskelfer was to be at his hand to rule the country for him.

Eirik met King Canute in England, and was with him when he took the castle of London. Earl Eirik had a battle also to the westward of the castle of London, and killed Ulfkel Snilling. So says Thord Kolbeinson :

"West of London town we passed,
And our ocean-steeds made fast,
And a bloody fight begin,
England's lands to lose or win.
Blue sword and shining spear

Laid Ulfkel's dead corpse there.

Our Thingmen hear the war-shower sounding
Our grey arrows from their shields rebounding."

Earl Eirik was a winter in England, and had many battles there. The following autumn he intended to make a pilgrimage to Rome, but he died in England of a bloody flux.*

King Ethelred died 1014; Edmund Ironside, according to the Saxon Chronicle, in 1016, at the feast of Saint Andrew. Canute married Emma, the widow of Ethelred, in 1017. The murder of Edmund by Henry Strion is not mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle; but in a manuscript in the Cotton Library, quoted by Turner, it is said, "Nocte siquidem sequentis diei festivitatis Sancti Andrea Lundoniæ perimitur insidiis Edrici Strioni." This manuscript is stated to be written within fifty VOL. II.

S

CHAPTER XXIV.-The Murder of Edmund.

King Canute came to England the summer that King Ethelred died, and had many battles with Ethelred's sons, in which the victory was sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. Then King Canute took Queen Emma in marriage; and their children were Harald, Hardacanute, and Gunhild.* King Canute then made an agreement with King Edmund, that each of them should have a half of England. In the same month Henry Strion murdered King Edmund. King Canute then drove all Ethelred's sons out of England. So says Sigvat:

"Now all the sons of Ethelred

Were either fallen, or had fled :

Some slain by Canute,-some, they say,
To save their lives had run away."

CHAPTER XXV.-Of Olaf and Ethelred's Sons.

King Ethelred's sons came to Rouen in Valland from England, to their mother's brother, the same summer that King Olaf Haraldson came from the west from his viking cruise, and they were all during the winter in Normandy together. They made an agreement with each other that King Olaf should have Northumberland, if they could succeed in years of the event. It gives a strong corroboration of the accuracy, as to events, of the saga accounts. Edmund was not the son of Emma, but of a former marriage of King Ethelred. Emma was married in 1002 to Ethelred.

* Harald was not the son of Emma, but of Canute's concubine Elgiva. Gunhild married Emperor Henry III., and died 1038.

taking England from the Danes. Therefore about harvest, Olaf sent his foster-father Hrane to England to collect men-at-arms; and Ethelred's sons sent tokens to their friends and relations with him. King Olaf, besides, gave him much money with him to attract people to them. Hrane was all winter in England, and got promises from many powerful men of fidelity, as the people of the country would rather have native kings over them; but the Danish power had become so great in England, that all the people were brought under their dominion.

CHAPTER XXVI.-Battle of King Olaf.

In spring [1014] King Olaf and King Ethelred's sons set out together to the west, and came to a place in England called Jungufurda, where they landed with their army, and moved forward against the castle. Many men were there who had promised them their aid. They took the castle; and killed many people. Now when King Canute's men heard of this they assembled an army, and were soon in such force that Ethelred's sons could not stand against it; and they saw no other way left but to return to Rouen. Then King Olaf separated from them, and would not go back to Valland, but sailed northwards along England, all the way to Northumberland, where he put into a haven at a place called Valde; † and in a battle there with the townspeople

Jungufurda must be some place on the south coast of England.-L. + Valde must be some place on the coast of Northumberland—that is, north of the Humber. But it is to be observed that the ships of that age

and merchants he gained the victory, and a great booty.

CHAPTER XXVII.—King Olaf's Expedition to Norway.

King Olaf left his long-ships there behind, but made ready two ships of burden; and had with him 220 men in them, well-armed and chosen people. He sailed out to sea northwards in harvest, but encountered a tremendous storm, and they were in danger of being lost; but as they had a chosen crew, and the king's luck with them, all went on well. So says Ottar :—

"Olaf, great stem of kings, is brave—

Bold in the fight, bold on the wave.

No thought of fear

Thy heart comes near.

Undaunted, 'midst the roaring flood,

Firm at his post each shipman stood;

And thy two ships stout
The gale stood out."

And further he says:

"Thou able chief! with thy fearless crew

Thou meetest, with skill and courage true,
The wild sea's wrath
On thy ocean path.

even the largest, were worked with oars, and coasted close to the shore, and at night lay at, or even on, the beach; so that harbours with anchorage were of less importance than flat shores to haul up their vessels on, and the localities cannot be determined by our harbours.-L.

There is a distinction evidently here between the class of vessels called long-ships and the large sea-going vessels. The long-ship has been, like the Crane and the Long Serpent, a vessel intended for rowing up rivers and along the coast, but not for sea voyages, and in autumn not thought suitable for crossing the North Sea.-L.

+ Two long hundreds and twenty = 260.