146 Norway and the Norwegians 



(the southern part of Sweden then w^as a part of Den- 

 mark) ; and it would appear that the Viken people 

 were among the earliest to take part in the piratical 

 expeditions of the Viking age. For the very word 

 Viking as it was used by the Norsemen or Icelanders of 

 a later date, is probably derived from this word Vik ; so 

 that Viking means only ' man of the Vik,' The people 

 of the Vik belonged to the Baltic; they took part in the 

 same expeditions in which shared the Danes of Jut- 

 land, or of the islands, or of southern Sweden. But 

 the men of the fjords of the extreme west lay far away 

 from the Baltic, and opposite the Shetlands ; and so it 

 was from the fjord country that there issued that stream 

 of adventurers whom we have described as passing down 

 from the Shetlands to the Orkneys, to Scotland, and 

 Ireland. These form two of the three great divisions 

 of Norway. Thirdly, there was the Throndhjem region 

 which, perhaps, was less concerned with the Viking life 

 than either of the other two, whose inhabitants were, 

 therefore, less thinned by the draining off of adventurers 

 to take part in that life. The Throndhjem people seem, 

 when we first catch sight of them, to have been a settled 

 race of farmers, steady, well-to-do men, and, though 

 fearing no man, contented enough with their life at 

 home. The Throndheimers were, therefore, the most 

 conservative among the people ; not so prepared to re- 

 sist a sudden attack as were the fjord men, they were 

 yet more difficult to keep under. For they had not 

 acquired those habits of loyalty to their chiefs which 

 a life of adventure tends to produce. Norway, as we 

 have described it, was, when we first catch sight of it 

 in history, divided up among a great number of little 



