Besides the CHA P. which, how

hibition of every species of barbarity.
savage food of raw flesh and blood 27,
ever, the Greenlanders of our times are stated to
have used, as also the Abyssinians 28, to tear the
infant from the mother's breast, and to toss it on
their lances from one to another 29, is stated in
several books to have been the custom of many
of these pirates, from which, though at a late
period, their civilising chiefs at last alienated them.
It was a consistency of character in such men to
despise tears and mourning so much, that they
would never weep for their deceased relations. 30

ONE branch of the vikingr is said to have cultivated paroxysms of brutal insanity, and they who experienced them were revered. These were the

Brandkrossa thetti, and the Svarfdalensium historia, cited by the editors of the Gunnlaugi Saga, p. 305., evince that they had some difference of meaning, but I do not think we understand the distinction. They who are curious may read the dissertation above quoted, p. 305.

27 See the Saga Gothrici et Rolfi, and also the Helgaquida of Sæmund, in Barthol. 456. One of the laws of Hialmar mentioned in the Orvar Oddz Sagu, was, ne crudam carnem comederent. Ibid.

28 The Greenlanders eat raw flesh, and drink the rein-deer's hot blood. 2 Crantz, 28. See Bruce's life, p. cvii. 2d edition. 29 This is stated by the English annalists, as Osborn, in his life of Elphegus, 2 Langb. p. 444. Matt. Westm. p. 388, and Henry of Huntingdon, lib. v. p. 347. After citing these, Bartholin records from the Landnamâ, the name of the man who abolished the horrid custom. The Landnamâ says, "Olverus Barnakall celebris incola Norvegiæ, validus fuit pirata, ille infantes ab unius hasta mucrone in aliam projici, passus non est, quod piratis tunc familiare erat; ideoque Barnakall (infantum præsidium vel multos habens infantes) cognominatus est. Bartholin, p. 457.

30 Adam Brem. states this fact of the Danes, p. 64.

II.

IV.

BOOK berserkir 31, whom many authors describe. These men, when a conflict impended, or a great undertaking was to be commenced, abandoned all rationality upon system; they studied to resemble wolves or maddening dogs; they bit their shields; they howled like tremendous beasts 32; they threw off covering; they excited themselves to a strength which has been compared to that of bears, and then rushed to every crime and horror which the most frantic enthusiasm could perpetrate. This fury was an artifice of battle like the Indian warwhoop. Its object was to intimidate the enemy. It is attested that the unnatural excitation was, as might be expected, always followed by a complete debility. It was originally practised by Odin. 35

33

31 The berserkir were at first honoured. The Hervarar Saga applies the name to the sons of Arngrim as a matter of reputation. Omnes magni berserkir fuere, p. 15. Snorre, in mentioning one who fought with Harald Harfragre, calls him a berserkr mikill, a mighty berserkir. Harald's Saga, c. 19. p. 94. The scald Hornklofi says, fremuere berserki bellum eis erat circa præcordia, p. 95. In another place, Snorre says, Haralld filled his ship with his attendants and berserkir; he says the station of the berserkir was near the prow, ibid. p. 82.; he mentions them also, 69. It was in allusion to their ferocity, that the Harbarz lioth of Sæmund applies the name berserkir to signify giants. Edda Sæmundar, p. 107.

32 Hervar. Saga, p. 35. Saxo describes the berserkir fury minutely twice in his seventh book, p. 123, 124. Torfæus also, in Hrolfli kraka, p. 49., mentions them.

33 Annotatio de Berserkir added to Kristni Saga, p. 142. See the Eyrbyggia Saga, ibid. p. 143. So the Egills Saga. ap. Bartholin, p. 346.

34 Hervarar Saga, p. 27. So the Egills Saga. Bartholin, p. 346.

35 Snorre, Ynglinga, c. vi. p. 11. In the Havamal of Sæmund, Odin boasts of it as a magical trick. See the ode in Barthol. 347.

36

II.

They who used it, often joined in companies. CHA P. The furor Berserkicus, as mind and morals improved, was at length felt to be horrible. It changed from a distinction to a reproach 7, and was prohibited by penal laws. 38 The name at last became execrable.

