The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1880-12-08
monks with his own hand-Was slain IN bat

nOuh5 WILL AlS w AdAd ~ o!0A - 49,
tie on English ground in 878.
The Norsemen, or Danes as the baxons
called them, made their first appearance IN
Britain upon the Wessex coast about the
year 1888 A. d., and again in Northumber-
land a little later, when the monastery Of
Holy Island fell a prey to their cruel VIC
lence. For four centuries these barbarlans
harried the coasts of Britain, France, Italy,
Spain and Ireland and on every seaboard 10
those dreadful times a petition was added 10
the Litany and daily breathed by trembling
lips: "A furore Normannorum liberia nos,
Domine!" (From the fury Of the Norsemen,
Lord, deliver u.s.
From out the dim obscurity Of those blood
stained days a few figures flash into promin-
ence. Rollo, the conqueror Of Neustria,
who fashioned out Of his ,rude pagan follow
ers one Of the most chiyalrous, polished and
refined peoples of Christendom; Haestan,
the brave and unfortunate Dane so nobly
treated BY Alfred the Great; Ragnar LODI
brok, tne gallant Viking who died chanting a
wild song of defiance from his loathsome
dungeon. 'sWe struck with our sWords!"
sang Ragnar; 1--WE chanted the mass OF
spears with the uprising sun. We struck
with our swords! Oh! if the sons Of Aslau-
ga but knew of my danger, they would draw
their bright blades and rush to my rescue!
...... How the anger of my sons will swell
-l.~ %lov l1-@7 49, , +, - fo+ho r1n o)r-
quered! ...... Odin has sent for me. The
hours Of my life are gliding away, and
laughing I will die!" And indeed the death
of this brave chief brought down upon Eng
land a terrible vengeance. Swearing, Viking
fashion, upon their golden bracelets never to
rest nor to sheathe their swords until it was
avenged, the furious Norsemen swarmed
from every creek and bay to join Ingwar and
Hubba, the sons of Ragnar, in their raid
against his murderers. They besought of
Odin victory in the battle; they prayed Thor
to avert his thunderbolts from themselves
and to hurl them against his enemies. Then
the swift ships-adorned at the Prov with
lions, or dragons, or bulls, whose savage ma
ture rightly typiied the savage hearts which
guided them-were turned with one accord
towards England and soon the devastated
kingdom Of Norlhumbria and the destruc-
tion of nearly the whole Saxon army bore
witness that the death of Ragnar had been
avenged. @
Harold Hardrada, the gigantic ally Of Tos-.
tig, was the last of the terrible pirate-kings
who reigned upon the Northern seas. He
was slain in 1866, pierced to the heart by a
Saxon arrow, at the fight Of Stamford
Bridge; and when that grand head with its
floating fair hair was laid low in the dust,
and the waves Of battle surged over it, there
disappeared from sight forever the last Of the
brave Vikings.
But something Of them yet remains in this
luxurious, over-civilized world, so far re-
moved from that barbarous one Of a thou
sand years ago through which they flashed
like bright and terrible meteors. "Saxon,
and Dane, and Norman We," sang our Laur-
cate, proud to own his descent by a twofold
cord from the Morse settlers in England and
Neustria. And indeed what is that spirit of
enterprise by which Englishmen explore IN
known continents and climb virgin mountain
peaks-that love of conquest which leads
them to subdue great peoples and wide tracts
Of country-What are the foltitude and en-
durance which never fall them amid Torrid
heat and Polar cold, but a noble heritage
handed down from their forefathers the old
Vikings.