f Charles the Great, had been alike
dashed to pieces. But break and change as it might, Christendom had held
the northmen at bay. The Scandinavian power which had grown up on the
western seas had disappeared like a dream. In Ireland the northman's rule
had dwindled to the holding of a few coast towns. In France his
settlements had shrunk to the one settlement of Normandy. In England
every northman was a subject of the English King. Even the empire of the
seas had passed from the sea-kings' hands. It was an English and not a
Scandinavian fleet that for fifty years to come held mastery in the
English and the Irish Channels. With Eadred's victory in fact the
struggle seemed to have reached its close. Stray pirate boats still hung
off headland and coast; stray wikings still shoved out in springtide to
gather booty. But for nearly half-a-century to come no great pirate fleet
made its way to the west, or landed on the shores of Britain. The
energies of the northmen were in fact absorbed through these years in the
political changes of Scandinavia itself. The old isolation of fiord from
fiord and dale from dale was breaking down. The little commonwealths
which had held so jealously aloof from each other were being drawn
together whether they would or no. In each of the three regions of the
north great kingdoms were growing up. In Sweden King Eric made himself
lord of the petty states about him. In Denmark King Gorm built up in the
same way a monarchy of the Danes. Norway itself was the first to become a
single monarchy. Legend told how one of its many rulers, Harald of
Westfold, sent his men to bring him Gytha of Hordaland, a girl he had
chosen for wife, and how Gytha sent his men back again with taunts at his
petty realm. The taunts went home, and Harald vowed never to clip or comb
his hair till he had made all Norway his own. So every springtide came
war and hosting, harrying and burning, till a great fight at Hafursfiord
settled the matter, and Harald "Ugly-Head," as men called him while the
strife lasted, was free to shear his locks again and became Harald
"Fair-Hair." The Northmen loved no master, and a great multitude fled out
of the country, some pushing as far as Iceland and colonizing it, some
swarming to the Orkneys and Hebrides till Harald harried them out again
and the sea-kings sailed southward to join Guthrum's host in the Rhine
country or follow Hrolf to his fights on the Seine. But little by little
the land settle