OOM for the Vikings! the sons of the creek, the bluff, stalwart rovers who love the salt sea with a consuming passion, and shout with glee as the waves foam beneath them and tempest roars about them. Mighty warriors are they, wild and untamed as the element they love, swift as the falcon, remorseless as the vulture, fierce as the wolf. From the shores of the Baltic they come, swarming out of their barren homelands, and descending with fire and sword upon all the coasts of Western Europe. Every champion amongst them ardently desires to be a Berserk, and thus to be regarded as the bravest of the brave, utterly contemptuous of death. These Berserks within sight of the foe are wont to lash themselves into a frenzy, so that they bite their shields and rush to the fray, wielding club or battle-axe with almost superhuman strength.
No Christian message of peace and brotherhood has touched their hearts; they still swear by the Asir, and still glory in their descent from the grim gods of their dark and hopeless creed. They lust for blood, and their fiercest loathing is reserved for them who have abandoned Odin and Thor for the mild faith of the “White Christ.” They shed with unholy joy the blood of priests; they glory in the plunder and the burning of churches. They are a scourge, not only to England, Scotland, and Ireland, but to the whole of Europe; and men pray in their churches, “From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us.”
Never in the whole history of the world have men “followed the sea” with such fearlessness and keen delight as these Vikings. The sea is their “swan road,” their “Viking path,” their “land of the keel,” their “glittering home.” Their ships are “deer of the surf” and “horses of the sea.” Frail barks they seem to us, small and not very seaworthy; but the men who man them are consummate sailors, and they make astounding voyages with nothing but a thin plank between them and destruction. The Orkneys know them; they have seen Hecla shoot out its fiery lava in remote Iceland; they have even trodden the icy shores of Greenland, far across the dreaded Western Ocean.
A Viking fleet is even now heading for our shores. Look at the long black ships, with their high prows curved in the semblance of a serpent. The sun glints on the bright shields which protect their bulwarks, on the mail which the warriors wear, and on the battle-axes and spears which they wield. The great sails flaunt painted devices—the eagle, the bear, the wolf, and the raven. Fierce are these creatures, but fiercer still the men who now come to harry these shores.
Yonder little village is happy and peaceful in the morning sunshine. The cosy farmhouses and the smiling fields with their rich promise of harvest tell the tale of comfort and contentment. Alas! the scene will change when these sea-wolves arrive. They will sail up the river-mouth, throw up stockaded earthworks to secure their retreat, and then begin the congenial work of pillage and slaughter. Men, women, and innocent babes will be slain, cattle will be driven off, and the smoke of burning roof-trees will darken the sky. Yonder minster, where the frightened monks are trembling before the altar, will be raided; its treasures, the gifts of generations of pious souls, will be seized; the gilded cross will be torn down and trampled upon, and blood-eagles will be carved on the backs of the hated priests. Then torch and flame will do their work; and the Vikings, having devastated the countryside like locusts, will retire to their ships glutted with blood and laden with booty.
Again and again they will return, bolder and bolder, and at length they will covet the fair land as their home. They will come in such force that they will reave half the land from the English, and then a Viking will rule the realm. Ay, and Englishmen will come to honour and love him. Then the Viking settlers will disappear, absorbed into the mass of the nation, and endowing the national character with a new strain of courage, daring, and adventure. But before that happy day dawns the land will run red with blood, many homes will be ruined, many patriotic hearts will break, and the star of England will seem to have set for ever.
“Behold a pupil of the monkish gown,
The pious Alfred, king to Justice dear;