ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS sICULUS. 317 
preceding the conquest. Simeon of Durham, in 
his account of the reign of Ethelred IL., says, 
that, in the year 1014, such an encroachment of 
the sea took place on the 3rd of the calends of 
October, when a great many towns, and an innu- 
merable multitude of human beings were sub- 
merged ;* and John Bromton, in his history of 
the reign of Canute, (A. D. 1017—1039,) says, 
‘“‘at that time the Lord also added to the ordinary 
calamities an extraordinary one, for the sea, rising 
above its usual level, overwhelmed several towns, 
with people innumerable.”}+ It is probably this 
latter encroachment of the sea, a traditional ac- 
count of which has reached us in the well known 
historical myth, respecting this monarch and 
his courtiers. They would fain have persuaded 
him, we are told, that the sea was obedient to his 
will; and he is represented as having rebuked 
* Mare littus egreditur III. Kal. Octobris, et in Anglia 
villas quamplurimas, innumerabilemque populi multitudinem 
summersit.—Simeon. Dunelm. Hist. de Gestis Regum Ang- 
lorum, apud “ Rogeri Twysden Historie Anglicane Scrip- 
tores X ;” p. 171. 
+ Eo tempore eciam addidit Dominus malis solitis malum 
insolitum, mare namque insolito superius ascendens, villas in 
Anglia nonnullas cum populo innumero submersit.—,J ohannis 
Bromton Chronicon, ubi supra; p. 892. 
UU 