WHEN We consider the calamities, which the course of nature every where mixes with the happiness of man, we should, from theory, expect a general union of sentiment and wisdom to mitigate the evils which none can avoid. Experience however shows our species to have been engaged at all times, in exasperating every natural affliction, by the addition of those which human agency can create. Mankind appear from history to have been always attacking each other, without the provocation of personal injury. If civilisation, science, and Christianity have not allayed the spirit of political ambition, nor subdued the love of warlike glory, we cannot be surprised that the untaught Northmen delighted in the depredations to which they were educated, from which they derived honour and fame, and by which they subsisted. Pity and benevolence are the children of our disciplined reason and augmented felicity. They are little known to our species in those ages, when gene

36 So they appear in the Hervarar Saga.

37 Thus the Vatzdæla. Thorus furore Berserkico nonnunquam corripiebatur, quod in tali viro probrum ducebatur, neque enim illud ipsi gloriosum erat. Barthol. 345. This man is made to say of himself, that it disgraced him, and he asks advice how to overcome it. Ibid. 346.

38 The code of Icelandic law says, "furore berserkico si quis grassetur, relegatione puniatur." Ann. Kristni Saga, p. 142. So the Grettis Saga mentions of Eric the earl of Norway, omnes Berserkos Norvegia exulare jussit, ibid. 142.

IV.

BOOK ral misery licenses and produces the most tyrannical
selfishness. Hence the berserkir, the vikingr, or
the sea-king, felt no remorse at the sight of human
wretchedness. Familiar with misery from their
infancy, taught to value peaceful society but as a
rich harvest easier to be pillaged, knowing no glory
but from the destruction of their fellow creatures,
all their habits, all their feelings, all their reasonings
were ferocious; they sailed from country to
country, to desolate its agriculture, and not merely
to plunder, but to murder or enslave its inhabit-
ants. Thus they landed in Gothia. The natives
endeavoured to escape. The invaders pursued
with the flame and sword." Thus in Sweden, part
of the inhabitants they massacre, and part they
make captive; but the fields were ravaged far and
wide with fire. 40 The same miseries proclaimed
their triumphs in Wendila. The flame and sword
were unsparing assailants, and villages were con-
verted into uninhabited deserts. 41 Thus at Paris
they impaled 111 of their captives, crucified many
others on houses and trees, and slew numbers in the
villages and fields. 42
In war they seemed to have
reckoned cruelty a circumstance of triumph; for
the sea-king and the vikingr even hung the chiefs
of their own order on their defeat. 43 And yet from
the descendants of these men some of the noblest
people in Europe have originated.

39 Snorre, Ynglinga Saga, c. xxi. p. 24.
40 Snorre, c. xxxi. p. 39.

41 Ibid.

42 Du Chesne, Hist. Francorum Script. vol. ii. p. 655. The annals which he edited abound with such incidents.

43 There are many instances of this in Snorre, p. 31. 33. 44. &c. also in the Hervarar Saga, and others.

CHAP. III.

Comparison between the Histories of SAXO-GRAMMATICUS and
SNORRE. The first Aggression of the Northmen on the
ANGLO-SAXONS. - And the Rise, Actions, and Death of
RAGNAR LODbroc.

III.

SUCH UCH was the dismal state of society in the CHA P. North. For a long time the miseries of this system were limited to the Baltic. After the colonisation of England had freed the Germanic and British ocean from Saxon piracy, Europe was blessed with almost three centuries of tranquillity. One. Danish rover is stated to have wandered to the Maese in the beginning of the sixth century; but the enterprise was unfortunate. Other Danes are mentioned as acting with the Saxons against the Francs. But after this century?, we hear no more of Danes for above two hundred years.

- BUT some of the historians of the North pretend that the Danes visited England and Europe in a much earlier period. Are these entitled to our belief?

SAXO-GRAMMATICUS, who died 1204 3, has left us a history which has delighted both taste and learn

1 Gregory of Tours, who lived in 573, the oldest author extant who mentions the Danes, narrates this expedition, lib. iii. c. 3. p. 53. Corpus Franc. Hist. ed. Hanov. 1613.

2 Venantius Fortunatus, who lived 565, mentions them as defeated by the kings of the Francs, lib. viii. c. 1. p. 822. and his lines to the Dux Lupus (lib. vi.) imply that the Danes and Saxons had invaded the country near Bourdeaux. This was probably some ebullition of the Anglo-Saxon expeditions against Britain.

3 Stephan. Prolog. p. 22.