740 
S C A N D I N A V I A; 
invoked with a great noise the name of Odin, and sometimes 
sung hymns in his praise. They made an intrenchment with 
their baggage round the camp, where the women and children 
remained during the engagement. The conquered in vain 
fled there for refuge if they happened to be routed. Most 
commonly the women only waited their coming back to cut 
them in pieces; and if they could not oblige them to return 
to battle, they chose to bury themselves and their children 
in one common carnage with their husbands, rather than fall 
into the hands of a merciless conqueror. Such were the 
dreadful effects of that inhumanity with which war was then 
carried on. An act of rigour occasioned an act of cruelty, 
and this again produced a degree of barbarity still greater. 
The chains and punishments which were reserved for the 
vanquished, only served to render the victory the more 
bloody, and to make it cost the dearer to those who pur¬ 
chased the honour of destroying their fellow-creatures without 
necessity. 
Their offensive weapons were commonly the bow and 
arrow, the battle-axe, and the sword. The sword was short, 
most frequently crooked, in the manner of a scimeter, and 
hung to a little belt which passed over the right shoulder. 
Yet they sometimes made use of very long swords which went 
by a different name, (spad or spada,) and these were what the 
Cimbri employed, according to Plutarch. Their champions 
or heroes took particular care to procure very keen swords, 
which they inscribed with mysterious characters, and called 
by such names as might inspire terror. The battle-axe had 
two edges ; when it had a long handle it went by the name 
of an halberd, and was particularly affected by the Trabants, 
(or Drabants,) or those who stood upon guard in the castles 
of their kings. The Scandinavians were reckoned very skilful 
at shooting, and accordingly made great use of the bow, as 
we learn from all the ancient chronicles. But besides these 
arms, some warriors employed whatever others they judged 
most proper to second their valour. Thus we sometimes 
read of javelins, slings, clubs stuck round with points, lances, 
and a sort of daggers. There was no less variety in their 
defensive arms. Of these the shield or buckler was the chief, 
This most commonly was of wood, bark, or leather. The 
shields belonging to warriors of distinction were of iron or 
brass, ornamented with painting and sculpture, often finely 
gilt, and sometimes plated over with gold and silver. Of 
their shields they sometimes made a rampart, by locking them 
one into another, in the form of a circle; and at the end of 
a campaign, they suspended them against the walls of their 
houses, as the finest decoration with which they could adorn 
them. 
The casque, or helmet, was known to the Scandinavians 
from the most early ages. The private soldiers had their 
helmets frequently of leather; those of the officers were of 
iron, and, if their rank or wealth permitted, of gilded brass. 
The coat of mail, the breast-plate and back-piece, the armour 
for the thighs, and other less essential pieces, were only for 
such as were able to procure them. Thus, although the in¬ 
vention of all these was certainly owing to the Scythians and 
first inhabitants of Europe, few of their descendants were for 
many ages able to obtain them : a striking proof of their in¬ 
difference, or rather barbarous contempt for all the arts, since 
they cultivated so ill even that which was so necessary to them 
in battle. 
They did not carry to a much greater degree of perfection 
the art of fortifying or attacking places of defence. Their 
fortresses were only rude castles situate on the summit of 
rocks, and rendered inaccessible by thick mis-shapen walls. 
As these walls ran winding round the castles, they often 
called them by a name which signified serpents or dragons, 
and in these they commonly secured the woman and young 
maids of distinction, who were seldom safe at a time when so 
' many bold warriors were rambling up and down in search 
of adventures. 
How fonnidable soever the ancient Scandinavians were by 
land to most of the inhabitants of Europe, ’ it must yet be 
allowed that their maritime expeditions occasioned still more 
destructive ravages, and greater terror. We cannot read 
the history of the eighth, the ninth, and tenth, centuries, 
without observing with surprise, the sea covered with their 
vessels, and from one end of Europe to the other, the coasts 
of those countries, now the most powerful, a prey to their 
depredations. During the space of two hundred years,, they 
almost incessantly ravaged England, and frequently subdued 
it. They often invaded Scotland and Ireland, and made in¬ 
cursions on the coasts of Livonia, Courland, and Pomerania. 
Already feared, before the time of Charlemagne, they be¬ 
came still more terrible as soon as this great monarch’s eyes 
were closed. He is known to have shed tears on hearing that 
these barbarians had, on some occasion, defied his name, 
and all the precautions he had taken to oppose them. He 
foresaw what his people would suffer from their courage 
under his feeble successors. And never was presage better 
grounded. They soon spread, like a devouring flame, over 
Lower Saxony, Friesland, Holland, Flanders, and the banks 
of the Rhine as far as Mentz. They penetrated into the 
heart of France, having long before ravaged the coasts; from 
various parts they found their way up the Somme, the Seine, 
the Loire, the Garonne, and the Rhone. Within the space 
of thirty years, they frequently pillaged and burnt Paris, 
Amiens, Orleans, Poitiers, Bourdeaux, Toulouse, Saintes, 
Angouleme, Nantes, and Tours. They settled themselves in 
Camargue, at the mouth of the Rhone, from whence they 
wasted Provence and Dauphiny as far as Valence. In short, 
they ruined France, levied immense tribute on its monarchs, 
burnt the palace of Charlemagne, at Aix-la-Chapelle, and, in 
conclusion, caused one of the finest provinces of the king¬ 
dom to be ceded to them. They often carried their arms 
into Spain, and even made themselves dreaded in Italy and 
Greece. In fine, they no less infested the North than the 
South with their incursions, spreading every where desola¬ 
tion and terror: sometimes as furiously bent on their own 
mutual destruction, as on the ruin of other nations; some¬ 
times, animated by a more pacific spirit, they transported 
colonies to unknown or uninhabited countries, as if they 
were willing to repair in one place the horrid destruction 
of the human kind occasioned by their furious ravages in 
others. 
If we reflect on the interior state of Scandinavia, during 
the time that its inhabitants were so unfortunately famous, 
we shall soon see the cause of that amazing exterior power 
which they possessed. We have before observed, that they 
neglected agriculture, which, among a thousand other good 
effects, extinguishes in a rising people the relish for savage 
life, and inspires them with the love of peace and justice, 
without which the cultivation of their lands is useless. Their 
flocks being almost their only subsistence, they were neither 
obliged to a constant abode on the same spot, nor to wait for 
the time of harvest, and consequently such a people, though 
in fact but few, were able, on short notice, to levy numerous 
armies. Most of them brought up in a maritime country, 
and inured to the sea from their childhood, had no fear of 
the dangers, or rather knew not that there were dangers of 
any kind attending such a life. What a boundless field for 
conquests was here opened by the sole advantage of naviga¬ 
tion ! What a free scope was here afforded a warlike people 
to spread universally the terror of their arms! The profession 
of piracy was so tar from appearing disgraceful to them, 
that it was in their eyes the certain road to honours, and to 
fortune: for it was wisely contrived that the word honour , 
to which so many different ideas are annexed, was among 
them solely confined to a disregard of dangers. Hence 
it is, that in the ancient chronicles, more than one 
hero boasts of being the most renowned pirate in the 
North ; and that often the sons of the great lords and kings 
made cruising voyages in their youth, in order to render 
themselves illustrious, and to become one day more worthy 
of command. 
As soon as a prince had attained his eighteenth or twen¬ 
tieth year, he commonly requested of his father a small fleet 
completely fitted out, in order to achieve with his followers 
some 
