Charlemagne and the Danes 67 



* 



of St. Columba, indirectly the parent of almost all the 

 monasteries of the English Church. All these attacks 

 which I have spoken of had taken place before the 

 ninth century had got into its teens. We see, there- 

 fore, how this new wave of plunder and destruction 

 had, in the course of a few years, swept completely 

 round the coasts of our islands. 



Nor was it long before the pirates became as well 

 known upon the Continent. The coast towns of what 

 was then called Frisia, and is now called Holland, were 

 the first to grow acquainted with the high-prowed, 

 square-sailed vessels of the Northmen. Frisia was first 

 attacked in the last year of the eighth century, 799. 

 Another attack followed the next year ; then a pause, 

 and ten years later (a.d. 810) a very fierce and de- 

 termined attack was organised by the King of Denmark. 

 This king, whose name was Godfred, was at war with 

 the mighty Charlemagne, who was at this time the 

 Emperor of all Western Continental Christendom. Not 

 much was to be feared from the Northmen as lon<^- as 

 Charlemagne remained upon the throne. But there is 

 a story told of this emperor which, if it is true, shows 

 how well he appreciated the character of this new 

 terror which was dawning upon Europe. 



' Once,' the chronicler tells us, ' Charles arrived by 

 chance at a certain maritime town of his dominions,^ 

 while he was sitting at dinner, and had not been 

 recognised by the townspeople, some northern pirates 



1 The chronicler (the Monk of St. Gallen) makes it a town in the 

 Mediterranean, a part to which the Vikings certainly never reached as 

 early as the time of Charlemagne. It may be that the story really relates 

 to quite a different sort of pirates — the Arab corsairs. For the Monk of 

 St. Gallen is not quite to be relied upon. 



