APPENDIX. 



1. THE TESTIMONY OF THE FKANKISH ANNALS. 



FROM the Frankish annals of the time of Charlemagne and his sons, 

 we know that before the period of Harold Fairhair (b. 850 ; d. 933), 

 and consequently before the conquest by Gangu Hrolf of the country 

 called Normandy, the Sueones (Swedes) and Danes, who were also 

 called Northmen by the Chroniclers, attacked and overran the 

 ancient Gaul in every direction. They captured Paris and many 

 other important cities, and also devastated a great part of the 

 present Germany, and extended their expeditions to the Alps. 

 From a passage in Eginhard we find that the Norwegians are 

 also mentioned ; while the Frankish coins found in the present 

 Norway show that its inhabitants had intercourse with the 

 empire of Charlemagne, as they had previously had with Rome. 



The Frankish, English, Irish, and Arabian records afford us even 

 a fuller and clearer insight than do the Sagas into the maritime 

 power and great activity of the seafaring tribes of the North, and 

 of their migrations during the ninth and tenth centuries. This 

 maritime power, as we have seen, was already very formidable 

 during the Roman domination of Gaul and Britain. If we have a 

 break in the continuity of these maritime expeditions between 

 the fall of the Roman Empire and the time of Charlemagne, it is 

 on account of the lack of records, owing to the chaos that followed 

 the fall and disintegration of the Roman dominion. 



The Sagas supply us to some extent with the needed information ; 

 they mention how chiefs like Ivar Vidfamrne, Harald Hildetonn, 

 Sigurd Hring, Ragnar Lodbrok, and others engaged extensively 

 in Western and Eastern expeditions, and claimed part of England 

 as belonging to them. From the foreign annals we realize more 

 fully what was implied in the Sagas by the simple phrase that 

 particular chiefs had been, or were, engaged in Eastern and 

 Western expeditions : viz., armaments on the most formidable 



