Stories of the Olden Time Part 16

_x.x.xVII.-THE NORs.e.m.e.n._

1. The Gulf Stream flows so near to the southern coast of Norway, and to the Orkneys and Western Islands, that their climate is much less severe than might be supposed. Yet no one can help wondering why they were formerly so much more populous than now, and why the people who came westward even so long ago as the great Aryan migration, did not persist in turning aside to the more fertile countries that lay farther southward. In spite of all their disadvantages, the Scandinavian peninsula, and the sterile islands of the northern seas, were inhabitated by men and women whose enterprise and intelligence ranked them above their neighbors.

2. Now, with the modern ease of travel and transportation, these poorer countries can be supplied from other parts of the world. And though the summers of Norway are misty and dark and short, and it is difficult to raise even a little hay on the bits of meadow among the rocky mountain-slopes, commerce can make up for all deficiencies. In early times there was no commerce, except that carried on by the pirates, if we may dignify their undertakings by such a respectable name, and it was hardly possible to make a living from the soil alone. But it does not take us long to discover that the ancient Northmen were not farmers, but hunters and fishermen. It had grown more and more difficult to find food along the rivers and broad gra.s.sy wastes of inland Europe, and pushing westward they had at last reached the place where they could live beside waters that swarmed with fish and among hills that sheltered plenty of game.

3. The tribes that settled in the north grew in time to have many peculiarities of their own, and as their countries grew more and more populous, they needed more things that could not easily be had, and a fashion of plundering their neighbors began to prevail. Men were still more or less beasts of prey. Invaders must be kept out, and at last much of the industry of Scandinavia was connected with the carrying on of an almost universal fighting and marauding. Ships must be built, and there must be endless supplies of armor and weapons. Stones were easily collected for missiles or made fit for arrows and spear-heads, and metals were worked with great care.

4. In Norway and Sweden were the best places to find all these, and if the Northmen planned to fight a great battle, they had to transport a huge quant.i.ty of stones, iron, and bronze. It is easy to see why one day's battle was almost always decisive in ancient times, for supplies could not be quickly forwarded from point to point, and after the arrows were all shot and the conquered were chased off the field, they had no further means of offense except a hand-to-hand fight with those who had won the right to pick up the fallen spears at their leisure. So, too, an unexpected invasion was likely to prove successful; it was a work of time to get ready for a battle, and when the Northmen swooped down upon some sh.o.r.e town of Britain or Gaul, the unlucky citizens were at their mercy. And while the Northmen had fish and game, and were mighty hunters, and their rocks and mines helped forward their warlike enterprises, so the forests supplied them with ship-timber, and they gained renown as sailors wherever their fame extended.

5. There was a great difference, however, between the manner of life in Norway and that of England and France. The Norwegian stone, however useful for arrow-heads or axes, was not fit for building purposes. There is hardly any clay there, either, to make bricks with, so that wood has usually been the only material for houses. In the southern countries there had always been rude castles in which the people could shelter themselves, but the Northmen could build no castles that a torch could not destroy. They trusted much more to their ships than to their houses, and some of their captains disdained to live on sh.o.r.e at all.

6. There is something refreshing in the stories of old Norse life; of its simplicity and freedom and childish zest. An old writer says that they had "a hankering after pomp and pageantry," and by means of this they came at last to doing things decently and in order, and to setting the fashions for the rest of Europe. There was considerable dignity in the manner of every-day life and housekeeping. Their houses were often very large, even two hundred feet long, with flaring fires on a pavement in the middle of the floor, and the beds built next the walls on three sides, sometimes hidden by wide tapestries or foreign cloth that had been brought home in the viking ships. In front of the beds were benches where each man had his seat and footstool, with his armor and weapons hung high on the wall above.

