BEFORE THE CONQUEST 



put to sea. These piratical expeditions were all on a similar plan. First 

 of all there was a reconnaissance in some force (three ships when the 

 Dorset coast was first raided in 789), followed by a bigger expedition 

 which took possession of some convenient island preferably at the mouth 

 of a river, which could be used as a base and arsenal. After that their 

 operations were on land, and when they had fought and slaughtered 

 their way to power they would settle down and assimilate with the people 

 who remained in a manner that was remarkable in such cruel warriors. 

 After the first raid on Britain and a few similar excursions in the following 

 years they left England alone for a time and confined themselves to 

 Ireland, the West of Scotland, and the Isle of Man. In 835 they 

 captured and fortified the Isle of Sheppey, then Thanet, and in 838 

 began their first really serious invasion of Britain. The " Great Army " 

 landed in 865, and it was thirteen years later that Alfred forced the 

 greater part of them to accept his terms, the malcontents invading 

 France, settling in Normandy, and in due course conquering Britain. 



Viking Customs. 



Although it is usual nowadays to remember only the Vikings' good 

 qualities, in their day they were rightly regarded with terror by every 

 other people. Drink and women were their aims in life, and their 

 ways were unpleasant in both directions. Their cruelty to their 

 prisoners was extraordinary, although in some degree it might well have 

 been a matter of policy to make their future victims fly at the approach 

 of the marauders and leave their goods unprotected just as the pirates 

 of the Black Flag period flew their dread ensign in the hope that it 

 would terrify seamen into striking their colours without a blow. Flay- 

 ing alive was one of the customs of which they were most proud, or in 

 extreme cases the death of the " Blood-Eagle." In this the ribs were 

 split apart like those of an eagle, and the lungs then carefully drawn 

 through the cavities, by which time death had probably granted a merci- 

 ful release to the prisoner. The terror of their name is to be seen in the 

 prayer : " From the Fury of the Norsemen Good Lord deliver us," in 

 the old Litany. On the other hand it must be said for them that they 

 were essentially masculine in everything and did not seem to know the 

 meaning of fear in any way. Their burial customs, which are the ones 

 that have most attracted modern readers, are the direct result of the 

 inability of primitive man to grasp the possibility of the souls of the 

 dead being separated from their bodies. So the dead chieftain was left 

 with his ship and his arms to sail across to Valhalla when the time came, 

 for what Norseman could imagine Valhalla to be anywhere but beyond 

 the sea, the way of all his endeavours? At the same time they were 

 eminently practical people and apparently did not spend more on the 

 dead than was necessary, for the famous Gokstad ship which was found 

 under the tumulus of a chief in 1880 was a comparatively small vessel 

 of sixteen oars aside. When the chief was buried with his ship she 

 carried a great stone as an anchor, all her gear was in place, and her 

 owners' arms and greatest treasures for use in the next world were put 



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