The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-01-22
OF THE NORTHMEN
A Glimpse Of a Brave But
LawIess People.
How the Vikings 0yerran Normandy
and England Mingled Their
Blood With That Of
Our Sires.
By CICERoE w. HARRIS.

Inc late lmDfOgllO over the CABINET
in the little Kingdom of Denmark is
worthy of more than passing notice, if
for nothing else, for the sake of en-
abling some of us to recall what Den
mark was centuries ago and what her
connection with the blood of the
English-American race is today. When
/ lived in Wilmington ] knew very
well the Danish consul there. / think
his real rank was only that of vice con-
sui, but he had charge of matters
consular. Mr.. Heide was small,
wiry, active, sprightly, genial man, full
of anec6ote, fond of his native coun-
try and devoted to his adopted land,
the United States. always got q
more cheerful view of the Danes and
of Denmark from my personal knowl-
edge of Mr.. Heide than. from any other
source. 1 think he is now dead. In
those days he owned a yinyard, or
chard and truck garden near Whining
ton and conducted a mercantile busl-
ness in the city. Heide was fine
fellow.
Denmark, closely connected with
the reigning house of England. Greece.
Russia and other countries in modern
Europe, was during the eleventh GEN.
fury and perhaps the tenth century the
greatest of the European powers ex-
cept the Germanic (Holy Roman) en-
pire. Those were the days of Canute
and the English conquest, of Rolio
and the over-runnlng or the lower
Seine region and beginning of Nor
mandy, of the establishment of the
Normans In Sicily and Southern Italy.
They were the palmy days of the
Morse rovers, when they got them-
selves adopted as hired defenders OF
the Eastern or Constantinopolitan
4 l. n SNn,Nf Hon Il
end Ireland, setting themselves up III
Dublin and acquiring the Orkneys and
Shetland islands. DuChaillu. in the
Viking Age, makes a good preSenta-
ton of the case that England itself
Is mostly scandinavian and therefore
largely Danish, not simply because OF
the later Danish and the subsequent
Norman conquests, but because as far
back as the sixth and seventh CEN
turtles that heroic and .piratic people
overran nearly all of England and
Scotland from London north to the
Scottish Highlands, occupying and es-
tablishing small Kingdoms or princi-
palities throughout central, eastern and
even western England and the Low
lands of Scotland.
The English blood is probably main
ly of Teutonic strain. but of that ele-
ment of the Teutonic that belongs u.
the cold north and not the middle OF
Europe. The English and Lowland
Scots are Scandinavian in race for the
greater part, with infusions of the old
Celtic and some later stocks that come
i'm with or subsequent to the Norman
conquest
The Danes were for long time the
greatest of the three Scandinavian
people. Under Nargout in the fifteenth
century they acquired the sovereignty
of both Norway and Sweden and held
it for century and a half or longer
- under the Union of Colmar. The great
house of Vasa in Sweden. mobiles of
Dalecarlia. broke this ascendancy, re-
storing the Swedish monarchy and
gradually giving Sweden place in
Europe as one of the great powers.
which she held. although poor
country in wealth, until the mad am
bition of Charles XII wrecked every
thing on the fatal field of Pultowa.
From that date, the first quarter of
the 18th century. Russia became un+
der Peter the Greats initiative the
great northern power, diSplac1ng both
Sweden and Poland. At the time of
the Thirty Years War Swedish diplo-
macy and craftsmanship, directed by
the wise and glorious Oxtenstiern, and
strategic genius of Gustavus and his
successor in the field, = Torstenson.
gave that branch of the great Scandi-
navian race q mastery which then was
nothing in it's numerical strength that
enabled it afterward to maintain Up
TO the Thirty Years War and even
until after the heroic Gustavus Adolf
plus had died on the field of his most
glorious victory. Lutzen, Denmark was
a great power in Europe. But when
the Danish sovereign backslid from
his Franco-Swedish alliance and pro-
posed to make a dangerous diversion
i'm favor of the Imperial cause in the
IL. lt.t
gout--affilicted Marshal Torstenson
rapidly swept along the TANKS of the
Impcrialists in SaoXny. entered Den
mark. vanquished and Inundated the
king of that country and forced him to
make peace. He afterward joined the
Swedes and French. Thus by a fatal
folly the dominancy of Denmark came
to an end. All students of history
know of the destruction by England in
Nelson's time of the whole Danish
fleet. t>that period an object of jeal-
Gus fear even by the English ministry
who recently decided TO eXtinguish it
IN time of profound peace and in vio-
lation of treaty in order to prevent
Napoleon from securing it
either peacefully or forcib1y. Since
that date Denmark mas had no sort of
rank among the considerable powers.
although she did make a futile effort
to preserve her rights i'm the duchies
dis dBdlllSL 1CuSSid III SO4 Won
Moltke crushed what little was left
OF her military vitality All. but it
is q, far cry from Knut and Nargout
to these degenerate days when the
chief end OF Danish Kings is not to
conquer distant realms but TO have
their daughters conquer the hearts of
rulers of distant realms. The land of
the bold rovers of the sea. the land
. Of Thorwaldsen. the sculptor. brides
itself now on it's beautiful royal DANES
in the courts of England and Russia
and upon the choice butter products
which monopolize the British and some
continental markets.
Now behold | have made for you,
readers Of The News and Observer,
the prose idyll of the Dane--ancestor
Of England and America. as we be-
lieve.
At dinner table once when CONVEX
sation ran glibly along-a family dim
ing in the good old county of Gran
ville-Rev. William Shepherd PETIT
, grew observed that perhaps the most
brilliant t;Ilker. if not the most bril-
liant public man. he had ever known