7. The master of the house had a high seat on the north side in the middle of a long bench; opposite was another bench for guests and strangers, while the women sat on the third side. The roof was high; there were a few windows in it, and those were covered by skins, and let in but little light. The smoke escaped through openings in the carved, soot-blackened roof; and though in later times the rich men's houses were more like villages, because they made groups of smaller buildings for store houses, for guest-rooms, or for work-shops all around still, the idea of this primitive great hall or living-room has not even yet been lost. The latest copies of it in England and France that still remain are most interesting; but what a fine sight it must have been at night when the great fires blazed and the warriors sat on their benches in solemn order, and the skalds recited their long sagas, of the host's own bravery or the valiant deeds of his ancestors! Hospitality was almost chief among the virtues.

8. We must read what was written in their own language, and then we shall have more respect for the vikings and sea-kings, always distinguishing between these two; for, while any peasant who wished could be a viking--a sea-robber--a sea-king was a king indeed, and must be connected with the royal race of the country. He received the t.i.tle of king by right as soon as he took command of a ship's crew, though he need not have any land or kingdom. Vikings were merely pirates; they might be peasants and vikings by turn, and won their names from the inlets, the viks or wicks, where they harbored their ships. A sea-king must be a viking, but naturally very few of the vikings were sea-kings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Viking's Home._]

9. The viking had rights in his own country, and knew what it was to enjoy those rights; if he could win more land, he would know how to govern it, and he knew what he was fighting for, and meant to win.

If we wonder why all this energy was spent on the high seas and in strange countries, there are two answers: first, that fighting was the natural employment of the men, and that no right could be held that could not be defended; but besides this, one form of their energy was showing itself at home in rude attempts at literature.

10. The more that we know of the Northmen, the more we are convinced how superior they were in their knowledge of the useful arts to the people whom they conquered. There is a legend that, when Charlemagne, in the ninth century, saw some pirate ships cruising in the Mediterranean, along the sh.o.r.es of which they had at last found their way, he covered his face and burst into tears. He was not so much afraid of their cruelty and barbarity as of their civilization. n.o.body knew better that none of the Christian countries under his rule had ships or men that could make such a daring voyage. He knew that they were skillful workers in wood and iron, and had learned to be rope-makers and weavers; that they could make casks for their supply of drinking-water, and understood how to prepare food for their long cruises. All their swords and spears and bow-strings had to be made and kept in good condition, and sheltered from the sea-spray.

11. When we picture the famous sea-kings' ships to ourselves, we do not wonder that the Northmen were so proud of them, or that the skalds were never tired of recounting their glories. There were two kinds of vessels: the last-ships, that carried cargoes, and the long-ships, or ships of war. Listen to the splendors of the "Long Serpent," which was the largest ship ever built in Norway. A dragon-ship, to begin with, because all the long-ships had a dragon for a figure-head, except the smallest of them, which were called cutters, and only carried ten or twenty rowers on a side. The "Long Serpent" had thirty-four rowers'

benches on a side, and she was one hundred and eleven feet long. Over the sides were hung the shining red and white shields of the vikings, the gilded dragon's head towered high at the prow, and at the stern a gilded tail went curling off over the head of the steersman. Then, from the long body, the heavy oars swept forward and back through the water, and as it came down the fiord, the "Long Serpent" must have looked like some enormous centipede creeping out of its den on an awful errand, and heading out across the rough water toward its prey.

12. The voyages were often disastrous in spite of much clever seamanship. They knew nothing of the mariner's compa.s.s, and found their way chiefly by the aid of the stars--inconstant pilots enough on such foggy, stormy seas. They carried birds, too, oftenest ravens, and used to let them loose and follow them toward the nearest land. The black raven was the vikings' favorite symbol for their flags, and familiar enough it became in other harbors than their own. They were bold, hardy fellows, and held fast to a rude code of honor and rank of knighthood.

13. The valleys of the Elbe and the Rhine, of the Seine and the Loire, made a famous hunting-ground for the dragon-ships to seek.

