III. chronicler notices such a person or such an event. C H A P. Our ancient annalists expressly mark the year 787 as the date of the first aggressions of the Northmen on England 23, which is subsequent to the reign of Ivar. If, therefore, he conquered or plundered any where in Britain, it must have been in Scotland, of whose early history we have no correct information 24, and whose coasts were most likely to be the first attacked. BUT from the state and habits of the natives of Scandinavia and the Baltic, which have been described, we might have expected that the result would have been, that mutual destruction and desolation, which would in time have consumed themselves and unpeopled the north. Europe had then no reason to apprehend any mischief from such men, because Charlemagne had just raised a formidable Frankish empire, Egbert had consolidated the Anglo-Saxon power, and it was the interest of the new monarchies that were absorbing the Herverar Saga marks to be Northumbria; and gives the same dominion to his grandson Haralld Hyldetand, c. xix. p. 223. 23 Sax. Chron. 64.; Fl. Wig. 280.; Ethelw. 839.; Malm. 16.; Hunt. 343.; Matt. West. 282., and several others. The annals of Ulster do not mention their attacks on Ireland earlier; but from this period incessantly. 24 The northern literati place Ivar at the end of the sixth century. If this were just chronology, he might have been one of the adventurers that came among the Angles into Northumbria or Mercia. As the Angles and Jutes came from the Danish provinces of Sleswick and Jutland, their ancient memorials might have, not unfairly, pretended to conquests in Britain. But from a critical comparison of some of the most authentic of the ancient Icelandic authorities, I am satisfied that Ivar Vidfadme has been placed above a century too early. BOOK their own little sovereignties to extinguish such a IV. restless race. But such are the unexpected directions which the course of human agency frequently takes, that at this very period those dreadful hurricanes of war and desolation began to arise in the north, which afflicted all the maritime regions of Europe with a succession of calamities for above a century. As it exhibits a curious picture of human nature in its more savage energies, and is immediately connected with the romantic, and yet authentic, history of one man, whose transactions have not before been introduced into our annals, Ragnar Lodbrog, it is important to take an enlarged but calm review of the causes that produced this direction, and gave such an effect to his peculiar position and singular propensities. IN every country whose inhabitants have passed from their nomadic or wandering condition into a settled state, the cultivated lands become gradually the property of a portion only of the community. Their first occupiers or partitioners transmit them to their descendants; while the rest of society, as it multiplies, must, until commerce and the arts open new sources of employment and acquisitions, either serve the proprietary body as vassals and retainers, more or less dignified by office, title, or birth; or as labourers more or less servile; or they must float loosely in life without an adequate provision for their desires or necessities. This unpro vided class soon arises as population increases, and augments with its increase. When the sub-divisions of trade and manufactures occur, large portions of the unprovided are absorbed by them; but still many remain, in every age and country, from the rudest to the most civilised, who form a body III. f men disposed to be restless, migratory, enter- CHA P. rising, and ready for every new adventure, or mpression, which the flowing accidents of time, or the rise of bold and active original characters can present to them. This class pursues the progress of society in all its stages, feeds or occasions all its wars, seditions, colonies, and migrations, and has repeatedly shaken the happiness of the more civilised nations. It seems not to be the want of actual food on the earth which creates this unprovided body; for there is not sufficient evidence that nature has, in any period, produced less food than the existing population needed. The more population tends to press upon the quantity of subsistence in any country, the more it also tends to increase it. As the pressure begins, the activity and ingenuity of mankind are roused to provide for it. The powers of nature have hitherto answered to their call, and rewarded their exertions with the requisite supply. Hence increased productibility has always accompanied increased population, and still attends it: nor have we yet approached, nor probably shall we ever reach the period when the fertility of the earth and the ingenuity of man shall fail to be equal to the subsistence that is needed. New means have always hitherto unfolded to meet new exigencies. In the case of the Northmen, it is remarkable, that although every act of plunder was also an act of ravage, and more of the necessaries and conveniences of life were destroyed by their depredations than were either carried off or consumed; yet the numbers of both the plunderers and plundered increased till they formed well-peo. pled and prosperous communities. BOOK THIS unprovided class arises from the impossibility of having any system of property without it. These systems have increased population, civilisation, general prosperity, and individual comfort; but they are always multiplying the number of those, who either form no part of the proprietary body, or whose individual portions are inferior to the demands of their habits, their passions, or their necessities. To equalise all property, would not destroy the evil, unless wisdom and virtue could be made equally common. Society at this moment presents us, in every part of Europe, with a large unprovided population. A similar class existed, though under different habits, in the ninth century, all round the Baltic and North Sea; and it was from this body of men that the sea-kings and vikingr principally emerged. THIS unprovided population consisted and consists, not of the poor only, but also of many from the wealthier classes of every state. In every age, some portions of the families of all the rich and great have been as unable to continue the state and enjoyment of their relations, and of their own earlier days, as the meaner conditions of life to attain them. The one become the leaders of the other, and both alike desire adventures and employments, by which they can attain the property, the luxuries, or the distinctions which they covet. IN the fifth and sixth centuries, the AngloSaxons of this class poured themselves on Britain, and the numerous petty sovereignties in Norway, Sweden, and the Danish isles, seem to have arisen from the same source. Adventurers, seeking their fortune, appear to have landed from time to time on various parts of the uninhabited regions and III islands of Scandinavia, with little bands of inferior CHA P. companies; and as their posterity multiplied, levelled the forests, drained the marshes, and cultivated the earth: then humble kingdoms, jarlls, and nobility appeared. But the same result, in time, pursued them here which had driven them hither. All the lands they could subject to human culture became appropriated; claims of individual property became fastened on the parts which were left untilled; and unprovided population increased in each, who had to look elsewhere for the rank and comforts which the rest inherited. Ar the close of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, the unprovided population of the north was in full activity among their little kingdoms and jarlldoms in every part of the Baltic. The acquisition of property by violence was their object, the sea their road to it, the sword their instrument, and all the settled habitations which they could reach, master, or surprise, were the theatres of their enterprise. The invention of the term seaking satisfied the ambition of their highest-born chieftains; and the spoil obtained by their depredations, and the energies necessary to be exerted to make the expeditions successful, gratified their associates. BUT the vicinity of their domestic homes for a long time circumscribed the sphere of their exertions. There is not sufficient evidence that they had advanced beyond the Baltic, till that individual to whom we have already alluded, Ragnar Lodbrog, had been expelled by Harald from his insular kingdom; and becoming himself a sea-king, led his fleet of depredators successively to Friesland, Flanders, the British islands, and to France. |