14. The people who lived in France were of another sort, but they often knew how to defend themselves as well as the Northmen knew how to attack. There are few early French records for us to read, for the literature of that early day was almost wholly destroyed in the religious houses and public buildings of France. Here and there a few pages of a poem or of a biography or chronicle have been kept, but from this very fact we can understand the miserable condition of the country.

15. The whole second half of the ninth century is taken up with the histories of these invasions. We must follow for a while the progress of events in Gaul, or France as we call it now, though it was made up then of a number of smaller kingdoms. The result of the great siege of Paris was only a settling of affairs with the Northmen for the time being; one part of the country was delivered from them at the expense of another.

16. They could be bought off and bribed for a time, but there was never to be any such thing as their going back to their own country and letting France alone for good and all. But as they gained at length whole tracts of country, instead of the little wealth of a few men to take away in their ships as at first, they began to settle down in their new lands and to become conquerors and colonists instead of mere plunderers. Instead of continually ravaging and attacking the kingdoms, they slowly became the owners and occupiers of the conquered territory; they pushed their way from point to point.

17. At first, as you have seen already they trusted to their ships, and always left their wives and children at home in the north countries, but as time went on, they brought their families with them and made new homes, for which they would have to fight many a battle yet. It would be no wonder if the women had become possessed by a love of adventure, too, and had insisted upon seeing the lands from which the rich booty was brought to them, and that they had been saying for a long time: "Show us the places where the grapes grow and the fruit-trees bloom, where men build great houses and live in them splendidly. We are tired of seeing only the long larchen beams of their high roofs, and the purple and red and gold cloths, and the red wine and yellow wheat that you bring away. Why should we not go to live in that country, instead of your breaking it to pieces, and going there so many of you, every year, only to be slain as its enemies? We are tired of our sterile Norway and our great Danish deserts of sand, of our cold winds and wet weather, and our long winters that pa.s.s by so slowly while the fleets are gone. We would rather see Seville and Paris themselves, than only their gold and merchandise and the rafters of their churches that you bring home for ship timbers."

18. The kingdoms of France had been divided and subdivided, and, while we find a great many fine examples of resistance, and some great victories over the Northmen, they were not pushed out and checked altogether. Instead, they gradually changed into Frenchmen themselves, different from other Frenchmen only in being more spirited, vigorous and alert. They inspired every new growth of the religion, language, or manners, with their own splendid vitality. They were like plants that have grown in dry, thin soil, transplanted to a richer spot of ground, and sending out fresh shoots in the doubled moisture and sunshine. And presently we shall find the Northman becoming the Norman of history. As the Northman, almost the first thing we admire about him is his character, his glorious energy; as the Norman, we see that energy turned into better channels, and bringing a new element into the progress of civilization.

_Sarah O. Jewett. "The Story of the Normans."_ _Putnam's "Stories of the Nations" Series._

_x.x.xVIII.--ROLF THE GANGER._

1. The ninth century was a sad time for both England and France. The Gothic tribes, in their march to the west had reached the sea in Denmark and Norway, and had increased to such an extent as to take up all the land fit for cultivation. The strength and courage which they had shown in many a battle-field on the land was now transferred to the sea, soldiers and knights becoming vikings and pirates. Fierce worshipers were they of the old G.o.ds Odin, Frey, and Thor. They plundered, they burned, they slew; they especially devastated churches and monasteries, and no coast was safe from them from the Adriatic to the farthest north--even Rome saw their long-ships, and, "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us!" was the prayer in every litany of the West.

2. England had been well-nigh undone by them, when the spirit of her greatest king awoke, and by Alfred they were overcome. Some were permitted to settle down, and were taught Christianity and civilization, and the fresh invaders were driven from the coast.

Alfred's gallant son and grandson held the same course, guarded their coasts, and made their faith and themselves respected throughout the North. But in France, the much hara.s.sed house of Charles the Great, and the ill-compacted bond of different nations, were little able to oppose their fierce a.s.saults, and ravage and devastation reigned from one end of the country to another.

3. However, the vikings, on returning to their native homes sometimes found their place filled up, and the family inheritance incapable of supporting so many. Thus they began to think of winning not merely gold and cattle, but lands and houses, on the coasts they pillaged. In Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland, they settled by leave of nothing but their swords; in England, by treaty with Alfred; and in France, half by conquest, half by treaty, always, however, accepting Christianity as a needful obligation when they took posession of southern lands. Probably they thought Thor was only the G.o.d of the north, and that the "White Christ," as they called Him who was made known to them in these new countries was to be adored in what they deemed alone his territories.

4. Of all the sea-robbers who sailed from their rocky dwelling-places by the fiords of Norway, none enjoyed higher renown than Rolf, called the ganger, or walker, as tradition relates, because his stature was so gigantic that, when clad in full armor, no horse could support his weight, and he therefore always fought on foot.

5. Rolf's lot had, however, fallen in what he doubtless considered as evil days. No such burnings and plunderings as had hitherto wasted England and enriched Norway, fell to his share; for Alfred had made the bravest Northman feel that his fleet and army were more than a match for theirs. Ireland was exhausted by the former depredations of the pirates, and, from a fertile and flourishing country had become a scene of desolation. Scotland and its isles were too barren to afford prey to the spoiler.

6. Rolf, presuming on the favor shown to his family while returning from an expedition on the Baltic, made a descent on the coast of Viken, a part of Norway, and carried off the cattle wanted by his crew. The king, who happened at that time to be in that district, was highly displeased, and, a.s.sembling a council, declared Rolf the Ganger an outlaw.

7. The banished Rolf found a great number of companions, who, like himself, were unwilling to submit to the strict rule of Harald, and setting sail with them, he first plundered and devastated the coast of Flanders, and afterward returned to France. In the spring of 896 the citizens of Rouen, scarcely yet recovered from the miseries inflicted upon them by the fierce Danish rover Hasting, were dismayed by the sight of a fleet of long, low vessels, with spreading sails, heads carved like that of a serpent, and sterns finished like the tail of a reptile, such as they well knew to be the keels of the dreaded Northmen, the harbingers of destruction and desolation. Little hope of succor or protection was there from King Charles the Simple; and, indeed, had the sovereign been ever so warlike and energetic, it would little have availed Rouen, which might have been destroyed twice over before a messenger could reach Laon.

8. In this emergency, Franco, the archbishop, proposed to go forth to meet the Northmen and attempt to make terms for his flock. The offer was gladly accepted by the trembling citizens, and the good archbishop went, bearing the keys of the town, to visit the camp which the Northmen had begun to erect upon the bank of the river. They offered him no violence, and he performed his errand safely. Rolf, the rude generosity of whose character was touched by his fearless conduct, readily agreed to spare the lives and property of the citizens, on condition that Rouen was surrendered to him without resistance.

9. Entering the town, he there established his headquarters, and spent a whole year in the adjacent parts of the country, during which time the Northmen so faithfully observed their promise, that they were regarded by the Rouennais rather as friends than as conquerors; and Rolf, or Rollo, as the French called him, was far more popular among them than their real sovereign. Wherever he met with resistance, he showed, indeed, the relentless cruelty of the heathen pirate; wherever he found submission, he was a kind master.

10. In the course of the following year, he advanced along the banks of the Seine as far as its junction with the Eure. On the opposite side of the river there were visible a number of tents, where slept a numerous army, which Charles had at length collected to oppose this formidable enemy. The Northmen also set up their camp, in expectation of a battle, and darkness had just closed in on them when a shout was heard on the opposite side of the river, and to their surprise a voice was heard speaking in their own language. "Brave warriors, why come ye hither, and what do ye seek?"

11. "We are Northmen, come hither to conquer France," replied Rollo.

"But who art thou who speakest our tongue so well?" "Heard ye never of Hasting?" was the reply. "Yes," returned Rollo, "he began well, but ended badly." "Will ye not, then," continued the old pirate, "submit to my lord the king? Will ye not hold of him lands and honors?" "No,"

replied the Northmen, disdainfully, "we will own no lord, we will take no gift, but we will have what we ourselves can conquer by force."

12. Here Hasting took his departure, and returning to the French camp, strongly advised the commander not to hazard a battle. His counsel was overruled by a young standard-bearer, who, significantly observing, "Wolves make not war on wolves," so offended the old sea-king, that he quitted the army that night, and never again appeared in France. The wisdom of his advice was the next morning made evident, by the total defeat of the French, and the advance of the Northmen, who in a short s.p.a.ce after appeared beneath the walls of Paris. Failing in their attempt to take the city, they returned to Rouen, where they fortified themselves, making it the capital of the territory they had conquered.

13. Fifteen years pa.s.sed away, the summers of which were spent in ravaging the dominions of Charles the Simple, and the winters in the city of Rouen, and in the meantime a change had come over the leader.

He had been insensibly softened and civilized by his intercourse with the good Archbishop Franco, and finding, perhaps, that it was not quite so easy as he had expected to conquer the whole kingdom of France, he declared himself willing to follow the example which he once despised, and to become a va.s.sal of the French crown for the duchy of Neustria.

14. Charles, greatly rejoiced to find himself thus able to put a stop to the dreadful devastations of the Northmen, readily agreed to the terms proposed by Rollo, appointing the village of St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the borders of Neustria, as the place of meeting for the purpose of receiving his homage and oath of fealty.

15. The greatest difficulty to be overcome in this conference was the repugnance felt by the proud Northman to perform the customary act of homage before any living man, especially one whom he held so cheap as Charles the Simple. He consented, indeed, to swear allegiance, and declare himself the "king's man," with his hands clasped between those of Charles. The remaining part of the ceremony, the kneeling to kiss the foot of the liege lord, he absolutely refused, and was with difficulty persuaded to permit one of his followers to perform it in his name. The proxy, as proud as his master, instead of kneeling, took the king's foot in his hand, and lifted it to his mouth while he stood upright, thus overturning both monarch and throne, amid the rude laughter of his companions, while the miserable Charles and his courtiers felt such a dread of these new va.s.sals that they did not dare resent the insult.

16. On his return to Rouen, Rollo was baptized, and, on leaving the cathedral, celebrated his conversion by large grants to the different churches and convents of his duchy, making a fresh gift on each of the days during which he wore the white robes of the newly baptized. All of his warriors who chose to follow his example, and embrace the Christian faith, received from him grants of land, to be held of him on the same terms as those by which he held the dukedom from the king.

The country thus peopled by the Northmen, gradually a.s.sumed the name of Normandy.

17. Applying themselves with all the ardor of their temper to their new way of life, the Northmen quickly adopted the manners, language, and habits which were recommended to them as connected with the holy faith which they had just embraced, but without losing their own bold and vigorous spirit. Soon the gallant and accomplished Norman knight could scarcely have been recognized as the savage sea-robber, while, at the same time, he bore as little resemblance to the cruel and voluptuous French n.o.ble, at once violent and indolent.

18. There is no doubt, however, that the keen, unsophisticated vigor of Rollo, directed by his new religion did great good in Normandy, and that his justice was sharp, his discipline impartial, so that of him is told the famous old story bestowed upon other just princes, that a gold bracelet was left for three years untouched upon a tree in a forest. He had been married, as part of the treaty, to Gisele, a daughter of King Charles the Simple, but he was an old grizzly warrior, and neither cared for the other. A wife whom he had long before taken, had borne him a son, named William, to whom he left his dukedom in 932.

_x.x.xIX.--THE TRUE STORY OF MACBETH._